Bushido GCT Tournament - Smogcon 2014 Part 1

Last month saw me attend Smogcon 2014 in Guildford. Smogcon is a 3 day event usually dedicated to Warmachine and Hordes tournaments and events but this year they had expanded, moving to a new venue and hosting Dropzone Commander by Hawk Wargames and Bushido by GCT.

I arrived early on the Sunday morning all ready to participate in GCT's first Grand Master Bushido Tournament. For this event I took my newly painted up Ito faction. These are a lovely faction Half Snake, Half Samurai/Ashigaru with some nastly tricks including being able to spread poison about.

I have never used Ito in any game/demo/ or tournament before so it would be a huge learning curve, but I enjoy competing with new forces and testing myself.

The tournament consited of four games, each with a different scenario and this report will cover the first two games.

My Ito force consited of:

 

Masunagi Ito (Samurai beatstick)

Kaihime Ito (Half Snake Archer)

Kenzo Ito (Half Snake Samurai)

Naoko (Snake Monster that can blind people)

Takeji (Ashigaru fighter)

Sakura (Priestess that channels Ki)

Game 1. vs Dominic Westerland (Savage Wave) Scenario - Seigyo (Idols)

Both sides set up on baseline depolyment and my Ito gained the initiative. I started by running my characters towards the Idols. The Savage Wave countered with their Oni and Nian on their right flank with the Cave Bat waiting to swoop in on their left. Kaihime and Naoko both attack and poison the Oni.

The Cave Bat enters right in the corner behind the Ito lines but Sakura lets rip with Psychic Venom and poisons it. Kenzo and Masunagi use Lightning Reflexes and Martial Prowess to defeat and destroy the two Oni Zuba and Bobata.

Tra-Peng the Bakemono tries to net Kenzo but comletely misses. The Ito manage to turn Idols to their advantage.

The Cave Bat is poisoned again and then dies from a charge by Takeji. Tra-Peng is shot by Kaihime and killed. The Nian retreats away from the dominating Ito. Another Idol is turned.

The Ito are in full control now and all three Idols have been turned to their advantage. The Nian leaps and tries to pick of Naoko but the Snake Demon survives the attack.

Naoko is locked in combat with the Nian and with some bad rolls both characters end up at a standstill.

After 6 turns the Ito control every Idol and the Nian manages to disengage and slink away to find a new Oni master.

Ito WIN 3-0 in Victory Points.

Game 2. vs Oskar Jansson (Ito) Scenario - Ichio Reitan (Zone Control with Very Important Model VIM)

This game was against Oskar, a very good player from Sweden who had, had great success with his Ito all weekend (the tournament was on the sunday but the rest of teh weekend had been set up as a campaign and Oskar had pretty much run away with that)

Naturally I was a bit nervous as he was experience with Ito where as I had only played one game with them. We pretty much had a similar force but he had a Jade Mamba Guard where I had the Preistess.

The Scenario dictated that we had to choose a VIM, and we both chose Kenzo. You got 1 Victory Point at the end of the game if your VIM was closer to the opposing baseline than your opponents. VP's were also scored for controling the zones on the board.

Deployment again was baseline and Oskar won initative. In fact he won initiative every turn, we only played 3 turns though as we ran out of time (this was a very tense game)

The game began with each character basically mirroring each other vying for control and the best advantage. Boths sides then knew they would have to commit and both mine and Oskars Naoko were throwing out poison and blind counters on opposing characters.

I gained the upper hand and managed to take out Oskars Naoko but in the resulting melee's my Masunagi had become seriously wounded and poisoned and died at the end of the turn.

Turn 3 saw a flurry of action with my Kenzo finishing of Oskars. So Oskar had lost his VIM, as long as my Kenzo survived I would be guaranteed at least 1 VP. The opposing Kaihime's end up in a shooting dual and Oskars Jade Mamba Ashigaru manages to push away my Kaihime but she still remained in part of the control zone.

Sakura moves up into the control zone just as time is called. After judging the contols zones it was found that they were drawn so as my Kenzo had survived I had won the scenario (just)

Ito WIN 1-0 in Victory Points.

Part 2 soon.