Let's Get Competitive - Warmachine #1 - Irish Masters 2014 Dojo Part One

It's been way to long since I've posted over here, but never fear (poetry right there)! I'm back with a brand new series!

Let's Get Competitive will track my journey to become a better player across a variety of game systems. As you can see, I'm starting this off with Warmachine as it's the game I play the most of at the moment and also because my goal for this game is to become a good competitive player.

When I last left you I had just played in a Steamroller tournament down in Wicklow at NWG and I didn't do to badly! I won two out of my four games which is a result that I'm pleased with. Since than I haven't been up to much in terms of gaming.

And what about now? The Irish Warmachine and Hordes Masters will take place next weekend. I originally intended to go as a spectator, hoping to learn a bit from watching the competitive play and maybe getting a few games in with some newer players who might be doing the same. So this was my plan up until a few days ago where I said screw it, LET'S DO THIS!!!

A Masters tournament requires you to bring three 50 point lists, complete with character constrictions, and you must play each of them at least once. I currently own 40 points worth of miniatures and have a grand total of one warcaster so there is no way I could possibly enter without some lending going on. This means I don't have a definitive list of what I can or can't bring making list building slightly more difficult.

Enter the dojo.

For those not familiar with the term, dojo-ing is basically coming up with ideas and writing army lists. I'm going to have to do a serious amount of it over the next week or so.

The first thing to decide is how will I approach building these three lists? Will I write them so that each list handles a different match up? Should I write a high armour list, a swarm list and one different list? Or should I go for the classic attrition, assassination, control trio? The last one is what I'll go for for now.

Next up is warcasters. I know I definately want to take Kommander Sorscha (from now on referred to as pSorscha) because she is the caster I'm most familiar with and the only one I own. The other two I'm undecided about. The three I'm really considering are pButcher, pVlad and pIrusk. I will most likely not get any practice games in with them and these are the other three casters I know well enough. Now I have to slot the casters into my building approach. My ideas are:

Attrition - pButcher, pIrusk
Assassination - pButcher, pVlad, pSorscha
Control - pSorscha, pIrusk

I think pButcher suits attrition because he is very killy and very hard to kill avoiding any quick game overs with an easy assassination run. His feat boosts damage to friendly models and so they can clear out more of my opponents models bumping me up in the attrition game. His feat is also the reason he makes a good assassination caster. Get him within 10'' of your opponents war-noun and they're as good as dead. His feat can also allow your army to take them out from afar.

pIrusk can be played as both an attrition and control caster because of his feat and spell list. His feat makes your army a lot harder to deal with for a turn and his spell Inhospitable Ground should stop most enemies getting near an objective, flag or zone.

pSorscha shuts down your opponents army her feat can guarantee you up to 4 Control Points meaning you're only one away from winning the game. This ice queen can also assassinate high defence casters if you catch them in her feat range or clip them with her Freezing Grip spell.

pVlad is the odd one out here. I'm never really sure how to play him but if I do end up taking him I'll use him for assassination. A three focus, 'Blood of Kings'd Vlad in your enemy's face should be enough to win me the game.

So that's as far as I've gotten. If you have any input, go ahead and reply to my topic on the:

Privateer Press Forums - http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?192402-Three-List-Masters-Dojo

Or the:

Muse on Minis Forum - http://museonminis.com/forums/index.php?topic=3447.0

Congratulations if you've made it this far! Thanks for reading and sorry about the wall of text, more pretty pictures next time.

All the best,
Conor