Rallypoint - The Reckoning

2 day tournaments are soul-draining affairs, which I guess is why Cryx does so well.

Here are some quick reports from my games. I have no pictures or anything from the event, and only had a punnet of strawberries for lunch on day one. I will therefore have to keep you entertained using witty anecdotes and my own brand of bitter rage. Opponents' list have been gathered from repressed depths of my memory, while my lists were the same as Choptober except WE + Snapjaw instead of a 3rd Posse with Rask.

DAY ONE

We left Auckland at 6:30am and got to the venue in Hamilton about 8am. Road tripping is the best part of the tournament since you can talk about how awesome you'll do on the way down and rage about how bad you did on the way back up. It is especially good when you have a Retribution player on board and they constantly talk about switching factions on the return trips.

Game 1 vs Legion (Nikola) - Scenario: Close Quarters

Faction: Legion of Everblight
Vayl, Disciple of Everblight (*6pts)
* Shredder (2pts)
* Ravagore (10pts)
* Scythean (9pts)
* Seraph (8pts)
* Typhon (12pts)
Blighted Nyss Striders (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Blighted Nyss Striders Officer & Musician (3pts)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd (1pts)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd (1pts)
Strider Deathstalker (2pts)
The Forsaken (2pts)

Nikola is one of the guys who drove down with us in the car. He is a new player and a Croatian immigrant, which makes him alright in my book. I chose to play Barnabas vs Legion, and he dropped pVayl since that's the list he was comfortable with (pVayl is one of the strongest Legion matchups against Gators with Typhon due to Incite + Rampager). He went 3-1 with his Vayl list, and 0-3 with his Lylyth2 list over the tournament.

This was the only game of the tourmanent where I felt I played legitimately badly and was outplayed by my opponent and lost. This could be because I spent most of the time explaining everything on the table in multiple ways and as a result blew up my brain and ignored vital factors like scenario, threat ranges, and board control, but either way I got crushed pretty bad after my poor plans combined with  some crotch dice and lost Barnabas to a Typhon melee assassination. Typical of my tournament starts were I get nutstomped round one.

0 CPs

Game 2 vs Retribution (Chris Ford) - Scenario: Incoming

Faction: Retribution of Scyrah
Points: 48/50
Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper (*7pts)
* Banshee (10pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
* Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard (2pts)
Houseguard Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (7pts)
* Houseguard Halberdiers Officer & Standard (2pts)
Mage Hunter Infiltrators (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)

I am missing some filler points it seems. Maybe there was Scyir in there somewhere.

I have never played against Chris before and it was a pleasant experience. He was a good player and put up a strong game with a sweet-looking Ret army. I chose to drop Barnabas again so I could save Rask for later since he didn't have a Hyperion in either list. This made the matchup much more even than if I had dropped Rask but still in my favour. He chose to drop Kaelyssa rather than Ravyn (good call).

Barnabas spent the whole time hiding in a Swamp Pit inside my zone, and I sent a single unit of Posse to contest his zone, which they did fine vs Infiltrators for the whole game. I responded to his feat by running about ~7 Gatormans into the Halberdier wall, which then became a huge line of jam as Halberdiers and Sentinels tried to kill as many Gators as possible (they got most them). The one odd thing is he didn't use the Halberdiers mini-feat that turn, since he felt he would get to use it again more effectively later. I asked if he had played against Gators before, and he said no.

Here is a picture of a Gatorman in combat with Ret infantry.
Notice the mass casualties on the right.

I then killed almost all the Sentinels and Halberdiers with a Spitter, Totem Hunter, Croaks and a couple of the remaining Gatormans. I also charged the Phoenix with my Wrastler, death rolled boosted and rolled a 1,2,2 like a boss. GG Wrastler. Anyway, I got to 4CPs that turn and he didn't have much left, so he ran Kaelyssa into my zone to steal 3 CPs (Incoming is a pretty stupid scenario) since I forgot to leave a non-warcaster model in the zone. This minor mistake would later cost me a game the next day.

Another thing I remember in this game is Chris passing like 7 terror checks over the course of the game. It was a sight to behold as the elves stood firm to the end. Who needs fearless?

