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Okay, so this year was fun. I played in 4 events, the Thursday Night Classic, Uniques Only, Main Event, and the Take 2 CoB C3V/SoV tourney.
Thursday Night Classic:
I built the army like the day before I left for Gencon and because of this I forgot to tell W099 to bring stuff I could borrow. The original army was Marro Drones x5, Kaemon, Eltahale, Heirloom/Raelin. But I forgot to tell W099 to bring Eltahale and 2 squads of Drones. Luckily, lefton4ya was able to loan me some Drones and I decided to just go with Ana Karithon, Heirloom, and Eldgrim (drop a figure) to go with Awa and the Drones. I just wanted to see what would happen with it and it had all sorts of fun things it could do.
Round 1
infectedsloth (Ornak, Brunak, Mind Flayer, Blade Gruts x2, Nerak, Raelin (RotV), Marcu, Isamu, MBS) on Vestige
This army was quite the hodgepodge and I felt pretty good with my army against it and so selected mine. He removed Ana and then I removed Eldgrim and he let me play me with my army. These drones were faulty as they got to move more than 3 one time the entire game. There was some definite jockeying for position early on around the move glyph and he gummed up the area pretty quickly with his heroes and blades. Before I had even gotten a chance to bring my heroes out, we had time called and he was way ahead of me on points. It was an interesting build and had we played the game to completion I think Awa and Heirloom could've made it very interesting. It was a very clever build from infectedsloth and definitely looked much weaker than it was. I'm pretty sure he took it to win the whole event.
Round 2
Mr. Chompy (TKN, SBN, Krav Maga Agents, Nagrubs x4) on Wendigo
I already knew Wendigo was a rough map in general. Without the Krav I felt very confident in being able to beat Mr. Chompy but I felt I could do it even with the Krav. He took his build and I took mine. I don't remember much of the details of the game but he took unique attack early with his Krav while I rushed drones up the mountain. They actually managed to kill a couple Krav but not without many of them dying and again rolling really crappy on activations. 6 move Kaemon Awa (Eldgrim) did a lot of work killing the hivelords and the map was not kind to them. I forget all the details but I know that when I had drones and/or Kaemon on the bridge raining down fire. Afterwards, Mr. Chompy told me I was the first person besides himself to beat that build of his. It was a solid build and he told me he was taking it to Main the next day.
Round 3
Mr. Chompy's son (Airborne Elite, Romans x2, Marcus, NGS, James Murphy, Hydra) on Vestige
I...really did not like facing Airborne and so grabbed his army. He dropped his Airborne and I happily took my army. This game drones actually did much better on activations as I hit multiple 9 drone activations. I grabbed the move glyph (I think that was what glyph it was) and started single engaging the Hydra to minimize Hydra damage. Murphy took a couple tries to kill the guy on the glyph and then everything started going downhill as I massacred his Hydra, dropped Murphy down to one life, and killed most of the Romans (after failing to inflict any damage much earlier). And then just as quickly, EVERYTHING that could go wrong did. Murphy disengaged, lived, and blasted Heirloom, Ana, and Kaemon sitting in a pod putting two wounds on Kaemon and Ana and one on Heirloom. I failed 3 tries to heal Kaemon and all my attacks before NGS punched him and Ana in the face and mindshackled Heirloom. It was hilarious and he said that he should not have won that game. Sometimes, that's just the way things go. I arguably should've sent Kaemon off to start dancing around and just spewing his range everywhere instead of sticking around for the heal but I felt it was reasonable to try for 2 tries at it. Oh well.
Final record
1-2
Uniques Only
MegaSilver gave me his ticket and I waffled on whether or not I was going to play before deciding the day of to. I was contemplating entering the HoB tournament with Ashra x5, Awa, Raelin but decided I'd have more fun in the uniques only tournament. I was going to run Raelin, Hydra, Krav, Heirloom but then remembered uncommons didn't count so the day of I swapped out Hydra for Awa and then decided to add in Marro Warriors and MBS instead of Heirloom (since I already had a special, MW are good, and MBS could be good Krav tech).
Round 1
The Orange Mailman (Zettian Guards, Elite Onyx Vipers, Izumi Samurai, Krav Maga Agents, Tarn Viking Warriors, Marcu Esenwein) on Wendigo
Oh Wendigo. Trust me I'll be saying that again. I led with Raelin and MBS trying to snipe his Krav and I managed to do pretty well at getting rid of them. I ended up engaging his Krav with my own Krav to take them out as well. Krav managed to maintain control and take out two of the EoV and all the Tarns but the Zettian Guards actually managed to eliminate everything that wasn't Marro Warriors thanks to an EoV sitting on Dagmar and occupying the bridge. Marros did manage to kill the last EoV. I probably threw 20 attacks at those Zettians and they just wouldn't die. (One finally died on the penultimate attack) Time got called and he was up 130 to 50 (Zettians+Izumi vs. 3 Marro Warriors).
Round 2
vminer (Krav Maga Agents, Syvarris, Krug, Izumi Samurai, Marcu Esenwein) on Vestige
He was sitting right next to mine and TOM's game and he was not happy to play my army but he was a great sport about it the whole game. I once again led with Raelin and MBS setting up on one of the hills and managed to paralyze one of his Krav and set up a good blocking but Syvarris managed to kill the marro. By this time I'd moved onto Kaemon who managed to finish off the elf and I set him up on height in Raelin's aura. I then moved to Krav just as Krug was coming into play. Normally I'd save Krug for last and run around peppering him with regenerating Marro Warriors but counter strike decided against that. His first attack on Kaemon landed a wound on Krug but the second attack put on three. My next order marker was on Krav who got height and ended it exactly as you expect. They then cleaned up the leftovers.
Round 3
Alexander (Braxas, Raelin, Izumi Samurai, Marro Warriors) on Wendigo
Still had only played on two maps thus far. Alexander was the kid running around in the Spiderman outfit and I don't know if he has a user name on here. I saw Braxas and I was not enthused. Raelin and Kaemon led out to try and kill his Braxas and Kaemon managed 4 wounds before dying. Braxas managed to spit a Krav when they tried to finish her off (missing one of the Krav really helped me). I ran the Krav off to pepper Braxas while she was engaged with MBS and managed to finish her off. His Izumi Samurai had been wailing on Raelin as well (his OMs were pretty spread out and even Raelin had come down and attacked MBS a couple times). His marro managed to catch one of my Krav running up to take the bridge on a whiff but I managed to kill more of his marro with my own and they managed to finish off all the remaining units.
Round 4
Xorlof (Major Q9, Laglor, Krav Maga Agents) on Quasatch Playground
A new map! Pretty sure this was the only time I played on this map at Gencon. I like it. Before sitting down, Xorlof said I was going to beat him. I... was less confident as Q9 can live forever. I charged MBS and managed to kill a Krav when it whiffed on his attack. I then retreated and put him on the high ground in Raelin's aura. I then set up the Krav behind MBS. Xorlof and I traded blows with me shooting 3 attacks of 4 and him shooting 9 attacks of 1. I managed to pull it off and then Krav managed to kill the other Krav one by engagement the other by getting another whiff. Kaemon then finished off Laglor easily.
Final record
3-1
Take 2 CoB C3V/SoV
This was another army set I came up with the day before I left for Gencon. Marrden Hounds x3, Moltenclaw vs. Knights of Weston x2, Finn, Thorgrim, Eldgrim, B-11 Resistance Corps. I also thought it was HoB/CoB not straight CoB which means I probably would've not brought that 2nd army. It ended up not mattering.
Round 1
lefton4ya's friend (Cathar Spearmen x3, Raymond, Raelin 2.0 vs. another army that I don't remember right now) on Burial Marsh
I saw Cathars and grabbed them. Cathars are good. He grabbed the knight build. As I don't think he quite understood what was going on he put Cathar on some of the higher ground while I put B-11 underneath those Cathar and dropped each squad of knights on opposite ends of the board and tossed Thorgrim and Finn in the corners. It was a massacre. I killed all the B-11s in two turns. While all the figures managed to hold out decently well thanks to 4 defense (even Eldgrim survived for a while) my 4 defense held out better.(5 sometimes because Rae was in a decent enough spot for some of the Cathar) He only managed to kill 2 Cathar before I had destroyed his entire army.
Round 2
dok (Varkanaan Darkclaws, Varkanaan Swiftfangs, Varkanaan Greyspears, Varkanaan Quickblades, Marcu, Otonashi vs. Hoplitrons x3, Major J15, 10th x3) on Vestige
I was 0-10 in all my games against dok going into this. He said he was tired and felt like it was a suboptimal decision but he took the 10th because he'd played Varks the last game. I took Varks. He dropped my Darkclaws and Greyspears on the water in the middle of the map and the Swiftfangs and Quickblades on the opposite end of the map from where I was setting up all his 10th. I also placed all the Hoplitrons in water and plopped J15 behind the 10th. I won initiative and Darkclaws began massacring. Everything went my way including a single Darkclaw surviving 4 attacks so that I could get in some attacks with Greyspears instead of a lost Order Marker. I didn't ever feel really in control until a Quickblade managed to kill J15 with its special attack the first time it ever attacked him. The game pretty well steamrolled into my first loss. dok didn't want to detract from my win but he was definitely burnt out. Seems about right for what feels like the 4th law of Thermodynamics (dok beats Dysole when they play a game).
Round 3
Big Boa (Ebon Armor, Tagawa Samurai, Izumi Samurai, Tomoe Gozen, Marcu vs. Calibrax, Rygarn, Siiv, 20th Maine x3) on Wendigo
He grabbed the Ebon and I saw this map was amazing for Calibrax and so grabbed that. I dropped his army pretty much on one side of the map and he dropped Rygarn and Siiv among them and the 20th and Calbirax on the other side. I led with Calibrax and managed to kill Tomoe and a samurai from each squad before getting boxed in by Ebon. I decided to try and kill them but failed and died horribly. My attempts to gain some kind of ground failed and Ebon finished off the 20th (with Marcu finishing off the last one). In hindsight I should've led with the 20th and tried to claim the hill before moving to Calibrax. Oh well. Still got a Bramcephys and some cards for figures I have/want.
Final Record
2-1
Main Event
I wanted to try a Sudema build and toyed with Sudema, a mess of rats, Taelord, and Krav. Krav and rats would be pretty brutal to hand someone on day 2 though. I don't even know how I stumbled on Deathstalkers but somehow I did while my MacDirk build was not working out for me in Gencon prep. After some brainstorming, Krav and Raelin seemed like the best option for ranged support and Marcu was good glyph grabbing/wound insurance. After some playtesting with kevindola, I liked how it played and decided it was the way to go. I was also the only entrant who needed to borrow hexes so that was special. ^_^
Round 1
Alexander (Ulginesh, Arkmer, Emirroon, Jorhdawn, Chardris, Acolarh) on Fire Isles
Different Alexander then the Uniques tournament. If he had a user name on Scapers I didn't get it. I felt decently okay going into this because Krav although the small map did worry me some. I decided to lead with Stalkers only to watch them just get OWNED and Chardris one shot Raelin. I managed to put a few wounds on various elves losing almost all my stalkers before deciding to switch to Krav. They managed to kill Ulginesh in one turn giving me a free round where I killed Acolarh and put a lot of wounds on the the other elves. He was never able to catch the remaining Krav and the elf pod fell apart very quickly even though Emirroon teleporting people around and Arkmer nabbing Kelda did worry me for a bit.
Round 2
Mr. Chompy (TKN, SBN, Krav Maga Agents, Nagrubs x4) on Wendigo
Yeah. You read that right. I played him again. Same army. Same map (literally). Same round. This time I had things which were able to catch Krav much quicker than Drones but he still managed to kill a fair number of Stalkers especially once he had unique attack but I managed to kill one of them including at least one maul. SBN managed to come over and kill Raelin but then died to Krav. TKN managed to kill a Krav but the Krav managed to finish him off. The map really hurt TKN and SBN as they just couldn't keep up with the ping ponging Krav. Mr. Chompy was a good sport about all of it and reminded me why I have enjoyed every game I've played with him (4 at Gencons. He beat me twice last year and I beat him twice this year).
Round 3
WOOKIE (10th x2, Roman Legionnaires x2, Marcus, Raelin, Sgt. Drake Alexander) on Fire Isles
I was worried about this army as Drake could be problematic for the Krav but fortunately WOOKIE decided to pod up with 10th and Romans. When I saw this I grabbed the move glyph with a Stalker and set up a pod in Raelin's aura with Krav surrounded by Stalkers. I managed to be able to snipe most of the team this way (it got much easier after Raelin died) although when he did finally manage to push his last few romans through a Krav got trapped on lava and died. Drake came out as the last couple Romans were dying and got surrounded by Stalkers. I managed to get two mauls on Drake, one coming when he had 1 life (no kill like overkill).
Round 4
vegietarian18 (Ulginesh, Raelin (RotV), Morsbane, Jorhdawn, Chardris, Kyntella Gwyn, Arkmer) on Flash Fire
vegie and I had talked briefly the day before about Gencon armies and I had a sneaking suspicion he was bringing elves + Raelin after we talked. I want to say I realized during Gencon Prep I realized someone could run that and it seemed like a fine army to me. I know I was much more worried about this army than the first elf pod because Raelin + Morsbane could negate Krav plus I know vegie is a solid player. I joked to him before we started that since I felt I was going to lose my other games but won and felt like I was going to win this game that I was probably going to lose. We proceeded to play a very solid game with me leading with Stalkers to try and kill Morsbane (and/or whatever other elves they could get) and them getting shredded (you think I'd've learned my lesson). I made some poor placements that I regretted almost immediately as soon as he took his turn and was able to torch multiple Stalkers with Jorhdawn. Things started swinging back in my favor once Krav came out (I think I took too long to switch over) and Morsbane died without negating Krav. vegie managed to suicide a couple elves to kill the Krav (one of which I stupidly moved out of Raelin's aura). I managed to kill Arkmer and Jorhdawn (I think with Krav) and Stalkers managed to finish off Chardris with a maul, kill Kyntella, put three wounds on Ulginesh and Raelin. Last round got called. On my last order marker I tried to finish off Ulginesh with a 4 attack Raelin down but he blocked it. vegie then made a classy move by just claiming the win on his last turn instead of going to try and kill the Stalker. I pointed out he could and he said that since he was in, he didn't feel like potentially screwing me over with that. I appreciated that but I would end up not needing it.
Round 5
TurkeyClubSammich (Ornak, Hydra x4, Marcu) on Wendigo
I was really, really, really, really, really, really hoping I didn't draw him. I did not like the idea of having to face 4 Hydras. I thought the game would be a blowout. I was right but in the wrong way. I put a useless Order Marker on Marcu which after I realized I couldn't grab a glyph I just put on the bridge to block it off from potential Hydras. It managed to stave off the Hydras long enough for my Krav to cover the 3 spaces on the middle of the bridge forcing Hydras to attack them from range. Krav then proceed to own. I never whiffed a stealth dodge and they managed to knock all the Hydras down to 2 life REALLY quickly. Marcu came off of unique attack and managed to kill a Krav but I was still able to hold the bridge (especially thanks to a timely whiff from Marcu). At one point, with one Hydra dead and 3 with one wound each, I felt decently confident Raelin backed Stalkers could finish the game but I decided it was better for me to go until the Krav were done. They managed to kill everything and nothing else got an Order Marker the entire game and I only lost a squad of Stalkers and Marcu. I felt a little bad for TurkeyClubSammich as he was very right that this map was a major component of my victory. He did end up making Day 2 so it wasn't super bad.
If someone had told me I'd go 4-1 (and very nearly win my loss) with this build I wouldn't've believed them but it happened. I felt I played well and was happy to make day 2 with another "crappy unit" (after making it with Harqs last year)
I saw this matchup and thought "I will need dice to hate me to lose". A couple order markers into the game vegies dad (I think) pointed out that Maul gets around Exoskeleton. That worried me slightly but Maul was still only one out of every 8 attacks. I started to get worried when Stalkers were not dying. I let a couple Mezzos die without burning any exoskeletons and I had Kaemon running around trying to kill things. He set up Raelin on a nice perch. I managed to engage her and one of the Krav and failed to kill it with Quick Release but he managed to survive despite one life especially once Raelin came up to give him some extra defense. I brought forward 4 Mezzos and used them to slowly advance up the nearby hill killing any Stalkers and engaging another Krav. Eventually he got desperate and used one of his Krav to shoot adjacent Kaemon and got counterstruck while the other engaged Krav died to an attack. I held the last Krav in place with 2 Mezzos while two others finished off Raelin. Mezzos managed to finish off the Stalkers and Marcu.
I felt decently good about this matchup. I led with Zetacron and managed to kill a Stalker before dying. Eltahale came up next and she managed to kill multiple stalkers and put 4 wounds on Raelin. Meanwhile, Q10 died in 2 hits (might've been 3) to a Stalker that had made its way to my start zone. I triple disengaged with Eltahale to thunder ram 3 Krav outside of the aura (2 adjacent one not). It killed two of them but Eltahale died when I tried to Thunder Step and unsuccessfully the last Krav. I.S.B.3 then moved Raelin back behind Stalkers and I realized my mistake in leaving her alive. Even though I used my remaining 15 cutters to try and eliminate the Stalkers podded around Raelin, I would need really good dice and I did not get it only managing to kill about 2 or 3 Stalkers before I.S.B.3 finished me off. Excellently played by him. If I go for Raelin instead I'm not sure if I win but it is not the practical auto loss it is.
I'm not sure if I would go on to beat Cleon as it would depend on the map and Krav could easily assassinate Alastair. I'd feel decent against Nicktheant depending on the map. So could I have gone farther if I'd killed Raelin and pulled off the win? Not sure, but it's not impossible. Still making top 8 with my Deathstalker build and two consecutive Gencon Day 2s made me feel pretty good. We'll have to see if I can bring something else off the wall next year and do it again.
~Dysole, who has no idea how much of this she remembered correctly
I did play in an Oregon event so I really should have put that here but oh well, I can just keep doing this every year. 5 events this year. Flex, Bring 2, dok's Reverse Draft event, Cluster, and the Main. It was a VERY good year.
Flex
I initially wasn't going to enter the flex tourney but fomox said I could enter stupid late (I think I got in at like 12:30) so I decided to after wandering the con for a couple hours looking for puzzles (because I do the Puzzlehunt every year and have solved it the past two years including pretty much right at the buzzer this year). I built the army in 30 seconds from figures I literally threw into my box for funsies (well and one figure I considered using in main). Marrden Hounds x3, Minions x2, Sgt. Drake (RotV). It was a space over but all of my opponents didn't care. It was a kooky weird army and I liked how it played.
R1 vs Mr. Chompy on Remains of Clionesia (Romans x3, Marcus, Airborne Elite, Captain America)
Mr. Chompy is always an absolute delight to play against and I always look forward to a match against him. This one was decidedly not a good matchup for me but I felt that if I got some good dice and some good plagues I could have a shot. Unfortunately for me, Airborne dropped Round 1 and killed two Minions and a couple Hounds. I managed to start fighting back and even ran some Hounds down into the start zone but the Airborne had taken out enough that Cap was able to just shoot with impunity (and I kept losing figures to whiffs with 5 or 6 dice). I think the game ended with me killing a little over a squad of Romans and the AE and about 3 wounds on Cap. (Drake tried his best but Cap destroyed him)
R2 vs WOOKIE on Highways and Dieways (Thanos, Red x1, Black x7)
I didn't count the Wyrms but that fits points. Thanos came out running and I led with Minions. I lost probably about two Minions before Deadly Strike killed Thanos for the first time. Now well aware that blacks love Minions and that I would need those Minions when Thanos inevitably returned from the grave to murderate me, I decided to switch to Hounds and that's where my markers stayed. I kept blasting into his start zone. Once I killed the red I felt a lot better about their staying power. Thanos returned and got tied up by Hounds while other Hounds were busy giving unvaccinated baby dragons the plague. Thanos actually died to Hounds between 3 plague wounds and a 3 skull roll that he whiffed on. Still first win of Gencon.
R3 vs Major Minion? on Platypus (Taelord, Hydra, Zettians, 8K, Ornak)
He said that if he was on the forums that was the name he would use but I didn't check to see if that's an actual user. Anyway, I knew that the Hydra was the one thing I needed to be worried about. And then a Minion killed it in one hit. The game quickly spiraled out of control for him as there was too much to kill and Minions were doing a good job of killing all of it.
R4 vs Sir Dendrik on Elswin Plateau (Nilfheim, Mezzos x5, Marro Warriors)
I actually had never met him in person but we had done a lot of chatting on the Summoner Wars forums when Ranior suckered me into playing their version of CoN. I kinda knew this matchup was going to suck unless I got a lot of plagues. I managed to be pretty cloggy and kill a lot of exos but I basically hit the first two plagues and then none after that and he eventually broke through. Mezzos murderated everything.
Final record 2-2
Bring 2
After a Bring 2 event where I brought Glad/Blast to fight Quasatch and Raelin, I decided to try another idea with good army and army designed to be really good against it. I also really wanted to play Gorillas. I don't own any but dok was a kind soul and let me borrow his three squads since W099 was running with his Gorillas in 4x400. I decided on Gorillas x3, Nakitas, Marro Warriors vs. 10th x4, Marcus since 2 attack (3 with Marcus but you're letting gorillas beat you even faster to the high ground) is going to have a really tough time busting through auto shields and the 10th without Raelin die really hard to range.
R1 vs Mr. Chompy's son on Elswin Plateau (Hydra x2, Raelin, Moriko and Iron Golem x2, one of the ninjas and Kaemon?)
I don't remember his second army but I immediately knew I didn't want to play it against anything else in the pool. He deferred choice to me and I knew that if I grabbed 10th I could be facing Gorillas which did not appeal to me. However I also knew that Hydras were really good. I grabbed the Hydras and he grabbed 10th. I intended to rush up the hill and nom on lots of 10th but he ignored the hill and set up on the low ground. I was finally forced to come to him and murderated a lot of 10th but also ended up whiffing more than I should have (and also probably didn't make the best Hydra placements). It was a very clever move to set up there and I think it won him the game since fighting me for height would have caused him to lose.
R2 vs AnubianWolf88 on Zephyr (I literally do not remember his armies but I think one had Cyprien and the other had Anubians)
He won the diceoff and took the 10th. I responded with Gorillas. It was sad. He barely ever rolled more than 1 skull and I hit a lot of smoke powder. The game quickly became inevitable. I think he killed like 1 gorilla and a Nakita by the time it was done. I was now afraid I'd done my job of army trapping too well.
R3 vs Sir Dendrik on Remains of Clionesia (Gorillas x3, Sgt. Drake (SotM) and Stingers x4, SBN)
We both hilariously had the same idea. Nakitas are good but Drake literally can't be attacked from range so I felt that was the stronger army given that every army had range. He won the diceoff and took it. From the remaining armies, Stingers had the most defense, the highest attack, and a SBN. I took them. I lost plenty of Stingers in the early going but I was also killing plenty of Gorillas. I finally turned to SBN when we both had only a handful of units and SBN managed to kill Drake with a combination of first attack and better dice. 7 attack is good.
Final record 2-1
Reverse Draft
I decided to fiddle around with another army base I'd considered for the Main just to see how it played. Granites. I didn't like going more or less than x3 so I went Granites x3, 10th x2 figuring actual range would be a good idea.
R1 vs Mr. Chompy on Highways and Dieways (Blades x3, Grimnak, Ornak, Tornak)
I did not like the idea of having to fight Grimnak and we both knew his army which could just destroy expensive Granites was going to get bid down. His final bid dropped it to two squads. I took the opportunity. I set up basically making it painful to kill more than one granite per turn. Grimnak did a great job of killing more than one but due to my blocking it became very hard for any of the Blades to and attacks of 4 or 5 were very good. I finally managed to kill Grimnak with some wait then fire attack from my 10th who managed to clean up the rest of the army which couldn't kill them fast enough especially with having to wade through the remaining stragglers. It was pretty much during this game that I knew I would not be playing Granites the next day. I did joke with Mr. Chompy that since we always play twice during Gencon, this would be our last game.
R2 vs vegie's dad on Common Ground (Arrow Gruts x3, Swog Rider x2, Mimring, Raelin)
Well 10th were going to be garbage this game. We bid down his army pretty far with him letting me take it at after dropping a squad of arrows and two swogs (although he did think we were playing online rules at first which are a little more complex and he may have adjusted his strategy). The granites began their assault but with Raelin in the middle on height and Arrows being fast I managed to have board control fairly early on. While I managed to blast through everything decently well with Arrows and then brought up Mimring who basically kited killing off Granites and 10th alike. It was fairly brutal. 10th were as predicted basically garbage. This game sealed that I would not be playing Granites the next day.
R3 vs Major Q23 on Zephyr (Drones x3, Raelin, Alastair, Mezzos x1, Rats x1)
Well this was an assortment of figures. I wasn't sure how I felt about only 3 squads of Drones or Alastair but I understood the army's basic logic. We eliminated the rats and then I felt comfortable fighting this. He rolled really low to start with and I was able to grab the move glyph which meant that I had a really good setup. He kept trying to punch through my dice but I managed to hold off. 10th came in and cleaned up everything while using the granites as blockers.
R4 vs I.S.B.3 on Zephyr (Rats x3, Granites x2, Kaemon)
I laughed pretty hard when I found out the two granite armies made it to the finals. dok asked if we minded finishing up the next day so people could go sleep. We agreed. I mulled it over in my brain over the next day and realized that all my army really had to worry about was Kaemon. If I could get enough 10th to kill Kaemon, it would be really hard for him to win. We finally bid down 5 rats and I was happy to play my army. He led with rats and I somehow beat him to the move glyph. I continued to move Granites up while Kaemon took pot shots. I decided to take the opportunity to move 10th up the side to grab the height and Kaemon continued taking pot shots. Once I had my 10th basically in place I started attacking rats in earnest with the Granites. 4 and 5 attack end up killing them pretty good and it wasn't easy to just move them so I couldn't keep hucking dice at them and I managed to kill pretty much all of them fairly quickly. Kaemon came within striking distance of 10th so I moved them down and managed to get two wounds. He came up and killed a couple 10th but then got wait then fired to death. My last 3 10th and my last 3 Granites on height managed to ward off the approaching granites and only two actually made it to engagement but died to beefy height attacks from my Granites.
Final record 4-0 and dice
Cluster
I played it in kevindola's Classic event. I liked playing rock paper scissors with pods and since I expected cheese and/or Marvel I needed better stuff. So I went with what I brought to Classic but changed the heroes. The PKs x2 pod got Kyntela Gwyn since Marcu made the pod too appetizing. The Stingers x2 pod got Eldgrim since Guilty was redundant and Eldgrim could be a good glyph grabber. The Ashra x2 pod got Sam Brown who was better PK tech than Zetacron.
R1 vs Kolton (no Scape username I'm aware of) on Platypus (Venom// Airborne Elite and Gwyn//Ashra x2, Arkmer)
I figured the AE pod was the only pod I really wanted in his bunch. I deferred after winning diceoff and he grabbed Venom. I knew I needed Stingers then and decided PKs were better than AE since PKs kind of countered both and who knew if Airborne would drop. He grabbed Airborne and I liked Sam Brown better than Arkmer and so went with that. Game started off simple enough. Eldgrim grabbed Valda. And then Stingers started killing Ashra and then Venom couldn't roll any Spider Vanishes and it quickly turned into a slaughter. Airborne never dropped although there were 8 move PKs ready.
R2 vs OrcElfArmyOne (Major Q10//PKs x2, Marcu//Eltahale)
PKs x4 would be really strong here. I deferred and he took Q10 so I had to take the PKs. He responded by grabbing the Ashra. I debated briefly taking Eltahale but realized multiple attacks from range would be better than Eltahale's special attack. Q10 led off and whiffed super quickly to a 3 skull roll from a PK. The game just went downhill from there. Q10 died not too long after and Stingers finished off the Ashra and Eltahale which left PKs for mopup duty.
R3 vs Major Q23 (Kozuke, Izumi//Eldgrim, Knights x1, Arkmer//Air Elementals x3, Zetacron)
With so many anti melee powers in the pool I reasoned Stingers were one of the best decisions. I also did not want the Air Elementals since it was going to be very hard to use them effectively with only one getting to move a turn. I deferred again to Q23 who took the Ashra. I grabbed the stingers and then debated long and hard on whether to grab PKs or the samurai. In the end I reasoned there were not many good cards in the pool for taking out Samurai without risking counterstrike so I took them. Q23 took PKs. I grabbed Knights as they were preferable to the Air pod. I led with Izumi and grabbed the move glyph but I watched as an Ashra killed one from height and I think Zetacron killed another. The remaining Ashra bundled up against Gwyn who had moved forward. I started bringing forth Stingers to try and kill all the things and he brought forward PKs. Stingers managed to kill a decent chunk and not entirely die to a bunch of PKs. I also managed to move up my knights and Kozuke who were able to clear out about a squad of PKs. They also managed to kill the Air Elemental who had moved forward. More trading back and forth (with Eldgrim dying and going on Kozuke) and round gets called right around the time I had my Kozuke murderate Zetacron. Q23 opts not to go for the last Kozuke and instead kills my last two stingers and my last knight. I do some quick math and realize my best shot is to kill Sam Brown. I charge my Kozuke down and put the last 3 wounds on Brown (he had taken a wound to Wannok earlier). Round is over and I have a single Kozuke, a single Izumi, and 1 life Arkmer (ashra was on Wannok so while he had 2 life he was going to have 1) while he has a squad of phantoms, 2 air elementals, a few Ashra and 1 life Kyntela. Due to full card scoring I win 210-200.
R4 vs infectedsloth on Wyrmwalk (Brutes x2//Blue x2, Black x2, Red x1//Finn Thorgrim)
Matthias told me it was mine to lose being the only 3-0 and if I lost, IS and I would diceoff for the dice. I knew I wanted nothing to do with Vikings but could reasonably take anything else. I deferred and he took Wyrms. I took Stingers and PKs. He responded by grabbing Brutes. Knowing that Brutes would suck against Ashra I responded by grabbing them. He took the Vikings. He led with the Vikings and I suicided a squad of PKs to go murder Wyrmlings (I killed none of them). Stingers managed to do quite well at killing things though and them and the remaining PKs managed to kill Wyrms and/or Brutes fairly efficiently. Ashra came out when I had only a handful of each left and managed to finish off the Brutes. Sam Brown killed the tied up Vikings.
Final record 4-0 and 2nd set of dice
Main Event
I felt less confident than in previous years. I had kind of thrown together my Online Prep army mostly to see how it played and it ended up doing fairly well. For the third year in a row, people who I spoke to about it at Gencon were leery of what I was going to play but I decided "Screw it. Let's run straight Blastatrons. Why the hell not?"
R1 vs AnubianWolf88 on Zephyr (Anubians x3, Cyprien, Sonya, Marcu, Isamu)
I joked before matchups were set that I probably needed some matchup help and...this happened. Cyprien. Against soulborgs. Well I created a wall of Blastatrons and managed to pick off the wolves as they kept engaging my guys (also he rolled like 2 1s for Unleashed Fury and the 20 when no one could get to me) It ended up being a pretty hardcore blowout as by the time Cyprien came out to play there were no good places for him to go. He got a wound from Chill Touch on Raelin and then got surrounded by metal bodies and I reenacted many scenes from Hellsing except the vampire didn't get up.
R2 vs William099 on Remains of Clionesia (Warforged x3, Raelin, Nakitas)
William099 is a buddy of mine from college and he loves him some warforged. While trying to figure out what to put in with Warforged and Raelin I suggested Nakitas as a good but not too good ranged unit. Getting to play with the army it was somehow a better suggestion than I realized as the army played really well. It just struggled in that it had several matchups where the game was really slanted one way or the other. Again the matchup worked out in my favor as I knew Blasts would have a really hard time killing Raelin backed Warforged. I set Raelin up on height and he did not which allowed Nakitas to kill her fairly quickly. (One of the biggest takeaways I got from the online tournament was that the Blastatron army falls apart quickly without Raelin) After that Blastatrons died pretty hard (and it didn't help that for the first couple turns he thought they were a squad of 3 and I didn't even notice). Krug came out and actually made it a match as I placed my Nakitas too close to the action but he wasn't able to finish off all the Warforged and then the Blasts had to try and kill Warforged. Right after I Tac Switched the last Blast I pointed out it was now literally impossible for me to lose with no Wannok and no way to get height on this Warforged.
R3 vs fomox on Platypus (Armocs x2, Venoc Warlord, Marro Warriors, Sudema, Isamu)
I'd never played fomox before this and he seemed like a cool dude (playing him confirmed this). The army was not supposed to be this good. I thought I had an easy win. (Although honestly looking at the army, if you clear out enough with Armocs, Marro Warriors can do a lot of damage) I set up Raelin and he decided to go after her with Armocs with a Move Glyph all the while completely uncertain if it was a good idea (it was) and after he killed her my blasts who had been shooting up into trees managed to fall pretty quickly. Krug made a game out of it and somehow managed to catch all the Marro Warriors (a pot shot from a blast had killed another) mostly because fomox kept miscounting. He then miscounted with Sudema and I had a 1 life Krug left against Isamu. I ran to the wound glyph and sat Krug on it and Isamu managed to put the last wound on him before the end of the round.
R4 vs Mr. Chompy on Platypus (Blades x3, Grimnak, Ornak, Tornak)
Well guess I got to play more than 2 games against him. I didn't like the Blades all that much since Blasts could fairly easily kill them. I would need to rely on heroes and slow rolling and hope I had enough left to kill Krug. And then Mr. Chompy played it completely unexpected. Krug led out and he actually managed to put 2 wounds on Tornak. I hopped Tornak up on height and got 4 wounds in and then Blades managed to bring Krug down pretty well. He managed to kill Tornak and 3 Blades before I finally brought down the troll. I was willing to make that trade. I then slow rolled my way in all the while Grimnak whiffing on easy blocks (I think he had 2 life at the end). Because Raelin was sitting in the start zone with the Blasts, I was able to set up outside the start zone with Blades blocking paths to the orc heroes and getting to roll 5 or so defense dice (height+tree+Grimnak) on the Blasts who kept coming up oftentimes outside of the aura. While my dice continued to suck and I lost several Blades I should not have, he just did not have the firepower to take down the orcs and I managed to finish off the Blasts and then chomped Raelin for the win.
