DS' Battle Reports ~ new tourney report 11/6/12

[Dad_Scaper]

Index:

2/23/07 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=6827) Casual Game KidScaper & Dad_Scaper
2/25/07 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=206783#post206783) Casual Game KidScaper & Dad_Scaper
2/26/07 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=207341#post207341) Casual Game KidScaper & Dad_Scaper
3/3/07 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=211231#post211231) Casual Scenario KidScaper & Dad_Scaper
3/15/07 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=219569#post219569) Casual Game KidScaper & Dad_Scaper
12/31/07 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=459392#post459392) Casual Game KidScaper & Dad_Scaper
1/4/08 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=462008#post462008) Casual Game KidScaper & Dad_Scaper
3/3/10 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1028598#post1028598) Casual Game KidScaper & Dad_Scaper & GrandpaScaper
4/3/10 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1054676#post1054676) Tournament Report: General Wars
4/7/10 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1057526#post1057526) Scaper Family Invitational Tournament
4/9/10 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1059643#post1059643) Casual Game KidScaper & Dad_Scaper
4/10/10 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1060435#post1060435) Casual Game KidScaper & Dad_Scaper
4/13/10 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1062668#post1062668) Casual Game KidScaper & Dad_Scaper
5/24/10 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1094023#post1094023) Tournament Report: Multiplayer
8/27/10 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1167945#post1167945) Tournament Report: 3 Squad Cap Mixed Marvel
11/11/10 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1258740#post1258740) Tournament Report: Heroes Gauntlet Run
12/12/10 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1289995#post1289995) Tournament Report: 3 Generals
2/27/11 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1352846#post1352846) Tournament Report: Not in Kansas Anymore
4/18/11 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1387283#post1387283) Tournament Report: Multiplayer
10/15/11 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1492315#post1492315) Tournament Report: Bring the Cheese
12/6/11 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1524723#post1524723) Tournament Report: Mechanicon (2 events)
2/28/12 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1568582#post1568582) Tournament Report: Multiplayer
4/21/12 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1598826#post1598826) Tournament Report: Clash of the Titans
5/19/12 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1616247#post1616247) Tournament Report: Talkin' Bout My Generation
7/30/12 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/images/statusicon/post_new.gif) Tournament Report: Heat of the Summer
11/3/12 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1709025#post1709025) Tournament Report: PA/NJ NHSD
11/12/12 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1711496#post1711496) Tournament Report: Savage Throwdown NHSD
2/23/13 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1771904#post1771904) Tournament Report: Multiplayer

*************************************

I finally sat down to document some of the 'Scaper family battles. This is our most recent, played on Ch1can0's outstanding Death Valley map, as he modified it for 2 masters & 1 Rttff. We drafted KidScaper 600 pts, me 400.

KidScaper:
Mimring
Charos (love the dragons!)
Khosumet
Werewolves
Armoc Vipers

DaddyScaper:
(themed army, this time Utgar non-Marros)
Krug
Dumutef Guard
Minions
Brunak

Here's the map.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2023%2007/setup.jpg

This terrific map has four hidden glyphs. My minions went for the two closer to me, his vipers went for the two closest to him. We each grabbed two - I got +1 attack and +2 move, he got +8 initiative (his favorite) and +1 defense.

Meanwhile a classic, well documented matchup set up in the middle:
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2023%2007/krugcharos.jpg

My minions didn’t even have order markers on them, and the Dumutef guard was headed up the mountain. It was Krug and Charos, slugging it out.

His werewolves emerged and crept up the mountain to flank my position. At the top they encountered the Dumutef Guard, who managed to hold onto one road hex, reach out and crush one werewolf skull. Unfortunately KidScaper is getting wise to tactics, and maneuvered the two remaining werewolves so one had height advantage. The Dumutef Guard was no match once the wolves rolled for their Unleashed Fury attack. 15? 16? It was high enough.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2023%2007/werewolvesemerge.jpg

After the Dumutef Guard went down, I assumed the two surviving wolves were headed to take the attack glyph from my minion. But no, they raced down the mountain to aid Charos, who was slowly losing the battle to Krug, the way you lose to Krug. When you lose, you win.

