US Masters/ Best of the Rest 2022

Been a long time since I updated this. I though my first trip to the Kings of War US Masters was a good enough reason. To be clear, I didn't qualify for the masters team for the PNW, but with it only 3 1/2 hours away in Seattle, I was going whether I played or not. However, since there was a Best of the Rest tournament, I was happy to bring an army to play. The bonus of only playing five games instead of six was nice. 

First, I don't know if I'll ever get to go to another one, but I certainly hope so. It was a great time and a great atmosphere. BotR was more laid back than the Masters, but even the Masters seemed pretty laid back. 

Second, I was hoping for more presence from out of region. I don't recall anyone entering other than PNW or West Coast players. Due to players getting tapped as subs in the other tournament and other issues, we only managed to have 15 players, with a ringer player. Of those 15, seven of us were from the PDX area. 

Right at the end of 2nd ed. I started building an imperial dwarf army and never got a chance to enter an event with it before Covid. Post Covid, it's the only army I've been playing. 

My List:

x2 Ironguard Regiments with throwing mastiffs

x1 Shieldbreakers Regiment with throwing mastiffs

x1 Rangers Regiment

x2 Mastiff Hunting Pack Regiments with throwing mastiffs

x1 Berserker Brock Rigers with Potion of the Caterpillar

x1 Earth Elemental Horde

x1 Greater Earth Elemental

x3 Lord on a Large Beast

x2 Stone Priests with Bane Chant and Surge

Game 1 was against Kingdoms of Men played by Chris, one of those local to me. By the end of turn seven, I held four table sections to his one, plus his center, giving me the win and five scenario points. I expected attrition to be closer, but he only had a regiment and general on winged beast, and I had a regiment and three lords on large beast. If I remember right, final tally was 24/8, putting me in 3rd place.

Game 2 was against Undead played by Paul. This was my coming back to Earth game. Paul out played me in every turn. He got all but one objective and missed tabling me by the stone priests and a lord on large beast. Final tally was 24/6, dropping me back into the middle of the pack.

Game 3 was against Salamanders played by Blake. He gambled on some turn two flank charges that didn't pay off, trying to pop my Rangers, Brock Riders, and an Ironguard Regiment. All three held, and the flanking units got flanked/rear charged and wiped out. Late in the game he managed to get a regiment of Salamander primes into the rear and another into the front of the other IG regiment and only managed 12 wounds, then rolled a 4 to waiver them. This forced him to take another turn to kill them, allowing me time to get units over there to kill both units of primes with flanks and rear charges and take the loot token they'd taken from my IG. Final tally ended up 24/7. The best way I could describe this game was that he made an early mistake and his dice and mine made him pay for it. When my late mistake let him have the front/rear charge on my IG, the dice were more forgiving. This boosted me up to 4th place. 

At the end of the day, I was sitting at 2-1 and was happy with how the army was working. 

Game 4 found me against the ringer, which was one of the TOs Trident Realms army, piloted by Rob Phaneuf in between recording for Counter Charge.  The list he'd been handed didn't have a good answer for D6 dwarves, with almost no CR or TC and low defense. There was a horde with the Hammer of Measured force, and that unit was the only unit to kill any of mine, other than the archers that shot one of my mastiff packs off the board. Getting the hordes tied up in the center, fouled by my other mastiff pack, now being wounded on 4s rather than 3s due to HoMF, the center turned into a slog letting me get flanks on the hordes, the giant, and the hero on the critter. Also, Rob was generous with advice. I took the last of his units off the board in turn seven, taking the last look tokens. Final tally 25/6, putting me into 3rd place. 

Going into turn I had no chance at first, because even if I got a max win, because only if they both lost could I catch them both. As it was I'd need a strong win and a big loss by number two to even have a shot at second. I was matched up against Vern's Varangur. I managed to use my rangers to keep Vern's flanking cavalry out of my backfield long enough to push my D6 units to the center line. At the end of turn six, he'd gotten 6 units with 14 unit-strength across the board, and I was sitting at5 units and 11 US on his side. He rolled us a turn seven and failed to kill the Lord on large beast I hadn't gotten across the board, needing a five on the dice and getting snake eyes. I managed to kill that unit, reducing Vern's score to 5/11, but needed a 4 on the over-run to get that LotLB across the line, and rolled a 2, leaving me also at 5/11. Attrition was less than 200 points different (his favor, leaving us with a 17/17 draw. Had I managed the win, I'd have pulled off second place by one point, but I am happy to have kept a hold of 3rd place. 

All in all, it was a great weekend. I've never finished a five-game tournament ranked that high. I went 3-1-1and got 96 out of a possible 125 tournament points, for my best battle finish in a two-day event ever. I'll take it.