I also have to clean up a few models and finish assembling my Exemplar Errant Seneschals in case I want to use them later in the weekend.  They definitely won't be painted for Hardcore but I might toss 'em in another list to give them a go in one of the other formats.

Despite being behind, I'm looking forward to the event.  Last two years have been fantastic, and this year promises to be no exception.

This is the second and final installment of my Hardcore Tournament report from Privateer Weekend 2 at DieCon 9.  You can find my list-building discussion here and the first part of my Hardcore coverage here.

I started Hardcore with a loss to the Protectorate of Menoth, but they say if you fall off the Blightning, you get right back on and try again.   After a round two win against Khador I was hoping it was the start of a streak.

Once again I've included the list I used for reference and have tried to recreate what each of my opponents were running to the best of my recollection.  I can't guarantee what I have for my opponents' lists is 100% accurate but it should give you a rough idea of what I faced each round.

Round 3: Bret's Cryx

I didn't look forward to facing the rusty-thrall brigade when I saw it deployed across the table from me at the start of round 3.  Once in combat the Legion of Everblight's strength is its defense score and Bret had quite a few ways to deal with that.  The Bile Thralls' Purge auto-hits and Tartarus' Curse and Deneghra's Crippling Grasp (not to mention her feat) would let the Banes trash almost anything they got into melee with.

Bret won the roll to go first and I think he gave me a bit of an advantage when he deployed.  On the bottom of the first turn after his army came towards me, I sacrificed one of my Deathstalkers to snipe the leaders of both Bile Thrall units, which had both been deployed on my right flank.

The next couple rounds I used the Warmongers to engage the Banes while I sent my beasts up the left flank away from the Biles.  I weathered his feat before using my own to race up field behind his army.  I managed to take care of the jacks and drive Deneghra back deeper into her own table edge.

By that point I had Bret pinned in, and instead of having Deneghra continue to run around the board to force a draw, he stayed relatively close and tried to disable my beasts with spells.  He wasn't able to lock them all down and the following turn the Seraph managed to assassinate Deneghra.  I give Bret a lot of credit - it would have been easy to keep running and caused a mutual-loss via draw but instead he committed to stay around and see what damage he could do.

In the end I was a little surprised that Bret hadn't sacrificed an arc node to get Crippling Grasp on Epic Thagrosh to tie him down.  I think racing up one of the flanks caught him a little off guard and let me strike deep across the table relatively unexpectedly.  Even though I wasn't really able to put the hurt on Deneghra herself with Epic Thagrosh's feat, Glory of Everblight let me hit what assets he had nearby hard enough that I was able to push to a win from there.

Round 4: Jason's Khador

Round four I was paired up with Jason (aka Entropy), a pressganger from Springfield, Illinois.  He was playing a wintery-paint job Winterguard-based Epic Sorscha list which included Beast-09.

Jason won the initiative roll and elected to go first, centering his line around Sorscha and the Winterguard.  The Iron Fangs and Great Bears held the right flank with the Widowmakers deployed in a forest on the left flank.  I set my Deathstalkers back on the right flank and most everything else roughly in the center of the field.

I started out doing alright, using the Deathstalkers to work through the Iron Fangs and the Warmongers to engage the Widowmakers and spread out to block access to the rest of my forces.  However, under Epic Sorscha's feat, Jason's army was able to take out most of my army, including the Seraph and Carnivean.

The longer the game lasted, the quicker my army was going to be ground down so I decided to go for ye ole Black Chasm gamble: charge Beast-09 for distance, throw a Black Chasm at Sorscha to knock her down, and let my surviving beasts get Glory-enhanced attacks on her.  It's a tricky strategy attempt that usually means overexposing and Epic Thagrosh... made even more suicidal due to the fact that Sorscha had cast Deep Freeze on Beast-09 previously.

I checked some ranges from Epic Thagrosh, cast Glory of Everblight, and charged Beast-09.  With his reach, Epic Thagrosh was able to position where he needed to be and did some fair damage to Beast-09 with his charge attack, but that wasn't the real goal.  With his last four Fury, Epic Thagrosh tossed a Black Chasm at Epic Sorscha, missing by one and drifting harmlessly off of her base.

Crap.