5CPs

Game 3 vs Skorne (Gavin) - Scenario: Incursion

Faction: Rasheth - Chain Gang
Points: 44/50
Tiers: 4
Dominar Rasheth (*5pts)
* Bronzeback Titan (9pts)
* Titan Gladiator (7pts)
* Titan Gladiator (7pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Nihilators (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
Agonizer (2pts)
Agonizer (2pts)
Paingiver Task Master (2pts)

Obviously missing some stuff. I dropped Rask. This gap is memory is understandable given the events that followed:

Round 1, Turn 1: I run up.
Round 1, Turn 2: He runs up. He casts a Breath of Corruption through a Nihilator, killing a Gatorman.
Left flag disappears.
Round 2, Turn 1: I run Snapjaw into B2B with the right hand side flag, and run a unit of Gators close to the middle flag. Rask feats and puts up Inhospitable Ground.
Round 2, Turn 2: He backs everything up and contests nothing. I get 2 CPs.
Round 3, Turn 1: I move Rask in B2B with the middle flag, bringing me to 5 CPs.

TO's reaction:

I didn't roll a single die. My opponent was obviously super bummed that he let something like that happen, but that's why they say there's no better place to learn the game than tournaments. The better course of action would have been to run most stuff into my Gators, feat and use dual Agonizer auras to reduce incoming damage significantly. After that it would probably be a dice rolling contest of Furied Gatormans vs Enraged beat-back heavies, since I don't have the guns to remove the Agonizers from the back, making my beasts near useless.

So I won in the douchiest way possible (pro skillz) and got a much desired 1.5 hour break to go walking around the venue and play some Watchmachine.

10 CPs

Game 4 vs PoM (Chris Baker) - Scenario: Supply and Demand

Faction: Protectorate of Menoth
Points: 49/50
High Exemplar Kreoss (*5pts)
* Reckoner (8pts)
Avatar of Menoth (11pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Exemplar Errants (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer (2pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Holy Zealot Monolith Bearer (2pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Knight Exemplar Seneschal (3pts)
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord (2pts)
The Covenant of Menoth (2pts)
The Wrack (3 wracks) (1pts)
Vassal Mechanik (1pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)
  
I seem to play Chris once every tournament. He plays a different army every tournament, but always complains about how bad he is, irrelevant of faction, while taking nutbusting lists and getting a winning record. This time he played PoM, and I dropped Rask. There were also two HUGE obstruction pieces to either side of the zone. These factors resulted in a really stupid game played on the middle 16" of the board with very little room for tactics or clever use of game mechanics.

Here is a summary of the game, turn by turn:

My turns - Cast Inhospitable Ground, disrupt Reckoner. Stab Errants.
His turns - No KD on book, Tough on Defender's Warded Errants, blind my Wrastler with Gorman hiding behind three Errants (which I will obviously never kill due to their Self-Sac, thus never getting an attack on Gorman). Stab Gators.

This went on for about 5 rounds or so (he used his feat somewhere in the middle to kill about 6 Gators with Zealot bombs and Errants), until I managed to get a Furied Boundless Charge Swamp Horror onto the Avatar and within reach of Kreoss, who totalled the Avatar and pulled Kreoss in to get charged by Snapjaw. I brought Kreoss down to 3 boxes, and probably would have killed him had I boosted my last damage roll instead of futilely fishing for a crit with my initial tail attack (forgot that no KD was up on the book, somehow).

Things then got serious as stuff started really dying, and I was looking to either lose on attrition or win on deathclock until Kreoss charged forward to kill some Gators, camped 8 like a boss, then got shot in the face with Rask's Disruptor Bolt, getting rid of that focus and rolling some death. Yep, Rask actually killed someone himself.

Oh, I also gave him a CP by destroying my own objective. Apparently that changed from SR2012 to SR2013. Anyway, I got 2 zealot kills out of it. Totally worth it.

10 CPs

So as is common with me, I lose my first game of the day horribly and win the next 3. Typical JS chipmunking. We drive back to Auckland and hear about how bad Retribution is.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DAY TWO

All three of my Day Two games were quite close despite the matchups not being in my favour at any point.