R5 vs OrcElfArmyOne on Platypus (Blades x3, Grimnak, Nerak, Eltahale, Kyntela Gwyn)
I knew I had secured a diceoff for Day 2 as had OEAO. We set up and I started to move my Blasts up to create a pod for Blades. And then OEAO did something I didn't expect. He ran his Blades into my start zone and started wailing on unprotected Blasts. I thought it was a clever ploy although he lost a lot of Blades to attacks of 3 and 4 dice since I had a lot of engaged Blasts. I was all set to move Raelin down to provide cover and then I decide to go attack down on Nerak as his defense boost could prove annoyingly decisive. I manage to one shot him and the game is now looking really good for me. Grimnak comes down into the start zone and boosts some Blades to attack Krug. I manage to start killing Blades in response and then move into Raelin's aura which helps keep him alive. Grimnak attempts to chomp Raelin and fails and gets murderated by Kruggles. It ends up being Eltahale and Gwyn vs. Krug. I set up on height next to a Blast in Raelin's aura and tell OEAO I can play the waiting game since I'm up on points. He decides to go for an initiative switch and doesn't manage to kill Krug with 6 dice. Krug then murderates Eltahale.
4-1 Day 2 again with an army I wasn't sure about and that looks oddly crappy (it feels like it's becoming a theme with my Gencon main event armies)
Day 2
R1 vs Mr. Chompy on Platypus (Blades x3, Grimnak, Ornak, Tornak)
Everything is the same and I get twice as many games against Mr. Chompy. I start off the same as I did previously. He has OMs on both Krug and Blasts. I risk an OM 2 to go put some wounds on Krug fully expecting to again lose Tornak and some Blades but I feel good about my setup again if I can kill Krug early. However, his OMs are not on Krug and I manage to kill the troll before he gets to use another OM. This time I set up again outside the start zone but with Tornak in tow I'm able to be slightly more aggressive. After he dies, I end up with Grimnak and Ornak both on the heighted snow surrounded by Blades. Once he was down to less than a squad of Blasts I charged into the start zone with Grimnak and finished everything off.
R2 vs fomox on Remains of Clionesia (Armocs x2, Marro Warriors, Sudema, Isamu)
I had learned my lesson last time. Raelin had been made too vulnerable and because of that I lost too many blasts to effectively deal with the Marro. This map was much, much better for me. Both fomox and I fully expected it to be a massacre. It was. We continued to watch my dice just utterly fail to do anything for me. Between low attacks/him blocking everything and me seeming to be utterly incapable of rolling defense dice, I lose all my Blasts before I've killed all the Armocs despite having height this time and a really tough setup for them to get through and then Raelin dies super quick unlike the previous game where she lasted several turns. Mittens puts 4 wounds on Krug and Marro Warriors with unique glyph finish him off. It was a hilarious way to end Gencon. I'm not sure what I could've done that game to win that one. Sometimes, nothing works out your way. If I'm going to lose though, I want to lose to my favorite figure Sudema.
Had my dice not betrayed me, I liked my chances with dok's army against mine (favored matchup and I know how to play his army) and then I felt Blasts and Krug could beat IS's order marker mess. It would've been interesting. Oh well fun Gencon and easily my best. 17-5 and 2 sets of dice. It'll be hard to beat that in future years. Look forward to the next one.
~Dysole, who really likes using the word "murderated" if you can't tell
Thanks. I've had some games where dice went in my favor. This Gencon it was really just the one game against fomox where the dice were definitively bad.
~Dysole, who keeps not running into tornado at Gencon and she'd like to change that
Here's my Gencon Battle Reports. Some things are a bit fuzzy because well 5 months.
FLEX
Game 1 (Minionsx2, Warforged x3, Krug, Zeta) vs. Son of Chompie (Hydra x3, Iron Golem, Jotun) on Common Ground
I just grabbed some fun things and so did he. The game was an exercise in watching what happens when you single engage big heavy attackers. I also rolled really well on defense. If I remember right, Kruggles didn't really do anything this game but I ended the game with him and a single Warforged left.
W 1-0
Game 2 (4thx2, Templarx2, Raelin, Drake 2.0) vs. MrMigraine (Gladsx3, Spartacus, Crixus, Major Q10) on Ticalla Sunrise
I decided to give my main event idea a spin and a beefy melee squad seemed a good indicator of what could happen. Glads were a terrible matchup however and Crixus tanked a bunch of hits. Templar were basically paper and I put Raelin in a bad spot. While I got slaughtered this game, I learned some valuable things about the way the army played.
L 1-1
Game 3 (4thx2, Templarx2, Raelin, Drake) vs. vminer (Nilf, Greeniesx2, Cyprien, Sonya, Frosty, Isamu) on Burial Marsh
I love playing against vminer. He always makes the game an enjoyable experience regardless of result and this was another valuable game for information regarding the main event. I thought I was in trouble as Templars fell trying to take out units, but the 4th rallied and wait then fire ended up taking out Nilf and Cyprien and then finished off Frosty. I won with Drake and 5 4th standing. This game told me that Burial Marsh was not kind to double spacers, something which would be valuable later.
W 2-1
REVERSE DRAFT/THURSDAY NIGHT CLASSIC
Before the game, Son of Chompie was complaining about the order marker mess armies. I decided to oblige him and test out another idea for main event. I brought EOV, Nakitas, Drones x3, Eldgrim, and Heirloom
Game 1 vs. WOOKIE (DKsx3, Hawthorne, Dumutef, Cyprien, Sonya) on Common Ground
I took his army because Cyprien could wreck my hodgepodge really badly. WOOKIE dropped Cyprien and I let him have his army. Eldgrim died early and gave Nakitas a move boost. They and Heirloom stayed behind the Drone screen and DKs couldn't do much and did even less when Hawthorne betrayed WOOKIE halfway through. I lost Eldgrim and 6 drones.
W 1-0
Game 2 vs. viideosayg (Dwarvesx3, Darrak, ARkmer, Emirroon, Chardris) on Stygian Rift
I forgot how good dwarves could be and thought I had enough to take them down from range and so didn't even remove any from his army. Dwarves managed to kill a lot of my dudes, but I took out all of them in response and came very close to finishing him off, but Darrak proved to be very sturdy and survived with 1 life. Chardris had 3 life and Arkmer was unharmed, but the combination did enough against the hodgepodge.
L 1-1
Game 3 vs. Son of Chompie (Romansx2, Raelin, NGS, MDG, Roman Archersx2, Isamu) on Highways and Dieways
We went back and forth dropping Isamu and Archers before finally Son of Chompie let me have it with a single Archer (personally I think he was underestimating their capabilities). I was very aggressive this game getting Marcus and Ne-Gok-Sa engaged with a mess of Nakitas to keep them from killing my other dudes and risking several disengages to make it happen and minimizing the attacks Drones got on Romans that weren't rolling mountains of dice. Ne-Gok-Sa was super tanky and there were a few rounds of him and Heirloom exchanging blows of doing nothing before the Romans managed to help take him down. I won with a 2 life Ne-Gok-Sa (may have been one life), 3 Romans, and the single Archer.
W 2-1
C3G
I am an evil person and brought a very evil Baron Zemo build. If you don't follow C3G, lemme just break it down real quick. Zemo lets me take turns with any of the other figures in my army and also has a once a round "you lose a turn" X OM reveal. Red Skull has the Cosmic Cube which autowounds, moves, and takes away Order Markers and if he attacks someone I get to take another turn with someone else. Weather Wizard gives my team disengage while close to him and has a chance of keeping people from getting shot at. Purple Man can just straight up take control of heroes and they're mine as long as they're within a few spaces of him. Diablo just ends figures turns if they're within a few spaces of him. Punisher has a bunch of attacks per turn and some tech attacks.
Game 1 vs. William099 (Sinestro, Arkillo, Sinestro Corps Soldierx3) on Ticalla Sunrise
I swear every time I play him in a C3G event, everything breaks out poorly for me. My d20 rolls failed me and he rolled very well with his figures, managing to take out Skull and Zemo in only a couple of hits which meant that the rest of my figures really suffered and were never really able to mount an attack. Kudos to him for not letting me build up a pod as had he let me, I think the game would've gone very differently.
L 0-1
Game 2 Bye
1-1
Game 3 vs The Orange Mailman (Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Dr. Strange, Zero-G, Mass Master, Energizer, Lightspeed) on Remains of Clionesia
I really liked this army even if Strange didn't quite synergize but he is a very good figure. I managed to isolate Mr. Fantastic and taking him down hurt the army a lot. It still took longer than anticipated as he rolled really well but Skull managed to take him out and then Purple Man managed to take control of Strange, but then TOM did something really clever and used Zero-G to move Strange out of Purple Man's aura meaning that he once again controlled Strange. Unfortunately for him, Purple Man was really hot and managed to get Zero-G and Strange with his next two rolls. After Red Skull then walked over and started wailing on Invisible Woman to start getting free turns, the remaining Adventurers put up a valiant fight but it was just too hard to make everything work. Diablo and Zemo fell, but it was too little too late.
W 2-1
Also major thanks to Tornado for the use of the figures.
MAIN EVENT
I was waffling between Templarx2, 4thx2, Raelin, Eldgrim and Granitesx2, Nakitas, Heirloom, Raelin (potentially swapping Nakitas for Stingers), but ultimately, I just felt better about the Templar pairing as there was more that could go wrong for the Granites build.
Game 1 vs. Southwest Ninja (Sentinelsx2, Krav, Raelin, Atlaga) on Ticalla Sunrise
Krav were the exact last unit I wanted to see, but I felt if I could run around and bump off one or two of them it was doable. He built a little pod of dudes and so did I. I was very surprised he waited so long to move up Krav and my attempts to sneak a Templar around back were quickly quashed. I managed to kill all the Sentinels but I was strung really thin by this point and all I had left were some 4th and 4th lose that battle. He won with 2 Krav and a 3 life Atlaga
L 0-1
Game 2 vs. Mr. Chompie (Gorillinators x4, Nakitas, Otonashi) on Highways and Dieways
I thought I was a shoo in to win this match as my army was faster and there were no special attacks in my army. Alas, Mr. Chompie played it very well and managed to take out a couple Nakitas early and wait then fired me to death as I kept rolling just few enough shields to keep dying. He had Raelin, 3 4th, and Eldgrim at the end of the game.
L 0-2
Game 3 vs. Matt (Krav, AE, Mimring, Raelin, Marro Warriors) on Quasatch Playground
Going into this game, I thought I was going to drop if I lost another one as the experiment had gone poorly. They did mention a prize for worst record and that tempted me to stay in it, but I didn't like my chances based on armies. The game ended up being a bloodbath, but that was because my opponent I believe had only a few games under his belt and so spread out Order Markers incredibly far allowing Templars to decimate all the squads with minimal losses and putting quite a few wounds on Mimring. 4th finished everything off. 6 4th, Raelin, and Eldgrim made it through this one. I thought I could do it.
Game 4 vs. Scytale (Einar Imperiumx2, Raelin 2.0, Kiova) on Burial Marsh
I knew this could be an uphill battle as EI hate range and well 4th are really good range. I'd never actually played Scytale before this, but I knew he was a solid player. He baited me to pull me in. I obliged him and charged EI in. I'm not sure I ever played a game as risky as this one. So many moves were made that were basically "this had better work out". Next thing I know he was down less than a squad of 4th, and the other units are dying. I use Burial Marsh's troublesomeness for the Templar against them, but still 6 EI do not last long and I had to turn to the heroes. Whirlwind Assault was crucial for closing out the game. At the end of it, Scytale and I both agreed that was one of the best games of Scape either of us had played in a long time and it was my highlight of the Scape tourney.
W 2-2
Game 5 vs. Alexander (Cyprien, Sonya, Anubiansx1, Ornak, Iskra, Rechets, Marcu) on Quasatch Playground
I needed a win to have a chance at advancing. I got literally the best possible matchup I could've gotten. Non ranged melee Utgar. Christmas for Templar. This one went exactly as expected especially with Cyprien and Anubians rolling like utter garbage and dying to wait then fire and Rechets failing to do anything to Raelin.
W 3-2
I managed to make Day 2 from the random selection and at this point I told dok that everything else was gravy since I thought I was done after Game 2.
Game 6 vs. Major Q23 (Tarns, Dwarvesx2, Arkmer, Tandros Kreel, PKs x1, Darrak) on Burial Marsh
Once again I was playing against my army on the worst map for them in the pool. Q23 and I have very similar styles of army building, but I think I was more used to playing his type of hodgepodges than he was to mine and he even admitted as much after the game. He set up like Scytale had leading with the 4th. As I suspected he might do this I led with Tarn and PKs. PKs managed to kill several 4th and the Tarns helped whittle him down to a single squad (I may have actually managed to get it down to 3). Then I switched over to dwerrow and they were incredibly good against the hampered Templar and remaining 4th. I brought out Tandros Kreeloy Jenkins to finish off units and Arkmer sat in the back being pretty. All in all, it was a good game and Q23 recovered well, but we both agree leading with 4th was the big mistake he made in this game and it likely cost him the game.
W 4-2
Game 7 vs. Evantage (Marcus, 4thx2, Romansx2, Major Q10) on Ticalla Sunrise
I really didn't want this matchup, mostly because of Major Q10, but I quickly made a pod of Templar and Raelin on the large clump and he advanced 4th and Romans. I took advantage of this by using Templars and then later 4th to thin out as best I could. Raelin also took forever to die which helped me. By the time Q came out to play though, I was down to a handful of 4th. I managed to bring Q down to one life and then a failed kill against a 4th meant that it was engaged with my own 4th who could've fired down a killing shot on the robot. Unfortunately, Q waltzed over to Kelda and basically decided the game as he shot the remaining 4th and Eldgrim to death. (I thought about grabbing Kelda with Eldgrim earlier in the game, but there was no opportunity that didn't basically give him too much momentum)
It was another good Gencon and I won dice from a top 8 finish. If I'd managed to win, I think I had decent odds against the remaining field depending on who I played with what.
~Dysole, who promises she won't wait this long to post the battle reports next time
That was from memory? Wow.
Great read. I hope C3G returns but my guess is that the low turnout will spell doom.
I should have bought up the extra tickets.
It's been a while since I've been here. (I was gonna do my 2019 Gencon Battle Reports but so many things happened and that fell by the wayside.)
However, I have started something new. I have been live streaming my Online Heroscape matches. (So far everything has been text but I have the setup to be able to do it with someone voice chatting with me)
My twitch channel is where I have been streaming all of them and will continue to announce game times in the Online Heroscape forums (I have also been doing so on discord; you can also follow me and it will auto update you when I'm playing Heroscape although I'll note that I will be streaming things other than Scape there)
If you'd prefer to watch them after the fact, they'll be viewable for 14 days after on Twitch but I'm also going to try to upload them to my Youtube channel 24-48 hours after I live stream it.
So far I have my 2nd through 4th rounds of the most recent online tournament up. I'm still working on improving my setup and making things as viewer friendly as possible. Feedback is greatly appreciated so I can continue to improve this and get more Scape that you can view. I intend to keep streaming my games as long as my opponents are fine with being streamed.
For this round I wanted to run Executioner, Deathcommander, and Stalkers x3. Unfortunately, that was 505 points. But then I realized there was another robot build I could do that I've wanted to play for a while. CRONROLLER. Omegacron, Snipers x2, Repulsors x3, and Oto because of discounts.
R1 Houndsrule (Major Q9, Hounds x3) Forest Fire
Had heard things about HR but had no real assessment. This was not an ideal matchup for him since I was plague immune and he would have to be careful with the repulsors. At the same time, my non Omegacron units were a bit fragile to 3 attack. I set up Omega in the middle of the startzone so he could see almost everything and developed. I took out a couple of hounds and he had managed to take out about a squad of snipers, and I got a wound on Q. (There was also an EMP thing that couldn't steal any OMs since it was the last attack of the round ) Then I got an opportunity to shoot down on Major Q9 and rolled 2 skulls and he whiffed. Hilariously my next OM was on the Repulsors with 7 move (I had to set up a move glyph situation so I didn't fry my own peoples) who were planning to engage and mess up Q9. That of course was irrelevant as he was dead. HR managed to finish off the rest of the Snipers and Repulsors but Omegacron was able to finish off the Hounds.
W Full Omegacron
R2 Viideosayg (Cathar x5) Aeon
Another matchup that my opponent probably didn't want to see since I basically didn't have to worry about braced spear with anybody but Oto. Because I didn't have to worry about repulsors sitting next to braced spear I just took a ton of turns with them firing a bunch of potshots and using them as blockers and once there was a big mess of them I switched over to Snipers. I kept Omegacron in full view of everything and not in a place where a Cathar could get height on him. Once I dropped down below a critical mass of Omnis, I just started kiting with Omega and he was able to kill off the last of the Cathar.
W Full Omegacron
R3 ISB3 (Zombies x6, Syvarris) Honor or Aeon I forgot to write it down.
Now I was the one who got a matchup I didn't want. 2 v 3 would get through a fair chunk of peeps and my range wasn't going to be super helpful with all the line of sight blockers. He led with a mix of zombies and Syvarris using Syv to snipe my figures. I probably spent a bit too much time to kill him and tell the elf sniper, no sniping and kill him and then moved Omega to a solid place on the map but by this point the Zoms had made a bunch of robozoms and while Omega put up a decent fight, there were too many Zoms. dok was watching the game over stream and he thought my best chance was to try and tank with Omega from the beginning and just try and kill as many as I can. With some reflection, I think he's right but it was gonna be a tough matchup no matter what, especially with a player of ISB3's skill.
L 9-12 zombies
R4 Phantom (Grok Riders x3, MBS, NGS, Bahadur) Aeon I think also didn't write this down
3rd matchup where my army was at an advantage. Groks don't love range and especially when that range can hit as hard as the Omnis. NGS could shackle something so as long as I could keep NGS and Omega from ever running into each other I felt pretty good. I set up a Repulsor screen so that way I could keep any Groks from hitting Omega. Groks did manage to do some killing of my Repulsors and a couple snipers but an early kill on MBS meant that I could funnel the groks where I wanted them and my snipers did get to start sniping. Eventually put a lot of damage on NGS and Bahadur didn't make it very far before dying.
W Full Omegacron 3 Snipers
Final 3-1
Reverse Draft
Spoiler Alert!
I just decided I wanted to get a bunch of fun units I liked in Nakitas and Tandros and Drones. That left me with 60 and I decided Sam Brown was better tech than Zeta who was also a bit swingier for RD. So that's Drones x4, Nakitas, Tandros, and Sam Brown.
R1 boromir96 (Blasts x3, Glads x1, Major X17, Othkurik) on Turmoil (GET VERY USED TO THIS MAP)
I was the first to pick armies and I decided that the Glad/Blast combo could wreck things and so I went with that. We got it down to -2 Blasts. I put 2 OMs on drones and 1 OM on Nakitas to start the first round and boromir went all Othkurik. Some bad placement and an OM on Nakitas I didn't want allowed Othkurik to kill a lot of drones and a Nakita before dying. I did my best to kind of regain control of the game and use my drones to kill as many glads and blasts as I could. Unfortunately it was just a little too late. boromir even smartly spent 2 OMs on X17 to engage Tandros which made it difficult to do anything and used the Blasts to kill Sam Brown.
L 5 Blasts, Full life X17
R2 Bye
One of my hardest matchups of the whole tournament. I don't know how I won this one.
R3 Vydar_XLIII (Knights x4, Thorgrim, Eltahale) on Turmoil (Like I said)
It looks like I didn't write this down properly but I remember us knocking him down to 3 squads and a single knight. The basic idea of this game was to use drones to try and kill as many knights as possible and also Eltahale. If I had shots on Thorgrim I would take them but the goal was to kill Elta before Thor so that way Thor had nowhere to go. I ended up being pretty successful but my Nakitas had apparently learned that whiffing on 4 dice was a good strategy and he managed to kill most of the rest of the army except Tandros and he had about 4 knights and a 2 life Thor left. Unfortunately for him, Tandros was a tank and cleave was pretty sweet against a large melee squad. Tandros went full last stand action hero and dropped everyone.
W 2 Life Tandros
R4 vegies dad (AGs x4, Swogs x3, Mimring, Raelin, Marcu) on Frostmire
Q23 had pulled off the victory and we just played a R4 for funsies. We dropped a squad of arrows and a Swog and Marcu from VD's army. I got some early drone movements and that allowed me to do a lot of damage with my drones. He had a nice little setup with the arrows and swogs but the Nakitas managed to disrupt that. Mimsy came out to play and Nakitas and Drones managed to do some things including whiffing on 4 dice. I forget the exact way the end game played out but I believe Sam and Tandros did a couple things in the end game to finish it off.
W 1 Drone, 1 Nakita, 1 life Sam, 5 life Tandros
3-1
Betrayal
Spoiler Alert!
I know Adam threatened a bunch of uniques when the format got run online and I felt like running something like that. So I grabbed AE, Krav, MWs and Raelin. Then I hit upon the idea to include EOV since they were so good against my unique ranged squads. I was originally going to go Heirloom but then I realized I could do a single squad of rats and MBS. MBS was going to be good tech against a lot of the stuff in the format and having a single squad of rats meant that no one was going to steal them but if anyone did come with rats I would have SO MANY of them.
R1 Infectedsloth (Blue Wyrmlings x2, White Wyrmlings x2, Black Wyrmling, Red Wyrmling, Samuel Brown, Finn the Viking Champion, Theracus, Marrden Hounds x1, Tarn Viking Warriors, Marcu Esenwein) Turmoil
I figured Nathan was going to steal one of my unique ranged squads. I debated between Tarns and Hounds and decided Hounds were good tech against a bunch of my units and I could use them and the rats as giant screens for all my stuff. This was an excellent plan. The problem was that IS decided to get the extra sturdy Tarns who managed to tank so many attacks and when my airborne dropped IS pivoted to Krav and managed to take them all out before they did much of anything. Still I had a lot of really good units and some good frenzies and movement by EOV managed to neuter the Krav and kill Sam Brown. MWs and MBS managed to do a lot of work and then time got called (if I remember right) and I won on points. That or I killed all the things.
W 3 Rats, 1 EOV, 1 MW, 1 Hound (I think he had a Blue Wyrm, Marcu, most of Finn, and a Tarn left)
R2 Johnny Frisbee (Deathreavers x2, Goblin Cutters x2, Raelin (RotV), Krav Maga Agents, Kaemon Awa, Theracus, Isamu) Forest Fire
I pretty much knew I was going to take the rats but I strongly considered Kaemon. He took Airborne. The very first round he dropped the Airborne and won initiative with a Unique Attack Glyph. He managed to kill Raelin and MBS before I could launch a counter initiative and my Krav did manage to take out his AE but he was able to make some stuff happen with the cutters and while I tried to use the rats to stop things, EOV were only able to take out the Krav and MWs weren't able to do enough. Game went to time with a bit too much for me to reasonably take out although there's a good chance I can kite with the MWs.
L 8 Rats, 3 MWs (8 Cutters, 1 life Kaemon, Full life Raelin)
R3 Earl of Sandwich (Raelin (Rotv), Deathreavers x2, Stingers x2, Heirloom, Kaemon Awa, Theracus) on Turmoil
Once again I knew that I was going to take Rats and he took Krav. I did manage to get an early drop but didn't do nearly as much as Johnny had just managed but it was still a decent amount of death. However it ended up being enough as many many rats clogged up the board and EOV and MBS managed to do things again. (Paralyzing stare is very nice against Heirloom) MWs managed to kill enough things behind my screen to end it.
W 2 MWs 6 Rats
R4 Major Q23 (10th x1, 4th x1, Stingers x1, PKs x1, Zetacron, Mind Flayer Mastermind, Brandis) Forest Fire
I figured he was going to take Krav or Airborne and so I knew the play was PKs giving me PKs, Rats, and EOV against all the range. He ended up taking the Krav. I led with the PKs and Rats while he led with 10th. I managed to kill a 10th and 4th without really losing much. I managed to snipe a Krav as well with a PK. Airborne dropped and he managed to sneak an OM with MFM but didn't get the enslave. Airborne still managed to wreck a lot of things and EOV managed to mess with Brandis and Mind Flayer and get enough frenzies to make life very annoying. Q23 played as best he could with forces bearing down on him but I managed to kill all the heroes. Time got called though and I had a lot left.
W 2 Rats, 2 EOV, 1 AE, MBS, MWs (3 4th, 1 10th)
Final: 3-1
Multiplayer Madness
Spoiler Alert!
MEME TIME! I really just wanted to play a mess of Vipers. Vipers x4, Mittens, Isamu
I just kept charging my vipers forward a squad at a time letting them use the 1 hex hills as way points. I killed a bunch of PKs from both EoS and Garenex who were to my left and right and there were so many of my vipers in Garenex's start zone. Meanwhile Garenex and EoS ganged up on the giant robot (I think I got a wound on Eltahale but everything else was PKs). Isamu came over to also get a couple hits in but just died after his 3rd attempt. Mittens came in to pay but there was only enough time to kill Isamu and a rat. Last figure standing with 4 life but that's not worth anything. Garenex ended up with the most points for killing a ton of my Vipers, a lot on Raelin and Q10, and Eltahale, and PKs. EoS beat me by 2 points and I beat boromir by a decent chunk.
R2 boromir again, Deroche (Raelin, Brunak, Krav)
We started in a different spot since we got put on a 4 player map. I took some early shots at Deroche and boromir but with boromir having a Wannok behind his robot, Deroche and I decided to team up with me going around back and him going through the middle. Unfortunately, my moment to backstab Deroche never materialized as Marcu ended up killing him leaving Mittens to finish everything off again. No points for last one standing and finished last compared to the other two even with a couple hits on Q10.
Not sure how to score these as they weren't wins but middle of the pack on one isn't exactly a loss.
Sideboards
Spoiler Alert!
Realizing pretty quickly that it was build two armies with Raelin I knew one had to be rats and Krav (I didn't want to play Q9). I also wanted to give Chasers a spin. That left 130 and Hydra and Isamu just seemed like the best decision.
R1 Son of Chompy (4x Stingers, Krav, Marcu, Q9, Kaemon, Raelin) on Battlefield 23 (only time I'm gonna be on this map)
Actual Matchup : Deathchaser x4, Raelin, MBS, Nerak, Isamu vs. Stingers x3, Q9
I'm really happy this matchup ended up being streamed as it was a roller coaster. I figured that without the screen Chasers would be able to take care of any of the annoying ranged threat and Stingers short range didn't really worry me with Chasers. I set Raelin up in a nice perch and moved my figures up. Unfortunately for me I got to watch him drain with his Stingers, get it and kill Raelin and Nerak in the first round. I got super aggressive then charging Chasers in to kill as much as they could and moved MBS up on height with a chaser on Ulaniva to launch 5 dice down at Q9. It worked out as Q9 fell to the prolonged hits and pretty soon my Chasers were felling Stingers enough that the reinforcement Stingers couldn't really do much to stop me. I ended up pulling out a game I was sure I'd lost after Round 1.
Actual matchup: Same chasers build vs. Rats x3, Krav, Kaemon, Raelin
vegie is really solid and I knew he knew how to play against Chasers, which I went with because I felt he could put better stuff behind rats than me (also it would be a dreadfully boring game) He did an excellent job of keeping out of MBS range (although he did point out how I could have been a bit more aggressive and killed Raelin with MBS which might have been the winning play. I don't think I did that because I felt I needed to hit as hard as I could with Chasers. Nerak was also not in an ideal position being a bit forward on the far plateau as I needed a couple Chasers in his spot to hit more rats more often and since it was just out of range of his Raelin's aura I probably didn't need to worry too much about rats clogging up that area. Oh well not sure it would've made much of a difference as his team rolled like a champ.
Actual matchup: Chasers again vs. Q9 Rats Raelin Kaemon
The Repulsors were enough of a threat that I felt I had to play Chasers again. It was a long map and Wannok meant we both kinda wanted to play for it. Given that he didn't have the board control I had I was able to set up a nice little pod with Raelin, Nerak and Chasers and hit Q9 for a lot of 4 dice attacks. Once Q9 fell and I had only lost 2 chasers, he conceded.
W 10 Chasers, Full Nerak, Full MBS, 1 life Raelin
R4 Ultralord (2x Rats, 3x Hydra, 3x 10th, Marcu, Sam Brown) on Aeon
Actual Matchup: Rats x3, Krav, Raelin, Hydra vs. Hydra x3, Sam Brown
I had seen him piloting 3x Hydra before so I figured that was likely to make an appearance here which Chasers can beat but it's so easy for them to just eat up everything. So I decided to go with the Krav build and try to kite. I managed to get one Hydra with a lot of kiting but lost a Krav and the other Hydra managed to make me lose my other two Krav and I either killed it or put it within one life which my Hydra finished off. I had a rat on Wannok which put 3 wounds on Sam and then played a bit of cat and mouse with the last Hydra (and probably sacrifice a bit too many rats to try and get the last Wannok wound on Sam. Ultralord managed to get his Hydra next to mine (I think it had a wound or two at this time) but he wasn't able to do anything before mine finished off his.
W Full Hydra 4 life Raelin 4 Rats
Final: 3-1
Main
Spoiler Alert!
I had been thinking about Monks x2 for a long while. With Raelin they have decent survivability. 6 move is no joke and neither is multiple attacks or the ability to conditional disengage. With there being fewer ranged units in general in RtW, this felt like a good core. I played around with an Eltahale and Moltenclaw supplement since if people tried to space apart to avoid their specials, the monks would have great places to hop in and do damage. It also helped that Eltahale and Moltenclaw require a lot of finesse to play. The ranged support I was considering with Eltahale was Mezzos x1 and Shotgun which wasn't great but I liked pieces of it. As I was talking about the Molty build with dok he suggested Greenscales x1 and Rats x1 and I absolutely loved the idea. Playing around with GS and Rats and Molty in the prep event told me that I would need a real good reason to go Eltahale just because of how many dynamic decisions the army had (brought the Eltahale variant just in case). I felt pretty good going into Day 1.
R1 Mr. Migraine (2x Sentinels, 3x Dividers, Eltahale) on Frostmire
I had played against him Round 1 in 2018 but he had Krav and Raelin so this I felt could be annoying but winnable. I would need to make sure Eltahale couldn't get too many good hits on Moltenclaw or it could be difficult. I led with rats to grab the move glyph and was able to get Molty to burninate some early figures including a Sentinel whiff (I got a couple of whiffs from them which were huge. With the move glyph I managed to set up a rat to retake it if that rat died and used the remaining rats and Greenscales to wall off Molty on the high point of the map and Raelin grabbed the spot behind him on height. Eltahale started moving up and wasn't able to do much damage to Raelin. I switched almost exclusively to monks going to wherever I could get the most attacks and often times being able to jump into a previously vacated place and start raining down attacks of 4. He was rather hot on the Divides and definitely mounted a comeback. Monks managed to kill Eltahale which put me pretty far ahead on the points. When time got called I retreated Moltenclaw to put him out of reach of attacks (which I felt bad about doing) but karma decided to repay that by the fact that I placed him in a bad place and had to take two heighted attacks since I forgot he could grab the move glyph. Thankfully for me though he did no damage.
W Full Moltenclaw 2 Monks vs 3 Dividers 2 Sentinels
R2 MegaSilver (2x 10th, 2x Romans, Marcus, MBS) on Turmoil
I really liked Mega's build and because he was playing under I couldn't afford to camp. Given that it was a small map I felt I could do that. I figured to lead with Legionnaires and use MBS to snipe as much as I could and probably kill Raelin. I managed to get myself in a good spot and put some wounds on her but Molty and Greenscales were doing enough to thin out my forces that I needed to switch over to 10th. The key moment though was when he had 3 Scales outside of both auras and I was able to get 3 attacks of 3 and 1 attack of 4 (bayonet + height and then bayonet and the other two were adjacent to Marcus) and killed all 3 Greenscales. His next Order Marker was on Moltenclaw which allowed me to put more wounds on Moltenclaw (and kill a Monk I think). Monks and 10th traded with him being down to 2 monks and 2 rats when my last 10th fell. I switched over to Marcus exclusively and kill the last two monks with only taking 3 wounds. The rats were then unable to do enough to finish off the warlord before he killed them.
I love Ornak armies even if I don't play them a ton. They always make me happy. However when I sat down at this map and saw a move glyph within 7 spaces of the startzone I knew it was going to be tough. As such I didn't even contest the glyph and I told myself to put OM 3 Round 1 on Greenscales. I ended up putting OM 3 on Rats for I don't know why reasons. This allowed vegie to run past the screen and start attacking things in the start zone instead of having to deal with the Moltenclaw threat. I managed to eat through a lot of heavies and do a decent amount of damage but Mind Flayer managed to hold up and steal an OM which was enough to thoroughly slam the door on me. Raelin and Molty also fell decently fast (not alarmingly so but maybe just a touch quicker than normal). I think if I put that OM 3 on Greenscales in Round 1, it's definitely a much closer game; difficult to say if it goes my way.
L 1 life Nerak, 1 life Ornak, 2 life MBS, 3 life MFM, Full Marcu
I felt pretty good going into this because the high attack values could spell trouble for my army especially if I could get some early good hits on Raelin or Moltenclaw especially with the short map. I led with TheraShuttle (C) carrying Finn. Garenex smartly clogged me up and forced me to take 2 disengagements which both hit. I blocked off his Greenscales and killed one but unfortunately for me Theracus and Finn decided to not defend at all. Finn went onto Migol since I felt he would survive longer and it would be hard to get multiple attacks on him. Zeta advanced and did some potshots but it only somewhat wounded Raelin. I advanced Dwarves and Migol smacking down rats. Unfortunately one rat placement caused me enough trouble as it never ended up getting dislodged sitting on shadow in Raelin's aura. I placed Migol in a place where someone could get height on him and Garenex pretty much always had 2 figures next to Migol and got a fortunate whiff to put him at 2 life. I probably should have taken the double disengage to try and kill Moltenclaw or Raelin but I was too worried about losing Migol and figuring I should be able to kill everything next to me. Unfortunately this meant that he just defended enough attacks that he was able to bring his forces forward even though I killed Raelin and a good amount of Monks. Unfortunately, Zeta and Erevan weren't enough to bring down the dragon.