Well, with Epic Thagrosh furyless and stationary engaged with Beast-09 I had little choice but to see if I could do the deed without the knockdown.  The Harrier cast its animus and charged, failing by not being in range (which saved his animus for the feat-granted attack), and the other beasts ran.  Then they took their feat movement and attack.  The Harrier auto-hit and did a couple points of damage, but with the War Dog supplementing Sorschas already respectable DEF the other beasts weren't able to hit enough to finish her off.

I'll leave the results of the match as an educational exercise for the reader. 

Concluding Thoughts

Even though we had 32 players, Hardcore only lasted 4 rounds.  We had a draw in the third round and the undefeated player who was paired down in the fourth round lost, so after the fourth round there was only one undefeated player left standing - Lord Tyrant Watts, from Louisville, Kentucky.  Watts won the Vanquisher award for being the overall champion.

DP6, aka Tim, won the Mage Hunter award for the fastest caster kill.  This year he won with a 12-minute kill--not quite as fast as last year's performance.  Z, aka Alkingdrinkasaurus, from Atlanta, Georgia, won the Executioner award for most VP's.  I don't know what his exact total was but he averaged over 20 per game.

Privateer Weekend Hardcore Medalists

I was pretty satisfied being 2 for 2 on the day, but my goal from the outset had been to try and earn the Master Craftsman award.  With all of the fantastically painted armies the judges' job certainly wasn't easy, so I was honored to be able to walk away with the award this year. That made the painful deaths suffered by Epic Thagrosh worth it.

Overall Privateer Weekend 2 was a huge success.  Big thanks to the Privateer Weekend Committee for organizing the events, the local retailers for their prize support donations, the pressgangers who ran the events, and all the players that came out.  I'm already looking forward to next year!

At least that's how I felt preparing for Privateer Weekend 2 and my second Hardcore. I knew what to expect from the time clock and how to handle the short turns, but the competition at Hardcore is a notch above your standard Steamroller event.  So I needed a secret weapon...

According to the box Epic Thagrosh comes in, apparently blighted lightning is purple. Who knew? At the game store we jokingly called this Blightning thinking we were clever until JBFlanz, a local Warmachine player who also plays Magic, showed us this:

Blightning! Ride it!

Thus my Hardcore list was named.  Flanz had an extra copy of the card which he graciously donated to me.  I kept it with my stat cards, adding to Epic Thagrosh's spell list.  Unfortunately with no way to generate red or black mana he wasn't able to cast it.  Even a dragon's athanc has its limitations.

With the last bit of list building complete I was ready for Hardcore.  I realized going into the event that I wasn't suffering from the same nervousness that I did the year before.  Maybe it was the prior year's experience, but on top of that I knew once I arrived at the venue there was absolutely nothing I could do about my chances to win Master Craftsman. All the work was already done, so it just meant waiting to see the judges' opinions at the end of the day. Without having to worry about each win or loss I could sit back and just have fun.

To the right you'll find my hardcore list I discussed in my previous post.  For each round I tried to recreate my opponents' lists to the best of my memory.  I can't guarantee they're 100% accurate but they should give a good idea of what I faced from round to round.

Round 1: vs. Pat's Protectorate (eFeora)

My first round I got paired up with Pat, a skilled player from Columbia, MO that I've met at events before. He's a nice guy and a great player, so I knew it was going to be a good game.  As a Protectorate player myself, I could see what was coming but I didn't really have the list to counter it as effectively as I would have liked.

I started the game by deploying the Deathstalkers out to my right flank across from both of Pat's Flameguard units.  I tried to swing them out wide to start picking off unit leaders and slow up the Flameguard's advance but suicidal exploding Cleansers took them out before they could do too much damage.

Unfortunately the mass of Protectorate infantry had me vastly outnumbered.  I tried to use the Warmongers to hold them back but with Blazing Aura on the Temple Flameguard making many attacks or free strikes was a losing proposition.  In addition Pat kept most of his warjacks close to Feora screening her under the benefit of the Choir's Safe Passage and preventing a clear shot for my Seraph.