Unless you are a dice god:

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2023%2007/krugdown.jpg

NOOOOOO!!!! Krug, killed by a werewolf!! Charos survives with 4 life.

Brunak has entered the fray slowly, as has Mimring. They meet on KidScaper’s side of the field, where Brunak has come to challenge two Armoc Vipers for the Initiative glyph. Mimring reaches Brunak (barely) with the fireline attack, doing one damage. But Brunak charges, engaging both vipers, and Mimring approaches to engage Brunak in turn.

Two vipers and Mimring, against my Brunak. I win initiative, overcoming the glyph deficit. Blood Fury special attack, here I come. Two dead vipers and (bonus!) four wound markers on Mimring. Whackity whack!

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2023%2007/brunak.jpg

Brunak finished off Mimring next turn and put a damage counter on Khosumet, before Khosumet finished him off. Charos meanwhile chewed up and spat out two minions, leaving me one Minion against a 4 life Charos and Khosumet. If I had a MVP in my losing effort, it was Brunak, who was a **beast**.

The Minion and Charos battled for the high ground, ultimately meeting at a clifftop rondezvous. Khosumet showed up to grab the glyph and attack from below, but I had the dice working with me now.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2023%2007/khosumetdown.jpg

Ahhh, the drama.

But a minion, even a lucky one, is no match for a Charos with four life left.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2023%2007/end.jpg

Oh well. I will live to fight another day.

If there’s interest I will try to post some of our other battles we’ve photographed.

[Aldin]

Awesome report, DS. I love seeing Khosumet getting some action.

~Aldin

[Dad_Scaper]

Awesome report, DS. I love seeing Khosumet getting some action.

~Aldin

Thanks Aldin. As you know, it's one of the advantages of playing in a, um, non-tournament environment.

*Everybody* sees action. If we have it, it gets played.

Your new avatar gives me the creeps. :D

[Elendithas]

When you lose, you win.

Unless you are a dice god:

Fantastic report, DS. I wish I had half the creativity and imagination that you and KS have in your little fingers. As for the Dice God, I know I wish I could roll more than one skull occasionally. I would definately be interested in "The Further Adventures of Daddy & KidScaper" Keep up the great work!

E.

EDIT: Apparently my tpying is atro...bad tonight EDIT

[Dad_Scaper]

Valentine’s Day Massacre
Ch1can0's Death Valley Map, as he modified it for RtTFF

DaddyScaper (>400 pts) -
Marro Warriors
Me Burq Sa
Marro Drones
Su Bak Na
Ne Gok Sa

KidScaper (>600 pts) -
Charos
DW 8000
DW 9000
Zettian Guards
Deathreavers

KidScaper showing here his favorites - Charos and the Soulborgs.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/beginning.jpg

Charos charges the valley while the Deathreavers scatter toward the glyphs, taking the +1 attack. Meanwhile my Drones (house rule - we have one set, so no d20 for their special movement) head toward the glyphs, taking +1 defense and +4 range, and the Marro Warriors head to the high ground and the puddles.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/opening.jpg

Charos maneuvers to take the high ground closer to me. The Deathwalker 8000 comes up behind, and from a hilltop takes out one of the Marro Warriors. With all this water and Su Bak Na, they don’t mind.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/dw8000.jpg

KidScaper has blundered and let a drone sneak onto one of the glyphs on his side of the map, the +8 initiative. A battle of weenies ensues. Always outnumbered, always outgunned. The sheriff is surrounded by villains:
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/drone.jpg

The drone absorbs a series of failed nibbles by the robo-rats. Then, from the mountaintop above, a hero emerges:
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/heroemerges.jpg
Yes, it’s a Marro Warrior. Fuzzy, but backlit the way a hero should be. The roborats start dropping.