L 5 life Moltenclaw, 1 Greenscale, 2 Monks, 1 rat
R5 Deroche (3x Anubians, 2x PKs, Zettian Guards, Khosumet) on Forest Fire
I knew this could be a tough fight. Deroche is a good player and Anubians can very much not care if you have a bunch of defense dice. So I knew I would have to play it cautiously. Because he didn't have a ton of range I set Raelin up on a hill below lava and put two rats immediately in front of her to make it as difficult as possible for melee to do anything. He moved up Wolves and ZGs using the Zettians to try and snipe at Raelin but he only did two wounds before a 4/4 attack from Molty fried one of their circuits. He moved to PKs but I had placed Molty in a position that was pretty well protected and had brought up some monks to jump ahead of the screen. Even though he managed to get Wannok for a bit, his Fury rolls weren't too hot and so he I was able to set things up so his attacks would all be on figures I was fine losing. I also made my way through a lot of PKs very quickly even sending a lone monk over to kill the one on the other side of the map and then take the glyph (I think it was Ulaniva or Dagmar). Deroche finally got a good Fury roll when he only had 3 left. He disengaged to go attack Molty and I got the kill at which point he conceded.
W 5 Monks, Full Moltenclaw, 3 life Raelin, 3 Rats vs 2 Anubians, 1 PK, Full Khosumet
R6 boromir96 (4x Blastatrons, Heirloom, Taelord) on Turmoil (I told you we'd be seeing this one a lot)
I didn't love this matchup because Moltenclaw can just obliterate a whole herd of Blastatrons and the small map and little elevation meant I would have a hard time camping out, but I was familiar with how to play straight blasts although I was realizing I would have more offensive power but less staying power. I led with Taelord and Blasts and managed to do a bit of damage to Raelin and some rats but Moltenclaw came out and started burninating the countryside. At this point I realized I basically needed to kill Moltenclaw to win and my best chance was actually going to be with Heirloom. I managed to get him into position on a shadow space and went 4/5 on the dragon to knock him down to 3 life. I took a Force Orb next to clear out some of the Scales next to Molty. I managed to get one (I really probably should have just gone for the attack though). His next set of attacks managed to knock Heirloom to 1 life but a 5/5 attack managed to end the dragon. At this point I had a 1 life Heirloom and a decent number of Blasts left and Taelord was still up and running and the Blasts managed to just eviscerate the oncoming Monks. boromir conceded after the last monk dropped.
W 8 Blasts, 3 life Taelord, 1 life Heirloom vs 1 Rat, 1 Greenscale
Final: 4-2
Day 2
R1 Chris Perkins (Raelin, 1x WoA, 1x Mezzos, Kozuke, Johnny Shotgun, Guilty, Rhoghar, Otonashi) on Forest Fire
I felt if I could kill Moltenclaw before Mezzos and Ashra came out to play I would be in a good spot. I didn't love that it was on the lava map and would've preferred one of the shorter maps or one with a bunch of jungle and shadow. I led off with Raelin and Shotgun. (Chris said Guilty would've been the better choice and upon further reflection I agree although I was worried he was going to have 2 OMs on the Rats) I only managed to put a few wounds on Rae before Chris came out of the aura to play with Moltenclaw which is what I wanted. Unfortunately, he fried a Kozuke in the start zone and Rhogar failed a heal on Raelin and did literally nothing to Molty and got eaten by the dragon. Shotgun and Guilty tried to do some things but were unsuccessful. I ended up only being able to get one Kozuke adjacent at a time and they did some damage (including a counterstrike when Moltenclaw went 0/6 but it was only a single wound). Moltenclaw finally fell to a Mezzodemon. Unfortunately I had had to burn an Exo already and the Rats did a good job of tying them up until the Monks could come in and get good attacks. My last chance was Ashra against monks but the barely alive Rae (which might have been gone if I had used Guilty to start but who knows) kept them alive long enough for my Ashra to blank.
L 4 Monks 2 life Raelin
Not really sure how much else I can do to win the game. I made the plays I needed to but it wasn't enough for me. Still made Day 2 again which is something I've done every time there's been a Day 2 for me to make so it was fun to keep that streak running.
Final: 0-1
4x390
Spoiler Alert!
Chris and I were talking before the game and he said if he lost he was going to play his stuff and I was saying I wasn't sure whether to try and scrounge up figures for my goofy 4x idea and he said I could just use his armies. He told me what he was bringing and I decided that sounded good to me.
R1 Deroche (Stingers x4, Major Q10) vs. Major Q9, Rats x3, Raelin (RotV), Isamu (drop 1) on Aeon
I felt I would be in a good spot as long as I could keep Stingers from getting height on Q. I spent a lot of early OMs on rats after placing Raelin in a nice perch. I also picked up Ulaniva with a rat and started to use Q9's normal attack on Q10 since he could do something about the rats. I actually ended up doing 3 wounds and then Deroche stopped putting OMs on him and I later killed him with a Queglix. Once Q was dead, I put a couple OMs on the rats to clog up the Stingers who had managed to get one hit through on Q and nearly killed Raelin but apart from one who snuck past the lines early and then got sniped by Queglix the rats did a good job of holding them to low or even ground. A stinger drain failure mid game didn't help. Deroche conceded when he made two risky disengages which both were successful and then failed to stinger drain.
W 3 life Q9 1 life Raelin 10 Rats Isamu vs. 2 Stingers
R2 Evantage (Braxas Stingers x3 ) vs. Nilfheim Greenscales x3 Marcu) on Forest Fire
Ah stingers again. I set up so Marcu couldn't attack Nilf with a betrayal and tried to grab Ulaniva with Marcu and rolled an 18 so Marcu decided it was time to bathe in lava. It ended...poorly for him. Thankfully for me Nilfheim liked to do Nilf things. I kept him on elevated ground which helped him stay away from major stinger hits. Evantage took Ulaniva with Stingers and sent Braxas to try and do some things. Unfortunately for him, since the Greenscales were kind of useless as a screen I just kept Nilfheim from being in a good place to engage and sent Greenscales to attack wherever I could including attacks on sleeping Stingers. Braxas fell pretty quickly but took a lot of scales with her. Nilf flitted around the map doing Nilf things and Stingers got him down to 2 life but he killed a lot in response. I intended to put OM 2 on Nilfheim but it ended up being on Greenscales and I used one to engage two sitting on height in lava with the other sitting on Dagmar. Nilf managed to kill all but the two engaged with the Stinger on the remainder of that OM and OM 3 resting on one of the high lava points. Evantage thought for a while and disengaged with both (1 was successful), didn't get stinger drain and only got a single skull which was blocked and then the last Stinger died to lava. After the game he asked me what I would have done and I told him I would have moved one off the lava, tried to kill the Greenscale with height and then tried to ice Nilf with the one who moved off lava and hope lava finished Nilf off.
W 2 life Nilf 2 Greenscales
R3 Vydar (3x Heavies, Grimnak, Nerak) vs. Dwarves x3, Mogrimm Darrak
on Honor (also the only time you'll see me on this one)
Vydar did an excellent job of blocking with Grimnak and I spent an extra turn moving Mogrimm somewhere for no good reason. He had initiative and I tried to go for the switch but ended up killing nothing and got my dwarves killed when he won initiative. There was a moment where I had an opportunity to get a number of attacks on Grimnak (maybe I would've gotten more if I hadn't done the Mogrimm move) and did almost nothing. He was rolling hot on both attack and defense and I was...not. He did a great job blocking me from getting big hits on his heroes and the dice carried him the rest of the way.
L 4 life Grimnak Full Nerak 3 Heavies
R4 Retlaw (Major Q9, Braxas) vs. Heavies, Grimnak, Nerak on Forest Fire
Where are my freaking dwarves? At least I had a bunch of attack right? I actually sent a single orc to go swing at Braxas and he got a wound before Retlaw used Braxas to spit him to death. Q9 got trapped in a corridor where a couple Grimnak boosted orcs could get height on him but he rolled like a champ rolling 3 or 4 shields pretty consistently. My orcs held up pretty well and I even moved Grimnak over so he was attacking with 3 dice (not like I could chomp anything this game ). Finally when I was down to a handful of orcs and Braxas was about to come into play I went 4/4 with an orc and he went 0/7 on Q9. I was then able to regroup the remaining orcs and kill Braxas before she could do enough damage.
W 3 Heavies 4 life Grimnak
Final: 3-1
Bring 2, Strike 1
Spoiler Alert!
I decided to play two armies I wanted to play. Varks. (Eldgrim and the squads fit perfectly) and Arashara and Romans. After checking with dok that Raelin backed Romans were roughly equivalent to the Varks I charged forward.
I felt pretty good about the matchup and got the opportunity to strike one of the armies. Since he seemed newer I felt like he was probably wasn't going to take either of my armies and I felt more comfortable fighting ZIs and the borgs and so struck M-43s. He took the ZIs and I took Varks. Eldgrim grabbed Ulaniva OM 1 and my wolves were an absolute force to be reckoned with charging across the board and annihilating things. 1 life Executioner tried to take some wolves with her but literally rolled a 3 when she needed at least a 4. Varks with Ulaniva are very good.
W 2 life Eldgrim 3 Swiftfangs 3 Greyspears 3 Darkclaws 3 Quickblades
R2 boromir96 (Mohicans x4, Brave Arrow, Van Nessing & Cultists x3, Cyprien, Sonya) on Turmoil
I lost the diceoff again and seeing another shadow map with Ulaniva I struck my own wolves since that was not something I needed again. He took his Mohicans and I responded with Romans. Arashara did a good job helping me pod up and boromir took some pot shots with Mohicans and Van Nessing and planted Brave Arrow in a solid spot. Unfortunately for him I just kept rolling defense. He must have thrown a good 5 or 6 attacks and Raelin and got like 1 wound for his efforts. Meanwhile Arashara continued to move herself, Romans, and boromir's figures into places where they could get a bunch of damage with the big one being dropping Van Nessing into a hole where he died to a bunch of heighted Roman attacks. I slowly moved the legion across the map and he retreated until I made it to the edge of his start zone. He really needed a lot more whiffs from me but my Romans were rolling the defense of their life.
I just heard how Necroblade had lost to GGs on this map to Apprentice. This was a potential finals game and if boromir beat Sir Heroscape I would win with a victory here. This time Apprentice lost the diceoff and struck my wolves. I took his Glad/Blast because they can throw a lot of dice and given the lack of range from everyone else this felt like the right call. He responded with the GGs. Given how defensive this map was I felt like if I could just kill as many as possible with the Trons I could finish everything else off with Q10. I foolishly sent a glad after Wannok which meant it just died to a GG attack. It took a bit of doing but I finally managed to get Glads on the highest points of the map and stuck Blasts behind them. And then I just started taking as many shots as I could focusing on where I was throwing the most dice and then where he was throwing the least. He tried to do some things to stop me but my Glads rolling 5 dice were almost impossible to dislodge. I had a nice little fortification when time in round got called and I had significantly more left than him.
W 2 Glads 6 Blasts Full Q10 Isamu vs. 3 Granite Guardians Siiv
boromir beat Sir H so I was the undisputed champ (If I had played and Sir H and lost the diceoff there was a very good chance I would have struck his shadows since he had way more experience with them than me). There was an optional 4th round but only 4 players wanted in so I sat out to let them play.
Final: 3-0
3 Headed Hydra
Spoiler Alert!
boromir approached me asking if I had a team and when I said no, I quickly said yes to being on a team with him. We agreed on Vydar as our 3rd and he graciously accepted. I found the Cutters x4 Charos Guilty build fairly early on and said I felt very comfortable playing it. boromir felt it lost to a TKN build and TKN was really good against the field and he was going to run that. We tossed a couple ideas around for Vydar and settled on having him run a mess of Harqs, Thorgrim, and Krug. At dinner the previous evening I asked him if he wanted to use my Harq card signed by CVN and he said "I'm not sure in what universe I say no to that". (ISB3 tried to bribe the card away from me later and I was tempted but I decided to hold onto it) We felt pretty good about our builds going in. I spent a while trying to come up with a punny name and settled on Eat, Flay, Load a pun on Eat, Pray, Love (Eats, Shoot, and Cleaves would've been perfect if Cleave wasn't associated with a figure in none of our armies)
We lost the diceoff and so we were deferred to for the army ban. We felt the AGs were good against all of us while everything else was solid. We banned me vs. AGs which paired me up vs. Phantom, Vydar vs. Cleon, boromir vs. Sir Heroscape. In hindsight, we should've banned Vydar vs. Cleon and then I could have tried to use Charos to kill Mimring in my matchup against AGs. C'est la vie.
Map Frostmire
Turns out bumpy spots make it really easy for warforged to make it hard to get heighted attacks on them. Phantom sending out a couple Vipers for my cutters to snack on was helpful. I grabbed Wannok and got a couple wounds on Raelin before Warforged came over and put a stop to that. I was hemorrhaging Cutters and only had one Warforged to kill. Turns out Warforged Resolve is still really good when you're only rolling 2ish dice a turn. I decided to send Charos to tank things. Charos did his absolute best and managed to tank everything with only 1 life left.
W 8 Cutters 1 life Charos 1 life McCreech
Vydar couldn't get much done against Cleon and boromir watched TKN get Lethal Stung and then a Spider finish off TKN.
R2 Bye
Another tough matchup but we made it through with a W.
They banned me and Q23 from playing. I wanted to play my last game against Q23 where we could just be super casual and shoot the breeze, but the brothers had to be competitive. We decided zombies were murder on both me and Vydar but I was either going to have to fight IS's Greeks which I felt pretty good about or get sacrificed to zombies. Vydar was going to have to leave soon so we decided to sacrifice him to zombies and have boromir play against the Mohicans which he felt really good about. Had Vydar not been in a rush, we probably have boromir play Zombies, me play Greeks, and Vydar play Mohicans.
Map Turmoil (fitting that I end here)
IS charged TheraShuttle (C) and Valguard onto the Initiative glyph. I set up a nice solid pod of Cutters and dared him to come after me while he amassed his forces. To force his actions I brought Guilty up and started pot shotting down on Valguard which brought the Greeks into the fray. Mob attack worked super well on the Greeks and I managed to knock quite a few down while he wasn't making his way through Cutters fast enough. Once they were pretty worn down Charos made his way out. There's not much to say here other than that IS needed some 3/3s to be met with 0/5s and he got them.
L 2 Band, 1 life Valguard TheraShuttle (C)
Final: 1-1
Final record: 19-8
Was a lot of fun. Look forward to more Scaping in the future.
~Dysole, who keeps improving her notes system each year.
Okay gonna try and get this out while it's all still as fresh as possible.
Multiplayer Madness
After Vipers proved to leave me as the last player standing but poorly in actually placing well in the standings I went with Blades x3, Grimnak, Nerak figuring chomp plus cheap Blades would do well. This strategy would prove good.
Early game had MBS pinging Arrows and rats attacking them as well while I went after Vydar as well and everyone just kinda kept trading with Evan taking very minimal damage (mostly Vydar attacking rats and putting two wounds on MBS). There was one sequence where I had a 2/3 chance of going before Vydar to wall off Krug being able to attack Grimnak but Krug was able to turn the dinosaur into mincemeat. I managed to finish off MBS and Vydar's Krug and put a couple wounds on Evantage's Krug before Krug annihilated the rest of the army. I finished about 20 points behind Vydar.
2 points
R2 vegie (Stingers x3, Laglor), Major Q23 (Rats x3, Krav, Laglor), Chris Perkins (PKs x4, Isamu)
Hilariously after vegie and Q23 got called I was just like "I'm gonna be at this table aren't I?" and when Chris got called was like "oh I'm definitely going to be at this table". Nobody really wanted to face my build but vegie and Chris were the only ones who were nearby. Chris elected to go attacking Q23's stuff and he chose to respond in kind while vegie elected to throw a few early shots on Nerak (who I stupidly had in range of the start zone to do this). Thankfully he lived enough for me to set up a pod and quickly remove vegie's Stingers. After I had thinned out vegie with the help of Q23 I proceeded to run my way through Chris's PKs as Grimnak had many tasty Boo Berries before coming back and chomping a four life Laglor. At that point Q23 had his Krav and a few rats and Chris had Isamu while I had a couple Blades and Grimnak. I waited a touch too long to head after Q23 and he finished off Grimnak and took the victory.
4 points
R3 samuelfrost4 (Brunak, Deathwalker 7000, Wolves of Badru), Dragon Ruler (Hounds x3, Marcu), Deroche (4th Mass x3, Raelin)
I took a long time setting up a pod while Dragon Ruler went after Deroche and samuelfrost4 losing a lot of Hounds in the process. He sent one over my way which I killed. Once I was set up I made my way toward Deroche while I sent a single Blade over to the Brunak, Hounds, Deathwalker mess. Dragon Ruler had thrown like 8 attacks of 3 on 7K so far and I threw a single attack of 2, rolled 2 skulls, and 7K rolled one shield. This would set the tone for everything as my Blades proceeded to wipe through Deroche's army including Grimnak chomping a full life Raelin. I killed over 450 points this game. I'm not sure if it was the highest point total for a single game but it had to be up there.
8 points
R4 Phantom (Mezzodemons x2, Siege), Chris Perkins (PKs x4, Isamu), vegies dad (Arrow Gruts x3, Swog Rider x2, Krug)
Not much to say about this game. vegies dad baited me early with Arrow Gruts and I took the chance to kill some of his stuff but quickly became ganked by everyone and died early on. I took out a Mezzo, some Arrows, a Phantom, and some wounds on Krug before perishing but still finished last.
8 points
Quad Pod
I could've brought VC but after realizing my spider build was invalid for General Wars , this looked like the event for me to run Spiders and since I was expecting dragons in VCheese event that meant no Laglor there, so decided to run him here and everything built out from that.
It had been a minute since I randomly played MI during an internship while I was in Texas. I got opening picks and Gladblast looked to be strongest in the pool so I snagged that. MI followed it up by taking my spiders and his knights/macdirks. I grabbed Romans and Lags for Gladblast synergy and to give myself a screen. Early rounds started with him moving the knights while I moved up Romans to be in screening position and then began moving up the Gladblast build. Finn came in and started trying to do things and even killed a couple Glads but I ignored him and focused on the squads quickly dropping them down to a member a piece even using a Laglor development to snipe one. MI switched over to Spiders but my board setup was really good at this point and a couple heighted shots brought down the Wyvern and then I just mopped up after that.
1-0
R2 BodaciousBlood (1: Van Nessing, Specters of Aldorn x2 2: Deathreavers x2, Werewolf Lord 3: Sentinels of Grax, Marro Stingers x2 4: Concan, Phantom Knights x2) on Desolation
First time playing BB in person. I got opening pick and I grabbed Spiders x3, Wyvern figuring that was the strongest pod in the pool but I should have deferred pick. BB grabbed Stingers and PKs and that left me with Specters although I do think there's an argument for Romans. He opened setting up a PK pod while I went with Specters. His setup was good enough that I was able to get a few lucky hits in but it cost me four of my Specters. He then moved up the Grax and I brought out the spiders. A couple timely kills managed to thin out the PKs and kill a Grax while he was only able to kill a couple spiders in response. The Wyvern's ability to break up his pods and isolate figures came in quite handy. I managed to finish off the Grax and even get a free turn to go gum up the start zone stingers with spiders. Unfortunately I didn't really get that many kills and he managed to kill the Wyvern with the Stingers. I brought up Van Nessing and was ready to have him go nuts on the Stingers but BB won initiative, opted to drain, got it and murdered Van Nessing costing me the whole round. Thankfully, he wasn't able to capitalize by finishing me off and I managed to use Specters to thin him out. Last round was called though with him having two stingers and a PK and I only had one spider. On the last attack of the game I had two attacks up and if I killed any two I would win but I mistakenly thought I had to kill the PK and so wasted a 2 skull attack there. I killed the other stinger and lost just barely on points.
I won the diceoff again and PKs x3 was too appealing to pass up. He took Brute Gruts and Dwarves. I responded with Spiders as I liked the Wyvern the most for cracking the Q10 shell. I went all PKs in the early going and just got super hot dice from them as they kept rolling 2 or 3 skulls on everything including all the Brute Gruts before they even got an OM. I think I put a couple spider OMs at the end but by that point it was just mop up although he did nearly kill the Wyvern. PKs were just really good at getting where they needed to go on this map and the hot dice made it hard for Muskie to put up much of a defense.
2-1
VCheese
Nobody but me seems to want to play Microcorp Troopers so I will keep playing them. They love Raelin and Rats and I had enough points for Laglor or Hydra. As I expected to see more dragons/heavies Hydra it was. Isamu was filler.
I tried to do my best in the early going with Troopers and rats into Quahon but Quahon was just very hot and I was not so hot. I managed to get two wounds on her and killed a lot of spiders. I had a pretty decent set up using the ruin, a barely developed Raelin, and enough rats to hold out but so did he. It was basically impossible for me to avoid clumping up too much and he managed to get wounds on my stuff and even one on Hydra. Near the end of the game I swapped over to Hydra but he did a good job of using Spiders to keep it from getting to Quahon. We had last round called in the middle of my 3rd OM when I had already committed to attacks. Had I know it would be last round I would have moved my Hydra into a terrible position and taken my 3 attacks up to try for some wounds. As it was, he had killed more than I had but it was still anyone's game. In retrospect I do think this was one of the worse maps to have to face him on.
I set up basically the same here but moved up Raelin up to the tree perch by the ruin as Mimring would have a harder time choosing targets than Quahon. He led Marro Warriors and grabbed unique attack glyph but Raelin defended like a champ and Troopers were able to gun down the MWs after they only did like 3 wounds to her. Mimring came up as did the Swog and tried to finish off Raelin but I managed to get some good attacks into both of them. After they both died, hs2010 conceded as I had about 10 troopers left and a full life Hydra all still protected by Raelin and he only had Arrow Gruts and Marcu left. It would've been an uphill battle for him.
1-1
R3 boromir96 (10thx4, Raelin, Eltahale, Raelin, Isamu) on Aeon
We actually played something like this matchup in the first VCheese tournament. Fortunately for me, this map was much better for me than Highways and Dieways. I set up Raelin on a 3 height perch and used rats to screen off the height and a number of the same level spaces and then I moved up Troopers. boromir set up Raelin more in the lower middle of the map but allowing her to cover the hill opposite where my Raelin set up. He also brought up Eltahale but only ever put the one order marker on her. Most turns were me and boromir just finding whatever good shots we could take and taking them. I killed a lot of 10th early but after that most of my wounds were on Eltahale (realizing that the game was likely to go to time I decided it was best to grab as many points as I could). I probably should have one or two more rat Order Markers just to make it harder for boromir to finish off as many Troopers as he did. By the time time was called in round I only had 2 left and the Hydra while he had most of the 10th left and it was enough points for him to win.
1-2
R4 MKPlusUltra (Dwarves x5, Mogrimm, Darrak) on Percolator
Ah Percolator again. I set up like I did with hs2010 but was a lot more liberal about my rat movements using them to attack dwarves that took glyphs or pushing them farther to the middle of the map. This made it very hard for him to do anything and his dwarf heroes took a lot of damage from the Heavy Weapon Special Attack. I think he conceded shortly after Darrak perished or time was called. Either way at the end of the game, he had only a handful of dwarves while I still had a lot of the army.
2-2
Shifting Alliances
Brutes x3 was a given. I originally had TBR and Dividers x2 because I thought it was 230 but it was in fact only 225 so I had to swap out a squad of dividers for Guilty and Isamu.
R1 w/infectedsloth against samuelfrost4 and Gingerkid on Bad Moon Rising
I don't even remember what armies they all had because samuelfrost's airborne turn 1 dropped took unique attack and prevented myself and IS from playing the game killing his Sonlen with all OMs and my brutes never got an attack in. I think one of IS's Tarns got to attack thanks to a lucky Berserker Charge but this game was over pretty much as soon as samuelfrost rolled back to back 20s for drop and init
0-1
R2 w/Earl of Sandwich against infectedsloth and HoundsRule on Wingspan
Again don't remember all the armies people had. I hadn't gotten a chance to really play with EoS before and he's a great guy. We pretty quickly settled in on my Brutes and his 4th as our armies because we liked them best against HR's Dwarves x2 and Darrak and IS's Spiders/Wyvern build. We set up a small pod near the start zone and he wait then fired anyone who approached while I used Brutes to pull 4th out of engagement and also run around thwacking anything that was going for glyphs and stuff. The strategy worked to perfection. It took us a bit of doing to finally kill the Wyvern but we were in control of the game for pretty much the whole time.
1-1
After that I dropped due to being tired.
Insanity of Battle
dok pointed out to me that Zelrig is one of the only bonding explosion specials and I hadn't played him in a tournament yet. This tickled me so Zelrig Greenscales x2 was in and then Warriors of Ashra x3 to finish off. The plan was basically to spend early placement turns clumping up my opponent's stuff and then they probably wouldn't have enough to finish off Ashra.
R1 Michaela (Sentinels of Jandar, Atlaga, Raelin, Concan, Sonya, Izumi Samurai) on Percolator
I managed to pretty early clump up all the squaddies but she placed Concan next to Sentinels making them a bit of a tougher nut to crack. I had Raelin in a far zone while she put Zelrig in a spot to try for an attack on him but I walled him off with my Ashra. Once the game started, she won initiative and was able to break the Sentinel pod. I did manage to get one of them eventually and spent most of the game having Greenscales pick off potentially troublesome units like Raelin or Atlaga (keeping Zelrig far away from him) while Zelrig was fooming units from a distance. The Izumi were a bit troublesome to kill but grabbing unique attack glyph and just hitting them with Zelrig's normal ended up being enough.
1-0
R2 infectedsloth (Dividers x6, Eltahale) on Blackridge
I messed up some placement here. I spent a turn clumping up dividers when I should have been placing Zelrig in a good spot because the map is a bit bigger than the rest of the pool. IS took advantage and placed him in a poor spot (I also put Eltahale in a poor spot) and also put my Ashra far away from Wannok expecting that to be a way he could win the endgame. He also won initiative allowing him to break up the clumps. I still managed to foom a lot with Zelrig dropping him down to maybe 3 squads before he finally took down Zelrig. I also made sure to kill Eltahale over a couple extra Dividers as she can just annihilate the Ashra in endgame. The best move I think I did all game was having a Greenscale and Zelrig walling her off, burning the greenscale with a Wannok wound and then having Isamu attack her with 5 dice hitting her for 3 wounds. By the time the endgame came around, he had killed a couple Ashra to blanks and I blanked a bit higher than average which when combined with a couple Wannok kills he got on them was just enough. Given that he only had 5 dividers left, if I win one of those early initiatives, I think I win this.
I clumped his heavies again and wasn't too upset with the place he put Zelrig and threw Grimnak in a bad place but he put a number of Ashra over there for Grim to chomp on and he placed Nerak next to the clumped up Heavies. I mistakenly put OM 1 on Ashra giving Evantage 2 turns to get himself set up nicely. Everything fell apart for me as the dice did not bail me out at all. I did my best to salvage things but by the time he wiped me out he had 9 heavies left and both heroes were still alive.
1-2
R4 Tales of Valhalla (Zombies x6, Morsbane) on Blackridge
My game plan worked to perfection here. I managed to clump a ton of zombies together and block off Zelrig from being engaged by them. Winning initiative allowed me to just foom all over the place. He managed to Onslaught SA some Ashra but then I immediately foomed the new zombie to death. I also kept him out of range of Morsbane just in case. It didn't matter either way. I only lost the 3 Ashra in the 2 rounds it took to finish off the zombies.
2-2
Championship
Really only 3 builds were considered. The meme army of Dispatch Ahoy! of Sir Gilbert, Knights x1, Tarns, Omnicron Repulsors x3, James Murphy (drop a Repulsor), a build of WSG, Nagrubs x2, Raelin and Harqs x2 and what I went with which was Raelin, Marcu, Quasatch x2, Harqs x2. I was originally skeptical I could fit Quasatch in but once Grey Waves pointed out how many maps had jungle I decided to go for it especially when dok said he thought WSG was just too inconsistent. I debated a couple options for the ranged component but settled on Harqs as I expected a lower power level and I could bring the signed CVN card to Championship (I.S.B.3 tried to trade for it both this year and last year)
I felt decently good about the matchup with NGS and MWs the only things that concerned me. I didn't have a good can opener in the army and MWs are good so I needed a strategy or a little luck to get through them. Thankfully, there was a Wannok on the board and I decided that would be what I would focus on. I led Quasatch early and plopped Raelin down in a spot on low ground by Wannok that would be hard for the melee forces to get through my Quasatch wall. He got to move all 9 drones at the beginning but never got that many after that. My early attacks on the Groks were failing and I was starting to get worried. Thankfully Wannok popped a drone and then my Harqs started being able to use the height to kill Drones and Groks (one of which had reclaimed Wannok but Marcu ate that wound happily). NGS had engaged a Quasatch and Joe spent a number of OMs on solo NGS to try and kill it which I took advantage of to thin out his forces with Harqs and even throw a wound or two on him. By the time the MWs came into play they were only at half strength. A timely initiative allowed me to finish them off from height. He only had like a couple drones left and NGS. NGS moved to low ground to sit on shadow next to Raelin and attack up at the Quasatch. Thankfully it held up and he only rolled a 2 on the mindshackle attempt. I had enough left to crack through NGS in that position as attacks of 3 and 4 will get through 6 and 7 defense eventually. I won with a couple Quasatch, a squad of Harqs, Raelin and Marcu left.
We both had Marcu and I saw the move glyph. Realizing how good that would be for Vydar's army I set it up. Marcu Turn 1 was met with Harqs shooting at him but not killing him. PKs hitting Vydar from my start zone with 8 move flying was not something he expected though and that allowed me to put him on the back foot a bit. He continued to split OMs between Quasatch and Harqs while I moved up Mezzos and Kozuke. I managed to smack down a lot of Quasatch with 5 attack dice from Mezzos and Kozuke. I figured once they were dead Repulsors could handle the Harqs especially since I had taken out a couple with the PKs and Mezzos. He did get some good kills on them (including a 1 skull attack by a Quasatch onto a 5 defense Kozuke that whiffed) which kept him in the game and with Marcu dead Wannok was in play. Thankfully I had enough Repulsors left to finish him off and got a light of mileage out of the pings to kill Raelin and the remaining Harqs. Marcu came forward to make an attempt to pull him back in but the Repulsors were still too much especially with Raelin still backing them up. I won with 4 of them, Rae, and a PK.
2-0
R3 boromir96 (Blastsx2, Glads, Raelin, PKs, Shotgun) on Desolation
I thought this would be an easy win with Techno-Hatred and would just have to get some lucky PK kills. Unfortunately for me, Techno Hatred ran very cold and boromir managed to kill Raelin in only a few turns which made it much easier to pick off the rest of the build. I could have been more conservative with my Raelin placement but then with the range advantage he just sits back and plinks away daring me to come attack him out of my own aura and so I felt it was better to put Raelin in a heighted location that would allow me to send my Quasatch in to go attack him while still being in the aura. I knew my army would struggle to crack anything with high defense but it got no breaks here. He only lost 3 Glads and 2 Blasts by the time he annihilated my army.
2-1
R4 Muskie (Horned Skull Brutes x4, Kaemon Awa) on Bad Moon Rising
I was very happy to be handed this matchup and this map. BMR is a hard map for my army with no trees and its relative flatness makes it hard for the Harqs to get height shots. And then everything in his army had 4 defense so I felt I would need dice to hate me pretty badly for me to lose this. Fortunately for Muskie, Raelin decided she wanted to stay alive for a long time in this game. Unfortunately for him, she was really the only one who felt this way. I used up about half the brutes thinning out his early Harq wave and the subsequent Quasatch wave. Kaemon showed up after that and after grabbing the height in the middle just finished him off
3-1
R5 Cleon (Tor-Kul-Na, Nagrubs, Rats x2, Arkmer, Theracus) on Desolation
Did not like this matchup but at least it was one of the best maps in the pool for me. I set up Raelin on the perch by the Hive like I had against Vydar and moved up Quasatch to take care of the early rat menace. I wasn't that successful and TKN eventually came out to play. I wasn't able to do a ton of damage to him but did kill a Nagrub and with the move glyph he, the rats, and a nagrub came into my start zone to start stomping on the Harqs out of Raelin's aura. I countered with a move into his start zone and finished off the hiding Nagrub and Arkmer. Theracus took two wounds from Wannok. Rats tied up the other set of Harqs in the start zone while TKN made his way over. I had been hoping to wait then fire the marro but instead had to settle for trying to clear out as many rats as I could. Two things then swung the game back in my favor. His rat had reclaimed Wannok and rolled a 1 and he had scattered another rat away leaving a spot for a heighted attack on TKN. I sent over a Quasatch and did 3 wounds leaving him with only 2 life. I moved on to my next set of attacks forgetting about the rat next to that Quasatch but it worked out as that rat made it harder for TKN to move to where he wanted. I managed to reclaim the move glyph and finish off Theracus. TKN having finished off all but the Quasatch on Valda moved over to attack Raelin but thankfully for me I had an Order Marker on her and was able to hit him with 4 dice to deal another wound. The next round he did more damage to Raelin knocking her to 2 wounds and I had a 9 move Marcu able to come in and smack him for the last wound. Cleon conceded having only a rat left.
This was like the perfect map for me to get this. I once again set Raelin up on the height 3 tree spot and then was able to just set up a Swog/AG pod and kill the first wave pretty easily. Once he dispatched the Swogs I had the last one more protected and had Ice Troll as the guardian of the bridge. We fell into a pattern of him moving up Quasatch to break up the line and the Troll thwacking them dead even with Raelin's aura while Arrows shot down at Harqs or Quasatch whichever was the easier target. Once he ran out of Quasatch I had the Troll run up and kill Raelin and then later Marcu.
