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This past weekend February 3rd-5th I attended Captaincon 2017 in Warwick, Rhode Island. We had a record showing of players from Clockwork come this year. 8 of us showed up. My friends Andrew, Epic, Case, Sean, Matt, Scott, Dan, and I were all there for at least one day. There was much hilarity throughout the weekend with highlights including

Playing in the team tournament for the first time with my Clockwork brethren

Many acapella "performances" of "The Breaking of the Fellowship" from Lord of the Rings (don't ask)

Board games galore with "Rum and Bones" being the game of the weekend where drinking, petty fighting and shit talking ran rampant.

Sean repeatedly and randomly blowing his vuvuzela incessantly

Winning the Monster/Vehicle category of the painting contest

Things got started with he Standard Issue Tournament on Friday morning. My two list pairing consisted of Lylyth 1 and Fyanna. Here are my lists. This is my sheet from the team tournament but it's the same lists.

First round was against Ben Adams from CT playing Cygnar. The matchup was Lylyth vs Haley 3 and the scenario was The Pit. Despite a frustrating start popping feat to kill a whole unit of storm lances but leaving one alive due to a couple double 1s, I pulled out a scenario win in the end.

Second round I played I guy name Brook I think playing Cryx. The matchup was Fyanna vs Asphyxious 3. He was running an armor skew with the Kraken, a couple other jacks, and Satyxis. This was a close game but due to a positioning error on my part I ended up losing the atrittion game and ultimately to scenario. Looking back on it I absolutely should have dropped Lylyth as I could have sniped out trouble pieces like Darragh Wrathe and Typhon with help from Parasite can one round the Kraken. As it stood in the end I just had no way to deal with the Kraken.

Third round was against Sean playing Trollbloods. The matchup was Gunnbjorn vs Lylyth. I derped during the list selection and failed to read Gunnbjorn's feat. Yeah, that whole can't be damaged by ranged attacks is a thing. Regardless, I weathered his feat turn and an ill fated assassination attempt on Lylyth to counter assassinate for a win.

Went 2-1 for the day

Board games were the flavor of the evenings at Captaincon. Friday night saw Case, Sean, Epic, and myself hit up the board game room and learn to play "Rum & Bones". Teams were Sean and I versus Epic and Case. Much fun and shit talk was had until 2 or so a.m. before I headed to bed

Saturday was the Team Tournament and Case and Matt were my team mates. My lists are the same as above and my two team mates list's can be seen below. We had Case playing Circle with Krueger 2 and Baldur 2 while Matt brought Khador with Strakov and Irusk 2.

Round 1 we matched up against players we knew from CT Tucker, Brooks, and Ben. Matchups were,

Brian vs Tucker (Lylyth vs Elara)

Matt vs Brooks (Strakov? vs Thyra)

Case vs Ben (Krueger 2 vs Lylyth 3)

Scenario: The Pit

My game was tough and very close. Tucker is a good player and had the upper hand after a few rounds. Elara had just moved to dominate her flag and score camping 3. I had already used the feat but I thought now was my best shot at an assassination. I was able to get Lylyth on to Elara hitting one of her two shots needing 9s. Parasite was cast onto Elara. I got two archer shots both missing. Typhon casts his animus and takes a free strike from a griffon engaging him. He hits two out of his 3 sprays needing 11s. At dice plus 2 on damage finishes Elara for the win.

Both Case and Matt's games were very close. Case was able to defeat Ben by deathclock which allowed us to move to the next round.

Round 2: This round I can't remember all the matchups. Pretty sure the scenario was Take and Hold.

Brian vs Michael (Lylyth vs Witch Coven)

Matt vs Nate (Irusk 2 vs ?)

Case vs Rob (Krueger 2 vs ?)

Scenario: Take and Hold ?

I played a guy named Michael playing Cryx. The matchup was Lylyth 1 vs The Witch Coven. This was a tough game and again super close. My opponent jammed me hard and feated making it a nightmare for me to position with his feat up. I was forced to take one free strike with Typhon from a Satyxis that of course resulted in a crit knockdown. That was a big set back but I was able to manufacture some other quality activations with careful positioning and mostly unjam my force, sandpaper off his front lines, and use my archers to counter jam to screen my beasts from banes, The following turn saw him working through most of my archers and continue to jam me up. I feat on my following turn and kill nearly all his Satyxis and Banes. I felt the game was mine to win. He had some hot dice his next turn and was lucky to kill Typhon. He moved up one of the witches to camp his flag for the first score of the game. Losing Typhon was unexpected and a tough blow but I still had plenty of pieces on the board. Between Lylyth and some of my other beasts left I kill his arc node and the remaining infantry. Lylyth moves up to dominate the flag while my Seraph runs to contest his. However, I made what would be a critical mistake by allowing Barathrum to counter charge my Succubus as I moved it up to place a cloud on Lylyth. I had no idea the model had counter charge. This allowed his heavy to get on to Lylyth next turn and assassinate. That was a tough loss to swallow, losing on a gotcha.