Game 5 vs Cryx (Evil Dave) - Scenario: Into the Breach

Faction: Cryx
Points: 50/50
Warwitch Deneghra (*5pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Deathjack (12pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Bloodgorgers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Satyxis Raiders (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Satyxis Raider Sea Witch (2pts)
General Gerlak Slaughterborn (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Satyxis Raider Captain (2pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)

Yay Cryx. Dave is possibly the nicest person one could ever play against and his army looks really stellar so it's tough to hold his choice of faction against him. Tough, but not impossible. There is always a place in my heart for Cryx hate.

He dropped pDenny, I dropped Barnabas. I decided to push for the zone, he pushed for the flag. I feel that he delayed his feat too long (used it Turn 3), which allowed me to feat first and kill basically his entire army, except for some Satyxis, all Bloodgorgers (who both have No Sleeping on the Job because they are Cryx) and Deathjack who was miles away and terrified of the Swamp Pits. That satisfaction you get when you kill a full unit of Bane Knights in one turn.... oh yeah. There were 2 Satyxis in the zone I wasn't able to clear, so I didn't get any CPs at this time.
He then feated and killed some stuff and we went back and forth on points as stuff died. Eventually I lost out in the end as I didn't leave a model in my zone again (see game 2), therefore allowing him to score a point there by toeing in and win 5 to 4. If I had left a model in there, I would have had to kill a now-fully healed Deathjack with Barnabas and maybe a Wrastler... not the greatest proposition. Probably the best game of the tournament, where I made 2-3 tiny positioning mistakes that lost me CPs and the game. If only Barnabas didn't hit like a wet noodle....

14 CPs

Game 6 vs Circle (Luke Brimblecombe) Scenario: Fire Support

Faction: Circle Orboros
Points: 50/50
Morvahna the Dawnshadow (*5pts)
* Gorax (4pts)
* Warpwolf Stalker (10pts)
* Warpwolf Stalker (10pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Tharn Bloodtrackers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Nuala the Huntress (2pts)
Warpborn Skinwalkers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
* Warpborn Alpha (3pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts)
Gatorman Witch Doctor (3pts)

Luke was the only undefeated player at this point so in my opinion should have won, but alas this is a 2 day NZ format that rewinds grinding your face against the wall until you bleed. He got matched up against me despite my pretty average record due to some unusual pairing system and was pretty confident in the matchup given that eMorvahna is an OP grinding monster.

Anyway, he ran tough undead Bloodtrackers in my face and slowly killed Gators with hit/damage rerolls, traded one Stalker for my Wrastler. I then proceeded to move Barnabas up to the halfway mark, feat, and kill all but one Skinwalker (who was in melee with Barnabas, so I should really have killed him), most of the Bloodtrackers, and the Gallows Groves. He responded by feating and bringing back EVERY SINGLE MODEL I HAD KILLED then running back behind an obstacle right on the edge of the kill box. Demoralizing to an extreme, but at least I can comfort myself with the fact that unlike eHaley and Deneghra's feats, I could have done something about it (wipe out units to the man). Alas, the Croaks failed me. There's a reason I'm not generally thrilled with Croak Hunters.

Seeing how screwed I was with most of my Gatormans dead and only a dead Stalker in his casualties pile, I decided to try and execute a plan the likes of which I have not executed since the release of Rask and Gargossals, both of which have dumbed down the game for me to a large extent and made me the mediocre player I am today. The moment where I was concocting this convoluted and low-probability assassination run was probably the most exciting minute of Warmachine for the last 10 months of my life, which I guess is an indication of the state of the game these days. Either that, or I'm getting old:

Morvahna has approx. 5 boxes left after the feat and a crapload of fury. She has two transfer targets - a half dead Gorax and a Stalker about 13" away from her since she had moved so far back. I managed to kill the Gorax with the last 2 members of my blue Posse (who were now surrounded by Skinwalkers), triggering Warpath so my Spitter can walk up and throw the Stalker outside her control area. A Croak Hunter and Snapper then killed a model each to try and give Barnabas a wider charge lane (which proved futile in the end as Morvahna still gained the cover bonus from the obstacle so their activations were redundant), which Barnabas used to charge into a Gallow Grove to get a free Blood Boon Flesh Eater on Morvahna, needing 13s and rolled 6,5,2 to hit and killed her with boosted damage.

Barnabas - clutch as fuck.