5-1
Day 2
R1 Evantage (Laglor, Blastatrons x2, Sacred Band x2, Parmenio) on Bad Moon Rising
I got the map but this matchup was easily one of the worst for me as it had even fewer ways to crack defense than mine. I led all Sacred Band which I think surprised him as he set up with Raelin on the road and a split of Harqs and Quasatch protecting her. I managed to get some pretty good board control in the middle of the board with Parmenio on the height and the Band on the shadow. I made a mistake and thought I would need Laglor to kill Raelin but I should have just pressed my board control with the Band. Laglor killed a couple Harqs but I also put him in a place I did not realize would be a bad spot. When Quasatch came barreling in to break up the little defensive group I had in the middle of the map, Laglor was sitting on a place that prevented me from getting height on the Quasatch and so I instead had to try for 3 v 6s instead of 4 v 6s. He also whiffed a lot of 1 skull attacks which meant he wasn't even tanking just dying slowly enough to be useless in any late game sense. Once he finished the Band and Lagor off, I had placed Parmenio engaged to the remaining three Quasatches to keep him from the Blastatrons. They managed to kill Raelin and a Harq dropping him to 2, but a disengage from one of them (which failed) and Parmenio going from 4 life to 0 in one turn meant he could use the Quasatch to finish me off. He only had the 2 Quasatch and 2 Harqs and Marcu left at the end so I think if I had instead gone with the Band instead of the 2 Laglor OMs, late game against the Harqs and Marcu is with Laglor and Blasts which is very winnable.
Eliminated 5-2
Speedscape
I got handed Vydar's armies with almost no idea of what they were as they needed me to fill in. These are gonna be quick (going with the theme)
R1 Phantom (Spiders x3, Estivara on Wingspan
I had 10th x2, MBS. In a single round I killed 5 spiders and had claimed the height. Phantom conceded having only killed a single 10th.
R2 vegietarian (Stingers x3, Marcu) on Odin Wept
I had Blades x2, Grimnak. Grimnak died in a single turn to Stingers the first time they attacked him and the Blades only managed to kill 2 Stingers in response.
R3 Chris Perkins (Stingers x3, Marcu) on Aeon
This game looked like it would play out like the other but a few timely switches and me charging Darrak across the map turned things around. The final showdown was a couple dwarves and Darrak in Chris's start zone and after he finished off Darrak he went to Marcu who back to back betrayed him allowing me enough breathing room to finish him off and win with a single dwarf at the end.
2-1 total
Three Headed Hydra
dok's Misplaced Priorities (name courtesy of Deroche an improvement over my own "dok wishes he was on this team") was myself, Chris Perkins, and Evantage. We settled on Cutters x4, Charos (Chris); Zombies x5, Laglor (Evantage); and Hounds x3, Red Wyrm x4, White Wyrm x1 (me) as the builds as we felt those were the strongest cores. Zombies and Hounds builds were both done with an eye at the mirrors and bad matchups.
R1 Team SirCleoBlood
I played Bodacious Blood (Kato Katsuro, Ashigaru Harqs x2, Ashigaru Yari x2) on Blackridge. We sent Zombies after their Cutters and Jotun build and Cutters against their Hounds build.
I thought about leading Wyrmlings but I was worried they would be picked off too easily. I led with Hounds and poor defense caused some of them to fall early but I manged to grab some steam and focused on the Harqs dropping him down to a squad (and I think 6 Yari). By that time he had knocked me down to a squad of Hounds myself. I switched over to Reds when he wasn't expecting him and managed to drop him down to 2 Harqs and killed the remainder the next round. He only managed to kill a single red and 2 more hounds as the Wyrms danced around the map finishing off Ashigaru and eventually Kato.
Evantage beat the cutters quite easily giving us the win.
1-0
R2 SirEarthMuskie
I played Muskie (Warforged x4, Atlaga) on Percolator while Evantage had the zombie mirror and Chris played into Hounds again since the Hound mirror was banned.
This game can really be summed as me just having a very hot plague die and killing a lot of warforged that by the time I brought out the Wyrms, he only had a squad left and Atlaga had 2 wounds. Atlaga managed to bolt a Hound (who should have stayed on Wannok but I got greedy) but eventually both he and the last set of Warforged died to Wyrm attacks.
Evantage lost the mirror but Chris managed to beast it out with Charos.
2-0
R3 0-2 Drop
I played Dragon Ruler (Sacred Band x3, Parmenio, Heirloom, Red Wyrm x3) on Odin Wept. They nixed the Hounds mirror so Chris played into Hounds again and Evantage played into Arrows.
I led Wyrms this time figuring I wanted to thin out the Band first. Given that he barely advanced out of his start zone, this ended up being a good strategy. I managed to pick off a couple Band and take Wannok with my White Wyrm. Unfortunately, there was a turn I misplayed things badly and removed a Band that could get to a Red Wyrm but missed the one who could get a height attack on my White Wyrm. It died as did another Red leaving me with a Red in a bad spot and one in my start zone. I switched over completely to Hounds. Thankfully Dragon Ruler gave me a few openings to swing things back to me. He thought he had blocked off locations only for my hounds to sneak on in. I did lose my Reds (one to an attack and another to Wannok), but the Hounds made up for it including one turn where I dropped him from a squad and Parmesan to a single Band. Heirloom did his best after everything else had fallen and he killed 3 hounds but plague, attacks, and Wannok finished him off leaving me with a single hound alive.
Evantage lost but Chris managed another win against Hounds
3-0
R4 P-Town
I played vegietarian (TKN, Nagrubs x3, Syvarris, Otonashi) on Blackridge. It's arguable we should have banned either Zombies into Hounds or Cutters into Arrows but we instead banned Hounds into Arrows (which isn't a great matchup for me). As is we got both of those matchups with me getting Stompy.
vegie led Syvarris and I led Hounds and got 2 4 moves out of the gate allowing Syvarris to pick off a whole squad before I could do anything. My primary focus was on Syvarris and the Nagrubs although I still attempted plagues on TKN. I managed to put 3 wounds on Syvarris after he went to the start zone and Hounds managed to kill a good number of Nagrubs even as TKN began dismantling them. Once I dropped below a squad I switched over to Reds. The Wyrms managed to sneak some wounds in but I also stole an Order Marker killing a Nagrub and Syvarris with the White. There was one move where I thought my red was safe from TKN without an LEA but he wasn't (although vegie informed me he would have taken the LEA to get at the Red but it would have been an even attack instead of a heighted one). Still I managed to do enough wounds with height attacks and SAs to finish him off with 2 Reds left. Last Hound grabbed Wannok finishing off Otonashi.
4-0
Unfortunately, my teammates lost but still it was a good way to finish out Scapecon.
Final Scapecon Record 18-9
Had a good time. Catch y'all at the next one.
~Dysole, figuring what better way to kill time in the airport
I entered this convention wanting to try and not stress myself out with games. In previous years, I spent too much time worrying about making sure I was going to make Day 2 or that I was going to win dice and it wasn't good for me and partway through last Scapecon I stopped feeling the need to "prove myself" or something and so I decided this year I was going to make an attempt to get to Worlds but I wasn't going to stake everything on that or walking away with dice.
Three Headed Hydra
Chris Perkins approached me months ago to try and set up a three headed hydra team with Cleon and I agreed. After much deliberation we decided that Zombies, Hounds, and Q9 builds gave us the most answers into things. This proved to be correct as I rarely felt like we had to worry about a bunch of bad matchups.
Chris ran Q9, Rats x3, Arkmer
Cleon ran Hounds x4, Airborne (we figured AE just win some games for him and they don't have to worry about plague)
I ran Zombies x5, Kaemon, Isamu
Round 1
Our first matchup was into Q23, infectedsloth, and I.S.B.3. Q23 had Stingers x4, Raelin, Tarn, IS had dividers x5, Q10, Iskra and I.S.B.3 had zombies x5, Krav, Guilty. We banned the zombie mirror and then they paired me into Q23, infectedsloth into Cleon, and I.S.B.3 into Chris
I played Major Q23 on April 9th. I quickly found out how good this improved attack glyph was for the zombies because I was often able to hold it and use it to bring back more zombies. Raelin was proving to be annoying and I took a few turns to kill her with onslaught. Once that happened, Stingers started falling rapidly and Q23 was not able to keep up.
W 6 Zombies, Isamu left
1-0
The rest of the team swept if I remember right.
Round 2
Next up was the Louisville crew of Deroche, Viideosayg, and Necroblade. Deroche had 4th x4, Sam Brown; Viideosayg had 10th and Raelin; and Necro had Heavies x3, Nerak, Grimnak. We banned 10th into me since it was the worst matchup in the pool and we felt like Hounds and Q9 could win the other two matchups pretty easily. I got handed Heavies, Chris played 10th, and Cleon played 4th. We chose to set me up on April 9th with the juicy juicy attack glyph.
Necro played this one cleverly enough that I wasn't able to get good attacks on him with 2 attack, so I switched tactics. I decided to use Kaemon as a sniper from behind a zombie wall. Unfortunately, what I thought would give me line of sight didn't and then my backup placement for Kaemon fell super quickly to a chomp and a Grimnak attack getting through and Kaemon died very quickly to boosted orc attacks. I still made a game of it but now with him killing zombies faster than I could regenerate them he managed to fend off the horde and Isamu died in like the first hit he took.
L 5 orcs, full life Grimnak, Otonashi
1-1
Chris managed to beat 10th but Cleon suffered a brutal set of wild pack rolls to open his game and almost made a comeback but it wasn't enough.
Round 3
Our next round was against the Hexpendables made up of Dragon Ruler, Houndsrule, and Triviaknight. Dragon Ruler had 10th x3, Raelin, Tarn, Houndsrule had 4th x4, Sam Brown, and Triviaknight had Cutters x4, Kaemon, Syvarris. We all felt like we had a good matchup into Cutters and so we banned me into 10th again. Anyways I ended up going into Cutters on Nightfall.
We sat down next to dok who looked at the matchup and said "oh that's a loss" Triviaknight didn't think so. He changed his mind after seeing that I could move 6 zombies, engage up to like five cutters, attack with whichever zombies I wanted, and regen zombies on basically every attack. Kaemon stuck himself in a spot where I couldn't onslaught so I would take one zombie a turn with the attack glyph to do a 3 v 4. Eventually I took him down this way since I could regen counterstruck zombies via Cutters pretty easily. He conceded once I had him down to 3 cutters and a 2 life Syv.
W 10 zombies, Full Kaemon, Isamu
2-1
The rest of the team swept.
Round 4
Final round was Team BFF made up of dok, Matthias, and OEAO. dok had Q9, Rats x3 and Tarn, Matthias had Band x4, Parmenio, and Shotgun, and OEAO had Kurrok, Fire Elementals x10. We decided to set matchups after they banned Q9 into Band. We played me into Band, Q9 mirror, and Hounds into Firestorm. We set up on Dark Fulcrum which was great for melee.
I started off by making a big wall of Zombies while Matthias took ping shots with Shotgun. I saw a lone band and went to have a zombie attack it and succeeded in getting a kill which was actually to my detriment unbeknownst to me at the time. I then press my advantage allowing Matthias to eventually out attack me and even press the advantage on Kaemon although Kaemon took out a lot of figures with Counter strike and his attacks. Afterwards, he said I should have just kept the zombies on height and pinged with Kaemon. Looking back, I agree. Thankfully my two teammates won their games.
L 3 Band, Parmenio, Shotgun
2-2 ish (3-1 team)
Delta
I wanted to play Protectors in an event and the small maps and point total plus Rule of 12 made Atlaga, Protectors x4, Marcu perfect for this.
Round 1
Mr. Wookie (Eltahale, Marro Stingers x4, Sam Brown) on August 2nd
Stingers vs flying stingers. What we found out is that flying stingers can reinforce their position a lot better. It helped that there was never an initiative switch he could take advantage of to regain lost ground and so he made more 3v4 attacks and I made more 4v3 attacks. Eltahale could have made things very scary if he hadn't placed an order marker on Sam Brown first, whiffed the attack and then watched as Eltahale got obliterated by Protectors (including getting a 7 die attack on her with one life left) to eat 2 OMs. Sam Brown then also took a 7 die attack with 1 life the next turn.
W 3 Protectors, Atlaga, Marcu
1-0
Round 2
Chill (Dwarves x3, Mogrimm, Krav) on Origin
This was a bad map to get the Krav draw. I knew I was going to have to play this one really aggressively and try to kill the Krav as quickly as I could. I managed to speed across the map with the move glyph and flying and catch him a bit off guard but my melee attacks on the Krav resulted in only one going through before he was able to recover. I was never quite able to regain that momentum as Krav, Dwarves, and Mog slowly cut through my troopers. I didn't spend a lot of time attacking Mogrimm as I needed to reduce the number of squad figures I was facing. This meant that Mogrimm was able to do a lot of damage at times and I didn't get the kills I needed to pull this off. Witherwood failed and Atlaga put up a valiant effort before dying and Marcu betrayed me fairly early into his endgame and just died from Krav attacks.
L Mogrimm, 1 dwarf, 2 Krav, Oto
1-1
Round 3
Evantage (Grimnak, Heavies x3,Marcu , Nerak, Sahuagin Raider) on Hydra
The small map and the matchup meant that whichever way the pendulum swung, it would probably continue swinging that way. He played cautiously while I grabbed height. My early attacks on Nerak didn't yield fruit so I focused on reducing the number of orcs. Unfortunately, not getting good attacks to land on Grimnak or Nerak meant that he quickly outnumbered me in attacks. I did get the Witherwood on Grimnak so moral victory or something.
L 2 life Nerak, 2 Heavies, Marcu, Sahuagin
1-2
Round 4
Hawaiian Grizzly (Monks x4, Woo, Sonlen, Oto) on Healing Waters
Now ready to play the afternoon event, I figured I would just play to see what I could win. I got a great matchup for me. Monks are fast but as long as I kept Protectors separated I could rain fire down on the monks and they just died as they came forward. He brought forward Sonlen to help mitigate things but being the hero killers that they are Protectors managed to down him (I think there was an eight die attack to finish him off the highest I got of the day). Woo lasted a little bit longer because partway through killing him I turned back to the monks but it was a game I was in control the whole time.
W 5 Protectors, Atlaga, Marcu
2-2
Round 5
Gingerkid16 (TKN, SBN, Grubs x4, Isamu) on Ascension
It wasn't the best map for me but it did mean I could jump around it pretty easily Gingerkid did a good job of tying me up with Grubs and keeping me from finishing off TKN despite piling a lot of wounds on him. SBN came up and managed to kill a Protector only to immediately get hit for three wounds. I finished him off the following round and TKN fell not too long after but he had eaten through almost all of my Protectors with Isamu managing to kill the last one. I rolled a 1 on Witherwood for Isamu but managed to kill him not too long after.
W 2 life Atlaga, Marcu
3-2
VC Bring 2, Strike 1
I wanted to play bugs. First pod was Fyorlag Spiders x4, Kozil, Wyvern, Marro Warriors and the second was Heracles, Xualtiaca Fire Ants x4, Marcu. Heracles and Marro Warriors helped me feel good about the lower power levels of the rest of the pools.
Round 1
Vydar_XLIII (Kira Jax, Teeth of the Makwa x5, Zetacron & Agent Skahen, Nhah Scirh Cultists x4) on Nightfall
I actually liked the spiders into both his armies (and Makwa into Cultists) and I felt confident playing Heracles into my spiders so I struck nothing. Vydar took the Makwa and I responded spiders. Zetacron managed to get an early height position and took one attack down on Kozil dealing a wound before he got surrounded by spiders. He learned really quickly that 2 attack spiders are a real threat to anything with 2 defense as I slowly chipped away at his stuff using Wyvern and Kozil to eliminate Makwa as well. I don't think I ever stole an OM but I never really needed to as the spiders just let me control the board so well. He conceded when I had him down to 2 Makwa and Kira
W 6 spiders, 1 life Kozil, 2 life Wyvern, Marro Warriors
1-0
Round 2
Ultralord (Agent Carr, Agent Skahen, Deathreavers x3, Krav Maga Agents
& Death Chasers of Thesk x5, Isamu, Nerak, Ogre Pulverizer) on August 2nd
We had to do a bit of explaining of things at the start but I struck his Krav and rats build primarily because I felt like the Heracles, Fire Ants build would beat it while the Chaser build would be beaten by spiders and it would likely be a more enjoyable game if the army he played against was mostly classic units. Kozil did absolute work this game though with a hot Wounded Rage and managing to put a lot of wounds on both Nerak and the Pulverizer. I used spiders to screen Wyvern until the Chasers were thinned out and the Pulverizer was dead. I think I stole an order marker as well at one point. He conceded with 2 Chasers and Isamu
I decided not to strike anything and he took Varks. I followed up with Heracles and ants figuring Heracles should be good into the Varks. I led ants and they did...poorly. They managed to kill I think a Swiftfang and a Darkclaw before they were dropped down to like 3 figures. Heracles came out swinging and killed the forward 2 Swiftfangs and Darkclaw. He stuck the last two on the glyphs and brought up Arktos and Greyspears. A key initiative meant Heracles killed two of them before tanking hits from Arktos and Greyspears and then finishing off the rest of the Greyspears and Arktos. He then goes over and kills the Swiftfang on the glyph while the Darkclaw is approaching to try and attack him. Instead of going for the Darkclaw Heracles goes to attack Guilty and murders him with the special power of lots of attack dice and then finishes off the Darkclaw.
I made a mistake. Do not abandon your bugs Dysole. I should have struck Stingers and then grabbed Spiders into whatever he decided to play (or Ants into spiders). This map was too good for Stinger horde. I thought I could slow play it with Heavies but I just couldn't contest the hill and he won this pretty handily.
L 5 Stingers, Full Raelin
3-1
Game ended up being the championship after the pairdown lost. I did get a neat set of Acolarh style OMs for second place though.
VC Monster Mash
It was simple. I wanted to run Constructs. Given that I expected Hounds, Dwarves, and Varks, GIE's engagement strike and Avernus's Wave of Flame all felt like good meta calls. Boreos would also be very helpful in a dwarf match. Lilja gave me a way to get multiple attacks. Final build was Talingul, Lilja, Boreos, GIE, Avernus
I knew I had to be careful not to get Talingul in trouble and so I set up GIE on the raised hexes in the middle of the map to deter movement there and Avernus up onto the hill while they moved up Varks. We got into a bit of a cluster mess around the bridges with me trading pretty well into the Varks. I also had Boreos go over and attack near their start zone to try and get more Vark kills. I wasn't so much interested in trying to kill order markers (because of Rygarn) as to reduce the power of each Swiftfangs and Quickblades for Avernus and Boreos. Lilja also did a lot of work cutting down Varks near the startzone. Orculon had set up a small pod of Greyspears and Darkclaws near the startzone but I kept whittling this pod down with Boreos and Lilja and a few hits from GIE. (I think a Darkclaw died to Ice Spikes) GIE managed to attack Rygarn before he could really start doing any range shenanigans and he failed both Temporal Jumps from 6 dice attacks.
W 5 life Talingul, 3 life Lilja, 1 life GIE
1-0
Round 2
S1R ART0R1US (Arktos, Eldgrim, Varkaanan Greyspears, Varkaanan Quickblades, Varkaanan Swiftfangs, Vulcanmech Incendiborgs) on April 9th
I felt decently good going into this matchup but he led with Greyspears and they managed to just annihilate Avernus and Lilja before I got to really kill much (Eldgrim and like a single Greyspear if I remember right, Eldgrim going on the VIs). Avernus whiffed with 5 dice on the first attack he took and Lilja basically got two shotted before she could engage anyone. GIE and Boreos did make it a game though with both of them killing a lot of Varks before they died. Unfortunately that also meant I had Talingul against the VIs with all their markers and he was just able to plop off one redundancy marker before dying. I think if Avernus and Lilja live a few turns longer, I should be able to reduce the Vark numbers enough that they have a hard time dealing with the remainder of my constructs and I probably remove enough redundancy markers that I can win the kite game with Talingul.
L 4 life Arktos, VIs with 2 redundancy markers
1-1
Round 3
bishop2003 (Talingul, Breach, Iron Golem x2, Augamo) on Healing Waters
We realized as we were setting up that he had gone with the metal version of the constructs and I had gone with the elemental one. Like in Round 1 I dropped a construct on the raised middle hexes but this time it was Avernus while I kept the Ice Elemental ready to contest the hill. Breach and and Iron Golem came rushing on in to attack. This allowed me to set things up so Lilja got two attacks of 5 down on Breach while Avernus got to burn them both and then attack down on either while the rest of the army watched. I burned through the first Iron Golem and Breach before Augamo killed Avernus. I had Lilja take his spot while the Ice Elemental grabbed height on Augamo which allowed me to kill him. The GIE fell to the second Iron Golem's 6 attack though but did get an Ice Spikes and a wound from a regular attack through before it died. Lilja ran into the start zone and got two wounds on Talingul but the Iron Golem managed to kill her (Shards was a complete dud). Using Boreos superior movement I managed to keep out of range of Iggy for a response. I backed up Talingul and rolled 4 skulls to a blank to get a dead enemy Talingul. Boreos managed to grab one of the center hexes and finish off Iggy
W Talingul, 1 life Boreos
VC Quad Pod
I decided I wanted to just play Ebon pods so I went with Ebon, Izumi, Oto & Kozuke, Ninjas & Nakitas, Gorillinators & Tagawa, Tarn, Eldgrim. I didn't put a ton of thought into it, it was mostly just things I wanted to play.
Mega led and grabbed Teeth. Realizing that the only threatening range left was M43 and Nakitas, I grabbed both. Mega realizing there weren't great options left chose Specters and ZGs.
Game started with him pushing Teeth forward while I moved up Nakitas and Gorillas using the Gorillas to keep the Nakitas somewhat safe but he managed to kill one. Thankfully for me, I got multiple kills and did even more after I switched to Gorillas. The Teeth managed to knock out a Gorilla and another Nakita and so I switched to M43 but the Teeth had lost about half their forces in the onslaught. M43 only having 2 attack usually hurts but with the low defense Teeth I was getting kills consistently enough that Mega had to switch to Specters. I had moved Gorillas onto the safe raised hexes in the middle of the map near his start zone and they were a bit of an annoyance for him to dislodge. He managed to kill one with the Specters and a couple M43s but by this point I had the high ground and 3 attacks on 3 defense was killing more Specters than I was losing. He felled the other Gorilla with his last couple Makwa and I lost an M43 to lava. He switched over to Zettians but they weren't able to do much before M43s managed to crack their defense.
W 1 Nakita, 4 M43
1-0
Round 2
Loki619 (10thx2, MBS & Blades x2, Grimnak, Isamu & Nerak, Heavies x2, Marcu & Romans x2, Marcus) on Nightfall
He won the opener and grabbed 10th. I briefly considered grabbing Grimnak and Romans (Grimnak being excellent in the squad heavy pools and depriving him of a bonding squad for MBS) but decided I'd rather have the orc pods because I liked both of them into Romans and 10th.
I opened all Heavies while he split OMs between 10th and Romans. He set up a small Roman pod and used his 10th to take some Wait then Fire shots on Grimnak. 3/3 and 4/4 (Marcus boost) were both met with whiffs. With no Grimnak I realized I needed to remove 10th very quickly to have a shot at this game and proceeded to play the most aggressive game with orcs I have ever played. I charged Nerak up and charged orcs into his positions, taking every optimal attack I could and quite a few that were less than optimal. Nerak held up to wait then fire surprisingly well and killed quite a few 10th before falling. I had to clear out a number of Romans to get my attacks in on the 10th but once I did I prioritized attacks on 10th and soon I had eliminated them all although I did have to switch over to Blades for the last finish off. Thankfully, they too were able to charge across the board and make attacks. MBS moved up and took some shots killing a few blades but he got surrounded and fell due to some timely 2/2s from Blades (I think I might have also stolen an OM from him with killing his last Roman). Marcus had spent the whole game on a shadow and he died on that shadow as even 6 life 4 defense falls to attacks of 3 (2 + height)
W 3 Blades, Marcu, Isamu
2-0
Round 3
Chill (MRT x3 & Brave Arrow, Brutes x2 & Estivara, Spiders x3 & Red Wyrm, Black Wyrm x2, Wyvern) on April 9th
He opened Nakitas and I took my Ebon pod and my Tagawa pod with him finishing up with MRTs. I figured he would take MRTs and Nakitas and felt like the map would be small enough that I could leverage the Ebon regen abilities to negate Nakitas and MRT range advantage. In hindsight, I should have grabbed MRTs and Brutes as Brutes played well into everything and MRTs would have allowed me to contest range.
He opened all Nakitas and I opened all Ebon. He managed to pick me off somewhat easily and I suffered an engagement strike on a Nakita. He played this really well using Gorillas the whole game as just a screen without ever putting an OM on them. He then switched over to MRTs as I switched to Izumi, Eldgrim, and Tarn. I dropped Eldgrim on the attack glyph and he died and I decided to put his spirit on the Tarn hoping some good Berserker rolls would help. I got none of them and they died to range only taking some of his figures with them. Tagawa fared no better and Ebon reviving took a few turns only to keep dying to engagement strike. (I think he got 4 over the course of the whole game) Despite my high defense, he was able to just ping me to death. He might have gotten slightly lucky on what he was able to kill but I do think I made the bad drafting decision here.
L 3 Mohicans, 2 Nakitas, 3 Gorillas
2-1
Assassin's Creed Heat of Battle
This was a night event and I wasn't taking it too seriously. Brought Rats x1, Romans x3, Marcus, Valguard, and NGS because it felt like it would be an absolute nightmare no matter which hero you chose. Rats gave me another blocker.
Round 1
JandArvey (Heavies x2, Tornak, Krug, NGS) on Ascension
He chose Marcus and I chose Tornak. He set up a wall of heavies near the edge of the map while I used Romans to fill the center and set up a small pod right next to his wall along with Valguard. Tornak went behind the wall. Krug and NGS were nearby but weren't actually blocking off anything. My own NGS stood nearby as well. Meanwhile on the other side of the map, I walled off Marcus with rats.
I managed to punch through a number of heavies between Romans and Valguard and was able to reinforce whatever he killed with Romans from the height especially after grabbing the disengage glyph. It ended when I disengaged Valguard to kill a Heavy and then came back to smack Tornak killing him.
W 2 life Valguard, 7 Romans, all rats, full life NGS, MDG vs 2 Heavies, full Krug, NGS
1-0
Round 2
vegietarian18 (Greenscales x2, Braxas, Thorgrim, Raelin) on Dark Fulcrum
This map was a good pull for vegie whose army didn't care how much defense I was getting. He chose Marcus and I chose Raelin (I should have chosen Braxas to hinder how aggressively he could play her). I set up in the middle and vegie chose a side to just build a small fortress of greenscales. He stuck Raelin on shadow next to Thorgrim and walled off by Braxas while I again threw Marcus far from the action. I did get to put NGS exceptionally close to Raelin.
On the first OM I was able to engage Raelin with NGS and had I rolled a 20 would have had my shortest game of Heroscape ever. Instead there was a lot of positioning from me with NGS taking attempts on Raelin while vegie slowly whittled his way through my army. He took some key losses and it felt like I might be pulling my way to a victory but then he gassed NGS and was able to plug the holes to Raelin with Braxas and his last couple scales. Valguard was able to keep punching through high defense but with Braxas bouncing around to cover the gaps and reducing the number of squads I had at a rapid clip I was never able to get more than the initial 2 wounds NGS had inflicted. He eventually managed to gas Marcus to finish it off.
L 5 life Braxas, 3 life Raelin, Thorgrim, 1 Greenscale
1-1
I called it a night and went to play games. (dog fur that is all)
Lightweight Berserkers
I was originally going to provide commentary for VCheese but that ended up not happening so I played in the morning event to try and get wins for one of the three wildcard slots.
I figured Knights and Romans were the obvious plays with free tarns and so grabbed 10th x2, Q10. I honestly should have just gone with Foudzing's suggestion of Nilfheim and Krav but c'est la vie.
Round 1
Deroche (Grimnak, Heavies x2, Guilty, Isamu) on Dark Fulcrum
We both thought this was a match I was favored in despite the shadow/jungle combo. He moved up Tarn first to clog up the middle before moving up the orcs. I had moved up 10th into good position and had taken some shots on Grimnak. By the time we were all set to clash, I had him down to 2 life. If I win initiative I get 3 heighted wait then fire shots on Grimnak and probably kill him allowing me to take control of the game. I lose the initiative and Deroche has Grimnak chomp a 10th, kill a 2nd one and then orcs engage the others allowing me to only have one height shot on him and a couple bayonets that don't go through. He then kills all but one in only a few turns before surrounding Q10 and murdering him with me unable to kill anything in response.
L 3 Tarn, 2 life Grimnak, 7 Heavies
0-1
Round 2
Hawaiian Grizzly (Airborne, Drake v1, Finn) on April 9th
I knew if Airborne dropped Round 1 I could be in real trouble. I decided to lead Q10 and had him take shots with his normal attack until I made my way to the height next to the glacier near his start zone and machine pistoled Drake. Airborne dropped the next round and grenaded my start zone with 3 0/2 and 1 1/2 which was blocked by all but a single 10th. Q10 killed an Airborne with a machine pistol, took 2 wounds from Airborne but then finished the rest of them off with machine pistol before dropping Drake down to 1 life the next turn.
I went all 10th as Drake was coming for Q10 and I figured I could beat him with a lot of bayonet attacks which is exactly what happened while I shot down on the other figures.
W 5 10th, Tarn
1-1
Round 3
Retlaw (Moltenclaw, Greenscales x2, Isamu) on Hydra
Not a great map for me as Molty could be on me before I knew it. I probably should have led 10th but was worried about Molty getting a good burnination in. Sadly Q10 was absolutely miserable at killing Molty and proceeded to die without doing much of anything. Retlaw then tied up all the 10th and fired away at them. It was easily the biggest blowout of the con for me.
L 4 life Moltenclaw, 4 Greenscales, Tarn, Isamu
1-2
This map is a great pull for me and his army is exactly the kind of thing I was expecting to see. Everything goes basically according to plan as 10th grab all the height and kill Zeta quickly and while Valguard is able to kill 1 10th with First Assault, he gets swarmed by bayonets and murdered pretty quickly. MI conceded with only Eldgrim left.
W 5 10th, Q10, Tarn
2-2
Sideboards
Past Dysole saw all the good special attacks banned and thought Cutters are good here. I should do that. (Narrator: Cutters were in fact not good here) Added in Eltahale because she was a good all arounder and I felt she could kill anything that had special attacks. I grabbed Laglor, Nakitas, and Syvarris for my ranged support, and Eldgrim to fill out points. I figured I needed to go 3-1 or better to make wildcard here.
Round 1
vegies dad (Arkmer, Iskra ,Kyntela Gwyn, Hounds x5, Repulsors x3, Otonashi) on Dark Fulcrum
A bad matchup and a bad map and we had 400 to work with. I figured I needed Eltahale and Syvarris to win this and went with Cutters x3. He grabbed Hounds x4, Repulsors.
I led Syvarris and watched him start off killing a Hound and then proceeded to whiff on 4 dice multiple times. He was able to run away and find a perch thanks to a timely 2 from VD's pack movement. Unfortunately, what he lacked in movement he made up for in plague and attack as Syv fell having taken down less than squad of hounds. (VD thought maybe I played too aggressively and should have taken shots behind the cutters; I think this is probably correct that he probably lives longer but I don't know if he actually kills any more Hounds because I'm going to be doing 3 v6+ instead of 4 v5+)
Eltahale manages to kill another few hounds but hot plague just cuts through all my stuff. I am not getting the kills I need and before long I'm down to just cutters which the hounds mop up easily.
L 7 Hounds, 3 Repulsors
0-1
Round 2
Master Roshi (TSA x4, Swarm Rae, Kozuke, Guilty, Syvarris, Zeta) on April 9th
At this point I figure I'm probably sunk when it comes to wildcard but let's play and see what happens. We get 380 points. It's a good matchup and I go Cutters x3, Laglor, Nakitas to counter his range and counter strike. He goes TSA x3, Zeta, and Syv. Nakitas open the game and kite the crap out of his army killing Zetacron and several TSA before he can launch any kind of counteroffensive. Zetacron had done two wounds to Laglor but that was it. He manages to kill a Nakita with TSA but I've switched over to Cutters by this point and I manage to finish off the rest of the TSA and Syvarris losing only a couple cutters in the process.
W 10 Cutters, 3 life Laglor, 1 Nakita
1-1
Round 3
Chris Perkins (AGsx5, Eldgrim, Ice Troll, Krug, Mimring, Oto, Swog x4) on Nightfall
Another bad matchup but the map is actually pretty decent for me. We get 440 to work with. I figured I would need Eltahale and Syvarris can kite things and I also figure I'll need all my Cutters. Chris takes AGsx4, Krug, Mimsy, and Oto.
I lead with Syv trying to kill Mimring before he annihilates all the Cutters. I only get a couple wounds on him before AGs take the attack glyph and murder him. Thankfully he rolls 1 skull on 3 cutters and they all block. Eltahale is able to jump up and kill him and he isn't really having a good time killing her. I manage to get a height shot on Krug but only deal a wound. Krug moves up on height and knocks her down to half health. I forgo putting any active order markers on her because I worry about losing an OM. Maybe I should have as eventually we get into an endgame where I am getting several good attacks down on Krug (including some with the attack glyph) and managing to kill AGs but Krug lived too long killing enough Cutters that he was able to finish me off with the remaining AGs.
I'm pretty sure I'm out of contention at this point but it's a good matchup on a good map and firewings is caps' kid who is pretty new to Heroscape so I should pull this off. We get 440 again and I go Cuttersx4, Eltahale, Syvarris while he grabs his Ashra, Arkmer, and Emirroon.
I wasn't sure if he had played against these figures before because Syvarris killed a ton of Ashra before I abandoned him for Eltahale who killed even more and took a Thunder Step to drop 7 dice on Arkmer which killed him. With the engagement strike threat gone, I switched over to Cutters to finish it out and while there was a bit of a grind through them, cutters worked their way through everything. I finished with a lot of cutters and a 1 life Eltahale.
I ended up about 2 wins behind the last wildcard slot.
Kill Your Swill
I had a pretty good idea what I was going to bring to this format. I tried to minimize range. I tried to minimize commons and I tried to minimize defense. I probably could have done it better but I was still pretty happy with it.
