The Necrotechs Workshop – Lock and Load Recap – Part 1

Like every year, I made the annual trip to Seattle for Lock and Load for Privateers personal show, and like almost each other year, I enjoyed myself immensely. There was a time, early on in the planning process, that I was worried about the trip, and again just days prior when I had an extremely forbidding feeling about my decision, but it turns out it was just my brain being bad at being a brain. What did I do while in Seattle? Glad you asked!

In the past, Lock and Load was full of tournaments, events and Iron Arena, enough that I had to parse out the years into “Tournament” years, where I would play in tournaments to the exclusion of all else, and “Iron Arena” Years, where I would simply live in the open play area and grind games for awesome prizes. 

Tournaments at Lock and Load

Last year and this year, however, PP has changed how it is doing tournaments. Instead of an all-weekend bonanza of competitive and casual tournaments, it has withered to a single tournament that everyone can play in, and then the rest of the weekend is Iron Arena. 

Opening day, Friday, strangely runs both the Champions tournament and the Masters tournaments, both Last Chance Qualifiers for the Iron Gauntlet Championship, simultaneously. It is a bizarre decision that prevents someone like me from playing in both tournaments.

The Masters finals – it cuts to top 8, is played on Saturday morning before the first few rounds of the IG Championships, consisting of everyone who has gained 10 or more points in IG qualifiers over the course of the year, including anyone qualifying from the tournament in the morning and champions from the day before. All of Saturday and the finals on Sunday are invitations only – if you want competitive Warmachine, you have to be invited.  

To be fair, though, there are single list scrambles running all day Saturday, but you need to wait around to get games, often killing any chance for Iron Arena points you could be gobbling up. It is a strange decision, and I don’t like it, but I lived with it well enough.

Deciding on the Lists

I say all that as a preface to this: I spent a bunch of time in the week prior to the convention trying to figure out what I was going to bring to the Masters LCQ on Friday. I knew I’d be taking a list I’d not played in a while because I’d not played in a while, and I eventually, because it was the most recent list I’d played, settled on a Scaverous list: 

Cryx Army – 75 / 75 points
Slaughter Fleet Raiders

Lord Exhumator Scaverous [+27]
– Kharybdis [17]
– Deathripper [6]
– Nightwretch [7]
– Satyxis Blood Priestess [4]
Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)]
General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)]
Misery Cage [2]
Black Ogrun Smog Belchers (min) [9]
Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
– Jussika Bloodtongue [5]
Croe’s Cutthroats (max) [16]
Scharde Dirge Seers [6]

This list has a ton going for it. Kharybdis has a potential 16″ threat range and can reach up to P+S 20 under the right conditions. Axiara brings Tactician and a host of useful abilities that she can give out to the Maurauders. Gerlak is a priority target for the opponent as well as an amazing soul harvester and infantry crusher. The Misery Cage and the Blood Priestess bring much-beloved focus efficiency, as well as a pocket, boosted feat attack. 

The Marauders are a decent switch unit that can both melee and ranged, as well as jam into zones with Axiaras buffs. Bloodgorgers are there for simple and brutal infantry clearing, and with Soul Harvester they can deliver the souls of the defeated straight to Scaverous to use as he will. 

The last three units, though, are the bread and butter of what makes this list really sing. 

Croe and the Cutthroats are amazing at blowing up heavies. amusingly, they can on, fairly average dice, come very close to deleting a Khador heavy from the game (29 damage total after Feast + 10 backstrike shots) drop the armor by one, and they can blow it up, drop the grid a bit and they also have a good shot at it. Additionally, they are dodgy and hard to pin down, able to repo out of the way and keep the enemy at arm’s length most of the game. Additionally, on the assassination run, Hiss can close out the game with silence, giving Scaverous another shot at the kill the following turn. 

Smog Belchers are amazing at doing anything. High def infantry get close range AOE’s to the face, hard targets get Smogged and can’t run or charge, they are additional ranged attacks for the assassination run, block LOS to Scavs with both Clouds and bodies, and are tough to dislodge. These guys did the most work that wasn’t assassinating targets, of any unit all weekend. 