I stole this game so bad, I expected police to be waiting outside to question me.

So I ruined Luke's tournament that he probably should have won by taking him out of the finals and turning him off eMorvahna. Good job, JS. Kingslaying like a boss.

14 CPs

Game 7 vs Trolls (Luke Harvey) - Scenario: Rallypoint

Faction: Hoarluk - Runes of War
Points: 50/50
Tiers: 4
Hoarluk Doomshaper (*7pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)

Dat list.....

I was paired up to play against Chris Baker again for whatever reason, but managed to haggle with the TO to play someone I hadn't played that tournament since rankings were not at stake in either match-up. Fortunately for me, this person was Luke Harvey, a Troll player of legend with a very manly beard. He has yet to beat me in a tournament game, including a loss in a Who's the Boss event where I had Wrong Eye as my warlock, but this time he came prepared with this ridiculous pDoomshaper Runes of War tier.

Here is a summary of the design meeting for this tier list:

Privateer Employee A: "Hey, Troll players think Doomshaper sucks."
Privateer Employee B: "Purification, Goad, Rampager, Fortune, that feat... what were we thinking designing this piece of crap? He does absolutely nothing against half the game!"
A: "Totally. I think we should take a highly underrated unit with a crapload of rules and damage boxes and make a list that includes like... an unlimited number of them, but also reduce their cost by 25%."
B: "Mmmm... that seems kinda OP. We should make it difficult to achieve by adding some rough tier requirements like 'must include Janyssa, two Dire Trolls and two units of Runeshapers'."
A: "What? That is way too harsh! You better give them sweet bonuses like extra 2" deployment and some walls just in case they get shot. That Doomshaper is surely going to die even at DEF 17 ARM 17 with transfers and troll animi."
B: "And Mulg too I guess. For lolz."
A: "Mega lolz."

FU A and B. You guys are assholes.

Anyway, this list is pretty good. You can either lead with the Runeshapers or the beasts depending on who you want to take the hit. He led with the walls, because having 3 walls is fair. Usually I have zero problems with Trolls, but a swarm of cheap steady pathfinder guys with POW 14 crit KD AoEs and damage boxes is really problematic. To put Runeshapers in context, they basically get to cast a 3 cost magical AoE (more or less Baldur's Earth Spikes), along with good survivability, Tremor and Force Lock for 1 pt. That is really, really strong, and makes Gorgons look like absolute horse shit. It's almost enough to make me respect Trolls. Almost.

I traded Mulg for my Wrastler bottom of 2 (Rask shooting off animi + Fury + Boundless Charge +  feat => dead Mulg and safe army), then jumped up to 3 CPs next turn through dominating his zone and mine (with the Effigy objective). I didn't any get more points after that as he just grinded into my Gators with POW 14 AoEs and made more toughs than I did, basically out-listing me. In the end I had lost every single model but Rask, and went for a list ditch assassination on Doomshaper which need like a 14 on 3 dice for damage, but failed.

Looking back I think I may have made one mistake, which was to use Wrong Eye to clear the enemy zone giving me 2CPs on turn 3, where I probably should have just kept him back and left those CPs on the table, since trading heavies is pretty much where the game is won/lost in this matchup. Especially since Doomshaper's feat was up and that put 12 or so damage on Wrong Eye in the end. If I can take out his heavies while keeping mine, then he will just deathclock himself since Luke is the NZ deathclock master. Next time.....

Luke also gave me his best sports vote (out of guilt, because I am actually a terrible person to play against since I question everything). I gave mine to Chris Baker on the futile hope that he will one day win best sports instead of best painted. I gave my best painted vote to Nikola, since I like the colour black. Everywhere. Some may call it primer, I call it grim minimalist art.
 
17 CPs

Tournament Total: 4 wins, 3 losses, 17 CPs
with 2 very close losses and 2 very close wins. Also managed to beat the top 2 ranked players in the country :P
I placed in the upper half of tournament so I am happy with my play and placing despite the numbers, except for the first game of course.

The tournament final was Cryx on Cryx (both players named Dave), and was won by a Cryx player (coincidentally also named Dave, who is my blog's biggest fan) for the second year in a row. The shock, the horror, the surprise. OP faction whining aside, they are both top blokes who usually rank well and play really strong lists so congrats to them (for choosing the right faction, Cryx, which is OP, especially when your name is Dave).