Round 1
KnightofLight on Nightfall
We were playing our #4 armies. Knightoflight is an Oregon local and had just an absolute great con and it was great to see him there. Unfortunately for him, his army was better than mine which was great because I got to play it. This army I had decided Pelloth was worse with chainfighters than Drow just because they'd be harder to maximize usage. Vipers at 2x could get lucky with frenzy but they also die to a stiff breeze so I'd probably be able to kill with what was left. Brave Arrow needed to go in an army and this one had scouts. Sudema and Raiders filled out points/figures.
He gave me Drow x2, Pelloth, Iskra, Rechets, Ana Karithon, Otonashi
I gave him Venocs x2, Brave Arrow, Pelloth, Chainfighter x2, Sudema, Sahuagin Raider x2
I led with the Drow and he put an order marker on Brave Arrow and the chainfighter before moving to all Vipers. Chainfighter killed a Drow and the Vipers and Drow basically traded for each other which was good for him although Iskra and Sudema were the ones to actually finish off the squads. Iskra summoned Rechets on her second try. They stung a full life Brave Arrow who was about to take a turn and put some wounds on Sudema. They would then sting her while she had full life. After that it was just a matter of placing Order Markers on the Rechets and Iskra and finishing off his stuff.
W Iskra, Pelloth, Rechets, Oto, Ana
1-0
Round 2
Necroblade on April 9th
For this one he gave me Templar x2, Yari x2, Taro
I gave him Macdirks x2, Eldgrim, Saylind, Kelda, Morsbane
This army was one I wasn't sure about. Macdirks and Eldgrim is an idea I've toyed with but I've also been told it was terrible. I decided to test that here. Yeah Macdirks could cause a lot of trouble but 2 defense meant I should be able to hit them back pretty easily. Kelda, Saylind, and Morsbane are all really bad in this format so all three got put in this army due to my worries.
I led Templar and he sat in his startzone until OM3 when he put a wound on Eldgrim and moved up. He got the init switch but no kills with now 4 attack MacDirks attacking up on heighted Templar (he may have managed one kill). Templar responded by hitting him from height and clearing out the forward MacDirks. It took a bit of doing to clear the remainder out but I only lost one squad in the process. I then put wounds on Saylind, Kelda, and Morsbane. Kelda healed Saylind to full and a wound off of Eldgrim before Templar finished her off. I then spent two OMs to get Taro onto the attack glyph while he finished off my last two Templar. Yari advanced and while I was losing like one a turn, I was getting off encircle attacks and Saylind, Eldgrim, and Morsbane just weren't enough to make up for getting 6 dice thrown at them each turn.
W 4 Yari Taro
2-0
Round 3
Muskie on Origin
This was another pod I was super worried about.
I gave him Roman Archers x2, Gurei-Oni, Retiarius, Acolarh, Kyntela, Theracus
He had Vipers x2, Sudema, Acolarh, Kyntela, Oto, Air Elemental (although I pointed out partway through he needed a second one and we just tossed a proxy in my start zone that never got used)
With the long map and him having the range I was very worried going into this match. I knew I would need to get some lucky frenzies. Thankfully, I got them around an init switch and grabbing Valda and was able to knock him down to a single Roman while only losing half the Vipers on approach. Vipers also managed to put two wounds on Retiarius and 3 on Gurei-Oni. Theracus made his way to the middle of the board only to get wrecked by the Air Elemental I had moved up. I rolled 1 skull 3 consecutive turns and Theracus blanked with 2 dice each time. He began moving up Gurei-Oni and conceded when Sudema stared Gurei to death.
W Oto, Kyntela, AE x2, Sudema
3-0
Round 4
Earl of Sandwich on Healing Waters
I had felt best about this pool but it had more range than I should have put into it. Still, that almost ended up not mattering. This became the championship game when the pairdown lost.
I gave him Yari x2, Taro, Shiori, Runa, Deadeye Dan
He gave me Roman Archers x2, 7K, Sudema, Iskra, and Rechets
I realized early on that Dan could just kill 7K and I was going to need him to win this match so I couldn't risk bringing the bot out until Dan was dead. I led Roman Archers ready to try and murder Dan at the first attempt. The problem was that Dan kept killing me on my approach as did Shiori. I managed to get a wound on him but the two of them dropped me down to a single Archer. He left the archer alone for a while as Shiori headed toward the start zone. I put another wound on Dan and then moved to Iskra who managed to kill Shiori and heal one of the two wounds Shiori gave her. I then flew her up and out of the way of responding attacks. Yari had begun their slow approach. At one point I realized I needed to use Iskra to kill them or else they were going to encircle the sleeping heroes I would need. Unfortunately I had to go to low ground. I failed to kill one but did summon the Rechets who managed to kill a Yari and Dan but failed to do much more. The Yari managed to kill Iskra shortly after that and it was too risky to put order markers on rechets with the very real possibility that they all die before I take an order marker. This proved to be prescient as the yari killed all but one of them back to back. I moved up Sudema and managed to stare two Yari in a row but blanked on the third allowing her to be encircled and one shotted. The remainder encircled 7K but failed. 7K killed a Yari but then failed to kill one on his next turn allowing the fatal Encircle to go through. I think if Sudema doesn't fail that stare. The Yari never really get that much of a chance to do anything to her or 7K and I'm the favorite to finish off Taro and Runa with Sudema and 7K (admittedly Runa could get a lucky 20 or 7K could whiff but the odds are in my favor)
L 4 Yari, Runa, Taro
VC Delta General Wars
Since I missed out on Worlds (sadge), I decided to play Bees in VC Delta General Wars fully expecting to go 0-4 as while I thought it was decent, it was like the third best Aquilla army in my mind, best case scenario. Beecause I was going partially memey to fit my aesthetic (bugs, although I also do hive space as a secondary aesthetic) I wore my bee dress and my bee earrings for the occasion. Amberhive Protectors x4, Mellifera, and Sujoah.
Round 1
gbizzy (Arrow Gruts x4, Ice Troll, Mimring) on April 9th
I got an amazing matchup to start. Two big low defense heroes is perfect for Sujoah's sting attack and the AGs 1 defense means that I don't need to use Sacrificial Sting all that much. I started by mostly just moving bees into heighted positions to deny good AG attacks. gbizzy opted to move the Ice Troll along the side rather than activate Mimring. I was wanting to place Mellifera next to the ruin and the tree overlooking the glyph where I felt I could get maximum aura but by the time I was ready to move her, the AGs were enough in position that I really couldn't so I opted for the glacier side not next to a tree. This beecame very useful as Frenzied Swarm was on fire this game letting me turn whiffs and blocks into a chain of about 2-3 attacks per bee. Sujoah's first turn on OM 3 involved him flying up next to the troll (which gbizzy realized he hadn't put on ice) and hitting him for a wound followed by two stings. Gbizzy won init and swung into Sujoah only doing one wound which was a real bee in his bonnet. He forgot to heal but it ended up not mattering since Sujoah's next attack dealt two wounds anyway. Mimring moved up and took a shot on Mellifera only for her to block a 3 skull attack with 7 defense (4 + height + Evasive 2). Sujoah took two turns to get to the dragon but when he did, it was 2 wounds + sting + sting + sting and then the rest of the game was just the bees mopping up. I sacrificial stung the last bunch just to ensure I would get the kills.
W 9 Bees, Mellifera, 5 life Sujoah
1-0
Round 2
Gingerkid16 (Grubs x2, Katie Ann (Kon-Tar-Na), Bramcephys) on Dark Fulcrum
I didn't love Dark Fulcrum but this was another great matchup. Grubs' 2 defense is a danger to 1 attack and only 6 squads meant I would have the attacking numbers. Sujoah and Sacrificial Sting both meant I could really put the hurt on the heroes.
He led playing it cautiously while I put Mellifera on shadow and clustered the bees up on height. Sujoah took a place near Mel where he could launch himself at the nearest target. I did beeline one bee very far forward where it could get a height shot on a Nagrub. This bee then proceeded to tank about 5 or 6 grub attacks all by its dronesome including several from height. Katie Ann charged into the fray but quickly got separated from his grubs which allowed me to surround him with Sujoah and BEES. Suj didn't manage any wounds but Sacrificial Stinging 3 bees was enough to finish him off, but not beefore he took a wound off Sujoah and dropped Mel to half life. Bram moved and killed the pesky bee only for Sujoah to show up and Sting him dealing I think one wound but no stings. The bees managed to finish off all but one grub. He takes an LEA (2 wounds) but positions himself next to the rock outcrop so I can't get Sujoah next to him without giving up height and the lone grub is blocking Sujoah's access point. It's a great setup that will wreck me if I play into it so I spend my turns moving up the bees (and Mel) and just attacking up at that grub with a single bee on shadow in Mel's aura. It doesn't do much but he stays there while I regroup with the team and finally move the bee to do level attacks (by this time though all my bees are in place and Sujoah is back beehind the bee wall that has amassed on the mountain) and this move ends up being right on the honey as the bee finally kills the grub. Bram moves forward and kills the only bee he can reach without getting into a bad position. I throw a few bees in to Sacrifice Sting and we get him down to exactly 5 wounds which is just under what's needed for extra turns. He takes the opportunity to try and assault my setup anyway and ends up kicking up the hornet’s nest without doing much as he dies on the next turn to a combo of Suj and Sacrificing Bees.
W 8 Bees, 2 life Mellifera, 5 life Sujoah
2-0
Round 3
Mr. Chompy (Blade Gruts, Grimnak, Tornak) on August 2nd
Another matchup of low defense commons and juicy heroes. I was getting all the matchups. Map was going to bee a bit trickier as I couldn't just take height with no consequences.
He spent his early turns moving up Blades while I focused on getting a bunch of bees and Suj in position to go on the offensive. Grimnak and a set of Blades moved up into the center on the lava. I moved Sujoah up, killed a Blade and then put four bees around Grimnak. Three sacrificial stings later and Grimnak was dead and the last bee killed a grut with a normal attack which was just the bee’s knees for me since I had been very worried about losing more than that number of bees to Chomp. I claimed the center with Mel for myself and then spent some time moving up bees. I grabbed Lodin +2 and it actually got me some extra frenzy attacks against Blades that came up. Tornak managed to swing up and beefore I could get really good attacks on him managed to put some wounds on Mel dropping her to one life (a Blade might hive also done some of that damage). She died to lava damage later that round. I spent the rest of the game using Sujoah to kill a blade followed by Bees taking attacks of 1 or 2 if I needed them in good positions (or out of the aura) or Sacrificial Stinging if I really needed a blade dead. I managed to trade fairly well as I now had 5 attacks to his 4 and one of those was Suj who was consistently getting kills while the bees and blades varied wildly in how often they murdered each other.
W 2 Bees 2 life Sujoah
3-0
Round 4
Mr. Wookiee (Grok Riders x3, NGS, Hydra) on Healing Waters
It wasn't a great map for either of us but was probably slightly better for me. We weren't sure if this was going to bee the championship match at any point in the game as that game didn't finish until after this one but the pairdown lost making this the championship. I knew I was willing to sacrifice a lot of bees (and probably Sujoah) to ensure that the Hydra went down quickly. The Groks also had higher defense than my other matchups and NGS is a tank who can steal one of my bug heroes so I had to bee careful.
I played it cautiously, bringing out hordes of bees while keeping the heroes back and putting them beehind the bee walls. He also played it cautiously. I would shoot forward a bee to get any shots of 2 v3 that I could and also attempted a Sacrificial Sting on NGS (which failed and then he murdered it). I did manage to kill at least one Grok and snuck a bee onto Wannok. NGS took the wound. The next round the bee died but in order to do so he had to put a Grok in position for a bee attack and it did kill it. This bee would prove to bee a champ at defending for a few turns. I moved Sujoah way up and he failed to kill the grok which stung, but I used bees to hold groks in place. NGS stayed on the raised single hex not wanting to venture down into what was basically beecoming Disbeeland. He did move a Grok up to take a height shot on Suj which dealt a wound, but Mel moved up and killed him with a 4 dice attack and then a bee moved there to protect. I managed to sneak another bee onto Wannok and moved the champ bee so you'd hive to attack Wannok bee on even ground which worked as Wannok bee dealt another wound to NGS. I kept picking off Groks but I had left a hole when I sent a bee over to the Hydra to sacrificial sting it, which allowed NGS to wander through and moved up next to Mel. He failed to shackle her and his attacks didn't go through but the real buzzkill for Mr. Wookiee was Suj walking up to the Hydra, dealing two wounds and then sting, sting. (I did hive 3 bees ready to give their lives for the cause though if he'd failed). This happened to bee incredibly timely as his last OM was on the Hydra. Suj and the bees mopped up everything else with several Sacrificial Stings finishing off NGS for a well earned victory for these busy bees.
W 6 Bees, Full life Mel, 4 life Suj
4-0
First place victory on the last day AND I was undefeated when running bug armies. Things to think about for the future.
Final listed record 18-9 (oh look hi 9 following me around like a lost puppy) Including night events and Hydra I was 24-13.
It was a lot of fun. I had a great time. Thanks to everyone who helped put it on. Great to see a lot of familiar faces and a few new ones. Look forward to next year.
Ah thanks. I'll correct once I'm home. I knew y'all didn't like the ban in hindsight and I think my brain just remembered that one despite it beeing wrong.
I'm your humble Heroscape player and these are the tales from the inaugural Scape Summit. It was a great event and lots of people came together to make it work. It was great to see new faces, old faces, and faces that I previously only had a profile picture for.
Without further ado, let's get into it.
Pick Your Poison Delta
I wanted two builds that felt reasonably scary and could throw a lot of attacks. I wanted a Mimring build because I hadn't brought him yet and Bees felt like another fun complement to that. The bee build was straightforward. 4x and Mel and Suj with Marcu to fill out points. I debated a couple of options for the AG build but after conferring with dok, Chris Perkins, and Foudzing, I decided to go with AGs x5, Swog x4, and Mimsy. It looked like a fun build and I like bees. So in my bee dress, bee eyeshadow, and bee earrings I sallied forth.
Round 1 vs Owen on Stechavan (Sola Astrid and Yngvild)
I had mistakenly thought that the person signed up as Owen was Oween from OHS. It was in fact Bert's kid. He was rocking Varks (minus Quickblades but plus Bahadur) and PKs x4 and a Hydra. None of my armies were too worried about the Hydra but PKs x4 would be a nightmare for my AGs build. I gave him Varks and he chose Bees for me.
I dropped Mellifera behind the ruin on Stechavan and went to town with Bees. He led with Swiftfangs and Greyspears but before he got a chance to attack with Greyspears, Suj had come up from the start zone and killed one and Bees had Sacrificed to kill two others. He snuck around and dealt a wound to Mel and focused some fire on Sujoah with his different Vark squads eventually dropping him. Unfortunately, I was trading Bees for Varks and that was not a trade he was coming out good on the other end. Bahadur put up a bit of a stand, but it was not to be.
W 5 Bees, Marcu, 3 life Mellifera
1-0
Round 2 vs superfrog on Vixen (Wannok and Dagmar)
Frog had two marro builds. Dividers x4, MWs, SBN, and TKN, Nagrubs x4, Swarm Rae. He elected to give me the AGs and I decided I felt TKN getting kills on Swogs and Mimsy was a much more likely lose scenario than having to deal with 3 figure non bonding and MWs who I outranged so I gave him his Dividers.
The opening round was kind of ridiculous. I set up a Swog on the ice platform on the central lava and put some AGs around it. He led MWs. He threw 4 attacks onto a Swog and AGs (only one on the Swog but it was 2 skulls). I blocked all of them. The Swog jumped up and killed an MW and AGs killed a second. He retreated to clone back his losses and got one in the startzone. Mimsy firelined the one still in the middle of the battlefield and AG height attacks took out the last two MWs. We could go blow for blow with the rest of this but there is only one stat you need to know. superfrog went 1 for 13 on Divides with the only successful divide happening when he was down to a single squad figure.
W 6 AGs, 1 Swog Rider, full life Mimsy
2-0
Round 3 vs Board Hero on Alta (Valda and Dagmar)
Board Hero also had a TKN build (but with 6x and Marcu instead of Swarm Rae) but he also had a Heavies x3, Grimnak, and Swaysil build. I opted for the TKN build since I knew if I could kill TKN the rest should follow easily. Bees would have been easier to accomplish this but he chose to give me AGs. I played things cautiously while he tried to get TKN to kill Mimsy. Unfortunately for him, I was able to chain down a Swog attack down and then a bunch of AG attacks down and kill him around an initiative switch. Once TKN was down, it was just mopping up the Grubs although they did get a couple of kills, it just wasn't enough.
W 11 AGs, 2 Swogs, 3 life Mimsy
3-0
Round 4 vs OG-Blaha on Percolator (Yngvild and Valda)
OG-Blaha had Stingers x6 and Oto with the other build being 10th x4 and Izumi aka the kind of builds ryguy was concerned I might run into. (way to give me a sneak preview of your testing buddy ) I felt decent into them but not favored and the map was especially good for me. He chose to give me the bees. I chose Stingers because I would be getting more attacks. There's an argument for 10th because if I can trade 10th for bees I should have enough gas to take out Izumi but I was concerned about him throwing a lot of attacks and 2v2s are decently scary to me.
He started very aggressively and I didn't catch that he was focusing fire on Sujoah until Suj had taken 3 wounds (arguably could've taken quite a few more since I put him in a spot where he could get hit from height). Suj and the Bees surged forward and I decided to sting as many as I could. Unfortunately for me, it wasn't quite enough to stem the tide and Sujoah fell after only taking down a couple stingers. I pressed forward playing super aggressively with Mel and taking a lot of 3v3s and a couple 4v3s with her and failing to kill more than like a single stinger. I also rolled very badly on frenzy with my attacks. I had stopped using the SA exclusively and was now focusing it only on Stingers I needed gone and/or ones I couldn't get height on. A key initiative switch dropped my bee quota down below an amount I couldn't recover from and Marcu betrayed me on his first roll. A key init switch, Mel killing more Stingers, or better frenzies and I have good odds to pull this off.
L 6 Stingers, Otonashi
Final Record 3-1 (second place)
VCheese
I briefly debated Kuthnak, Chasers x6, MBS, Nerak and while it sounded fun it felt like it died much faster than I would like it to. Then I remembered I had wanted to try the vegie build of Rygarn, MWs, Major Q9, Brute Gruts, Raelin, Marcu, Isamu. I had ordered some Brute Gruts from TREXY but my package is somewhere in the ether. Thankfully, Ulysses was able to lend me a set (he had previously lent me 2 AGs and a Swog)
Round 1 vs MaddJizaka on Vixen (Wannok and Dagmar)
He had 10th x4 and a Hydra. I didn't love it as an opener because I would need to rely a lot on Q9 it felt like and the map didn't have a good Q perch. I set Raelin up behind the glaciers allowing her to peek at my figures but only her wings being visible to be shot at. He set Raelin up on the a snow hex within site of the Wannok glyph and the height lava. The battle almost primarily took place on this part of the map. Q9 moved up and I had him kill a couple every turn and also brought in MWs to take some shots. He kept having to replenish 10th but he was still chipping away at Q9. He pushed his Hydra forward eventually and finished off the Major. MWs put two wounds on him so he retreated and 10th finished off the MWs. By this point Brute Gruts had come into play and they just did work everywhere including one turn where I chained 2 Berserker Frenzies in back to back turns around initiative and dropping him from about 6 10th, Raelin, and a Hydra to 2 10th (one of the Brute Gruts dropped a 3 life Raelin in one hit) and the Brutes cleaned them up easily.
W 3 Brute Gruts, full life Rygarn, full life Raelin, 5 life Marcu, Isamu
1-0
Round 2 vs Bodacious Blood on Mist and Shadow (Wannok, Lorja Ivor, Potion of Healing, Brooch of Shielding)
Unsurprisingly, BB was rocking the Steamroller. I made a blunder to start this game and led MWs thinking I could pick a few off and forgot how fast Gladiators are. Crixus and the Glads did a pretty good job of picking them off although I did get a few kills in before swapping over to the Brute Gruts who did work smacking down Gladiators and getting a wound on Crixus. Crixus however had grabbed disengage and slid down into my start zone to wail on Raelin. However back to back 1/6s meant she stuck around much longer (he also took a diversion to attack the Brute Grut who came back around for him). Q9 eventually managed to finish him off but only had 1 life left. Another key juncture happened when Spartacus had come forward, there were only two Gladiators left, one in pitched combat with Isamu, and the other on height ready to pounce on Q9 on his next turn. Q hopped onto a shadow glyph with enough move to grab the potion, launched a few 3v6s into the Gladiator, killed it, and killed the one attacking Isamu. This gave him a free turn to grab the potion. I lost initiative though and blocked the attack. Q9 gulped down the potion, took an LEA and fired down on Spartacus dealing a wound. Spartacus killed Q9 in his next attack. It was all up to Rygarn and there was a little bit of cat and mouse but Spartacus managed to deal a wound to Rygarn and Rygarn followed it up with a 4/4 which Spartacus blanked giving me the win.
W 3 life Rygarn, Isamu
2-0
Round 3 vs Sir Heroscape on Savage Corridor (Lorja Ivor, Lodin, Heroic Rune)
Sir H had brought knights and Raelin. I knew with the long map and no glyphs that were helpful to him I should just camp in the start zone. He got some very good dispatch rolls and slow rolled his way over to me. I decided to play some Isamu games after getting Q9 set up and launched him forward threatening an attack on Raelin. Sir H successfully blocked off a heighted attack on Raelin (only managed one wound on a 5v3), but after shooing Isamu away left it open and I took full advantage to launch a 6/6 attack that killed her, which is a high I will be riding for quite some time. He played a bit more aggressively after that and I maybe played a touch too aggressively with Brute Gruts trying to kill him as he got some clutch kills from them (including an 0/7 blank). By the time last round got called he realized he needed to deal 3 wounds on Q9 with 3v10s and 4v10s and he only managed 2 giving me a win on points by the skin of my teeth. Had the game played to completion, he's likely favored but it was not guaranteed
W 1 Brute Grut, 2 life Q9, full life Raelin, full life Marcu, Rygarn, 3 MWs vs
8 Knights and full life Gilbert
3-0
Round 4 vs OG-Blaha on Stechavan (Sola Astrid and Yngvild)
OG-Blaha was running Cathar x4, Krav, Raelin which is normally a pretty good matchup for me but Stechavan meant I couldn't camp easily so it kinda evened out. I set up Raelin behind the ruin meaning he couldn't get height on me and had to come onto lava often to get more than one attack on her. It also put her on lava but I felt it was worth the risk to keep her in a safe place. He was able to position his Raelin in a spot off of lava but giving up height in a way I couldn't afford to. There were a lot of Major Q9 shoots and kills a bunch of Cathar and they poke at him and Raelin back and forth but this game really hinges on two plays. On an OM 3 I go to grab the Gem of Lava Resistance and fail to grab it, but hop onto the middle elevated lava and continue firing away (occasionally throwing 1v5s at Krav when there weren't any Cathar out of the aura). I managed to kill Raelin with Q9 but ended up having to abandon the lava with one life remaining. Cathar managed to kill him right as the round ended (which was unfortunate as it didn't allow me to Rygarn shenanigans with him). The other clutch moment was me moving MWs adjacent to Krav and failing to kill on a 3v3 and a 2v3 and they killed two of the Brute Gruts before I ever got to them. The final clutch moment came when OG-Blaha had about 4 Cathar left and a Krav and I had a 3 life Marcu. I took the LEA and talked myself out of going for the Krav which likely had the last OM. I instead attacked a Cathar and then died when the Krav attacked me. Had I killed the Krav and won initiative killing a Cathar. It would have been 4 life Marcu and Isamu vs 3 Cathar and his Marcu which feels very winnable. Instead Isamu had to risk a bunch of Engagement Strikes before dying. He did take a Cathar with him though.
L 3 Cathar, Marcu, 1 Krav
Final Record 3-1 (3rd place)
Reverse the Whip
I didn't have a good "bad" unit for this so just decided to go with my tried and true method of "here's a decent melee piece and range piece and Raelin". Landed on Crixus, Capuans x2, Mohicans x2, Raelin, and Marcu
Round 1 vs Bye
Very tough matchup. Moving on.
W
1-0
Round 2 vs OG-Blaha on Percolator (Yngvild and Valda)
He was running a fun Blasts x4, Eldgrim, Thorgrim, Tandros build. I had Eldgrim grab Valda figuring I can force him to kill him for Kreeloy Jenkins and I used it to place Thorgrim on a central location. He took the opportunity to try and kill both and they both fell a fair bit faster than I would've liked but I kept pushing Blasts forward taking shots mostly from range so they didn't get the full boost. Unfortunately, I made a massive error in telling him he had 5 defense dice on a lot of attacks where he only had 4 and he didn't have any reason to think I was wrong. I only noticed after a couple rounds where I probably kill at least one or two if not more Mohicans. Because of that he was able to thin out Blasts a fair bit and even though I did a good job of killing him when he switched over to Caps it was in the immortal words of JoJo too little too late. Tandros comes out and puts on a bit of a show while OG scatters away Caps from Cleave range. He manages to take out Crixus and a couple Caps but even with the 5 defense from Thorgrim ends up falling. Without that major blunder, it's at least even odds I have enough Blasts to leave him with not nearly enough Caps to deal with Kreeloy.
L 2 Capuans, 1 Mohican, Raelin, Marcu
1-1
Round 3 vs Shmet on Alta (Valda and Dagmar)
Shmet had an interesting build of Syvarris, Izumi Samurai, Augamo, and Warforged x2. It was also a build I was pretty well suited to take on. He threw two order markers on Syv to start the game and I moved Raelin to the highest spot on the map to make it harder for her to be sniped by him. His third order marker though was on Augamo who I ignored and instead sniped Syvarris with Mohicans. After that I was all in on Capuans and basically used Crixus and Caps as beatsticks on the rest of the army.
W 5 Mohicans, 4 Capuans, full life Crixus, full life Raelin, full life Marcu
2-1
Round 4 vs Smarthawk on Savage Corridor (Lorja Ivor, Lodin, Heroic Rune)
He was running Makwa x3, Zetacron, Brave Arrow, Makwa Tribesman x3, Me-Burq-Sa. I didn't love the build but figured if I could snipe Raelin with Zetacron, Makwa would hopefully thin the other squads enough that the heroes could pick off the remainder. He placed Raelin next to a tree but Zeta went 2/3 on his attack dropping her to 2 life and then a forward Makwa killed her. It was all aboard the Makwa train at that point and some clutch bear rolls allowed me to keep up the gas (I also often had Lorja Ivor which allowed me to snipe things I wouldn't otherwise be able to get. By the time I was dropped to one squad of Makwa all that was left was a 1 life Crixus and Marcu. MBS finished off the heroes.
W 3 Makwa, full life Me-Burq-Sa, 3 full life Tribesmen, full life Brave Arrow
Final record 3-1 (3rd place)
Championship Event
I started playing around with putting Tornak in a build and realized Ornak and Heavies x2 paired well with Blades x2 Tornak Nerak. I initially had a KTN and Nagrubs build and toyed around with a ZIs and Deathwalker build and AGs and Mimsy before settling on Romans, MBS, Marcu, Isamu for fun Ornak synergy.
Round 1 vs Smarthawk on Savage Corridor (Lorja Ivor, Lodin, Heroic Rune)
Smarthawk had
1) Cyprien Esenwein,Greater Ice Elemental x1
2) Air Elemental x1,Frost Giant of Morh x1,Syvarris
3) Sharwin Wildborn,Warriors of Ashra x3
I knew right away that my pods and the Ashra pod were all the good common squads and Ashra played very nicely into mine. I lost the diceoff and Smarthawk banned the Heavies. I grabbed Ashra. He grabbed Romans. I banned Blades so we both had to take his hero pods. I wanted the one with Syvarris ever so slightly more. He obliged me by taking Cyprien and I took Syv.
I led Syv and he led Romans. I focused fire on MBS and eventually killed him but had to move Syvarris to the water (out of Romans reach or so I thought) and then switched over to Ashra. I managed to clear out a lot of Romans with the Ashra but one managed to take a clutch LEA and kill Syv. He swapped over to Cyprien who started murdering Ashra with a hot chill touch. He had dropped me down to about 2 Ashra (with 2 wounds on him) when I brought out Frosty. The chill touch went ice cold and I got a very clutch 19 on Battle Frenzy dealing back to back hits of 6 dice that did 2 wounds each. There was a bit of cat and mouse with the Ice Elemental before I engaged, took a wound from Ice Spikes, did a wound, and then got dropped down to one life on the return blow. Hitting another clutch 19 Battle Frenzy, I managed to kill him and then finished off Marcu. Sharwin finished off the last Roman.
W 2 Ashra, 1 life Frost Giant, full life Sharwin, Air Elemental
1-0
Looking at dart's pools the MBS/Q10 pool felt really hard to use but we both had Romans. I lost the diceoff and he struck heavies. I took his Romans pod and then he realized what I was aiming for and took Stingers and my Romans pod (I struck nothing). I took Blades as my consolation prize.
He led Stingers and I led Romans being careful to bring them up in as many pairs as possible. He drained to try and kill Mogrimm but he ended up rolling 2 1s and only two successful drains that did much less damage than you'd expect. Romans sliced through Stingers only losing about a squad. Mogrimm then proceeded to tank a ton of attacks from Romans surrounding him and MBS shooting at him but unfortunately my remaining Romans nor Mogrimm could really whittle down the Romans that much only taking down one before I dropped my last Roman on Dagmar and had Mogrimm be a giant roadblock. I brought Blades forward and had Nerak sneakily grab Valda allowing me to funnel Blades forward very fast. His Romans weren't able to handle the often height attacks and Tornak took out MBS without much issue. We had the final round called and I managed to finish off all his figures including the only attack Isamu got being an 8 on the very last attack of the game.
W 4 Blade Gruts, 1 Roman, full life Tornak, full life Nerak
2-0
Round 3 vs Champion of Ullar on Percolator (Yngvild and Valda)
I didn't trust any of the frenzy units and they only averaged fewer attacks than my pods. He won the diceoff and banned Heavies for the third time. I led with Blades liking them into what was out there. He took Venocs and when I banned nothing took Mohicans. I grabbed Romans but I very much consider Aubriens giving how nice they would be into Mohicans.
I led Romans which felt like a misplay after the Vipers came in and got some good attacks in on them. What really hurt me was him stringing back to back turns of 3 frenzies decimating my Roman front wall and putting a wound on MBS, who disengaged from 3 vipers (I didn't love it but even if I killed one, I couldn't really get Romans in place to attack the other Vipers) and promptly died. The vipers then came down into the start zone and brought Nerak down to one life. The orcs surged forward finishing off the forward vipers and then I waited until I could push with all of my Blades into the oncoming Mohicans. Tornak proved to be a champ using his big attack to kill Mohicans and boosting any remaining Blades to follow up often with attacks of 4 (Tornak + height) on Mohicans. With time getting called in the round, I realized I needed to kill Mittens and so charged Tornak into the start zone rolling 4 skulls (3 shields) and then doing it again (2 shields) but thankfully the Blade Grut managed to put wounds on him to finish him off with Mittens only managing one on Tornak. My last attack was a Blade on the last Viper. I ended up winning on points (although I was in a very good position to win since my next round I would have engaged a Mohican with Romans and likely dropped him down to single activations with Mohicans or Brave Arrow.
W 2 Blade Gruts, 3 Romans, 2 life Tornak, Marcu vs 2 Mohicans, full life Brave Arrow
3-0
Round 4 vs caps on Stechavan
caps had
1) Horned Skull Brutes x3,Seleena
2) Eldgrim the Viking Champion,Shieldsmiths of Granite Keep x3
3) Dumutef Guard x1,Phantom Knights x3
caps and I had chatted about pods the other night while getting amazing Mexican food and he had promptly forgotten everything I had mentioned which worked for me. I was already in top cut so this wasn't a must win for me. I won the diceoff and chose to pick second figuring I could counter his play and struck the Brutes since I felt it likely he would pick them. He led Romans and I grabbed the Heavies and then Blades after he chose not to strike anything (had he I would have left him with PKs which were kinda bad into the other pods). He finished with Shieldsmiths.
He started by creating a Shieldsmith wall while I developed my orcs. I'm not completely happy with my play here but eventually I started just wailing away on shieldsmiths from height and slowly moving up my non Tornak champions. Tornak eventually ran in to try and murder MBS but only did one wound before falling. There were a few turns where having OMs on the other one of Blades or Heavies would have been nice. MBS did his best to snipe from behind the wall but I pressed my advantage enough and had him in a good place when time was called (we both had taken risky plays with our bonding heroes that we wouldn't have taken were we trying to win on time). He had a slight edge over me in points but we both agreed I was in the favored position as time was called. Still I was happy he made it in.
L 5 Heavy Gruts, 1 Blade Grut, 3 life Ornak vs. 2 Shieldsmiths, 3 Romans, 2 life MBS, Isamu, Eldgrim, Seleena
3-1 (Made Top Cut)
Quarterfinals vs podunksarmy on Mist and Shadow (Dagmar and Wannok)
podunksarmy had
1) Crypt Guardian x2,Drow Chainfighter x4,Siiv
2) Deathreavers x2,Krav Maga Agents
3) Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (SotM),Warforged Soldiers x2
I had the option to strike and very much did not want the cryptos and chainfighters on the dungeon and shadow map. No SAs in the pool also made it hard to want it around so I struck it. He lead with rats and Krav. I took Heavies figuring I could chain it with whichever of my builds he left me with. He left me both and I took Blades while he took Warforged. There's an argument I should have taken Romans but they were slow, MBS is pretty easy to tie up with rats and Warforged could mess up my position.