Finally, the Dirge Seers are the ones who bring the most utility to the list, more cloud walls to go along with Smogs and Kary, guidance to get into the enemy stealth models, which can go on the Croes for good measure, and Hex bolt, another spell that can easily be the final nail in a coffin during feat turn, as free boosts are excellent. They also are good at clearing off a few jamming models, as their MAT of 7 and Needle rule means they can wander up and poke many models to trigger battle wizard of either a cloud or a hex bolt, both excellent many of the times. 

This list is so much fun, I honestly expected to simply main it the whole weekend. While I didn’t main this specific list, I did main Scaverous and came to the conclusion that while this list does suffer into armor, it is better, with more utility and power than the Dark Host version. 

Long story short, I decided to pair this list with the traditional Coven double riders list, as there was a strong assassination out in both lists, as well as me having a strong familiarity with the Coven. It in no way was going to be a perfect pair, but I wasn’t planning on going far, and just was going to start getting games in. 

Cryx Army – 75 / 75 points
Dark Host

The Witch Coven of Garlghast [+26]
– Deathripper [6]
– Deathripper [6]
– Nightwretch [7]
– Nightwretch [7]
Bane Lord Tartarus [0(6)]
Bane Riders (max) [20]
Bane Riders (max) [20]
Bane Warriors (min) [10]
– Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)]
Bane Warriors (min) [10]
– Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)]
Wraith Engine [15]

With the lists planned out, Thursday morning I took off and flew to Vancouver to meet friends and drive down to Seattle. It was a great drive, and with their help, I decided to swap out the Satyxis Blood Priestess for Saxon Orrik, as there was likely to be a mile and a half of terrain that I had to try and slog through with the Trolls. We also built a list with Scavengers, which I am going to try now that I’m home, but I’d not brought them with me. 

We went down to Mox boarding house, where I bought a delicious, but way to expensive, sausage platter. I also hit up the local grocery store and bought a weekends worth of food, so that I both could keep in budget and not have to leave the building to get food

• Uncrustables
• Protein Bars
• Trail Mix
• Iced Tea
• Apples
• Monsters (1/day)

I spent 80 bucks, which actually was more than I needed as I bought a lot of this stuff home, and I never needed to buy a meal all weekend. With that, we hung out at Mox, I watched some games, and eventually called it a night. 

Lock and Load, Day 1

Keynote

Day one, hour one was the Keynote, and it was pretty solid. While there were a number of things I am looking forward too that aren’t Warmachine/Hordes, the biggest draws are, of course, the flagship products. That said, Riot Quest, Monsterpocalypse look pretty awesome, but the real goodies are the Warmachine and Hordes models. 

This year, I have a few things to look forward to. The Exalted CID is pretty great, what with the Immortal Vessel, Abidan the Keeper and Supreme Guardian all looking amazing. I’ve always enjoyed the Immortal Hosts, so seeing these models hit the table is going to make it extremely hard for me to not break them out for at least a little while. 

Really though, what I am most stoked about is the upcoming Bane Knight Officer. Giving the Dark Host lists a breath of fresh air by allowing more models for free in the theme, creating a more diverse list selection will be extremely welcome. Additionally, the abilities they have, if they are kept as is, makes nothing but perfect sense. 

Bane Knights charge into the enemy with brutal charge, eliminating the front line or a jack. They then pop Serpents Coil, reposition 3″ backward into a wall of steel, and get free attacks on anyone who would move into their threat range. It’s absolutely, perfectly, 300-esque, and I love every minute of it. 

Infernals as the new faction is cool, but I don’t really want another faction, honestly. I’m going to get rid of most everything I have, grab Crucible Guard, and likely just live with and love Cryx and Skorne forever. 

Tournament!

After the keynote, I got into Masters, and I’ll go over the 5 games pretty quick before wrapping up here. Part 2 will be out Thursday with the rest of the details. 

