League has ended!

And so this past Sunday (Yesterday), the relatively local Journeyman league has come to an end. It was pretty fun playing a new army but thankfully its over! And I will never take part in one again, at least here in Puerto Rico. As stated in previous post, this Journeyman League is aimed at straight up beginner's who have no clue or a very basic understanding of the rules. I was like that exactly a year ago, and I would have extremely enjoyed such a league when getting into this system. Alas, this was event type was created this past fall, too late for me to benefit to the full extent.

Now the league itself was alright I would say. It was not a failure, but neither was it a complete success. From what I can tell, the Journeyman League is meant to attract new players, where they can learn about the rules of the game as well as their armies, without being forced to hit the high-ish ceiling of 35 points right off the bat. I believe it does that to great effect, especially with each tier lasting a week, giving players ample time to play and paint.

As such, due to the, I'd say weak, Warmachine here in Puerto Rico, there were many restrictions and problems from what I saw. One is mainly that there is one store for the whole island and it actually a Trading Card game focused store that does host some Warmachine/Hordes Events on the side. It is small and does not stock many warmachine or hordes items at all. Orders can be made, but they take many weeks in arrival, killing interest in ordering. Nothing beats having the box in front of you, seducing you to buy it. Unless of course you can order it online for less and then pick it up at the store. This inaccessibility to the product in conjunction with money issues of the players caused many to stop coming as the tiers increased in points.

Another issue is travel time some players have to arrive at the store. I am usually one of them. The event days were schedules for Thursday and Sunday of each week which is not bad at all except when the store is 2 hours away and you have classes during the week. So usually, some buddies and I would suck it up and make the trip. The first week we all came, (4 of 5 guys of our group), but then only consistently one buddy and I would go and me being the only one who went all weeks. Driving 4 hours round trip to play 1 or 2 games is a tough pill to swallow.

I do not mind the travel time, especially if its with a bunch of friends in the same car and hanging out, talking about WM/Hordes. Heck, I made the trip from St. Louis to Indianapolis for GenCon solo, just to have a chance at buying Grayle the Farstrider early and see what it was about. I guess, coming back from my internship in that place, I took for granted how nice it was to have multiple stores less than 30 min away each, all with their own events and bigger events within driving distance as well.

Anyways, to more interesting stuff. Check out my badges for the league!

I got the 4th rank of Chevron.

I was also going to win the Destroyer award due to others who were higher winning the other patches, but the organizer enacted a small change. I was in the lead by 1 point to the next player, but we decided to play it off and see who would take it home. 

Unfortunately no pictures. Do not ask me why I did not take any, because it was two painted armies fighting each other and looked epic! Anyways, I used Maelok and my opponent used eGoreShade. Long story short, Gatormen Posse really are a great unit, more so when they become Undead and refuse to give up souls or create bane thralls . Ha! That is how I feel when I play you Cryx! It was deeply satisfying. So the Gatormen Posse tore through my opponent's Bane thrall unit twice, due to eGoreshade's feat and thanks to failing all but 3 tough checks, it was not much of a problem. Two initials, one with reach is crazy. I now know and accept that Tharn Ravagers and Warpborn Skinwalkers suck, compared to the package that Gatormen Posse are. 

Unfortunately, I lost that game due to a last ditch effort of my opponent. He charged Maelok (2 fury camped) with 7 focus and Nyssor's Sword tore Maelok apart. Ouch. I believe the charge to have been slightly quirky, but for the sake of keeping the game going (it was late and I needed to leave) I let it pass and did not try to challenge the play (like in football). It was a great game anyways, and shows yet again that even if you have the game in bag, it can quickly get taken out once again!

I still need to practice with Gators and the use of their beasts, cuase they don't do much compared to my heavy lifters - Gatormen Posse. 

Finally, the other highlight of Sunday was the game before the Cryx one, where I, using Maelok, faced off against eMakeada. During the game, I was able to eat Molik Karn with 5 fury, guzzled it all down with Spirit Eater and took his soul to boot! I love doing that with Maelok is one of the reasons I play him and like him the best out of the Gators warlock selection. In case you were wondering, I won that game, when Molik Karn failed to kill Maelok camped with 4 fury, and turn after that Makeda failed a charge on Maelok due to lack of reach (we played it out anyways but it turned out dice were against my opponent and failed to due much against Maelok anyways). 

Gators were fun, but back to my most favorite of all factions!!!! Circle Orboros!!!!!

4 Gallows Groves and a unit of Shifting Stones

This has been a long post, I will make another later to talk about paints that are incoming from GW:

Suffice to say: I REALLY WANT THIS!