I felt pretty good because I had a lot more attacks than he did. I slowly moved up a massive swelling of orcs while he grabbed both glyphs with rats. I did my best to try and dislodge them but they were rolling very hot for a long while. Warforged came up and again were rolling very hot on defense. I slipped past a number of the advance guard with Tornak who managed to kill a Krav but died for his troubles on some of the return volleys. I'm not 100% sure this was the right move. I also placed some Wannok wounds on Ornak figuring I could heal him later with the potion. This I'm also not sure was the best move. The big thing was that I threw a lot of attacks at figures and was only getting a handful of attacks back a turn. I don't think there was a single turn where he got 3 attacks and most of the time it was 2. Still Ornak and a lot of Blades died. Eventually as time was starting to run out, a 1 life Nerak charged into the start zone and only managed two wounds on Raelin despite two very high attack rolls. I failed to kill any of the remaining warforged and they successfully managed to Wannok wound my last Blade. A game of inches.
L 5 Heavies, 1 life Nerak vs. 3 Warforged, 2 Rats, 3 life Raelin
Final Record 3-2 (6th place)
Total Final Record 12-5 (4th place)
All in all a good convention and one I had a great time at. Looking forward to what we can do in the future. Thanks again to everyone who came and to my fellow coordinators who helped make it happen.
All right, I no longer have COVID and can actually write out how the con went. I would've liked to have done better especially in several events but there were valuable lessons learned. Maybe one of these days, I'll sneak into Sunday because I love draft. It was not this year.
Wednesday Three Headed Hydra
Cleon and Chris are amazing teammates and it was the first year I had the same teammates as the previous year. We did a bunch of theoryscaping and pretty firmly settled on Glad/Blast and Heavies as two of the better armies in the field and we really liked them into a lot of builds. Chris toyed around with a Micros build and settled on Micros x2, Cutters x3, Master of the Hunt. Cleon and I were initially skeptical feeling like it lost to bonding melee most of the time and Chris and I even tested it against Glad/Blast on Subduction (one of the better maps for Micros and one of the worse maps for me). After that game though we had a long talk and realized we could use the Micros and map pool selection to give Chris good shots into armies. I think our biggest flaw in army selection is we failed to account for PKs en masse being a build.
Round 1
Earl_of_Sandwich - 4th Massachusetts Line x4,Eldgrim the Viking Champion
GucciiBoost - Arrow Gruts x4,Mimring,Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider,Swog Rider x3
johnnyfrisbee - 10th Regiment of Foot x3,Isamu,Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (RotV)
Dredgewood Forest, Flaxen Shard, Song of the Walrus
We decided to set maps and banned 10th into Heavies if I remember right. All the matchups were bad for me and they were all pretty good for Chris and Cleon felt good into the other two so I was offered up as a sacrificial lamb. I was paired against GB, Chris got johnny, and Cleon got Earl. We put Chris on Dredgewood, Cleon wanted Song so we gave it to him and I got Flaxen.
It did not take long for GB to set up a good space and just wreck me. I only ended up killing a Swog and 3 arrow gruts. I threw a fair bit of dice at him too but it was just not happening. Thankfully Chris won his match pretty handily and Cleon pulled it out giving our team the win.
L only killed 1 Swog, 3 AGs Team Win
1-0
Round 2
Earthling - Marcus Decimus Gallus,Me-Burq-Sa,Roman Legionnaires x4
Foudzing - 4th Massachusetts Line x4,Eldgrim the Viking Champion
Muskie - Marro Stingers x6
Flaxen Shard, Subduction, Turmoil
I think we decided to set matchups here since Chris felt good into two of them (4th and Stingers), I felt good into two of them (Stingers and Romans), and Cleon felt decent into all of them. I believe they banned me into Romans. We had Chris vs 4th, Cleon vs Romans, and me into Stingers. I got put on Flaxen, Chris got put on Turmoil, and Cleon on Subduction.
I started with a very aggressive Raelin placement on OM 2 onto a 4 height. If she died early it could be tricky but it would allow my glads to be rolling with 5 and 6 defense. Muskie made an attempt to kill her but after that only did one wound I slowly covered the board in robots killing forward stingers. He did do some stinger drains but at least one was a self destruct. There was a bit of an interesting endgame as he had a couple stingers left and had knocked me down to just 2 glads and 2 blasts and we were duking it out on top of the hill, but I got the rolls I needed. Chris beat the 4th and I believe Cleon lost a close game to the Romans that he was winning for most of it.
W 2 Glads, 2 Blasts, 4 life Raelin Team Win
2-0
Round 3
Ultra Lord - Death Chasers of Thesk x4,Marcu Esenwein,Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider,Ogre Pulverizer x1
MrWookiee - 10th Regiment of Foot x4,Samuel Brown
Mitch - Marro Stingers x6
Crumbling Castle, Frostmire, Turmoil
We had basically the same situation as before where Chris and I both liked two of our matchups, but Cleon didn't want 10th and felt good into the other two. I think we banned Cleon into 10th but we might have chosen matchups here. I got put into Stingers, Chris into 10th, and Cleon into Chasers. I believe Chris was on Crumbling, Cleon was on Frostmire, and I was on Turmoil.
Once again I had an aggressive OM 2 on Raelin and actually used it to get a 4 v 3 attack down on a Stinger that failed. Mitch made an attempt to kill her but was unsuccessful. After that my army swarmed all over. Raelin's position allowed me to eventually grab both 4 height pillars with Blasts, throw Glads onto shadow and/or height in her aura and just do the same thing I did with Muskie where I whittle down the front stingers and just make it a nightmare to shoot at anything. Mitch also did some stinger drains with better success than Muskie but shadow + Raelin glads meant even when he was rolling 4 attack I was still blocking it a lot. He resigned with 3 stingers left while I had a 2 life Raelin, 3 Gladiatrons and 7 Blastatrons. I believe my teammates won both their games as well.
W 3 stingers vs 7 Blasts, 3 Glads, 2 life Raelin Team Win
3-0
Round 4
It was just us, Team BFF, and the vegies+boromir. Whoever got the pairdown would need to win to force a game 5. We looked at our pairdown and it was not gonna be an easy match.
MajorQ23 - Exiles of the Sundered Sea,Greenscale Warriors x3,Zelrig
ISB3 - Kaemon Awa,Zombies of Morindan x5
Nathan I_S - Agent Skahen,Marro Dividers x3,Microcorp Agents x2,Otonashi
Crumbling Castle, Dredgewood Forest, Frostmire
None of us loved the Zelrig matchup. I felt fine into Zombies and Micros. Chris felt fine into the Micro build but zombies he felt like he would lose. Cleon felt fine into the two non Zelrig matchups. We ended up choosing matchups for this one and fed me to the Zelrig matchup giving Chris to the Micro mirror and Cleon to the zombies. They put me on Dredgewood, Chris on Crumbling, and Cleon on Frostmire.
Not much to say about this game. Dredgewood is insane for Zelrig. Q23 won initiative and hit 3/3 killing most of my army (even with Raelin) before I could even get out of the start zone. I made an effort to try and come back but I lost pretty much from the get go. I do wish I'd either won initiative or he'd had a bad early start as I think it's a very interesting game if I'm not wiped out in one go. Cleon was able to gain an edge against zombies that he never relinquished and Chris lost a super close endgame to IS. There's an argument we should've fed Chris to Zelrig and had me fight the Micros and Dividers. We'll never really know honestly.
L 2 life Zelrig, 6 Greenscales, Exiles Team Loss
3-1
We talked with the members of Team BFF about what a Round 5 would've looked like and came to the conclusion that we were likely to be underdogs in 2 of 3 matchups (if they pick maps, they ban me into Matthias' heavies and then I play OEAO's PKs, Chris plays Matthias' Heavies and Cleon plays dok's Q9 and while Cleon is favored, Chris and I need a bit of luck for things to go our way (OEAO has enough tools that he can beat me and he practiced it); we're not getting anything better if they get to pick matchups) but we still could've won. Oh well. Much better showing than the last year.
Thursday
Bring 2
I decided to get EI off my brought to a tournament list and brought 3x Kiova and Fraser (thanks Chris for the borrow) as one army with a Sahuagin Raider as filler. I also hadn't used Khosumet and realized I could do 4x DKs, Boreos, Air Elemental, and Khosumet using Khosumet as a mobile attack boost for Boreos. Both armies had useful tools against the other and given that Chris, dok, and Earthling all picked one army and then immediately backtracked made me feel good. Plus Boreos armies can just win against melee only builds and EI builds can also bring some surprising pain to better top tier builds.
Round 1
Ultralord on Frostmire
1) Death Chasers of Thesk x4,Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider,Ogre Pulverizer x1,Swog Rider x1
2) Agent Carr,Agent Skahen,Iron Golem x1,Microcorp Agents x2
I felt like I could win with either side of his army. Chasers and Micros had enough tools to beat Boreos and while both could lose to EI, both could get shredded. It was a small map with ice so I preferred Chasers and won the diceoff. Ultralord opted to ban Boreos and DKs so I grabbed Chasers and he took Micros. I set up a great position for Nerak early on on the 2 hex snow while he moved Micros up to the small platform outside the start zone and killed a good number of advancing Chasers. I used the Swog to threaten on the opposite hill and then advanced the Pulverizer into Round 2. He brought up Skahen while he still had a handful of Micros (he rolled HOT for his stealth armor this game. I think he hit it like 8 or 9 times) and didn't realize I could grab Yngvild and jump a Chaser down and attack her. I also at one point used that to have the Pulverizer assault the start zone and get some early attacks on the Iron Golem before he got into the action. Carr who came up midgame with Skahen was taken down by Chasers as they swarmed over the board and though Iggy took down the Ogre he was felled by orcs. I felt in control for most of the game with the hot stealth armors making me sweat a little.
W 8 Chasers, 1 life Nerak, Swog Rider
1-0
Round 2
samuelfrost4 on Crumbling Castle
1) Rechets of Bogdan
2) Dumutef Guard x12
We weren't playing his stuff. I felt good with either army but I think I liked EI a bit more. I think samfrost got first pick and chose DKs. I took EI and while he had a decent early start wailing away at Kiova he did not realize the thing about the Khosumet express. Between 6 attacks a turn and Fraser letting me get height attacks on DKs, by the time he figured out what the army was supposed to be doing he had a 1 life Boreos and 3 DKs. He mounted a bit of a comeback near the end but once again I had the game in control for most of it.
W 5 Einar Imperium, 3 life Kiova, full life Fraser, Raider
2-0
Round 3
Triva Knight on Dredgewood Forest
1) Greenscale Warriors x3,Nilfheim,Otonashi
2) Alastair MacDirk,Eldgrim the Viking Champion,Knights of Weston x3,Sir Orrick
His armies were better than mine and he gave me first selection banning nothing. I felt like the knights had an edge against Nilfheim but it was a good map for Nilf. The problem is knights basically auto loses to Boreos and co unless Alastair gets very lucky. Trivia Knight didn't know this so I could've gotten away with it but I opted instead for Nilf and he took knights. I set up behind the ruin with Nilf but I am pretty sure I misplayed some of my early Greenscale placements letting him get good attacks on them. I did manage to do a great job limiting attacks on Nilf with Alastair only managing one attack the whole game. Unfortunately for me, it was a 5 skull attack that I whiffed on. Nilf held out with one life for a long time but only having one life meant I had to play much more defensively than I liked. He fell eventually and the scales and Oto put up a fight but it wasn't enough.
I really liked the Trooper build but felt like worst case I could probably beat it with EI. He banned the DKs and Boreos build making that build 2/2 on bans when I wasn't considering it. I chose Micros and he took Cultists. I figured if I could get a couple early kills on Cultists I could just overtake the whole map and make it hard for VMechs or Murphy to do anything. 12 Troopers is a lot and Flaxen Shard gives me a lot of places to grab height. I got some hot rolls (including a HWSA) that brought him down to a squad really fast. I was then able to use height and HWSA to bring down the VMechs without taking much damage in retaliation. I then also survived several shotgun blasts where I inadvertently set up Murphy. Still Troopers took over everything with Kha and J15 not doing anything.
I was very close to making top cut something I had firmly not expected with these builds. Looking at the builds I wanted Heracles since I had soloed Varks with Heracles against Q23 last year. I don't remember if I won the diceoff but I got Heracles and Stingers. I figured I needed to clear out as much as I could with Stingers and I did a real good job of it knocking Greyspears down to a single squaddie fairly quickly. Unfortunately I lost a pretty key initiative that led Swiftfangs charge across the map and attack or tie up most of the stingers. Once Heracles came out though he started taking names. I felt like I was cruising for a victory even with having to burn a wannok on a stinger. There were only 4 Varks left, 2 Quickblades engaged with Heracles, a Darkclaw, and a Greyspear. Heracles had 5 life. Unfortunately for me, I lost initiative and then in two attacks of 4 had 7 skulls rolled against me and I only rolled 1 shield with 10 dice.
L 1 Darkclaw, 1 Greyspear, 2 Quickblades
3-2
Control Points
I liked Spiders x3, Wyvern as a control point option for shenanigans. I toyed a little bit with Blades and Tornak but dok pointed out that loses to glad blast so I went with Mohicans x2, Brave Arrow. Unfortunately I had not considered the bear builds nor the Nilf builds and this army was very bad into them.
Round 1
Trimotor on Alta
Blastatrons x2,Braxas,Gladiatrons x1
Braxas was very annoying but I felt good about the rest. He led with early glad/blast and I led Mohicans pinging him down to 2 Glads pretty quickly. The rest of his build flailed after that especially with bad Braxas acid rolls and I was able to remove her and get 11 VPs after 3 rounds.
W 9 Spiders, 2 life Wyvern, 4 Mohicans, full life Brave Arrow vs 3 Blasts
1-0
Round 2
Xiegfried on Crumbling Castle
Eldgrim the Viking Champion,Frostclaw Paladins,Isamu,Knights of Weston x2,Sir Gilbert
Oh. Fun. Not a great map for me especially when my Mohicans kept falling pretty quickly and the Spiders didn't do too much better. He just outvalued me on the control points and won with 11 points after 3 rounds.
L 2 Frostclaws, 7 Knights, 4 life Gilbert, full life Eldgrim, Isamu vs 9 Spiders, 1 life Wyvern, 1 Mohican, full life Brave Arrow
1-1
Round 3
Ginglebong on Frostmire
Greenscale Warriors x3,Nilfheim,Theracus
Oh. Double fun. Still I could do some things. I had a bad Mohican placement early as I didn't expect him to have an OM 1 on TheraShuttle (C) and so lost one that way. Still I played a very tight game going hard after a few early losses. I managed to really scare Ginglebong dropping Nilf to 1 life and actually almost killing all the Greenscales (there was a 3 3 shot from a Mohican that if I make eats the rest of his round and probably gives me the win.) Unfortunately, unlike when I had the ice dragon I couldn't manage the last wound.
L Full life Theracus, 1 Greenscale, 1 life Nilfheim
1-2
Round 4
ijustworkhere on Dredgewood Forest
Eldgrim the Viking Champion,Frostclaw Paladins,Isamu,Knights of Weston x2,Sir Gilbert
More bears just what I wanted. This map was slightly better for me than the last bear map and I was able to do some real shenanigans with both Mohicans and Spiders. It was still a pretty uphill battle almost the entire game but I made it close.
L 2 Frostclaws, full life Gilbert, 1 Knight, full life Eldgrim
1-3
Insanity of Battle Singleton
I figured there would be a lot of bears after the Gencon event and I felt pretty decent into bears with my "I do not care at all where you place my figures" army. Chasers x1, Warhulk, Izumi Samurai, Marcu, Isamu, Oto, Airborne meant I could try and set up for big early Warhulk turns.
Round 1
96ztrain on Alta
Alastair MacDirk,Finn the Viking Champion,Frostclaw Paladins,Isamu,Knights of Weston x1,Marcu Esenwein,Otonashi
As expected. I don't love the early placement choices I made here as I let him set up too good of a perimeter with the Frosties. Airborne dropped and I was able to win initiative but it only killed 1 bear and Alastair was able to do enough damage. The bears and knights also cut through the Warhulk before he could do much of anything. I put up a fight but I think I win this if I set my early placements up better.
L 2 Knights, 1 Frostclaw, full life Finn, Isamu Marcu vs 3 Izumi and Marcu
0-1
Round 2
loki619 on Frostmire
Alastair MacDirk,Axegrinders of Burning Forge x1,Dorim the Bulkhead Brawler,Frostclaw Paladins,Marcu Esenwein
loki was an absolute pal this convention as he loaned me several cards throughout. I was able to set up a good Warhulk first turn and drop his dwarves in the water and place my Izumi all on height. I got the first round Airborne drop again and basically used them for most of the game to just pick off threats abandoning the Warhulk to Alastair and the bears. Once I'd used the airborne to finish off the dwarves and most of the bears, Chasers were able to finish off the last bear and Alastair. He resigned with only frog Marcu left.
W 2 AE, 3 Izumi, 3 Chasers, Isamu vs Marcu
1-1
Round 3
Phantom on Crumbling Castle
Airborne Elite,Gorillinators x1,Krav Maga Agents,Nakita Agents
We took turns setting up Warhulk and his squads on top of the map. I also took the chance to put Izumi on higher ground. We both dropped Airborne and he won the diceoff to place first putting them in decent spots with the high ground basically impossible to grab. I decided to play the long game and dropped two behind ruins, and the other two behind pillars. I then battle rushed my chasers to keep them hidden from the ranged squads. I lost one on the first turn but after that Warhulk killed a Nakita, hit the flail on the next turn taking out a Gnator, Krav, AE, and another Gnator. It continued like this until he fell and Phantom only had 2 AE and 2 Nakitas (plus some straggler squads I forget). My AE were then able to come in and finish up the job.
W 3 AE, 1 Chaser, 3 Izumi, Marcu, Isamu
Round 4
JandAvery on Subduction
Guilty McCreech,Izumi Samurai,Kaemon Awa,Kozuke Samurai,Ninjas of the Northern Wind
I dropped his Kozuke into a really bad spot in the start zone and then placed my Warhulk near that. He dropped his Kaemon near there and my Izumi and Chasers into the same start zone. I dropped his Izumi on the other side of the map. Guilty got put on height but I dropped the Ninjas into the start zone as well. I did not get an airborne drop but was able to use the Chasers and Warhulk to do a lot of damage to his Kozuke and Kaemon. I also managed to send Warhulk off to kill Guilty and an Izumi in the start zone. Airborne dropped and they failed on their grenades against Ninjas but I was able to kill one with a regular shot. However the Ninjas killed all the airborne (I do think one did later die to counter strike). Warhulk finished off the Izumi and the Ninjas but there was a bit of cat and mouse to make it happen.
W 2 life Warhulk
3-1
Friday
VC Heroes Only Rule of 6
I decided to go Wildwoods and Azazel because I figured it was a nasty build thanks to boromir letting me borrow Azazel for this. After playing it, I think it's better in theory than in practice because Azazel doesn't always return at convenient times. I also think it was a bad build for the meta because it wants more oomph for Hydras and I should've seen the Elders playing and expected a bunch of Hydras. The better build would've been to drop Marcu and Azazel and add another Sentinel and another Runner.
Round 1
NicktheAnt on Crumbling Castle
Fen Hydra x3,Isamu,Me-Burq-Sa,Ornak
Not a great opener of a matchup and this map is really bad for Wildwoods. I had Azazel open and even managed to get a whirlwind from height on the Hydras but did no wounds and Azazel got eaten. He did later come back but the problem was that Nick won a couple key initiatives and ate my trees before I could finish off Hydras. Called on time.
L Full life Sentinel, 1 life Marcu vs. 2 3 life Hydras, full life Ornak, and full life Me-Burq-Sa
0-1
Round 2
Zephan on Ticalla Sunrise
Ataraxis the Starlich,Bol,Cyprien Esenwein,Eldgrim the Viking Champion,Isamu,Sonya Esenwein,Zombie Hulk x2
This was much more the matchup I wanted. While the Zombie Hulks did sort of tear through Azazel kinda quickly with the defense subtraction, he was able to kill one before he died. After that it was the tree show as they plodded over and slowly killed the other heroes with a runner on Wannok to finish off the pressure and kill Eldgrim who had wandered over to the Glyph. Cyprien didn't roll that hot and so was able to be killed by a tree assault. Azazel came back at some point and threatened as well, but it was mostly ents killed undead.
W 4 life Monarch, full life Sentinel, 2 Runners, full life Azazel, 5 life Marcu
1-1
Round 3
Mitch on Subduction
Fen Hydra x2,Major Q9,Marcu Esenwein,Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (RotV)
Honestly a really solid build and a better matchup for me than Round 1. I was able to use Azazel to draw the Hydra out of Raelin's aura and then beat on it with trees. Q9 came out and got some very clutch rolls to kill me. I think there's one or two initiatives where if I get them I am finishing off the second Hydra or getting some good attacks into Q9. If I get those I probably am able to mount a comeback.
L 2 life Hydra, full life Major Q9, full life Raelin, full life Marcu
1-2
Round 4
Ultralord on Alta
Fen Hydra x2,Major Q9,Marcu Esenwein,Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (RotV)
Exact same matchup and a better map for me. This one however went very bad. Hydra killed Azazel in one turn before I could do anything and got some good hits on my trees. I was able to turn it around and had a turn where I was going to get an attack of 7 on a 2 life Hydra with a full life Monarch who could probably kill Q9 even in Raelin's aura. I lost initiative and died in 2 attacks and then Q9 mopped up.
L 2 life Hydra, full life Major Q9, full life Raelin, full life Marcu
1-3
Reverse Draft
The event I spent the least time thinking about is one of my better events. That sounds right. I brought Ebon Armor, Izumi Samurai, Kozuke Samurai, Krav Maga Agents, and Tarn Viking Warriors (drop 1 usually a Tarn) because I like playing Ebon and it felt like a hard build for other people to assess and play.
Round 1
caps on Song of the Walrus
Jarek Guy,M-43 Resistance Fighters x5
He opened with his army and we bid it down two M-43s with me taking my army the turn before he would've swapped. I lead with Ebon and am able to crack a bit into his position but I don't do a ton of damage. He also kept forgetting to bring up reinforcements. I follow it up with an Izumi push after he grabbed the two glyphs and I'm able to kill the glyph holders. They proceed to tank a lot of hits allowing me to use Tarn to hit some clutch berserkers and smash my way through quite a few Mariedians. The big moment though is when I win initiative and am able to charge Kozuke up into great spots and kill 3 Mariedians. After that I use a combination of Ebon and Kozuke to finish off the rest of the army.
W 2 Ebon (2 on cards), 3 Krav, 3 Kozuke
1-0
Round 2
vegie dad on Frostmire
Knights of Weston x4,Sir Gilbert
We bid him down to 3 squads and once again I grab my build the turn before he would've taken it. After that point I realize that he needs Gilbert to take out my Izumi and so when he does a Gilbert push, I take an initiative where I get 2 attacks of 6 and 1 attack of 5 on him and manage to wipe him off the map. After that it was winning the war of attrition vs knights as he lost about a squad to counter strike and between that and how hard Ebon and Kozuke hit I was able to finish him off.
W 3 Ebon (1 on card), 1 Krav, 1 Izumi
2-0
Round 3
Viideosayg on Ticalla Sunrise
Kira Jax,Mezzodemon Warmongers x5,Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (RotV)
We dropped him down to 7 Mezzos and once again I took Ebon right before he would've taken mine. I led Krav and just rained fire down on Mezzos and managed to burn through the markers really fast even with Raelin's aura. There were a few counter shots thrown back but they were blocked easily. Viideosayg had thought he could use Wannok to pressure me to come in closer but after I used Wannok to kill an Ebon and drop it on a card he knew he couldn't even do that.
W only lost the Ebon to Wannok
3-0
Round 4
I'd officially won my dice and after a lot of debate on what to do since MegaSilver was dropping and I'd played everyone remaining I agreed to a rematch with caps on Subduction. He grabbed my army this time and it got dropped down to only have 2 Tarns before I took his Mariedians (once again right before he would have). I just used my early shots to try and kill Ebon and I snuck an attack on a Kozuke in the start zone. He used Krav for his second wave and whiffed on one attack and I was able to engage him with another dropping him down to a single Krav much faster than he probably wanted. It was a game then of slowly picking him off. Eventually Jarek got into the mix and I used him to finish off assorted squad figures and try to tank hits from Ebon. It ended up working quite well as I was able to pull it out.
W 5 M-43s, 1 life Jarek
4-0
VCs Get Degrees
I originally agreed to TD for this time slot but OEAO decided he wanted to do it instead. So loki let me borrow Blackgaard so I could check them off my list.
Round 1
Ginglebong on Crumbling Castle
Microcorp Agents x4,Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (SotM)
Did not love this as an opener. The game was basically me climbing up the hill and knocking him off while he tried to take shots on me. It's a great map for Micros so he was able to get a lot of 4v4s and he was rolling pretty good both for attack and stealth armor. I still made it a game though bringing him pretty close.
L 1 Micro, full life Raelin
0-1
Round 2
Heroes of the Scape on Frostmire
Deathwalker 8000,Deathwalker 9000,Dumutef Guard x1,Zettian Deathwings x3,Zettian Guards
This was a very delicious matchup for me and I gave him no real opportunities to blow up anybody. Blackgaard rolled 5/5 on the first 9K attack and just threw a ton of dice all around. I was in control for most of the game and while 8K and the Zettian Guards were a bit sturdier, 4 attacks of 4 a turn is very hard to beat.
W 14 Blackgaard
1-1
Round 3
Vydar_XLIII on Flaxen Shard
Blackgaard x4
We both sat down knowing it was going to be a dice fest and that's exactly what it was. He won a key initiative near the end to drop me down below a squad first and that was the big difference.
L 4 Blackgaard
1-2 (drop so I could do other things)
Saturday
Prebuilt Dragons
I didn't know which dragon I wanted to play so I let the good people of the Scapecon Discord vote for me and Brimstone the worst dragon by a good margin won the poll. Loki was once again kind enough to loan him to me.
Round 1
Breann of Philly on Song of the Walrus
Quahon, 3x Fyorlag Spiders, 4x Blue Wyrmling
This was easily the best build as far as I was concerned and I knew I'd have to make some risky plays. Bre was as always a delight to play and led the spiders. I used Eldgrim to snag the attack glyph and then had all my OMs on Kaemon using them to try and murder Quahon. He ended up getting a bit lucky and doing 5 wounds to her and Bre forgot about counter strike and lost a spider to that but after that she just tied him up and used Quahon to bring him down to 1 life. Having had the life to do a triple disengage prior I instead Quick Released two spiders killing one. Then it was all Brim. I used him with Eldgrim's spirit to punch holes in the spider front lines before engaging Quahon. She took a big bite out of Brimstone who survived with 1 life and then exploded kiilling off her, a spider, and one of my scales. The Blue Wyrmlings were gonna be tough especially if Bre decided to use their normal attacks. Fortunately she went for the lightning and rolled pretty badly (but still managing to finish off Brim) and my Scales were able to clean up.
W 5 Greenscales
1-0
Round 2
Scared Cultist on Alta
Zelrig, 3x Sacred Band, Marcus Decimus Gallus, 2x Red Wyrmling
If he played aggressively with Zelrig I could be in trouble. Kaemon would be good late game though into a bunch of melee Band so I felt I needed to go all in on Brim and the Scales. Fortunately for me, Cultist split OMs between Band and Zel allowing me to pick my targets. I got a clutch kill on Zelrig in the middle of Round 2 with a series of attacks from Brim and Scales. I was then able to fly Brim into the middle of his start zone and explode for a 3/4 killing 7 Band, and a Red Wyrmling. It was mop up after that with Marcus putting up a bit of a fight but just not able to deal with the sheer volume of attacks I was outputting.
W 3 life Brimstone, 6 Greenscales, full life Kaemon, full life Eldgrim
This was easily the hardest matchup in the pool as Charos has the same amount of bonding but better and Brandis isn't a slouch against dragons and counter strike. I figured I would need Kaemon to do a lot of damage. I had Eldgrim grab Wannok and spent a couple turns keeping Brim away from Charos and pecking away at his Scales with mine. One grabbed Sola Astrid. He killed Eldgrim the turn I needed him to and was able to drop Kaemon onto height and drop a 6 dice attack on Charos dealing 3 wounds. Unfortunately that was the end of that as Charos was able to use turn 3 and an initiative switch to engage Kaemon and even though I threw more dice at him (after the game discovered height attack of 6 would've been better than Quick Release) he kept rolling 3 shields like a champ. Brim and company were able to finish off Brandis (who thankfully was taking some turns allowing me to do more damage but who unthankfully was taking too long to die) but also took a few wounds in the process with the explosion not doing as much as I needed it to. Charos gobbled up Kaemon and then finished off Brimstone. I needed better dice but I didn't quite get it.
L 5 life Charos 6 Greenscales
2-1
Round 4
Krugsmash on Turmoil
Nilfheim, 3x Dzu-Teh, Zetacron
Once again had Eldgrim grab Wannok early and then used Kaemon to kill Zeta and snipe at Nilfheim dealing 5 wounds pretty quickly. Yetis finished him off and Eldgrim and used Brimstone and Scales to take the center, finish off Nilfheim and then drop another 4 attack bomb to nuke 2 of the forward yetis. It was mop up after that.
W Full life Brimstone, 8 Greenscales
3-1
Quad Pod
I realized Denrick and Knights x2 was a valid pod. Then I realized Bramcephys was Huge and could also be a pod. That checked two more off my list. After realizing AGs x3 and Krug also worked and played into both pods, I scoured my list, realized I had an Agent Nora I'd won and could use her and 2 squads of buccaneers for the last pods playing nicely into the range and bonding armies I had in the others. I really liked these pods but unfortch for me, my results wouldn't play out that way.
Round 1
Necroblade on Alta
1) Elite Onyx Vipers,Z'Thoth, Mouth of the Abyss
2) Kalagrith,Tarn Viking Warriors
3) Airborne Elite,Deathwalker 8000
4) Azazel the Kyrie Warrior,Sentinels of Grax
He opened with Buccaneers and I took Knights and AGs figuring I'd be able to out attack anything he did. He grabbed AE and 8K. Honestly there's a very real argument I should've grabbed Knights and Bram but still I felt good about the matchup. Airborne drop and he wins opening initiative and grenades kill 7 AGs, 2 knights, and put a wound on Denrick. Next turn he kills another AG, another knight, and finishes off Denrick. I was not my best self at this moment and he was very gracious with how tilted I got. But yeah, Krug put up a fight but he eventually just died to AE and pirates.
L 2 Buccaneers, Marcu, full life Nora, full life 8K
0-1
Round 2
TalesofValhalla on Crumbling Castle
1) Command Courier x1,Crypt Guardian x1,Red Ants of Aunstrom x1,Thorgrim the Viking Champion
2) Command Courier x1,Crypt Guardian x1,Eldgrim the Viking Champion,Xualtiaca Fire Ants x2
3) Command Courier x1,Crypt Guardian x2,Red Ants of Aunstrom x2
4) Command Courier x1,Crypt Guardian x1,Finn the Viking Champion,Xualtiaca Fire Ants x1
Now normally you can't duplicate figures across pods but to be fair to Tales that wasn't actually listed in the rules so while it irked me he had abided by rules as written. The builds weren't that strong though and I figured he's end up with the build that gave him 3 squads of red ants and 3 crypt guardians. Bram wasn't bad into the cryptos but the ants could probably beat him so I figured I'd just go with numbers and took my AGs and Knights pods. Especially with him being all melee I felt Crumbling Castle would give me lots of good opportunities to snipe him. It played out according to plan as Krug managed to go around killing Cryptos while AGs sniped ants. I don't think I ever put an order marker on the knights.
W 5 AGs, 8 Knights, full life Denrick, 4 life Krug
Round 3
dok on Flaxen Shard
1) Kozuke Samurai,Phantom Knights x2
2) Brute Gruts,Exiles of the Sundered Sea,Otonashi,Rygarn
3) Dreadgul Raiders x3,Guilty McCreech,Isamu
4) Deathreavers x2,Krav Maga Agents,Louis "Mad Dog" Malone
I definitely misjudged how these pools played into mine and this was not my best game. He deferred and I took the Rygarn pick as Rygarn is usually a good base and Brute Gruts and Exiles are both strong squads. He took Krav and PKs and I took my Buccaneers pod. I led a really bad opening letting PKs get some good shots on me, took a lot of useless attacks on rats, and then spent a whole round trying to chase down Krav with Brute Gruts and watching them all die. dok mopped me up pretty quickly after that even with Nora doing some stuff. I think I can win if I play this better there's an argument I should've just gone like Bram or something to counter the Krav although I probably have to take a lot of disengages to get there. Hard to say. Leading PKs means he probably ends up with Knights and Dreadguls and then I'm not sure what I take because all the other builds are pretty bad into that.
Round 4
Knight of Light on Subduction
1) Axegrinders of Burning Forge x2,Beorn Boltcutter,Gen. Simon Fraser
2) Marcu Esenwein,Warforged Soldiers x2,Zetacron
3) Isamu,Mogrimm Forgehammer,Otonashi,Roman Legionnaires x2
4) Marcus Decimus Gallus,Sacred Band x2,Theracus
Another where I drafted badly. He opened with the Romans and I took Buccaneers and Dwarves. He took Band. I think the play is actually to take Knights and AGs or Band. I wanted to take Bram going into this but once I saw his pods I knew it wasn't happening. This game was basically Mogrimm comes up and is a nightmare to kill.
L 3 Romans, 8 Band, full life Marcus, full life Theracus, 5 life Mogrimm
1-3
Delta Super Boosted
I stumbled across Anubians x5 with a d20+1 and was like yeah that sounds like a lot of fun. Krug with Overextend was also really good as an option.
Round 1
Djwarfel on Song of the Walrus
Cyprien Esenwein,Deathreavers x3,Minions of Utgar x1
Really liked this matchup. Killed two Minions early with some good wolf attacks. I got back to back 19s and somehow in two attacks of 9 on Cyprien did like 2 wounds. Cyprien flitted around for a little bit but Overextend Krug finished him off and Djwarfel conceded.
W 8 Anubians, 2 life Krug vs 7 rats, 1 Minion
1-0
Round 2
SneakyNinjaMage on Subduction
Greenscale Warriors x4,Zelrig
I was very worried about an early charge from Zelrig (a really neat looking purple one) and so led Krug to keep him back. He played very cautiously and I began charging wolves to threaten but he'd usually snipe with Zelrig and then block with Greenscales. It was very much a cat and mouse game as I took my opportunities to kill Scales with Wolves or Krug as I got the opportunities. I finally managed to box in Zelrig and finish him off with Krug. Time got called shortly thereafter.