When Pat sent the Fire of Salvation forward to hit a couple Warmongers I had to try to take it out.  My Carnivean was busy helping to keep the Temple Flameguard away from Thagrosh, so I sent The Messiah in to try to do the dead himself.  Unfortunately a few bad damage rolls and a shotgun-like approach to rolling the column for damage meant the Fire had only lost its movement when Thagrosh was done.  I used my feat to try to get the my beasts into the backfield but they had a negligible effect and I lost Thagrosh to the Fire the following turn.

Pat played a great game, systematically pressing in to Thagrosh and forcing my hand.  I think against most other Protectorate casters I might have been able to do a better job of holding him back but Blazing Aura was a fantastic tool to use against my army.

Round 2: vs. Greg's Khador (Old Witch)

Even though the Old Witch can be a pretty nasty warcaster to face, I felt this list was a better match up for me than my first round.  It was a small-model count force lead by a warcaster whose biggest defense was her Defense.  Between Eyeless Sight and Glory of Everblight, if I could get to her I felt confident I could finish her off.

My first turn I was able to use my Deathstalkers to halve the Doom Reavers unit.  The Deathstalkers then served as a speed bump, holding the Doom Reavers (which couldn't hit them) up until the Warmongers arrived to finish them (and my Deathstalkers... oops!) off.  Fenris counter-charged on his next turn but the Warmongers were able to unhorse him as well.

The game tipped pretty strongly in my favor when under Glory the Nephilim slammed Beast-09 into the Behemoth, keeping them out of the fight for a turn and allowing me to feat to get my beasts up field.  The Carnivean killed three of the Shocktroopers to secure their flank as well.  The next turn the Warmongers that survived the Drakhun's counterattack killed the feated-on Scrapjack to allow the Seraph to move behind the Khador line and finish off the Old Witch.

My Warmongers performed extremely well this game.  Their lower MAT is usually a problem but Khador's lower DEF meant that was a non-issue.  I was able to get the Warchief into position to grant them the +2 to hit when they needed to take care of the Scrapjack and they didn't dissapoint me.

I think things would have been tougher if Greg had deployed the Behemoth and Beast-09 on opposite flanks.  As it was, I was able to stay away and slam them when they got close, limiting their impact as much as possible.  My speed was useful in getting the matchups I wanted on the table and I think that made all the difference.

Intermission

Winning is always nice but I was satisfied being one-and-one after the first two rounds.  I had two good games against two friendly opponents and that's nothing to complain about.

Next up, the final rounds.

For me the first step in building a Hardcore list was to decide what I wanted to accomplish.  Every round of a Hardcore tournament is an assassination game so there's no building lists for scenario victories but it's not uncommon for players to gear their lists towards winning one or more of the four Hardcore medals:

• Vanquisher – The overall winner who is undefeated at the end of the day
• Master Craftsman – The best painted army
• Mage Hunter – The fastest caster kill on the day
• Executioner – The most total victory points at the end of the tournament

Both the Executioner and Mage Hunter lists seemed too situational dependant on your match-ups from round to round for me to gear a list towards.  If you face many infantry-heavy lists the VP-density of your opponents' armies are going to make the former more difficult while the introduction of Hordes into the Hardcore environment at last GenCon makes the latter depend on who you face.  Earning the Mage Hunter award is about killing your opponent quick - typically as one of the first models down.  Hordes' transfer mechanic means either you have to kill or lock down your opponent's beasts before attacking the warlock or power through all their transfers to their healthy beasts.  Both options consume precious time off the clock.

That left either the Vanquisher and Master Craftsman awards as possible goals but I knew that competition for either medal would be fierce. Last year I made it to the semi-finals before losing but managed to earn the Master Craftsman medal with my Kreoss-led list.  I weighed my options but ultimately decided to try and shoot for repeating as Master Craftsman.

Warlock

Once that decision was made, I started looking at my Legion warlocks to decide whom to take, but none of them popped like I wanted them to.  My Legion forces are painted in a relatively monochromatic color scheme which looks cohesive but just doesn't grab someone's attention.  That left me with only one option.  Even though it meant a lot of painting before the convention I decided to get Epic Thagrosh ready.  He was the largest and most intricate Legion model, and if I could paint him well he would serve as a centerpiece to anchor my army.

