I'll add my 2 pts (in English, sorry).
Excellent tournament overall, I had a great time. It's only the second tourney I attend for Warmachine and this one lived up to my experience in Lyon last year: Cool, likeminded players who are there to have a great day. Everything was well organised, good food and clear instructions on how things were going to run and intense games that weren't decided until the very end. It should be said that with my limited experience, I had not played against any of the casters I met and actually not even against any of those factions. Everyone was really good with explaining me their lists and caster abilities.
Game 1 Siege vs Barnabas (LeMercenaire)I hadn't met the gatormen posses before but had a good idea that this was a tough matchup for me, with my high amount of infantry. I chose the Siege list as I didn't know/think about the casting of pools and not being able to shoot his caster. Seeing that I couldn't rely on assassination, I decided to play aggressively and to feat early for a ranged alpha strike. I feated on the top of turn 2 and cleared 6 gators and put 17 damage on the Wrastler. An extremely effective feat turn that turned the odds in my favor. I kept the upper hand in the following turns, but finishing off the Wrastler took longer than I hoped (he snacked my knights) and I had to commit Siege to finish him off. I wasn't too concerned as I was well protected and he had like 5 models left on the table. Barnabas feated so all my stuff got knocked down and cast a bunch of spells on Siege, one of the last standing gatormen that had been tied up in melee charged and finished Siege off on his very last attack. Very close and very enjoyable game.
Lessons learned: I could have blocked the charge lane of the gatorman by running with Reinholdt and Squire and I actually thought about doing that but thought I was safe. The lesson is to always sacrifice non-critical units at the very end of the game, to make the enemys only chance just a little bit harder to pull off. Good lesson!
Learned how Blindwater functions. Would love to try the same game with my other list, to better understand the strengths and weaknesses.
Game 2 Siege vs Krueger (Yool)Another tough matchup! Again, I didn't know the faction, and my inability to shoot his druids & caster + his sprays on my knights made this one really hard. My army was ground down and things didn't really work out as I hoped. In a last ditch effort I moved slam his warpwolf through his caster and then shoot him to death. Unfortunately the wolf was within the anti magic druid field and now Siege was in the middle of the board, alone. I took my shots at Krueger with everything I had and brought him to 3 health (but he had transfers available). On his turn he killed various stuff and pulled Siege even closer and knocked him down (again!). Warpwolf went in for the kill but didn't manage it. Krueger charged in with only 1 fury on him after casting magic wings (or something) and in his two attacks didn't manage to finish off Siege who was on the ground with 2 hp left. As he mentioned above, he would certainly have killed him if he had cut himself for 2 extra fury. Siege stood up and took off the 3 remaining hit points on Krueger with his hammer.
Lessons learned: I need way more experience against Circle. I was demolished like no other game and don't know if my other list would have done better (that's what I want to know). I may try to have a more jack heavy list as my second list next time. I think I should have dropped trying to shoot him (too hard to hit) and gone melee with my Defender earlier.
Game 3 Siege vs Vyros (Tinkou)I had turn 1 and I ran forward. He ran forward as well over an open field. I moved Siege forward, feated and killed Vyros in 2 shots from Siege. Those were the only attacks made in the game. It was pretty short but I was getting really tired due to sore throat/bad cold so i didnt mind the break.
Lesons learned: Siege is #1 mage hunter. Retribution could learn from him.
Game 4 Siege vs Butcher (Aspharoth)Meeting a list full of Man O'Wars (high armor, slow speed) is like a dream come true for my Siege list. Very favourable matchup. I moved up early, feated and cast Thunder Hammer on his Juggernaught, slamming it into butcher. I shot butcher a few times for good measure. Great fun ensued as my rangers killed manowars on 5+ on the damage so they cleaned out 1 unit while my Precursor knights took out 3 in the other unit. The situation quickly became tricky though, because during the slam, Butcher had been moved forward and out of the forest due to "Least disturbance". I had learned from my game 1 and ran a bunch of stuff in front of Siege to make the risk of assassination lower. He did a good job of cleaning it out but made a few critical errors and didn't manage the assassination leaving Siege at 5 hits. I could probably have won this one on scenario, but with Siege that low it was too risky (he still had 4 widowmakers up) so I killed off Butcher and ended on 3 CP.
Lessons learned: Moving your caster too far forward when you're winning is probably the most common mistake in the game. I should have stayed farther back, I would still have range on my spells and shots and would run lower risk. Not the first time I take this lesson!
I could have moved even more stuff in front of Siege, but I didn't properly identify his most likely win options on my next-to-last turn. I'm glad I did it to a degree on a hunch though, or his widowmakers would have killed me.
Other note:The reason I played Siege every time is that I didn't really know any of my opponents lists or factions, so I couldn't make a proper choice. I went with what I was most familiar with (have only played a couple of games with eStryker) and the list that had no proxies.
All in all I ended 3-1 after an intense day with great games. With the next-highest amount of army points destroyed, I feel that a proper amount of carnage was delivered
Other lessons learned:"Enemy" objectives are affected by Siege's feat. I forgot this several times and it cost me some CPs.
Tiebreakers will be based on CP next time so I'll have to make more effort on those. I don't think theres anything I would have done differently this time though.
Got practice in playing fast. I was happy that none of my games went to time and that I didn't run out of time any game.
All my opponents were great. The Warmachine and Hordes crowd in the Paris region is awesome - I had a fantastic day. I will definitely be back for more, once I have saved up enough family-points.
Thanks,
Zargar