Once they are dead or scattered, it’s time to take advantage of the range glyph, and do some sharpshooting.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/sharpshooter.jpg
Yeehaw!!

Me Burq Sa adds insult to injury by grabbing the last glyph *and* nailing the Deathwalker 8000 with his patented “behind the back” shot.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/behindback.jpg

Where is Charos, you may be wondering, while his Soulborg friends are being decimated by trickery and sharpshooting?

Charos has been battling Ne Gok Sa. Ne Gok Sa has been standing on a glyph, trying to mind shackle Charos, while Charos has been unable to overcome NGS' high defense. It’s been an awkward standoff for Charos, who is probably needed elsewhere:

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/subakna.jpg

Ok, enough for one day.

We return a few days later. Here’s an overview, also showing the consumption of the cereal bar whose wrapper lingers on the table into our battle some days later, reported above.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/reset.jpg

The tide begins to turn against me, at least in one part of the map.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/fleshwound.jpg
“What? ‘Tis only a flesh wound!”

Me Burq Sa takes another scalp. He alone was responsible for a lot of carnage.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/drdown.jpg
Meanwhile the surviving Zettian Guard scales the cliff and takes out his second mountaintop Marro Warrior.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/zguard.jpg

And Ne Gok Sa shuffles off this mortal coil, after a heroic stand that kept Charos from doing any damage until it was too late.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/sbndown.jpg

Clearly it’s time to bring in the reinforcements. At this point I have suffered through the passing of 3-4 Marro Warriors, total, and it’s near the endgame.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/regroup.jpg
“I’m not dead yet!”

Me Burq Sa takes out the last Death Reaver and I get cocky, sending Ne Gok Sa out against Charos. Wish me luck!

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/negoksa.jpg

KidScaper wisely abandons the defense glyph and takes the high ground. My own attack (and Charos’ counterstrike) does me in when I roll garbage against his superior defense. Check out the dice.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/ngsdown.jpg

Me Burq Sa single-handedly disposes of KidScapers remaining squad units. It’s time for a showdown.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/100_0866.jpg

Four Marro Warriors scattered around the map, and Me Burq Sa rolling hot, plus one or two drones to keep Charos engaged. . . The big guy drops.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/end.jpg

Oh, well, KidScaper got me next time.

edited to get all those darned Marro names straight. Ne Gok Sa, Su Bak Na, Me Burq Sa, it sounds like Dr. Seuss

[NecroBlade]

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2014%2007/zguard.jpg
That's just too cool of a shot. LOVE the reports-keep 'em coming!

[Dad_Scaper]

The Bad Beginning

DaddyScaper (Vydar)
Sudema
Microcorps Agents
Gladiatrons
James Murphy

KidScaper (Ullar)
Charos (naturally)
Armoc Vipers
Syvarris
Dead Eye Dan
Anubian Wolves (well, mostly Ullar)

It looked innocent enough.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2026%2007/beginning.jpg

KidScaper opened up the middle, his Vipers quickly taking the summoning glyph and advancing Syvarris. The Wolves take the other glyph toward the center, I forget what it was.

Don’t stand so close together!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2026%2007/opening.jpg

James teaches the wolves not to stand so close together.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2026%2007/murphy.jpg
Ouch!

KidScaper identifies Sudema as a threat and sends Charos over to dispose of her. He stops on the way for a Microcorps snack, but finds himself ambushed.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2026%2007/charos.jpg

The Microcorps and Sudema surround the dragon.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2026%2007/microcorps.jpg

Charos has already begun to take some hits, then Sudema gets lucky. “What’s the card say? 17 and higher, or higher than 17? Because I rolled a 17.”
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%202%2026%2007/sudema.jpg
KidScaper firmly objected to me knocking down Charos for this shot.
It was time to start over, we both knew it.

[jdtenor]

Great battle reports DS. Keep it up!

[Dad_Scaper]

Great battle reports DS. Keep it up!
Thanks jdtenor, elendithas and necroblade.

I'm glad you guys are interested in reading about our skirmishes.

