Impressions from my first Steam Roller

I journeyed up to Legions Games on Perry Highway early Sunday to participate in the “Scream Roller” run by my friend Andrew who press gangs for both Drawbridge and Legions.  It was a new experience playing against more tournament focused players who min/max their lists.  I ended one win and two losses but it was a good learning experience.

I learned several important things from this tournament.  1) Know the rules better than your opponent.
2) Some lists are better than others. 3) Know what you’re picking into. 4) Don’t play a six hour tournament on three hours of sleep.

1)Know the rules better than your opponent.

So what do I mean by that?  Try to use the rules to take advantage of your opponent?  Nope.  In my first game against a beast heavy Ragnor list the game came down to an assassination run by my opponent who was rushing since he had less than two minutes on the clock.  He had managed to damage my Captain Aiakos for about six boxes when he used a Trollkin Fire-breather to charge him.  The Fire-breather was in melee with my damaged slayer who was missing both of his arms.  He made the charge and I rolled two dice.  My opponent being in a rush quickly pointed out that my arms were damaged and I would only get one die which led to a miss.  The Fire-breather survived to reach Aiakos with boosted hit and damage rolls and managed to drop Aiakos down to just one box.  He hit his clock moving into my maintenance phase where we proceeded with the fire damage roll.  It didn’t go out and he rolled a 6 to deal 3 more damage to the knocked down Aiakos to win the game.

In hindsight I realized the free strike from the slayer should have hit.  Why? Tusks.  I rolled a four originally on the free strike to hit, which was enough to hit the firebreather.  A POW 12 plus 2D6 would have been more than enough to eliminate the firebreather allowing Aiakos to only have to deal with a fire damage roll which could not kill him at dice minus three even if he had rolled box cars.

I did mention this to my opponent who offered to replay it out, but I refused as I had already shook his hand congratulating him on his victory.  I felt it would have be un-sportsman like to demand to replay the last turn.  After all there was no guarantee that my own retaliatory assassination run would have succeeded and I would much prefer to end the game with a close loss than a whiny victory.

2) Some Lists are better than others.

Being a somewhat active reader of the Privateer Press forums I could never understand the doom and gloom of the Cryx forums regarding tournament lists.  After observing a tournament, even though it was only a small local one I now have a bit more sympathy. I must admit I believed that min/max lists that were touted on the forums were not much better than the lists I’ve been generating at Drawbridge with the limitations that you never need more than one of the same type of unit.

This tournament has convinced me otherwise.

The top three finishers of the tournament out of eleven players had two things in common.  Experience and Min/Max generated lists.  All three seemed to have a good bit of game play experience.  I personally only played the second place finisher in my final round and felt after our game that he was a much more experienced player.

More importantly I felt the reason they all did well against their opponents were their lists.  Though I’m not familiar with the players personally, I could see strong influences from Internet list building sources.  I’m sure they had evaluated the recent Team World Championship lists that were posted and used that source to take inspiration from.

Those three players took that information and used it to build lists that have so far proved effective in other tournaments and used them to further their own success.  They chose models that exemplified the current strengths of their faction and built lists around them.

I experienced this personally when I played the second place finisher in my final game.

3) Know what you’re picking into.

Feeling plucky after a solid showing in my second game I was up against another Khador listing.  Though I feel my opponent could have been a little more forth coming by telling me he was list locked into his Harkevich list, I still picked Terminus based on seeing a jack heavy list.  I felt my max Bane Warrior unit/attachment with Terminus would be best able to handle all of those jacks.

I was very wrong. I’d picked the wrong list.

My opponent was playing Harkevich1 with a list consisting of Behemoth, three juggernauts, three Kodiaks and Ragman. Ok, so lots of high armor jacks with a feat that gives them three more armor for one turn. I was optimistic at first, till he started shooting my banes off the table.

My bane riders were eliminated at the top of turn 2 along with a couple of bane warriors and my necro tech.  As Harkevich gives his battlegroup reposition he was able to use the kodiaks to create clouds and then move behind them preventing any charges.

As the game progressed I was slowly picked apart while barely able to retaliate.  His high armor and huge amount of boxes kept my forces from dropping anything. Along with high damage strikes to my own jacks, he was easily winning the attrition war. Unable to deliver my troops and with no spells to help my jacks armor crack things were pretty grim.

Towards the end of the game I had an assassination opportunity which I bungled.  I had attempted to use my pistol wraith on Harkevich and then use my inflictor to throw one of his heavy jacks out of the way to clear a landing zone for Terminus.  The pistol wraith flubbed one shot and did no damage with his second shot, while the inflictor lost the strength off to the much stronger khador jack.

In hindsight I should have used the pistol wraith on the throw target to make it stationary and unable to avoid the throw power attack.  I would have been able to remove the jack Harkevich was b2b with and then land terminus for the assassination as Harkevich only had two focus left. I believe Malediction and Terminus’ base abilities would have won out in the end even with only 5 focus available to him.

Long story short, I should have picked Aiakos.  Aiakos’ spell list and feat would have made the match a good deal more even I feel.  At least I would have been able to get into range to fight back. I honestly don’t think the Aiakos list had enough oomph to deal with the Harkevich list but it wouldn’t have been such a one sided fight.

4) Don’t play a six hour tournament on three hours of sleep.

You may have noticed a lot of the phrase “In Hindsight” in this post.  I believe that I would have noticed more of those opportunities and mistakes had I not been running on three hours of sleep.  If I decide to attend another tournament I will have to endeavor to get more rest so I’m a little bit sharper.

I also had a nasty headache towards the end of it and I feel I would have enjoyed the experience a little more if I had been properly rested.  Unfortunately with my work schedule this may not always be an option.


Attending the “Scream Roller” was a generally good experience where I learned a great deal.  I know I will be looking at my lists a bit more critically in the future and my bias against min/max has lessened a bit with this experience.  It’s ok to have two mind sets.  One for casual games where playing a fun list with models that may not be optimal are played. A second mind set for tournaments where victory takes a higher priority.  After all, part of the fun is giving a good showing at the tournament.

I will have to adjust my lists accordingly and think more about my future model purchases which will help me for tournament games. Something to consider though is to not take that tournament mentality into games such as what we are currently playing a Drawbridge, which is a narrative campaign.

As always, enjoy your games!