This past weekend I had the privilege of going up to Idaho Falls and playing in a wonderfully run Conquest TLAOK tournament run by the wonderful folks of ICON and the Miniature Manager. It was a twenty man tournament and I was playing my court of fire Sorcerer Kings. PBG had dropped their happy hour so we have the faintest of teases for the new design choices coming and I have to say i’m pretty excited to see what they do with SK and the game in general.
My List
Majarajah – Eye of the Blazing Tempest, Court of Fire, Lord of Conflict, Favored of Hormus
3 Flamecasters
3 Sword Dancers
Mahut
Sorcerer – Jadoo Kavach, Court of Fire, Bound to the Elements
3 Ghols
3 Ghols
3 Flamecasters
Maharajah – Court of Air
3 Dhanur Disciples
3 Mahabharati Initiates
Rakshasa Bakasura
Round One vs Spires
Round one was a fantastic battle against a lovely gentleman from Montana playing Spires. I was especially hyped because I haven’t fought spires in forever and he had a really cool list involving the Biomancer warlord for some spicy burnout activations. He had lots of ranged damage, vanguard clones of both varieties, brutes drones, and an abomination.
Early game was me stacking right side (From my perspective) of the board and trying to get him to commit to that side. My general gameplan for this tournament was force a lopsided engagement and use my Mahut and Rakshasa to pincer collapse the other flank. Reinforcements went average for me and poor for my opponent so I called an audible. he played on my left, then I dropped heavy on my right, and dropped the monster duo into the center to anchor everything.
The key moments from here involve the Rakshasa living on one wound! Then subsequently being healed up over the course of the next three rounds, the flamecasters getting to triple activate and get into the juicy center of that gunline castle, and the hero of the tournament the bound to the elements sorcerer killing nearly that whole right side.
It was a very bloody game but I ended up winning by about 10 points is all. As would become a theme for the weekend, my block of flamecasters with the sorcerer would get my triple activations often and the healing from the Mahut with his danger kitty buddy was wild.
Round 2 vs. City States
Round 2 was into city states against a good buddy of mine. We always have a riot playing each other and we have a great back and forth. His list was a polemarch warlord in some hoplites with some independent nasty blocks to sit on zones (Mechanist with 5 stands of clocklites haunts my nightmares to this day). Combined army drills made it so he could get some early scoring and some early real estate claimed which ended up being key for him to win this game!
As you can see the plan was in full effect. Overload one side. Crash the other with Stampy and the Danger kitty. Sadly my opponents early pressure meant I never got to touch that left zone until round 10! My double monster hammer got just absolutely stuck on the clocklite brick and I learned that I should’ve just abandoned that zone.
Attrition went a bit off the rails for me mid game as, exactly in the previous round, the sorcerer with the flamecasters proceed to just OBLITERATE a flank. It just took a bit longer than usual due to a chariot making 8 out of 8 saves needing 2’s. But with a triple activation my flamecasters sidestepped, aimed and shot into the side of his hoplite block and did a casual 22 hits, leaving the unit on one stand. Similar to the left flank, my opponent was able to march charge units to the edge of the zone and keep me from scoring though.
All in all a fantastic game! I think a key difference could’ve been made by abandoning the left flank and letting the clocklite block sit there for the whole game. My monster mash could’ve gone up the center and I could definitely have adjusted that.
Round 3 vs. Spires
Spires again! My lucky day! This was a high clone executor list with a lot of elite units. Incarnates, two leonine avatara, centaur avatara, marksman clones, and some vanguards.
Just due to the terrain and how my opponent deployed I flooded the center a bit. You’ll notice some ghols WAYYY up there in the marksmans face. That’s cause I failed the spell to make them score a zone and rage flung them up there. It ended up working out because they tied up the marksman clones and some leonine avatara for a few rounds and let me develop some solid attrition advantages.
Look at them good ghols, just being a roadblock. They rolled ABYSMALLY and did like, next to no damage, But boy were they in the way!
Key points here was that building on the right. An obstruction that was impassable I just decided to put a unit of initiates over there on the zone and ignore it. Effectively just pretending the board was only the left two thirds.
Near round 4 I saw some lines for attrition super advantages when my flamecasters rolled pretty hot and my opponent lost some of his screening vanguard dood mans. I decided to make the attrition play and I just threw everything up there, even leaving the zone with my initiates but I saw the march charge into the flank of the leonine and I couldn’t turn it down.
The attrition play was the right call and I was able to wrap up the game on round 5! My opponent, as always, was a fantastic gentleman and the game was a blast. The healing from the Mahut was wild, just completely negating the chip damage from shooting in a nice 8″ bubble.
Round 4 vs Wadrhun
The round we do not speak of! Jkjk I matched up against a guy from my local store who’s a good friend. He is a fantastic player and currently battling for a place at Chios this year! He is a wadrhun specialist having played them since day one and wadrhun is a very uphill battle for SK currently. He had a nice mix of the brutally efficient units, raptors, hunting packs, veterans, slingers, winglords, apexes and was able to jail me within 12″ of my deployment zone and proceed to steal my lunch money.
This is my corner and I shall not leave it despite my best efforts.
Sadly reinforcement rolls did not comply with the good guys (me) and his army was full of flank and he didn’t have to roll those. A good adage is that if you don’t have to roll dice and your opponent does…you’re in a good spot.
I tried to make some pressure on the other side of the table, but sadly, slingers slung mightily and I couldn’t overcome the ranged damage. Stampy and Danger kitty did a lot of damage though
As you can see it was the end game by the time I touch the midboard, it was a very bloody game where both of us were down to just a regiment or two left, but my opponent just proceeded to put those nails in the coffin and the game ended with me losing by a solid 50-60 points.
Wrap up!
All in all this was a fantastic event, run extremely well by The Miniature Manager crew. All factions were represented and It was great to see some friends from across the mountain west and to catch up with them. The games were all a ton of fun, all the opponents were fantastic and I cannot wait to see what PBG has in store for SK in the future because I can’t stop painting them. I did end up taking home some great prizes and best painted so I felt really great about that! I have been having a blast painting and playing SK but I am going to take a few months (Probably until the new SK models come out this fall) and play/paint up a City States list.
I was really happy with my list, the CLEAR winners for me were the healing aura on the Mahut, but having the Bound to the Elements Sorcerer in the Flamecasters and feeding that unit triple activations felt really, really good. Hopefully Bound to the Elements gets a bit cheaper because I got my hands on that Founders Exclusive!
Thanks for reading!