Warbeasts

The Rarely Seen Raek

Choosing Epic Thagrosh meant I would be bringing a beast-heavy list but I was going to have some tough choices by making the quality of paint job a factor in what to pick.  Looking at my beasts I immediately decided to bring my Nephilim Soldier and Raek.  Any Legion player will tell you that the Raek isn't the best beast in their stable but it's one of my best looking beasts on the tabletop and so definitely had to go in this army.  I also decided to add one of my Seraphs even though I'm not as happy with their paint jobs as I am with some of my other models.  Seraphs are fantastic under Glory of Everblight and I felt I needed to make this compromise to make the list more competitive.

Nephilim Soldier

After adding a Shredder and Harrier for their animi, I felt the army needed a heavy to provide some hitting power.  I knew immediately that I wanted to add Typhon to the list but realistically there was no way I was going to be able to finish both him and Epic Thagrosh both in time, especially not to a standard I wanted.

The Angelius would be great with Dragon Storm and the Nephilim Soldier's Massacre but after looking at my Angelii and Carniveans I decided to go with a Carnivean instead.  Even though the Carni lacks the Angelius' maneuverability it sported a better paint job and so it made the list.

Solos

For solos I started with my easy picks - a Shepherd to direct frenzies and a Forsaken to help manage fury.  Looking over the remaining models I decided on my two recently painted Deathstalkers.  They would provide some first strike capabilities and serve as either distractions or harriers depending on what my opponents decided to devote to killing them.

Units

The Abominable Warmonger

The first unit I knew I wanted to bring was the Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew.  Besides being paint jobs that I felt were good, I felt their smoke cloud would be almost required to keep Thagrosh alive if I came up against a ranged-heavy list.

I knew that I would be facing some fast, hard-hitting lists in Hardcore and if I didn't have some sort of screen or speed bump my beasts would die well before they do their job.  I thought about bringing Swordsmen or even Legionaries but after looking over my units I decided to go with my Warmongers.  They're bigger models and had a little more color on them that I felt would draw the eye on the tabletop.  With the points I had left I added 4 Warmongers and a recently-painted Warchief to finish off the list.

Final Hardcore List

Privateer Press Weekend 2 Hardcore List

• Thagrosh, the Messiah
• Carnivean
• Seraph
• Nephilim Soldier
• Raek
• Shredder
• Harrier
• Forsaken
• Shepherd
• Strider Deathstalker x2
• Warmonger Warchief
• Warmongers x4
• Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew

Strategy and Tactics

After testing my list a few times against other Hardcore and tournament lists I started to develop a feel for how it would play.  Thagrosh and his beasts would be the primary assassins but needed help getting up field.  With Deathstalkers to harass my opponent and hopefully pick off a few unit leaders and Warmongers serving as linebackers, I hoped to hold off my opponent just long enough to open a hole and shoot through to their warcaster.  Having an Angelius instead of the Carnivean would have made this much easier but I wasn't willing to switch them up so had to make do.

The Warchief and his Warmongers did a good job of holding up infantry (and sometimes cavalry) but against a lot of hard hitting infantry they melted quickly, leaving Thagrosh and his beasts relatively unprotected. Large based heavy hitters were also going to be a problem but I was willing to devote the Nephilm and Raek to being slam missiles to keep key pieces out of the fight.  With Slipstream to reposition them before activating and Glory of Everblight to help overcome the -4 penalty to slam larger bases they proved flexible and effective in this role.

"Ruuuuunnnn!!!"

Even though my list was short on model count, the models I had could all dish out a lot of attacks.  That combined with the short 7-minute turns of the Hardcore format encouraged me to take a do-or-die approach with my Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew.  I decided to go ahead and deployed them right next to to Thagrosh at the start of every game and simply ignored my models with Abomination when positioning the Swamp Gobbers from turn to turn.  If they fled, they fled, but I wasn't going to spend precious time worrying about where they were going to stand.  It's definitely not the most competitive playstyle but I was resolved to have fun if nothing else.

Last but not Least...

In addition a secret weapon for my list that I haven't mentioned here, but I'll save that for the follow-up posts where I talk about how the list fared on the day.  In the mean time I can definitely say that I was satsified with its performance overall.  Epic Thagrosh made a strong showing and playing him was as much fun as I had anticipated.