We've now ordered the Heroes pack with Nilf and Brax, so look for four-dragon armies in the future.

The next installment was a giant capture the flag battle with a lot of pictures and a bigger map, so it will take awhile.

But I'll give you a hint while you wait. . .

KidScaper drafted (you guessed it) Charos! :shock: :)

edit: Thanks Aldin, too, and props on your less freaky avatar!

[Ch1can0]

Hi Daddyscaper!

Thanks for your great battle reports. And nice to see, that you choose one of my maps and that you had a good time with kidscaper playing on it :D

As "Road to Death Valley" is fully playtested now, i think it will the file to the download area. :)

Looking forward for your next battle reports!

Bye, Ch1can0.

[Hex_Enduction_Hour]

Awesome. Another father-son battle thread! I'm enjoying the battles, Daddyscaper! And seeing pictures of the games is always a plus.

[Dad_Scaper]

edit: Thanks for the kind words, HEH. The following battle was the first I photographed from beginning to end. I think my battlefield photography has improved since. :oops:


The Baltimore Triathalon
Running, Climbing and Swimming

The scenario is capture the flag at the top of the far tower, and return it to your start area. KidScaper proposed an excellent rule, that no combat, combat effects, or adjacency rules apply until *after* the flag has been captured. Also we have a rule against flying with the flag, or carrying the flag carrier.

KidScaper:
Krug
Charos
Armoc Vipers
Major X17
Dumutef Guard
DW8000
DW9000
Zettian Guards
Syvarris
Sgt. Drake Alexader

DaddyScaper:
Knights of Weston
Sir Denrick
Dead Eye Dan
Guilty McCreech
Dund (yes, *that* Dund)
Sacred Band
Parmenio
Aubrien Archers
Valguard

Yes, it was ridiculously imbalanced, but most of KidScaper’s units never left the start zone anyway.

Here’s the map and starting locations.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/opening.jpg

KidScaper as usual won initiative, and surprised me right out the gate with his order markers. He has identified the tall tower as a desirable target, and his order makers say he will get there first, with DW8000. Note his order markers, and the figure on the ladder.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/dwordermarkers.jpg

Meanwhile I am taking this game as an opportunity to play with ‘bonding,’ this is new to me, so I roll out more traditionally.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/movingout.jpg

Notwithstanding our house rules about adjacency, etc., prior to the grabbing of the flag, KidScaper will have a problem crossing the bridge if I win initiative.

I don’t.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/enteringbridge.jpg
Krug and Major X17 squeak through, and now including DW8K, KidScaper’s only three units even to *try* to cross the water have made it safely.

At this point KidScaper’s plan is to use Krug to grab the flag and the Major to serve as a bodyguard if needed.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/krugmajor.jpg

My plan is to let KidScaper grab the flag and make it impossible for him to return safely with it.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/rollout.jpg

Krug and the Major enter the castle.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/majordoor.jpg

I assume the ready position.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/rollon.jpg

The Aubrien Archers and DED head for the tops of the 2 lower towers. Guilty McCreech will wind up high on one of the ladders. The Sacred Band and Parmenio stand behind the battlements running next to the road and Sir Denrick stays near the bases of the shorter towers. The Knights stay on the bridge, nearer the starting position side.

Meanwhile Krug and the Major work their way up the castle ladders, which are placed on alternating ends of the floors.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/krugwindow.jpg

They make their way up to the roof. We have a house rule allowing 2 space figures to climb ladders by taking a full turn to do so.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/rooftop.jpg

Too late KidScaper realizes his intended flag carrier, Krug, can’t reach the flag, because the flag sits on a one-hex floor. Good thing the Major came along!

As the Major races out of the castle gate
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/majorcastle.jpg

battle is engaged between the Knights and Charos. Mighty Dund to the rescue!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/charos.jpg

Things go poorly for me.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/kowdown.jpg

Meanwhile KidScaper surprises me by once again dumping all his order markers on a single figure. This time, of course, it’s the Major, who races right around the Sacred Band Marginot Line, cuts inside Sir Denrick, and is at the base of the tall tower on his side of the board.