Thanks to Dan Conlon for organizing and being super chill the whole time despite our whining about pairings and terrain and such. What a guy.

Thoughts + mini-rant zone

• Still not a fan of Divide and Conquer but I can live with it over a long tournament. It's potentially a dealbreaker for factions with less depth like Mercs/Minions and barely relevant for Cryx, Legion and PoM. It worked out alright for me this time with the right matchups happening at the right time. The only time I would rather have dropped something else was in game 2, where I would rather play Rask vs Ret than Barnabas (and it turns out, I could have).
• I have a bit more respect for the Maelok + 3 Posse list. Not so much because I think Maelok is necessarily stronger than Barnabas overall, but because Undead is a really strong buff. I was reminded over the weekend how many abilities trigger off living only. It's a bit ridiculous at times. Bring more Witch Doctors.
• Rask with 3 Posse is stronger against Trolls I feel, but Rask with WE + Snapjaw is stronger against PoM, Skorne, Cygnar, Khador...
• F*ck Cryx, that faction is so stupid. Nobody even defends this anymore, and instead of fixing the many broken things, PP just go passive aggressive and stop releasing Cryx models for a year and a half. That'll teach them!
• Broken 2pt merc solos need some serious balance work. Gorman, Piper and Witch Doc Croc were my bane this time around, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. OP Merc stuff is a large contributing factor to lists getting stale as options just get sidelined and make balancing the game a lot more difficult. Remember how bad Cygnar was pre-Stormwall when they actually used Cygnar models?
• Whoever came up with spam tier lists (the ones that combine FA:U on already good units with point discounts) is either a dumbass who has made a grievous error, or a clever businessman who understands pewtercrack addiction at a fundamental level.
• eMorvahna - demoralizing to play against. It's not so much the feat or all the healing - while it is an insanely powerful timewalk feat like eHaley's or Deneghra's, it's that she does all that while rerolling everything and being miles away. Fits the OP formula of 'why does X Cryx model have Y ability'.
• I really dislike Rally Point as a scenario. I am guessing it was included here purely for the name. Movable or cutesy objective-based scenarios become a distraction rather than an addition to the game most of the time. The purpose of a scenario is to force engagement. That is it. I like most of the Masters scenarios (with the exception of Destruction because that one is just a huge clusterfuck).

Rallypoint 2013 - Preamble

Due to the absolute total lack of exciting Gatorman news, outside two Minion players getting crushed pretty badly at the WTC in Europe (which I assume is a function of the team format whereby the most logical strategy is to throw your crappiest faction at their Cryx/Legion list so that you can win your other 4 matchups, rather than a reflection of the actual players), I am again writing about a tournament that I am attending. Riveting to excess.

Rallypoint is a two-day tournament. Two-day tournaments are pretty common around these parts for two reasons:

1) Two days means more games

And more game supposedly means more reason to travel for out-of-towners since wargamers love to have sleepovers at their friends' houses. I don't particularly buy into this, but it seems to be the mindset amongst frequent tournament travelers.

To me, more days means more expenses and not that much a gain in gaming enjoyment. Especially if I do badly in the first few rounds, I am stuck hanging around with no hope for a prize or epeen or much desire to play after having already played a bunch of games but stick around anyway usually because I don't want to deprive other people who might want to play the opportunity or because I made travel arrangements or whatever. If I do happen to do well, I'd still rather be doing well in 4 rounds than in 7. Plus I like tournaments where first undefeated player wins. Less hassle.

For me, Warmachine is to the mind like sex is to the body - an enjoyable, healthy pursuit that results from challenging a worthy opponent in a safe environment with a good knowledge of dice risk statistics and no Cryxian spiky bits. It is a great thing to indulge in on a regular basis, practice at and get better, try new things, etc. But there is only a certain amount I can take within a given period, and at this stage of my life I prefer to focus on quality over quantity. 4 bouts per weekend is sufficient.