I needed to keep him from claiming the center and I'd be fine. The early game however was me rolling single digits on my d20 and having to flail at Swog riders with only 2 attack. This allowed him to set up the perimeter he wanted. Even though I was able to kill the Ice Troll when it came out to play the combination of AGs in the middle and Krug was just too much.
L 9 AGs, 1 Swog, 4 life Krug
2-1 (not in contention so returned to the room)
Sunday
VC Boosted A and Under
If you're familiar with DND rolling a d20 with advantage (rolling two d20s and taking the higher result) is basically a +5 to the die (it's a bit more complex to that but the closer to the middle of a result you're looking for the more accurate that is) so I decided to grab what was in my mind the best use for d20 rerolls which was extra turns and went Aubriens and Haduc and Arkmer.
Round 1
Bye
Really hard win
1-0
Round 2
Necroblade on Ticalla Sunrise
Havech Eradicators x3,The Varja
Easily my worst matchup in the pool entirely because I can't snipe Varja. Map was really good for me. I spread out and begin sniping into the start zone and even get a few shots in on the Varja. With the rerolls however, Necro is able to kill Aubriens pretty handily with 5 attack each turn. I manage to get through a lot of Havechs in the start zone even with them rolling pretty hearty defense and get 3 wounds on Varja on the back of some good frenzy chains (5 in a row being the highlight). Varja eventually makes it to my start zone and I switch over to Arkmer who delivers a 4 skull knockout. The Aubriens finish off the last couple Havechs.
W 5 Aubriens, 2 life Arkmer, fulll life Haduc
2-0
Round 3
vegies dad on Frostmire
Atlaga the Kyrie Warrior,Greenscale Warriors x2,Isamu,Marcu Esenwein,Quahon
VD and I knew this would be the final and we agreed to the prize distribution we liked before we even started. I felt pretty good about this matchup because I can separate Aubriens pretty easily so he can only smack one at a time with the lightning breath. I managed to deal 6 wounds to him in one turn due to height and a series of frenzies. Atlaga actually ended up being harder to finish off because of the height he grabbed. Still I managed to do it without losing too many troops in the process.
W 4 Aubriens, 2 life Arkmer, full life Haduc
3-0
I then left to go commentate the championship games with Bigga. Both Foudzing and ijustworkhere asked for games but I was scaped out at this point (I like myself into both matchups because I outrange Stingers and can use frenzy to get close to Krav and I can do similar things to Quahon that I did in my game against VD and even if the Aubriens don't kill everything with frenzy strings, Arkmer and Haduc in endgame getting to reroll attacks is very good and Haduc will be a pain to kill. Neither of them is a walkover but I feel like I have the edge in both cases).
Final record overall 24-18 (16-12 on .org not including night events or 3HH)
I also did some fun things with makeup that I'm hoping to do at future live events as it was a lot of fun. Pictures below. Some of these could stand to use improvement and I also don't think my photography skills were the best.
This was a fun one. I'm really glad everything turned out as well as it did. My notes are a bit sketchier than normal since I forgot a notebook and had to write this all on my phone. It was a lot of fun and the event ran very smoothly. It seemed like everyone had a great time and I'm excited for what Scape Summit III has in store.
THURSDAY
A- ish and Under Scouting Party
I ran Axentia and Fire Ants in the OHS Scouting Party and thought I should try it again here. However the slight tweaks that were made to the format (by somebody who shall remain nameless but her user name rhymes with Hi Troll) meant that I couldn't forward lead Axentia and my decision to bring in the Bugball meant I had fewer ants. I should've run Red Ants x3, Bugball, Legionnaires, CORVID-19, and Swaysil (drop one) allowing me to either forward lead Bugball and 7 ants or CORVID-19. Oh well. On to the games.
Round 1
superfrog (Talingul, Avernus, Boreos, Lilja)
Marshall Law
He forward placed Avernus and I forward placed 8 ants. Avernus proceeded to go absolutely nuts and kill all my ants in a single round without taking a wound. I flew Axentia up to try and murder Talingul but she was only able to get him to just under half health before she perished. The bugball put up a valiant fight but it too fell.
L 2 Life Avernus, 3 life Boreos, 4 life Lilja, 2 life Talingul
0-1
Round 2
Bye
Super tough win there
1-1
Round 3
UtahScott (Marro Drones x4, Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (AoA), Marrden Hounds, Loviatäk the Kyrie Warrior)
Cold Iron
Ants started out pretty hot just absolutely blitzing through things but also dying on almost every counter attack. I felt pretty good until Axentia attempted to do things but only killed like 3 drones for her troubles. Bugball and Oathbound once again couldn't quite clutch it out for me.
L 3 life Raelin, 3 Drones, Loviatäk
1-2
Round 4
Baron Scapius (Roman Legionnaires x3, Halushia, Scion of the Wild, Krav Maga Agents, Marcus Decimus Gallus)
Sundered Sea Stronghold
Another game where ants just decided to absolutely wreck everything in the early going but also died pretty quickly. A single Fire Ant dealt 3 wounds to a sleeping Halushia (and honestly could've done more but I forgot about getting to roll again). Bugball came up and lasted a long time but also didn't kill much. Axentia in the endgame flew around doing a lot of damage but unfortunately self immolated at an inconvenient moment when she could only take out a Krav. She dropped Halushia to one life but then died on the counter attack.
L 1 life Halushia, Marcus Decimus Gallus, 1 Roman
1-3
VC Delta Sideboards
Ever since I won a sideboards event with Ebon Armor I wanted to play them again and they're really best in Delta where everything they want is cheaper. I ended up going with
1) Nakita Agents, Ebon Armor
2) Krav Maga Agents, Evar Scarcarver, Kozuke Samurai, Ninjas of the Northern Wind, Lee Jun, Izumi Samurai, Johnny "Shotgun" Sullivan, Tarn Viking Warriors, Patrick Ferguson, Shiori (SotM), Isamu, Otonashi
The plan was basically Ebon and Nakitas are pretty good and I give myself a lot of good anti range and anti melee options.
Round 1
BiggaBullfrog ( 1) Arrow Gruts x4, Kita the Springrunner and 2) Mimring, Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (RotV), Krug, Ice Troll Berserker x1, Swog Rider x3, Onshu the Welkineye, Otar )
Dalmatian
A shield was rolled giving us the most points to work with. I made sure to get Krav and Shotgun Sullivan in the draft and then also grabbed Kozuke Samurai and Tarn to fill out points. Bigga decided to go with Krug and OG Raelin and 2 Swogs I think. I led with Ebon taking out a couple AGs and Bigga played the ping game. Shotgun threw a lot of attacks at AGs but they kept blocking and Krug made his way into my start zone and definitely melted a few figures. Took me a couple good hits from Kozuke and Tarn to finally bring him down. Unfortunately time got called when I had a single Ebon, Shotgun with 1 life, a Kozuke (with an Ebon on it), a Krav (with an Ebon on it), a Nakita Agent (with an Ebon on it), and 3 Tarn while he had 3 Arrow Gruts, Kita, and 4 life Raelin. That allowed him to win the match with 8 points, although we both agree I probably win if we play it out.
L
0-1
Round 2
Smarthawk ( 1) Death Knights of Valkrill x5 and 2) Skull Demon x2, Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (AoA), Cal the Smuggler, Kate Crawford, Air Elemental, Dumutef Guard x2, Darkprowl Thrall, Bol)
Marshall Law
Blank was rolled so we were at the lowest total. Only 10 DKs meant if I played my cards right I could make Samurai incredibly difficult for him. I grabbed Izumi Samurai and Kozuke Samurai and Isamu. He had AoA Raelin. I did my best to try and kill her early on but she would not die and so that meant that he was getting -3 to all my attacks and I just was never able to mount the comeback
L 7 Death Knights
0-2
Round 3
Flash19 ( 1) Death Knights of Valkrill x4, 2) Kaemon Awa, Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (AoA), Loviatäk the Kyrie Warrior, Ninjas of the Northern Wind, Skull Demon x1, Marcu Esenwein)
Venom
Shield was rolled once again giving us max points. Nice to finally play Flash in person. Another DK build but with a lot fewer DKs and I had more points. I went with Izumi, Kozuke, and Lee Jun and then added in Shotgun and Tarn to finish out. He went with Raelin and Lovi and the Ninjas of the Northern Wind which is why I made sure to grab Shotgun. My dice were not cold this time and Raelin was much less involved in this fight and so I was able to kill Death Knights a lot faster and got a clutch Berserker Charge roll to get 4 attacks of 4 with Tarn including one on a DK sitting on Dagmar. Time once again got called in this event but I was comfortably ahead.
W Izumi Samurai (with an Ebon), Shotgun (with an Ebon), one Kozuke (with an Ebon), two Tarn (with an Ebon) vs one Ninja, 2 life Raelin, Loviatäk
1-2
Round 4
Sir Heroscape ( 1) Arrow Gruts x4, Isamu, 2) Mimring, Krug, Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (SotM), Swog Rider x5, Ice Troll Berserker x1, Onshu the Welkineye, Kita the Springrunner, Bol)
Nightblood
A skull was rolled giving me the worst point total to combat AGs and Mimsy. I don't have enough points for things that aren't Krav and he can force me to commit to Krav and then go something that isn't Mimsy or force me to draft something that hedges my bets more but doesn't give me Krav. I ended up choosing the latter going with Shotgun, Kozuke, and the Ninjas (and Isamu because I've traumatized Sir H with Isamu enough times) while he went with a couple Swogs and Mimring. I was able to get some wounds on him due to early aggressive Mimring play and then played a bit more cautiously so I could set up a big attack with Kozuke. I won initiative and got two attacks of 6 down onto a 3 life Mimring... and did 0 wounds. That slammed the door shut for any kind of comeback and he managed to wipe my entire army after that without much trouble. If I get that kill it's not a guaranteed win but Shotgun was still pretty healthy and he was still pretty bunched up so I think I have a good shot.
L 6 Arrow Gruts, 3 Swog Riders, Bol, Isamu
1-3
VC Delta Dragon General Wars
I wanted to bring rainbow Xeni and I realized I could fill in with bees and Sujoah which felt good into dragons. I realized it played badly into Cultists but I thought I could pull it off if I had some good dice and traded well with Cultists, I could theoretically pull it off.
Round 1
Saxy_Sonlen (Zombies of Morindan x4, Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (AoA), Othkurik The Black Dragon, Loviatäk the Kyrie Warrior)
Marshall Law
Not a bad opening matchup so long as I didn't let him get too many attacks on zombies. I was probably a bit more aggressive with Sujoah than I needed to be but I needed him in a good place so I could kill zombies as fast as I could. He moved up Raelin and that plus a zombie attack meant that Sujoah spent most of the game at 2 life which was a bit dicier than I liked especially since his death meant Sacrificial sting vanished. I was trading very good on the zombie front but the game was over when Othkurik came forward, failed to do any damage and then got nat 20 stung by Sujoah. Xeni was able to mop up after that.
I thought this was a good matchup for me but then Sujoah decided he didn't want to roll attack dice at all and Ashra blocked a ton of attack so by the time Charos came out to play he still had a bunch of Ashra and was able to block off Xeni's advance. The vines weren't able to block off too many passageways and Brandis was also able to do some major damage to her as well.
L 2 life Charos, Brandis Skyhunter, 3 Ashra
1-1
Round 3
BodaciousBlood ( Marro Stingers x4, Su-Bak-Na, Othkurik The Black Dragon)
Blasted Lands
This game can be summed up in a few words. 6 for 6 on Stinger Drains. BB hit the drain and killed Sujoah in a turn and a half leaving me with stingless bees. I put up a valiant effort with my 1 attack bees but once Suj died on OM 2 of the first round I knew the game was over.
L Su-Bak-Na, Othkurik, 5 Stingers
1-2
Round 4
Business Scaper (Aubrien Archers x4, Charos)
Dalmatian
One that could really go a lot of ways. I knew I had to kill Aubriens before they could claim the height and I also had to keep him from getting good attacks on Sujoah. I bounced the bug around the map doing my best to sting the Aubriens dead as soon as they moved up. I was helped by Business Scaper not rolling a single frenzy the entire game. The clutch moment was when Sujoah managed to drop a sleeping Charos to half life allowing Xenithrax to finish the job, but just barely.
W 2 life Xenithrax
2-2
FRIDAY
VC Delta Monster Mash
I was toying around with playing Varks and realized that both of the 3 figure squads and two Vark Heroes would leave me enough figures for two spirit targets. I'd been meaning to work in Bahadur and Manauvi and then realized Sonlen was a great target for the move boost. I needed a melee unit for the attack boost and wanted to do Siege but realized I needed a Large or Huge figure. Remembering how useful the Feral Troll could be in endgame during War League and how many heroes would likely be floating around, he filled my last slot.
This was a great opening matchup so long as Krug and Mimring didn't go off. I was able to kill Mimring pretty quickly and use Manauvi to jump into the start zone and pop some AGs. Bahadur was able to engage Krug and do a lot of damage before dying. I also managed to finish off several Ice Trolls who had only taken one wound with Manauvi. Once both the heroes were dead Sonlen came out and was able to kill Krug, the remaining Ice Troll and the Swogs
W Sonlen, Feral Troll
1-0
Round 2
Baron Scapius (Hoplitron x6, Major Q11, Krug, Major J15, Major X17)
Dalmatian
I figured if I could kill the heroes early I stood a good shot. Krug in the end game could be brutal against the Feral Troll unless I got very lucky. Unfortunately, Q11 went on a killing spree managing to knock me down to single squad figures super early. Bahadur and Manauvi did their best to try killing the other heroes but they were only able to wound them. Sonlen was able to finish off X17 but fell to J15 who was finished off by the troll. The troll took some hits and wasn't able to regen fast enough between Hoplitron attacks
Templar could absolutely wreck me so I played cautiously with the squads sending Bahadur out as a sacrificial lamb. It mostly worked but he died super fast. I won a clutch initiative and was able to drop his Templars down to one figure but the last Templar would not die and Q9 was able to finish off Manauvi before I could move him into the start zone and start attacking. Thankfully for me Sonlen was able to come in with his boosted move and drop two wounds on Q9. Having set up Q9 for Troll attacks, I divebombed Sonlen at Jotun and finished him off in two turns. Unfortunately he also died immediately after. Q9 was able to kite the Troll long enough to finish him off. There's an argument I should've put the movement boost on Troll but I'm not sure if I can get the attacks down on Q9 or Jotun if he doesn't have 8 move.
Marutuk and Bram could wreck if I wasn't careful and Hounds didn't care about my high defense. I fought him near the Wannok glyph but his Hounds proved fairly sturdy and he was able to drop down my squad efficiency. He had moved Bram up where I could get some hits in on him and inflict some wounds. Manauvi didn't die until Sonlen was fully developed but he had stopped Hounds in the start zone from advancing much. This allowed me to take a shot on Bram with Sonlen and then next turn finish him off with Dragon Swoop and get a shot on Marutuk. After that I traded Sonlen to get Marutuk down to about 2 life. The Troll then came out and ran around the board throwing a ton of dice at Gurei-Oni (on low ground and wounded by Wannok) and then Marutuk and ran to Wannok to finish off the last Hound.
W 7 life Feral Troll
2-2
Cube Draft
I was super excited for this as I hadn't gotten a chance to play yet, only do mock drafts. Myself, Bigga, UtahScott, and Curtimus had the yellow pool. My opening hand had Adelbern and Chasers. Figuring there was a decent chance Chasers would wheel to me I decided to grab Adelbern. The next pack had Romans and multiple warlords (MBS, Mogrimm, Lich) so I grabbed Romans. I was then handed Frosties and Chasers back to back and snapped both of those up. Gothlok and MBS were amazing final picks.
Round 1
UtahScott (Mok, Axegrinders of Burning Forge x2, Kozuke Samurai, Ulfrid sat Durgeth and Guilty)
Dalmatian
I felt like the sheer power of Gothlok was better than MBS and Romans weren't gonna be that helpful here so I went with Chasers x2, Adelbern, Gothlok, and Frosties. I figured Dwarves would be the lead and so led with Chasers to clear the way for Frosty domination. Gothlok smashed into Mok for 4 wounds which he chose to ignore by killing one of the dwarves on him (we found out later that we played this wrong). Ulfrid then managed to kill Gothlok taking only 2 wounds in the process. He later took another wound attacking a Chaser and by this time Adelbern had entered into the fray. I kept Ulfrid and Mok from getting to him by throwing Chasers in the way and made a risky play to go kill the sleeping Kozuke. I failed my attack and then won a clutch initiative allowing me to pop the second Kozuke but I failed another attack. Thankfully he survived the counterattack and by this time Frostclaws had managed to get up into the fray and were attacking Mok who had grabbed Ulfrid as another gunner. The 7 attack of Mok wasn't quite enough for him to slam out the Frosties and they and Adelbern slowly chipped away at him for the win.
W 2 Frostclaws (I think one of them had one life), 2 life Adelbern, Death Chaser
1-0
Round 2
Curtimus (Hellforge, Lich, Dreadguls x2, Pel sat Wraithriders and Durgeth)
Clear Cut
I went with the same army as last time as I knew I was gonna want a lot of hitting power to get through everything. Once again Gothlok took some mighty swings but failed miserably only to get absolutely obliterated on a 6/7 skull attack from the Hellforge. However he had to move Lich to low ground and that meant Adelbern was able to pounce and together he and a Chaser finished off the Lich. Adelbern then wrecked the Hellforge and I had some Chasers kill a couple Raiders and act as a bit of a screen. Pel and Adelbern began throwing dice at each other while I raced bears across the board. Pel rolled absolutely miserably and I was able to use bears to finish holding the raiders off from joining the fight. Adelbern finally died but by that point there were enough bears that finishing off Pel was relatively easy.
W 3 Frostclaws (2 at one life), 2 Death Chasers
2-0
We swapped pools at this point and began playing the Red Pool with myself, Bodacious, UtahScott, and 3DScaper being the top and bottom of the standings. My opening hand had 2 squads of Minions. AoA Raelin was in there as well and I almost took her but decided being able to wheel 2x Minions could be strong. The next hand I got wasn't strong but had 2 squads of Anubians so I took them with the same reasoning. Then I got Lovi, Taelord, and the second squad of Minions in succession. Finished up with Blade Dancers and Khosumet. I'm pretty sure I regretted the dancer pick but I don't remember what else I was playing.
Round 3
BodaciousBlood (2xBlackgaard, 2xHavechs, Avernus sat Boreos and Augamo)
Marshall Law
I figured the Blade Dancers would only be good if I was facing exclusively melee and Khosumet was basically never getting picked. Avernus was a problem as he could wipe out my entire offense by himself. I figured I should play it cautiously and try to kill him in one strike. I moved Taelord and Lovi up behind the hive and he advanced a squad of Blackgaard and brought Avernus in to attack Lovi dealing one wound with the burn and one with the attack. However, he hadn't realized Minions could get to him with the move boost and I threw three Minions on low ground. With both auras active I rolled 4 skulls, 4 skulls, and 6 skulls which dropped Avernus. I then proceeded to roll incredibly well on attack and defense as I continued to thrash the rest of his army including blocking a 4 skull attack. It didn't help that Avernus burned a Blackgaard on his way up nor that the first Havech shot blew up.
W 3 Minions, 2 life Lovi, Taelord, 3 Anubians
3-0
Round 4
3DScape (Raelin AoA, Sonlen, Morgoloth, Wolves of Badru, Werewolf Lord, sat Wolves of Badru and Azazel)
Venom
With the championship secured we played a round for fun. 3DScaper is Board Hero's kid and he's pretty knowledgeable for a 6 year old. Werewolf Lord gave me a few scares but I was able to use Minions in the auras to wreck the army pretty quickly and efficiently.
W 2 Minions, 2 life Lovi, Anubians
4-0
VC Delta Convoy
I'm still not sure how I feel about this format. Having an alt win condition is nice. The regenerating figures led to some interesting gameplay decisions. There was a lot of thinking about placement. It definitely feels like it needs tweaks but I could see this become a very interesting format that plays differently from others. I figured Frosties would give me a lot of movement options and Vorid Glide Strikers could drop in on the convoy whenever I wanted. Denrick fit the points but ended up being super useful as coward's reward meant I could control my opponent's placement a fair bit.
Himmel and the Glide Strikers both got to the convoy turn 1 but I was able to use the bears and Denrick to slam into Himmel faster than the Warforged could keep up. We played a lot of movement games around his side of the board. It never really shifted back to mine except for a minor scare at one point but bears were so durable that it just never was much of a threat
This was the exact opposite as he hit hard enough and I wasn't defending anything that he was able to just absolutely wreck me. I could've snuck a win in the final round had my last bear survived but it didn't.
L
2-1 dropped
SATURDAY
VC Second Wind
It was probably a bit risky to not play cheesey things but I wasn't thinking about that. I knew Red Mantis Blade Dancers could be impossible to kill and decided to play into that. I originally had Anubians x3 for cohesion but decided to swap out the third squad for Exiles for additional oomph and because I wanted to show off my One Piece paintjobs. The logic was hard to kill first wave, second wave that can bring down the hammer.
Round 1
Bye
Another tough win. I used it to prep the draft pools for the championship event and make sure all the units had Delta prices listed.
1-0
Q10 put in work managing to slowly whittle through all my RMBD. However, I had managed to kill Raelin and Isamu in that time frame and put a couple wounds on him. Anubians managed to finish him off (rolling my only 20 of the tournament on a development turn) and the Heavies were in a commanding position. I was able to string a series of Exiles attacks around an initiative switch but unfortunately it only knocked him down to 3 Heavies and full Tornak. I was able to kill off the remaining Heavies and had I won initiative had a chance to throw a 4 v 6 into Tornak with my last Exile. Unfortunately it was not to be as he won initiative and devoured my last Exile.
The Vipers didn't trade super well into the RMBD except for the turn where he got 3 frenzies in a row. Still with only six guys we ended the first wind with me only having one dancer who died almost immediately. Anubians and Exiles were able to remove dwarves at a pretty quick clip and Anubians defense held. We both lost a couple figures to lava. Game ended with my last bunch of Anubians finishing off Dorim.
I knew I was gonna need to get a bit lucky to win this game. RMBD blocked like champs. He stole my OMs twice but once grabbed the X and Kozzie got no Wounded Rages and 1 Crushing Grasp if I remember right. Isamu was able to finish off the last RMBD but he was the only one left. We switched and I full sent Anubians. He went MWs but they weren't able to kill that many wolves and got engaged pretty quickly and killed. Soon he had to use his last MW to screen for Quahon. I took LEAs and began whacking into her. I didn't roll that hot until the last roll so it took a minute but I was greatly helped by Quahon rolling 1 skull twice and 2 skulls once. The Anubians finished off the last MW reinforcing the ones who were attacking Quahon and then finished off Isamu.
W 3 Anubians, Exiles
3-1
Championship Draft Pools
I had secured myself a bye between my win and my overall record and I used it to record what others had drafted, do a bit of decompression, and some draft review.
Round 2
BodaciousBlood
Clear Cut
I won the diceoff and elected to pick second. I suspected he would take the Brute Gruts and saw I could build a pretty solid Arrow Gruts build in response. He took Brute Gruts and I took Deathwalker 8000 and Grigor and Rogirg. 8000 plays super well into the pool and Grigor's double attack and sack of meat felt pretty useful. I could still pivot to Blade Gruts Ornak Torin if he went Arrow Gruts. He opted to take 2 squads of Chasers. Having locked in his choice, I snagged AGs. He took Pel and a Swog and then I snatched up 2 swogs. That left me with enough points for AGs and an Ice Troll but I could also do something like Torin and Izumi if he snagged the AGs and I could take Brunak if he decided to go Ice Troll. He chose the last Swog and Kuthnak so I snagged AGs and Ice Troll.
The opening went exactly my way with me sniping quite a few Chasers, Grigor proving to be an absolute monster attacker, and the one boiling blood into my start zone only killing a swog and an arrow grut with an arrow grut and the ice troll surviving (albeit with 1 life). I also recall blocking quite a few 1 skull attacks from Chasers. Brute Gruts however came up and put BB right back in the game. I tried to use my last swog and some AGs to snipe them but failed all the attacks and then they wrecked that setup and then proceeded to finish off Grigor and Rogirg with some berserker markers. I was able to kill two of them with the Ice Troll and a snipe (I think they might have dropped to 2 defense at this point) but they also finished off my AGs. The Ice Troll finished off another one and then 8K came out to finish off the last one and then deal some wounds to Pel. Ice Troll engaged Pel only dealing a wound but the big thing was to keep Pel from getting to 8K. 8K proceeded to snipe everyone else that came his way, Ice Troll being a great blocker. A Swog was able to engage for an attack but only rolled one skull into something like 5 shields. 8K never saw another attack as he was able to kite Kuthnak.
W Deathwalker 8000
1-0
Round 3
Board Hero
Dalmatian
I think I won this diceoff as well and elected to pick second. Board Hero grabbed Darkclaws and I grabbed Cultists x2 intending to follow it up with Scales x2. Board Hero told me after the game that that had spooked him and he went Bahadur and Mika Connour. Realizing he was running out of points for squads I grabbed Scales and Othkurik to give me a good answer to Drow. If he followed it up with Brigands I was ready to grab Skahen. If he went Drow I would grab more scales. He went Drow and so I took the Scales and a Chainfighter.
He opened it up by running the Darkclaws up and I played it cautiously with the Greenscales knowing I needed to keep my screen mostly intact. I probably should've led Cultists but I felt Scales was safer if he led Drow. I was able to keep Othkurik pretty safe and kill him in counter attacks on my start zone with cultists and scales. I stole order markers when he put two on Darkclaws with only one figure left and then later when he put 2 on a 2 life Bahadur. This allowed Othkurik to race over to the start zone and obliterate the sleeping Drow. There was a bit of cat and mouse with Mika while Othkurik devoured Pelloth. I should have engaged Mika and just tried to kill her with my normal attack but I tried to get fancy. Thankfully, the 7 dice attack only mostly killed Othkurik and we were able to finish her off. He called it with a single Drow left.
W 5 Cultists, 1 life Othkurik, 1 Greenscale
2-0
Round 4
Sir Heroscape
Dalmatian
I lost the diceoff for pool bans and Sir H opted to strike the orc pod first. I opted to strike the Marro pod as I felt that one was a bit swingier and a bit more straightforward. I then won the diceoff for the actual draft (hilariously the first roll was a natural 1 and this one was a natural 20). I opted to pick second. He led Cultists. I debated taking the other squad but I also remembered ryguy talking about how scales make the dragon matchup less scary than one would think. I decided I would go Drow. They played decently well into Cultists and would force him to have to grab a special attack. He responded by taking Cultists and Darkclaws. Realizing he was running out of points if he drafted Bahadur I decided to grab 2 squads of Greenscales. He didn't have enough points to take both dragons and I was eyeing Brimstone and Skahen. Brimstone's normal attack is actually not bad into Cultists and he has better survivability and he wouldn't have a good answer to Skahen in theory. He opted to go for 2 Mind Flayers and that solidified that I would take Brim.
I led Drow and he went Darkclaws. The Darkclaws ended up having really good survivability but they didn't actually kill much of anything. Drow grabbed both glyphs and this proved to be invaluable. The Mindflayer came in and killed the Drow on the Sola Astrid glyph but Brim and the scales were able to drop him down and reclaim the glyph. By this point I had 4 heat markers and saw that he had set up a good opportunity for me to come into a cultist kill zone. I had lost enough scales that I couldn't screen against cultists like I wanted so I knew I would have to make a risky play to try and kill enough Cultists for Skahen to win the endgame. It was also the end of the round and I could very easily skedaddle on an inititiave switch if it went poorly. I was rewarded with a 3/4 special attack that killed 4 cultists and was able to use scales to close off the worst spots for cultists. I lost initiative and was surrounded by Cultists. They tried to finish off Brim but only knocked him down to 1 life. On the counter attack I dropped him down to 2 cultists between Brim and Scales. He pivoted over to the Mindflayer and I wasn't able to get many wounds on him but he wasn't able to get wounds on me. I made a misplay the following round putting OM 1 on Skahen when I wanted OM 2 on her. Thankfully the scale blocked the mindflayer attack and the Enslave on Brim didn't actually do anything. I was able to use my newly acquired heat marker but it didn't do anything but we finished off the cultists. Skahen was able to drop a wound on the Mindflayer and he enslaved Brim again to kill a Scale. He then ran up and engaged Skahen dealing a wound. I won initiative and used my last two drow to drop 4 dice attacks on him and killed him outright.
W 2 drow, 2 life Skahen, 1 life Brimstone, Greenscale
3-0
VCs Get Degrees
Like I told a few people I figured there were good odds I made championships and didn't know how deep my run would be so I decided to just go with the kaboom army of Banshees and Deathwings.
Round 1
Sir Heroscape (Shades of Bleakewoode x4, Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (SotM), Swog Rider)
Clear Cut
Immediately fresh off my win over him I got a very favorable matchup. The height made it very easy for me to pick off shades and me having no heroes meant he had to try to win on his 2 attack. He was able to mount a small comeback near the end that worried me but Deathwings were able to do enough damage to Raelin and the swog while blocking their attacks.
W 2 Deathwings
1-0
Round 2
DutchBandit (Marro Drudge x4, Marro Hive, Kelda the Kyrie Warrior, Iskra Esenwein, Rechets of Bogdan, Otonashi)
Dalmatian
This felt like a matchup I should be able to win. Unfortunately, the dice were not with me and I also led Deathwings when I should have led Banshees. Still Dutch got a ton of kills (including 2 1/2s that got 0/6s back to back on Deathwings) and rolled super hot for revival. Meanwhile the one time I got a Deathwing next to the Hive it did no damage.
Sonlen caused some issues for me in the early game but this one was fairly straightforward. I killed all but one TSA before they ever developed and Deathwings were able to snipe/explode the heroes. While he definitely was taking down my squads it wasn't fast enough for the damage I was dealing.
W 4 Deathwings
2-1
Round 4
Leaf_It (Obsidian Guards x3, 20th Maine Volunteers x2, Warden 816, Patrick Ferguson)
Cold Iron
This one was a lot of me attacking down on Obsidians whenever I could. I wasn't able to scream much at all this game but 4 attack was still killing a lot. Then I pivoted to Deathwings once he brought out the 20th and was able to snipe them with ease. My first attack on Warden went through and Leaf_It surrendered.
W 3 Banshees, 4 Deathwings
3-1
And that was it. It was a great time and look forward to what happens with Scape Summit III
~Dysole, pretty sure this is her first live event championship win
This was a wild one folks and did not go at all how I thought it would. Had a ton of fun. Got a ton of great games in. Let's jump right in.
Three Headed Hydra
After finding out Cleon wasn't going to make it and Chris made the jump to Team BFF, I found teammates in The Orange Mailman and Heroes of the Scape. I'd not interacted with either a whole lot beforehand and it was good getting the chance to discuss things with them. I figured the easiest approach would be to have them decide what they were interested in playing, offer any tweaks, and then cover our weaknesses.
TOM quickly gravitated to TKN and was debating a ranged option. I suggested several and he ultimately chose Airborne. HotS had Drones and Hive and Tarn but I suggested Oathbound Legionnaires as a filler. Looking at what we had we were solid into melee stuff so figured to grab an answer to range and also figured Granites would be making an appearance, hence Cuttersx4 and Braxas. It was a simple army that I knew how to play and that I knew could cause issues for our opponents.
Round 1
mariogolbee, cuzmo_of_gilead, and Trimotor18
Mario had dwarves and Migol, cuzmo had Stingers and Mal, and Trimotor had Granites. I don't remember who won the diceoff but they banned granites into me and so I suggested we have Drones into dwarves negating their fearless advantage for the most part, TKN into Granites as he could stomp them, and myself into Stingers and Mal. They put TOM on Odin Wept, HotS on Remains of Clionesia, and myself on Desolation.
Both Stingers and Mal were good into Braxas so that meant I needed to lead Cutters. Cuzmo went Stingers with an order marker or two on Mal. He did try to overextend into my start zone to wound Braxas at one point but the long and short of the game was that Cutters just wrecked everything including getting a sleeping Mal and FHG down to half life Mal and 2 FHG before the counter attack really started.
Despite a clutch airborne drop, TOM couldn't beat Granites but HotS won a nailbiter against mario
I again forget who won the diceoff but we did the ban. I was trying to force good matchups for my teammates and banned Band into Drones. In hindsight, I should've banned myself into Band. I think they then pair me into Q23, TOM into Mohicans, and HotS into Band. As is, I got paired into Band and HotS into Cutters and Snipers. I think we have a better shot the other way. I sent HotS to Manig Lodin Olympus which would also be bad for Snipers to camp on, and TOM to Wingspan to give him lots of jungle and shadow leaving myself on Remains.
I played cautiously with Cutters but then put Braxas in a spot where she managed to ice Parmesan and a Band but I miscounted how quickly he could counterattack and ISB3 got 6 wounds on Braxas with some very good dice in a single turn. I was then on the backfoot and was ready to try for the kill of Marcus but Braxas died before I could try that Hail Mary. I still made it a game but I needed much better dice to pull it out after that opening.
Once again I don't remember diceoffs but we chose matchups and they banned Protectors into me. Groks and Chasers could both kill more than one Cutter a turn and potentially wreck Braxas. That said TKN was kinda bad into all of these matchups while Drones had the highest chance of avoiding Protectors wrecking the Hive while if they killed TKN it was just game over. I felt like TKN had a better chance against Chasers because he could actually stomp them and Grubs 2 v 2s could go through. Groks meant Braxas was kind of dead weight but I felt like Cutters might be able to carry. They put TOM on Desolation, HotS on Olympus, and me on Nightfall.
Chompy started off the game rushing MBS across to try and snipe Braxas but he fell in a single turn to massed Cutters. Without a way for him to kill more than one cutter a turn, I slowly whittled my way through his army (I'm pretty sure I also held Sola Astrid for most of the game)
HotS won (pretty handily from what I remember) but TOM did not.