Round 1 I am paired into Trolls – Kolgrima and Borka 2, if I remember correctly. Knowing that Scaverous can’t really deal with armor all too much, I decided to drop the Coven into the pair. Kolgrima is a powerful caster, and while I put up a solid fight for my first time encountering her, she ended up killing everything that wasn’t within 2″ of the edge of all the zones and flags and scoring me out with scenario on the bottom of 3. It was a game that I learned a bunch from, and the opponent was awesome (all of them were, to be honest, so I won’t say it again). The loss here did mean that I was out of the tournament to get into IG, but that was ok. It also meant that I could drop Scaverous for the rest of the day and feel great about it. 

Round 2 I am paired into a NJ local, playing double bones – Bradigus and Kreuger 2, I believe. He drops Kreuger and  I get first turn, positioning the army to take advantage of both Croe and Kharybdis. He ends the turn within 16″ of Khary, I get both TK’s off as well as a feast of worms, and a fully charged Squidjack gets to him at P+S 20. I win the second game because Scaverous threat range can be bonkers. 

Round 3 I have paired against Circle again, Una 2 and Kromak, I believe. We’d played last year at Mox, and I’d gotten a bit crushed, missing that sweet boosted 11 in the back arc with Aiakos 2, but it is what it is, and vengeance will be mine. He drops Una 2 into the list, which is a good move due to Wind Wall stopping a number of my attacks. I went for an assassination at one point, but it was extremely bad odds – Una was benefiting from Cover and had evasive up on herself. I spend the hard 3 focus to boost the TK into her – if I made it, great, if not, then abort – and missed. I aborted the run and kept taking apart the army as best I could. The following turn, though, I was able to sneak a shot into her, without Cover but benefiting from Wind Wall, into her with Hiss, silencing her the next round. I needed that hard 10, and man it paid off to be lucky. The next turn, with no more Croes, I went for the assassination with 12 focus and 3 souls for rerolls I didn’t finish her off with Scaverous, but Axiara did the job, finaly. 

Round 4 I have the joy to be paired into another new caster for me, Anamag the Doom Feaster. Her list is extremely cool, and I can’t wait to figure out how to take it apart. Instead, I just ground it out, turn after turn, with more models than he had clock. The Chosen was a monster for the list to try and deal with, and I don’t know that I have the tools, especially after they get stuck in. I did manage to take out most of the Hellmouth tentacles over the course of the first two turns, which felt like it limited his options, but I don’t actually know. I’m also not sure that, given infinite games, he doesn’t win it based on learning how to deal with all the infantry. 

Round 5 The final round I’m paired into Ossrum and Ashlyn. I know I should drop Coven. I should really, really do it, but I just want to keep playing Scaverous, so I do it and who knows, maybe he fails and drops Ashlynn. He does not. His list was just too much armor for me to break – two bashers, three drillers, and four gun bunnies. It wasn’t a great matchup going in, and it proved as much. I was almost able to take a basher off the board with Croe, but it ended up 1 point shy, with nothing else left to touch it. That stupid thing lasted 2 more rounds, because of the feat. In the end, I was simply pushed out of both scenario and the game, and he takes the win. 

Overall, the tournament was a rousing success, and I am happy that I came out 3-2 and 20th of 101 players. I think to 20% is pretty solid. 

I did get one, final, game in for the night. I was walking up the stairs to go to bed and I saw Soles walking a bit in front of me. I called out to him, we’ve played games almost every year, and he turned and asked if I wanted a game. I was tired and ready for bed, but I figured what the hell, we both had some time. 

He dropped Kreoss 3 with the Exemplar Interdiction CID changes, and that list was a complete blast to fight. I dropped Scaverous, again, because its what I wanted to do, and that list proved, just as Anamag and Ossrum did, that I had a significant problem with armor. It took me all game to grind through both units and the new cinerators, but I did it. It didn’t save me, though, and I seem to remember taking a guardian to the face at the end of the game, but it was late as hell. 

Thats how I finished the first day of the con, 3-3, 0-1 with Coven and 3-2 with Scaverous. It was a good day, and I was looking forward to getting up early and playing more games the next day. I’ll have the next two days recap out on Thursday! 

Until next time! 

As always – if you’re looking for more, I’m on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, though they all aren’t equally active. 
I make my lists at Conflictchamber.com