2) The legacy of WHFB

Warhammer Fantasy Battles is a cute hobby game. It's not a competitive game in itself, nor has it ever really been, largely because of the steep lack of balance both within and between armies as well as the lack of rules clarity due to slack errata, loose terminology, and a general apathy towards the whole competitive mindset. However, it has been shaped into a competitive game by the WHFB community with the addition of a complex tournament meta game featuring soft-scores like sportsmanship, painting and comp (army build) scores, a slew of "official/unofficial" errata, and a game/tournament points system to determine the 'winner' of each battle to make up for the lack of clear in-built victory conditions outside tabling your opponent. It is quite admirable what the WHFB community has achieved given what they had to work with on the ground floor.

As a result of all this, WHFB games take freaking ages and therefore the tournaments take freaking ages. And Warmachine, being the much younger game with a smaller (but rapidly growing!) following, has traditionally had to tack on to the bigger WHFB tournaments in NZ. I don't think this is actually the case for Rallypoint, but it has been the case for most large tabletop gaming tournaments on the calendar. Fortunately this seems to be changing. We've already had a handful of 1-day tournaments in Auckland that have had great attendance and worked out very well, so hopefully more will come.


Anyhow, Rallypoint:

• 2 lists, 50pt Steamroller with all the standard restrictions
• Deathclock, no specialists, and Kill Box all the time
• 7 rounds over 2 days (have to leave Auckland at 6:30am each morning QQ)
• Held in Hamiltron, City of the Future (a city I quite like)
• Divide and Conquer, meaning you MUST play each list 3 times.
• Cryxnoob Dave will be attending, meaning I potentially have to deal with another Cryx player using lists that auto-beat me worse than Rask auto-beats Ret (1).
• No painting requirements - makes zero difference to me, but I always appreciate the opportunity for people who don't really like painting to participate.
• Pizza party at the TO's place at the end of Day 1 - great initiative, but one which I will have to miss out on due to the aforementioned travel requirements.

This is a Gray Wolf. Wolves are sweet and take like 30
mins to kill their prey. Nothing romantic about it.
Just like Warmachine Gators. Kinda.

Barnabas vs Maelok in Divide & Conquer

I will be taking Rask (SURPRISE!) and probably Barnabas. Maybe Maelok. Many Gator players seem to have mega hard-ons for Maelok and his many fleshy holes but I don't really understand why.

Outside of Cryx, where mass Undead and recursion mechanics are very useful, I don't feel there is a  faction matchup where Maelok is better overall than Barnabas. Sure, there are lists like Bart/Galleon or Xerxis Cetrati Wall or super grindy lists like eMorvahna where Maelok is better at getting past the frontline to maximize your attacks and assassinate but since I will have to play each list at least 3 times, I'm going for broad application. I think the one thing that would bring Maelok up to Barnabas level consistently would be being able to put Malediction on a warbeast rather than just on himself. That gives a DEF/ARM debuff to my army without getting my caster killed next turn. Give that to Terminus as well, I wouldn't mind.

Basically, the number of good match-ups is about the same, maybe even a little bit in Maelok's favour - but in my experience Maelok has more bad matchups than Barnabas
I think Maelok was the operative choice in the past against Skorne, Protectorate and Trolls due to his ability to get some serious damage on support pieces and subsequently jam, but now Rask is just so much better at playing that game that it puts Maelok out of contention, at least in my book.

Assuming I play Barnabas, the lists will pretty much be the same as Choptober, except I will probably take my buddies Wrong Eye + Snapjaw in the Rask list instead of the 3rd Posse for a little more punch and matchup/scenario flexibility. There is always the question of the Totem Hunter, whether I put him with Rask to have some more assassination potential or whether I put him with Barnabas for some more "ranged" threat. First world Gator problems.

As far as expectations, I'll be perfectly happy to be in the top half of the field. Being in the bottom half would probably not make me want to come back for the second day even though I would have to anyway, so my travel buddies would have to listen to me bitch and moan for an hour and a half on the way down. Please let me win for their sakes.


---------------

(1) I mean, look at this shit! This is a borderline crime against human decency:

Wraith Witch Deneghra
- Deathripper
- Nightwretch
- Skarlock Thrall
Max Bane Knights
Max Blackbanes
Max Nyss Hunters
Max Blood Witches + UA
Min McThralls
Double Necrosurgeon
Warwitch Siren

How is this legal in Western society? People have been castrated and excommunicated for less.