W 5 Cutters 7 life Braxas
2-1
Round 4
dok (Q9 + rats), Matthias (Band), Chris Perkins (Micros x2, Cutters x3, Shotgun)
HAHAHAHA My time for VENGEANCE! I mean Chris really didn't want the Cutters mirror. They sent the ban over to us and we basically had to ban me into Q9 as I have like a 5-10% chance of winning that game against an average opponent let alone dok. TOM got paired into Chris. dok got paired into HotS, and Matthias got paired into me. I put TOM on Rocky Foundations hoping it was flat enough for him and had the move glyph, HotS on Aeon because of Manig Lodin, and myself on Wingspan which gave Matthias a lot of useless jungle and shadow into Braxas.
I started things off with Matthias and myself just slowly creating walls of units. He eventually pushed into my fortress and while he was getting ~1-2 kills a turn, my return volleys would often be with height or good mob attacks and so I was killing 3+ Band a turn. By the time Braxas came out to play, he only had a squad and change and by the time he'd cleared the Cutter screen he only had like 2 Band from Braxas melting them. She didn't melt any heroes but her normal attack was enough to kill Parmesan and later she teamed up with Cutters to finish off Marcus giving me what will probably be my only win against Matthias.
HotS got really badly diced in what was gonna be a tricky matchup and while TOM got an early Airborne drop and wrecked Chris' startzone he pulled it back up with some clutch Micro rolls (I fully admit that when I first looked over and saw what had happened I assumed Chris had lost until he corrected me)
W 3 Cutters, 4 life Braxas
3-1 (Team record 2-2)
VC Delta Auto Gratuity
As soon as I realized I could play Don Ramon with Ebon Armor I fully stopped paying attention to Bring 2 and built an army. I originally had full samurai with Tomoe but talking with Shurrig he nudged me into running Nakitas and Otonashi instead. Izumi and Kozuke being the main includes but also having Tomoe. It looked like a lot of fun and I was eager to see how it played.
Round 1
Muskie (Red Ants x4, Major Q11, Rygarn, Dumutef Guard) Remains of Clionesia
I didn't love my opening matchup but I had plays. How long Q11 stayed alive was going to be a big determinant of who won. He led ants and I went with Ebon. They survived a lot of early attacks and managed to kill about a squad in the opening salvo and then I moved to Izumi who were also able to be blockers, kill some ants, and grab a glyph (I think it was Valda but I do know I held Wannok at one point). He switched to Q11 and I was able to engage him with Tomoe and an Izumi. I got him down to 2 life pretty quickly between that and the Kozuke rush in but I finally finished him off with Nakita shots. Nakitas cleaned up the rest of the army. Ramon's movement power was nice for early development but I never really got to use the other powers.
W 3 Nakitas (ebon on card), 3 Izumi (ebon on card), Ramon (ebon on card), 1 Ebon
1-0
I'm always glad when I get to play a game against Bre. She doesn't play a ton because she's helping out with making the con run smoothly so I'm glad we got one in. It was a rough game for her. The Ebon raced across the board and managed to fully wreck her before she even really got started. She lost 2 Knaves, 3 Exiles, and had multiple wounds on Dorim before she even really got much of a chance to develop. The Kozuke and Nakita followup mostly just slowly picked her apart. She was an excellent sport throughout all of it as she wasn't prepared for the blitz I did nor did the dice do her any favors.
W 3 Nakitas (ebon on card), 3 Izumi (ebon on card), 1 Kozuke (ebon on card), Ramon, 1 Ebon, Tomoe, Oto
2-0
I sat down across from Mega and he literally said "I'm usually okay facing Ebon unless it's you". I rushed forward with my Ebon killing a couple of early Dreadgul advancers but he kept Guilty out of the way. He took some pinging shots on my Izumi pod that I had built with Ramon pushed Tomoe and Izumi but 6 defense is hard to crack. I eventually managed to catch Guilty with a Kozuke rush and then pushed forward even farther killing more Dreadguls. He was never able to quite recover after that as I had managed to whittle him down between a bunch of attacks from Kozuke and Nakitas and some counter strike (I think one was even on an attack on Kozuke). He made a nice last stand with the Knaves and Ramon but it was just not enough to take down Tomoe (who Ramon healed) and Ramon himself. I got some clutch ebon blocks to keep him in place and some clutch kills with my various squads.
W Tomoe (ebon on card), Ramon (ebon on card), 1 Ebon
3-0
Probably the worst map I could've gotten to face him on as lava negates the Ebons regen powers (they can die on lava but a dead squaddie on lava doesn't generate an ebon). Granites being able to go on lava and move off at the end of the round is also very annoying. Still I had lots of tools and gbizzy was very surprised at how quickly I was across the board disrupting his plans. Unfortunately I only got like one Ebon kill to start off but an ebon did tie up several Granites for a while. Izumi and Tomoe were next and I managed to get a decent amount of damage through but I left Tomoe hanging probably my biggest mistake of the game. If I play her a bit more cautiously, she probably kills more granites. Next were the Kozuke and they were disappointing only killing like 2 Granites before falling. Most of the work was done by Nakitas who managed to kill 9 granites by their lonesome. Unfortunately even that valiant effort wasn't enough. There were just too many in too many good spots. gbizzy walked away handing me my first official loss (since Triple Hydra didn't count for standings) and my first second place of the weekend. I did take solace in him telling me it was the first time he felt like he was playing on the backfoot all tournament and that he thought I had maximized Ramon the most of anyone he'd seen. Given the results I think if this takes place on Wingspan I think I probably pull it out.
L 2 Granites, Warden, Ramon, Raider
3-1
Tripod Ban
I had a couple ideas but realized Bears + Finn + Eldgrim gave me a lot of cool options to boost unique squads. I wanted to bring Exiles, Krav, Bugball, and Raelin and spent some time sorting them out. I decided to run Exiles, Krav, and Ramon (although I think I would've been better served running Izumi, Zetacron, or Shotgun) and then Bugball and Raelin with filler. It felt like I had a solid army no matter what got axed.
Round 1
mariogolbee (Knights x2, Sir Denrick // Frosties, Sir Gilbert // 4th x2, Raelin) Wingspan
I chose to ban 4th but I honestly probably should have banned the knights because Exiles and Krav are such good answers to the 4th especially ones without valiant bonus. He banned Raelin. I led with my bears and he led with a mix of bears and knights. He was rolling hot for dispatch and was able to cover the board pretty quickly. That combined with a move by my bears that was more aggressive than necessary put me in a bad spot. Exiles and Krav kinda pulled me back into it for a bit but the dice weren't quite breaking the way I needed them to. At about a minute left in the round, I conceded as he was far enough ahead that there wasn't much point in running out the clock.
L 3 1 life Frosties, 4 knights, full Gilbert, 4 life Denrick vs Ramon 1 life Frostie, 1 krav
0-1
Once again I made the wrong ban pick. Exiles and Krav are good into 10th and bad into PKs so I should have banned PKs. Instead I banned the 10th. He banned Raelin. I rushed my bears forward and traded okay into PKs. I needed to do better as the wolves were able to just wreck everything once they came out to play especially with a PK on Valda. Exiles did some real work and Krav even were able to snipe a couple PKs but he was able to remove activations from me pretty quickly.
L 4 wolves, 2 PKs
0-2
Greenscales x4 isn't that scary if I remove the dragon from the picture. Getting rid of Mimsy felt much easier than getting rid of Nilf so I removed Nilf from play. He chose to ban Krav and Exiles. I wasn't quite sure what the bugball would be able to do but I felt if I relied on the bears to punch through damage on Mimring I could be okay. And because of Finn I could be a lot more reckless with my champion. I raced bears across the map and managed to punch a hole with Finn that a bear was able to fill and some good dice later he was dead. After that it was basically the bear show especially when I moved Raelin up a second time to give them a ton of defense into the greenscale and arrow grut attacks of no more than 2 dice. I moved up the bugball but it never got into play.
Didn't love this but felt in order to beat Stingers I was gonna need Exiles and Krav and there was no guarantee I'd have them so I banned the Stingers. He banned Krav and Exiles. I opened up racing bears across the field while he moved up Raelin, MBS, Krav, and a Hydra. Because his OMs were split I was able to race into his start zone and cause a lot of issues. Finn engaged with the Hydra to keep it busy while bears attacked a number of other spots. He had grabbed disengage with MBS so his Krav were able to slip away but not before I had killed one. Unfortunately it was hard for them to run away too much. By the time my bears ran out of steam they had dropped the sleeping Hydra down to one life, had put a few wounds on Raelin, put a wound on the other Hydra, and had dropped the Krav down to one figure. Bugball came out to play with Finn boosted Legionnaires. I found myself dropping the Legionnaires super quickly and getting some attacks of 4 and 5 into MBS, Raelin, and the Hydra caused them to start falling pretty quickly. MBS fell pretty quickly as did Raelin and then the Hydras and the last Krav didn't last much longer.
W Phalanx, 2 Legionnaires, 1 Frostie, 2 life Eldgrim, Isamu, Marcu, Otonashi
2-2
FOURmat
Going into this, I thought Blades and Grimnak looked really good and decided to make an anti Blade Gruts build. Frosties and Adelbern didn't leave me with a whole lot but Izumi and Siege both felt like good pieces. Instead of going with a 30 point filler I went with Isamu and Raider both to make the Assassination harder and to give me an extra figure to place during HoB.
This was a neat little build and I figured as long as I kept Adelbern away from the Werewolf I would be safe. Fog of war was the chosen round which affected precisely nothing in either of our armies. I charged forward my bears and Adel across the map while vegie moved up Raelin and the wolves. He was far more cautious than me as I was very quickly in his start zone attacking his wolves. He took an LEA and then pounced a bear and killed it. This freed up a wolf to pounce a bear and kill it. A third wolf pounced the last bear and killed it. You will notice that bears are too big to be pounced by wolves. We both missed this. I still found it very funny. That was pretty much the game though as Tanner's wolves and Mielki were able to clean up the rest of my army without much trouble even though Siege gave them some trouble. I do think if we don't let that happen I probably am able to press the advantage and eventually win.
L 2 life Raelin, Mielki, 1 wolf
0-1
Round 2
itsbuzzi (Queen Mal, Airborne Elite, FHG, Tuck, Oathbound Legionnaires, Kita the Springrunner) Odin Wept
Heat of Battle was called for this one which was probably the best format I could've asked for in this matchup as it meant I could mitigate both Mal and AE a lot more. I ended up placing second (I think he won diceoff). He placed FHG and Oathbound on the big lava rock areas and I set up my bears around Sola Astrid. Once he had placed Mal I put Siege, Isamu, the Raider, and the Izumi all in her way to keep her from getting to Adelbern. Once it started her split focus between Oathbound and Mal but got quickly gummed up by my less important figures while the bears and Adelbern were able to rain down pain, Adelbern punching a way through for them. By the time Mal was engaged with Adelbern it was because I had brought him in there to drop a heavy hit on her and finish her off. Tuck was able to land but wasn't really able to do anything to stop the bear onslaught. I managed to finish off the army before Airborne dropped.
W Adelbern, Isamu, Siege, 1 1 life Frostie, 1 2 life Frostie, Izumi
1-1
Bloodlust got called, the format my army was absolutely cracked in. I kinda felt bad for Trimotor as I raced the bears across the field once again. He split between Granites and Isamu. Isamu managed to kill a bear but then rolled a 2 on the first attack he saw and died. Adelbern had already maxed up his juice and I ran the bear that had killed Isamu down toward the start zone for a 3 dice attack roll on a granite and 2 skulls to 1 shield later my bears had two markers on them. That is basically how the rest of the game went. Trimotor got about 3 spaces out of the start zone but he wasn't able to kill bears or Adelbern fast enough to stop me killing 3-4 Granites a turn. He did manage to kill Adelbern right near the end but it was too little too late.
W 2 Frosties, Siege, Izumi, Raider, Isamu
2-1
Since I didn't want to play the assassination format I dropped and played other games.
Final Thursday record (7-4 (5-3 as far as Sunday standings))
Reverse the Whip
The idea of Warden + FHG + Raelin jumped into my head almost immediately and I toyed with some other synergy options like Grubs and Zettian Guards but KnightofLight thought they were too weak. I realized I could do a squad of glads and blasts and then add Exiles for a build that was one figure over and was basically playing a bunch of unique squads. I know at the time I thought it was a potentially tough decision but both myself and my opponents always opted to remove an Honor Guard (they were painted Scooby Doo colors, I removed Fred once, Chris and iwestover removed Velma, and Niko removed Scooby) so it wasn't that difficult. Still it had lots of weird plays and I was eager to see how it worked out. I wanted to go no worse than 3-2 because I really liked the interplay.
This was a pretty bad map for Trons and Wyverns are kinda bad for an army that cares a lot about placement. Ginglebong was also on my war league team (the first of several Excel-ile clashes that would happen) so I knew he was a solid player and had kinda learned how I think. Plus we were on the streaming table and I had just texted my parents a link. #NoPressure. I opened with some cautious play by Trons keeping Raelin pretty well safe in the back. An early spider took a long time to dislodge and didn't even die to lava and that put me on the back foot as a Wyvern kept slowly taking away my gladiatrons. I kept taking shots on Spiders as I knew my best chance was to reduce his number of attacks. I also took a big gamble with an exile play on lava that amounted to me trading all my Exiles for 3 wounds on the Wyvern. I was still in a bit of a hot seat but I got a reprieve when the FHG did some work finishing off the spiders and Wyvern. Warden had enough juice left in his tank to kill the last Wyvern and Estivara proving to be too beefy to take even a single wound.
Probably the best possible round to face Chris. Olympus isn't great for trons and my army has no good ways to kill PKs with any kind of consistency. I led PKs and he did a mix of trons and Exiles. He allowed me a chance to get a height shot down on an Exile and was banking my Order Marker 3 was on Exiles and not PKs. It was on PKs (although after the game he said he would have been fine with a trade of Exile for PK lava death). I killed the Exile. I did not die to lava. He won initiative and retreated the exiles so I took a chance to Sola Astrid a Gladiatron. I was able to do this with the other PKs and Exiles also managing to kill his Exiles while not taking much damage in return. The FHG moved up and proved to be annoying to the PKs and killed most of the Exiles but couldn't kill the PK on Sola Astrid. Kozuke moved up and began taking names. Warden came out to salvage the game but it was too little too late as Kozuke savaged him.
I always enjoy playing against Q23. We think similarly and he's always a great player. I used to have his number pretty handily but he's wrecked me the last couple times we played. He had a lot of tools and movement powers once again. I also didn't have great answers into mezzos. It felt like it was gonna be a tough matchup. He led Snipers and I led Trons. I hadn't placed well enough with my blasts and he got some clutch rolls with the snipers allowing him to knock me down to a single blastatron before I even got fully developed. Because of this I switched over to Gladiatrons followed by FHG. I actually managed to make some headway with these two weaker squads knocking him down to a single sniper, killing two necros and clogging up the path for his Brutes. I had a couple of high octane attack turns from Exiles to kill Mezzos but another did basically nothing. If I manage to kill a couple brutes on my 3 attacks of 4 with Exiles, the endgame is likely Rats, a sniper, a brute, and a necro vs Warden and Raelin and that feels super winnable. Alas, I did nothing and the last 3 brutes wrecked me.
4th are really good into trons. I knew if I could kill most of the trons with the 4th, Bears should beat everything else. The plan went down to perfection as the trees gave my 4th 3 defense and I killed most of the Gladiatrons before they got to me. By the time bears came out to play he only had a mostly dead Raelin, a single blast, 2 exiles, and the FHG and Warden. Both put up a fight but Bears and Alastair were just too much beef.
W 4 frosties, 4 life Alastair, 2 4th, Zeta
3-1
Round 5
Niko (Macdirks x3, Thorgrim, Eldgrim, James Murphy) Rocky Foundations
Chris told me he thought if it was a reverse round I stood a good shot. Getting this matchup and this map I knew I was gonna be a lot more comfortable running my side of things. Still I felt I had a wincon if I could kill the trons fast enough. I did my best to slow roll up and not get upset by the couple pings going through. Niko clumped up on the hill outside of Raelin's aura and so I saw a chance to throw a Murphy Shotgun blast into the pile and went 0/3. If I get 3-4 trons in that SA I probably just win. Unfortunately for me, this allowed Niko to regroup and even though I was able to get a good setup with heighted Thorgrim attacking Gladiatrons and 4 attack MacDirks smacking through them as well, I lost too many MacDirks by the time the Exiles came out. I gave Murphy one last try to kill the Gladiatron keeping Thorgrim and a Macdirk tied down and he failed the 3v3. I get that kill and I probably kill the Exiles before they can do too much damage and it's probably just barely enough to take out Warden (FHG had been taking Wannok wounds and Murphy still had a decent amount of life left so whipping Warden could work out super well). Unfortunately, Exiles killed enough to make it pretty easy for Warden to mop up.
L Warden Raelin FHG
3-2
So all in all I achieved my goal but would've liked to make top cut. It's okay though because my afternoon build was a lot of fun.
Reverse Draft
I've been wanting to play Grubs, SBN, and Dragoon for a while now. At first when I came up with the army idea, I thought SBN could boost Dragoon but quickly realized that was not the case. Still double hivelord is a build I've never played and it felt interesting for Reverse Draft. Isamu was added as filler.
Round 1
iwestover (Chasers x5, MBS, Nerak) Remains of Clionesia
While Grubs can cause some issues, Chasers just have so much offense that it's so hard to keep up. I won diceoff and deferred. He took my army and I took his. This was a pretty straightforward one. I developed across the board super fast and began sniping Grubs. I took Valda pretty early on and while he dislodged me I was able to recapture and hold it for the remainder of the game. He played much more cautiously with the grubs which meant he didn't get a ton of attacks off with the Dragoon. SBN did a lot more damage but both hivelords fell around the same time both of my bonders fell. The big difference was I still had a ton of chasers and mopping up the rest of the army.
Another Excel-ile vs Excel-ile matchup. We both figured Chasers were the play here and I ended up bidding him down hard. We bid down 7 Chasers and Isamu before he took it. I charged SBN in to try and get lots of good kills on Chasers and managed to take out quite a few while trying to be careful on what I engaged Adelbern with. Loki played it real smartly staying mostly in the aura and not giving me a ton of good shots although I was able to sneak some height shots in with grubs. He had me dead to rights with his last 3 Chasers and Adelbern while I only had Dragoon and Grubs left (and Isamu who was gonna need to do work) and he smacked me down to a single life on the Dragoon. Fortunately for me, I got the perfect turn. 3 frenzies in a row to kill all the order markers and eat the turn. I then managed to kill Adelbern before the round ended and healed up Dragoon finished off the army.
We both quickly figured out that the grubs big heroes could just delete the elves and so needed to be bid down. vegie took his army after we dropped 4 grubs and Isamu. I blitzed Dragoon across the board and while he tried to stop it, Dragoon got to Ulginesh and killed him in a few turns at which point vegie conceded.
W I had only lost 2 grubs and Dragoon had 1 life.
3-0
I should've let him bid down. It sounds like he was planning on dropping SBN. On a map with Manig Lodin and 3 attack spiders vs 2 attack grubs and the potential for Poison Sting, I felt like it was a super even matchup. johnny took my army and I took his. I dropped TheraShuttle on Manig Lodin and put Estivara in a spot to look but I should've anticipated the SBN rush. I did not and while I got very lucky on him not killing her in a single turn I did get unlucky in not being able to kill SBN despite height attacks from Wyvern and Spiders. If I get that kill or I put Estivara in a safer spot I think I am in control for most of this game. Unfortunately the problem came in that I wasn't really able to crack the Dragoon's defense until I was basically out of Wyverns. He did Chitter an OM over to TheraShuttle who died quite quickly. I also got like one Web despite Manig Lodin. All in all, I ended up making it very close but a couple of plays on my end or some slightly better dice and I pull it off. johnny was a great sport and always a pleasure to play against despite things not going my way and he told me after the game that he didn't realize how close it was gonna be and he had absolutely misread the matchup.
L 3 life Dragoon
3-1
Kill Your Swill
I was playing in this one to cross off figures from my list. Not much to say. Here's the armies. I'm probably just gonna blitz through these.
1) Pelloth, Saylind the Kyrie Warrior, Venoc Vipers x2, Xiamara the Kyrie Warrior,Earth Elemental x2, Shiori (SotM), Drow Chainfighter x2, Eldgrim the Viking Champion, Otonashi
2) Acolarh, Kilkorax the Kyrie Warrior, Ashigaru Yari x2, Kelda the Kyrie Warrior, Misaerx the Kyrie Warrior, Sahuagin Raider x2, Kita the Springrunner, Kyntela Gwyn
Basically bad units with minimal range and defense. I did realize every opponent drafted army 1 and each time I gave them Kita anyway. I don't think it actually affected the outcomes at all.
Round 1
Sir Heroscape Aeon
I don't remember the army (they're on .org) but it had Yari which I used to clear out Vipers and get some attacks on the random bunch of heroes and also got some good attacks with Air Elementals. Really though this game was defined by Runa just soloing almost everything including two 20s on both Ullar Kyrie. Good times. Good times.
W Chainfighter x 2 Taro Air Elemental Yari
1-0
Round 2
The Orange Mailman Odin Wept
It was Roman Archers x5 and Jotun. Roman Archers killed everything. It took a while but 3 attacks at range is king when you have a bunch of heroes and melee. Jotun watched from the start zone.
W 3 Archers, Jotun
2-0
Round 3
Ginglebong Wingspan
This was a good close game that went back and forth a lot of times. I don't remember all the details but I remember Earth Elementals killing each other, my Shiori just going nuts. Yari killing Venocs, Red Wyrmlings doing some damage. I made a misplay with Moriko putting her in a vulnerable spot but otherwise I thought it was a good clean game. Gingle's Shiori clutched it out in the end.
L 2 life Shiori, 1 life Kita, Otonashi
2-1
I dropped after that and went to play other games.
Friday record (8-4 (6-3 for Sunday purposes))
Overall record (15-8 (11-6 for Sunday purposes))
VCheese
I didn't love any ideas I had for Into the Future and I had some Brute Grut 3D prints lying around that I wanted to paint Team RWBY colors. So VCheese was decided upon as the build I would run. Several people decided to leave Rygarn for Top Cut but my logic was that MWs were much more valuable in the longer Top Cut games while Rygarn was more valuable in these shorter games. I went with a squad of rats who ended up either being clutch or useless.
I felt pretty good about this as an opening matchup. Mimring has a lot of potential but no Raelin and having to go with Scales made me feel like if I could take him out the rest should be smooth sailing. He played cautiously with Mimring while I pinged with Q9 and then killed the scales who came into my radius. Eventually he moved to a spot where I could take an LEA and start attacking him from the highest height on the board in Raelin's aura. Mimsy fell pretty quickly and then it was the Q9 show. He did use his remaining Scales to kill Raelin but they were immediately destroyed by Brute Gruts. Q9 killed Kaemon who did manage to get some good shots in on him.
More Excel-ile v Excel-ile. I'd yet to have a good game on Incursion so hopefully this would be different. It wasn't great for me since the perches for Q9 on this map could be attacked down by Scales. He led MWs and I led rats managing to tie down MWs after they did two wounds to Raelin. Q9 moved up and killed the forward two MWs and then chased the last two to the other side of the map. I stayed there a turn too long trying to finish them off (I should've retreated and dropped a 5 v 6 onto Nilfheim. If I do 2-3 wounds there he's got to be much more cautious). I was not punished for it by Nilfheim failing to do a wound on his normal attack or the subsequent LEA. The problem I ran into though is that I couldn't really get any kills after that. Q9 kept rolling badly while I was pretty well trapped. I contemplated flexing to some of my other units but the problem was that Nilf and scales were so mobile on this map that I'd need at least two turns around an initiative switch to get it and every opportunity I had ryguy smartly retreated Nilf way out of the threat range. So I opted to just continue slamming attacks into Greenscales. He did end up getting a touch cocky when he killed Q9 allowing me to engage with Brute Gruts and knock him down to one life. Unfortunately, the MWs just kept regenerated and deleted the rest of the army.
L 1 life Nilf, 2 life Raelin, 1 Scale, Marcu, 4 MWs
1-1
Round 3
Mr. Wookiee (I think he changed his name to Chandler on .org) (Stingers x6, Raelin, Isamu) Yngvild Pass
I didn't love how Stingers could fish for Q9 kills so I stayed hidden behind my glacier and pinged him using the rats as occasional blockers. I got lots of good dice into his stingers and I slowly whittled them away. There was also a midgame charge of Brute Gruts to go kill a bunch of stingers but ultimately the big thing was that Chandler was never able to finish off Q9 (this will be a theme) and with 1 life he continued to wreck.
This was the build everyone seemed to think was the best. We both set up a bit outside of our start zones with me placing a touch more forward with Raelin. I remember thinking I needed an aggressive play to keep IS from just camping behind the glacier so I said out loud "screw this waiting bullshit" and dropped a 4 dice attack on his Q9 dealing a wound. He surrounded me with rats and I managed to kill them all way faster than I had any right to while he took shots at me and my Raelin. He managed to kill her while I dealt another wound to him. I had Brute Gruts run up and try to do some damage but it didn't go anywhere. We then spent about 3-4 rounds throwing dice at each other him doing 3 v 7s and me doing 3 v 9s. I somehow won with 1 life and then killed two MWs after they showed up and pinged shots at me. He retreated and tried to clone. I sent Q9 forward and he finished off the MWs. It was mop up after that point
W 1 life Q9, Rygarn, 1 Brute Grut, Rats
3-1
Round 5
loki619 (10th x5, Raelin) Wingspan
Rematch against him. I knew as soon as we sat down that I needed to get Q9 to the highest height. If I let him have the high ground wait then fire was going to wreck me. He didn't contest it and I had the height by the end of Round 1 and he mostly just letting me rain fire into his guys and he fired back except for when I used my rats to grab Wannok and gum up his options. Little by little I chipped away at him and he chipped away at me. Unfortunately for him, I was better at chipping. He dropped me down to 1 life but like all my other wins he couldn't finish me off.
I conferred with vegie, dok, and KoL about what to bring for Top Cut. Because it was fully random, dok and KoL felt Hydra gave me better answers into Heavies and a backup option into Quahon and it was also decent into the mirror. Since that was roughly half the field and the remaining half were things like Stingers where there wasn't much that was gonna help me there or 10th where I felt I had a Q9 edge already it felt like the better play than going squad of rats, MWs, Marcu, Isamu. Given the matchups I got that probably would've been the better call but Hydra felt good given the meta that was there. I got the optimal pathway with missing Gingle, Chris, and Earthling who if they won gave me the best chance at qualifying via wildcard if I lost and none of them played each other. Justin was a solid player but I didn't know how much experience he had playing Quahon against Rygarn pod and that and the map made me feel good about my chances. If I won this game I qualified for Sunday.
I set up Raelin so she could cover everybody in the start zone and was exactly 4 spaces away from the raised 2 hex right outside the startzone of Nightfall. I set all my figures exactly 4 spaces away from that and Q9 close enough to grab it in one turn. This meant Quahon could get her lightning breath into Q9 but if she wanted to get anyone else she would have to come close and into my start zone away from Raelin. This ended up being unnecessary as Justin rolled abysmally on defense for Quahon and Q9 managed to kill her before she ever got a single lightning breath off. Firmly in control, he tried to use his scales to get attacks into Q9. I almost gave the game back by moving up Raelin instead of Brute Gruts. This exposed Raelin to a lot of attacks she didn't need to see when I could have used Brute Gruts to clear away the scales, give some blockers and then put Raelin in a much safer spot. As is, quite a few attacks went through on Raelin and soon she was at 1 life. Q9 took the highest height and proceeded to continue to rain down fire with the Brute gruts taking a couple turns to kill one of his brute gruts and a couple MWs forcing a retreat. Brute Gruts almost brought him back into the game knocking Q9 down to 1 life but he was able to kill them on the counter salvo. He decided to yolo the MWs but did nothing and then Q9 rolled 9 skulls on 9 dice on the Quiggley return fire knocking out the MWs. It was cleanup after that with Rats being able to threaten Wannok and Q9 getting an Isamu whiff and then finishing off the remaining Scales.
W 1 life Q9, 1 Brute Grut, Rats, Hydra, Rygarn
5-1 (qualified for Sunday)
Once again I realized I needed to grab the highest height quickly. Glinerva could be annoying but that just meant I'd develop my other stuff. That basically became the gameplan. Q9 got on height 3 in the aura of a Raelin hiding behind the pillars and fired at 10th. They fired back in the aura of both Kyrie (the one opening shot of a normal attack I did on Glinerva did nothing). Whenever he activated Darkness, I would swap an OM to something else and move it up (including Rygarn at one point so I could swap to Q9 as needed). I traded really well into him especially in the late midgame where he had only a couple squads left and I used that to rush Brute Gruts in and get more kills. He managed to take down the Brute Gruts, rats, and Q9 but that only left him with a couple 10th, Raelin, and Isamu. I had switched over to Hydra so he did get one height attack down on Hydra but it didn't do anything (Q9 was supposed to be protecting the height but he had just died). While Isamu ran off to go put wounds on Raelin, Hydra went over and ate the whole rest of the army (with a mild miscalculation on Concelament from me but Glinerva died the next turn quite handily) including stealing a whole round when I ate Marcu in one turn. The Hydra then sat in the start zone its belly full of a vampire and two kyrie and slept while Rygarn went Isamu hunting. Isamu had to Wannok camp but Rygarn was able to keep him off Wannok and eventually Gingle rolled below an 8 and Isamu died.
I banned the wrong map. My previous games on Yngvild had made me misinterpret how much the glacier would impede me. I banned Aeon, Incursion, Olympus, Odin, Nightfall in that order roughly and he banned Wingspan, Desolation, Remains, and Rocky. I should've banned Yngvild. We play on Nightfall and I think it's a lot closer of a match. As it was it really boiled down to he could see me and I couldn't see him and I couldn't really prevent him from getting attacks in. He also rolled slightly better than average on defense which meant I wasn't able to chip away at him as nicely as I wanted to. He basically moved a whole massive army up while I mostly twiddled my thumbs. After he finally killed Q9, everything else folded like origami. Brute Gruts had managed to do some damage to him midgame so it looked better than it felt but this game feels a lot better if I can try and wreck the 10th on approach and if I can get consistent height over most of them rather than just even ground attacks. MWs would've felt better here as well. 3rd loss in a finals match at Scapecon is still really good though and I'd made Sunday after being pretty confident I was gonna bomb out at 3-2 or 2-3
L Marcus, Raelin, Marcu, 10 10th
Saturday record (7-2)
Overall record (22-10)
Championship
Round 1
johnnyfrisbee Nightfall Soldier Pool
I had done some mock drafting with dok and KoL in the leadup to the event so I felt pretty good about the draft pools while johnny had just started running some stuff with dok the previous night (I know what a traitor to our friendship). Earlier that morning, dok asked me how I felt about Romans x1 as an opener. We'd tested out Marcus as an opener found it was a dud and had finally settled on Oathbound Legionnaires as the best opening. I know there were other thoughts about Lich being a better opening but I personally like Oathbound as it gave you the most points flexibility later and I valued points more than figures in this one. Anyway I told dok that I thought it lost to any number of options. I won diceoff and elected to go second. johnny opened Romans x1. I decided to follow with Romans x1 and Exiles. There's an argument I should've gone Lich instead of Exiles but I just really like Exiles in this pool. He followed it up with 2 White Wyrmlings. That having dashed my Harqs x2 plans I decided to take Warforged x2 as they felt really strong into his options. He took Valguard and Oathbound Legionnaires. I didn't have many figures or points left to do too much so I opted for Marcus and Johnny Shotgun figuring I could snag a Wyrmling and 6 move Warforged felt good. There's an argument to just grab something like Siege or Tandros and a Red Wyrm here but I don't think I like it as much. He took the Phalanx and a Red Wyrmling. I took the last Red Wyrmling and he finished with 2 Blue Wyrmlings.
Finals armies:
johnny
Romans x1, Valguard, Bugball, White x2, Red, Blue x2
I felt I had a slight edge (most people including johnny agreed, but not everyone I asked). I opened with a Warforged blitz which very much caught him off guard. The problem I ran into quickly was that I couldn't kill anything with warforged. He also got some very clutch kills in response despite the fact I had locked up Valguard. I only killed two Romans, failed to do any wounds to the bugball and only killed one white wyrmling with the warforged. My big mistake of the game followed. I went with Johnny instead of Romans. Now normally this isn't that bad but I calculated his OM 3 was on Red Wyrmling and overextended Johnny to kill the red. This opened me up to Bugball just murdering Johnny with Legionnaires. Romans moved up and I once again calculated that an order marker wouldn't be on bugball but it was and he was able to kill some Romans in response. Exiles tried to do something but they too were quickly taken down. johnny just started rolling incredible with the bugball and it finished me off basically by itself.
L 2 Romans, 4 life Valguard, 1 life Phalanx, 3 Legionnaires, 1 blue, 1 white
0-1
Sunday record 0-1
Final record 22-11
All in all, probably my best showing at a Scapecon. It was a lot of fun getting to spend time with everyone. A bunch of great games all around. Loved all the other random games I played including Cribbage (we almost got em EJ), that stone game that I had abysmal luck at, the funky card and dice games with Gordon, Bre, Mike, Matt, and David, the spicy games of Coup where I was playing super risky, the one round of Deception we got in (grats Titus basically never suspected you), the Mario Kart games where I thought I was doing well until I realized the "don't fall off the track mode" was enabled and then once I took that off my actual skill level shone through, and more random games I'm probably forgetting. Lots of fun conversations, lots of fun games. Look forward to the next year. Favorite games of the con were probably either Reverse Draft against Loki or Reverse the Whip against Ginglebong.
I brought EOV, Nakitas, Drones x3, Eldgrim, and Heirloom
We decided zombies were murder on both me and Vydar but I was either going to have to fight IS's Greeks which I felt pretty good about or get sacrificed to zombies. Vydar was going to have to leave soon so we decided to sacrifice him to zombies and have boromir play against the Mohicans which he felt really good about. Had Vydar not been in a rush, we probably have boromir play Zombies, me play Greeks, and Vydar play Mohicans.