Matt lost his matchup though Case pulled out a win in his.

Round 3: So, we were already out of the running to win it but wanted at the very least to play one more round. We matched up against Jake Van Meter's team.
Brian vs Jake (Fyanna vs Twins)
Matt vs Brian (Strakov vs ?)
Case vs Zosia (Baldur 2 vs Sloan)
Scenario: Incursion

So, Jake is one of the best players in the world and I was super stoked to have the opportunity to play him. Worst case scenario is I get to see a truly great player pilot my own faction and try to learn a thing or two. Turns out we had areally great game that came right down to it.
Incursion is a really live scenario. He won the die roll and decided to go first. I was okay with this since it would give me the opportunity to score first as well as "bury my Hellmouth 3" into a forest to make it tough for him to kill it. First couple turns we mostly danced around each other's threat ranges while his deathstalkers and Annyssa killed most of my swordsmen. He setup most of his force behind a central wall contesting the central flag while sending grotesque assassin solos and deathstalkers to contest the outer flags. One of the critical turns was my second turn where Zuriel missed a boosted 8 quickwork spray to kill the only model contesting one of the outside flags. This would have allowed me to score 2 points instead of just the 1 I ended up getting. He continues to kill off the rest of my swordsmen and puts some damage into Zuriel with a big spike from a Naga shot. My next turn I clear off both outside flags.I commit Proteus with Fury on him charging at his Zuriel, kill Annyssa whose contesting one of the outside flags with his 4" melee and put the rest of my attacks into Zuriel. Due to some less then stellar dice I leave Zuriel alive even at dice +2 on damage. My Neraph charges into his Seraph but again leaves it also on a couple boxes. I manage to score two more and it's 3-0. However, Jake comes back with a vengeance. He brings in Rhyas and flashing blade on the Neraph and Proteus. He crits twice on Proteus, rolling 6,6,5 for one of the damage rolls. Needless to say he kills both of my heavies in the center as well as Zuriel on one of the outside flags with Snapjaw. My following turn I send in my two Warlords to kill Zuriel and dominate one of the flags to go to 4-0. Jake is able to kill my last beast and get to Fyanna with Rhyas to end the game there.

It was a cool experience to play against someone who is a well known great player. It gave me some confidence about my own game. However, I can't say I really picked up anything from playing Jake. My really only really commentary or observation would be that there really isn't much seperating players like him (world competing players) and players like me (solid intermediate). The difference is in consistency I think. This game can be extremely unforgivable. One little mistake can cost you the game. Players that win big events like these time and again are extremely consistent players that make very few mistakes.

Case had a bit of a gotcha moment and lost his game early. Matt was able to pull out a win in the third round. After the round we collectively decided to drop, get some dinner, and then reconvene. We ended at 1-2 as a team. I was really proud of our team and I think overall we played some really strong games.

Saturday night saw a return to the board game room and Rum and Bones was once again the order of business. Before things kicked off Sean, Case, and I got things started off right with a trip to the package store for a couple cases of Stella. We played two games of Rum and Bones, the first with the four of us again (Sean, Case, Epic, Me). Then a second game that brought in Matt and Scott. That game was consdierably..... louder with more empty Stella bottles piling up. Somewhere in there we took a break for the announcement of the painting contest winners. I was super happy to pick up first place for my Blightbringer entry and Scott picked up a 1st place for his diorama category entry.

Scott and Matt took their leave sometime in there and the four of us left started playing Gears of War the board game (Well really it was just the three of us since Epic was passsing out head down on the table by then). We got our asses kicked and then I retired for the evening somewhere around 2 or 230 I think. Case and Sean though being the diehards they are soldiered through the night playing two more games of Gears of War among other things.

Sunday morning I met up with Case and Sean just as they were finishing up their last game of GOW. Everyone was pretty tired but I got a couple more casual games of Warmachine in as well as a demo for the gladiator miniature game Arena Rex. Watched a little bit of the Warmachine Masters final rounds and then headed home.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend with some great guys to spend it with.