The Sacred Band race to catch up, but c’mon, you have to be kidding me. The Sacred Band, chasing Major X-17?
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/runaway.jpg

I can only get LOS from Dead Eye Dan. The Sacred Band put one wound marker on the Major before he pulls away, taking one more marker from the disengage. Who says robots can't swim, if you put enough order markers on them? The Armoc Vipers emerge to cut off pursuit, but there’s no need. This one’s over.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%201%2027%2007/victory.jpg

This was the first game after a short string of lopsided victories for DaddyScaper, so it was a thrilling victory for KidScaper, who outsmarted his old dad at every turn.

Oh well.

[Dad_Scaper]

The Nasty Little Skirmish
March 10, 2007

No pictures for this one; it was aborted early.

We finally got Heroes of Lindesfarme and KidScaper fielded his first Five Dragon Army. If you count Ne Gok Sa as a dragon (edit - Su Bak Na, thanks Menchy, @#$!ing Marro and their Dr. Seuss names), there are five. :)

Anyway Braxas was maneuvering against a couple of squads of mine on one side of the field, and Nilfheim with height encountered Jotun on the other side.

Nilfheim put a wound marker on Jotun.

Jotun responded with five skulls to Nilf's zero shields.

Ouch!

We're going to start over. I won't field Jotun again for awhile. :)

[Menchy]

Why would we consider Ne-Gok-Sa a dragon?

Perhaps you mean Su-Bak-Na?
:wink:

[Dad_Scaper]

Why would we consider Ne-Gok-Sa a dragon?

Perhaps you mean Su-Bak-Na?
:wink:

Darn it!! Not again!! #@$!ing Marro.

I just hope the SotM Marro have names like "Fred." :oops:

[Dad_Scaper]

A Day Without Dragons

While we waited anxiously for Mr. Amazon to send us Nilfheim & Braxas, I persuaded KidScaper to set up a low point skirmish with me, and not to use Charos.

Me:
4th Mass. x2
Finn
Tarn Vikings

Him:
Wolves x2
Krug
DeathStalkers
Khosumet
Dumutef Guard

At the time I thought I was giving a lot up, in terms of points. In retrospect I’m not so sure. . . Perhaps I am not the Daddy of the Year after all, and I will have to return the trophy to HEH.

Anyway this was the setup, again on Ch1can0's excellent Road to Death Valley map. In all our time playing ‘Scape we haven’t had *any* maps up nearly this long, though I think tomorrow night I will take it down.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/opening.jpg

I put all my order markers on the riflemen to get to high ground, gambling he wouldn’t beat me there. He advanced with Krug and 1x wolves on his right, the Deathstalkers on his left.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/rollingout.jpg

Rather then rushing with a pile of order markers on a single card as he sometimes does, he chose the more prudent, use-obstacles-and-terrain-to-hide-from-range strategy. Sound thinking on his part, but the Massachusetts 4th were bored to tears. Here you can see the two in the back exchanging colorful jokes about the flatulence of the soldier in front of them.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/chatting.jpg

Yup, the long way around. Climbing up the mountainside to avoid the road altogether.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/climbing.jpg

“Dude, I think I see something.”
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/stillapproaching.jpg
On the other side of the map, the 4th has the mountaintop, and waits nervously for the DeathStalkers.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/stalkers.jpg

“Sarge, you said fire when I see the whites of their eyes, right? ‘Cuz he’s pretty close, and I still don’t see it!”
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/whites.jpg

“Ok, I’m a little closer now, and I *do* see the whites of his teeth. Fire now?” http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/whites2.jpg

The evening ends with his fellows taking revenge
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/revenge.jpg

and Krug looking down the wrong side of the cliff. “Hey, I think I heard something over there. Yes, over there. Why don’t these wolves take me seriously?”
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/krug.jpg

The next night we haven’t had time to play and I suspect the new figures are coming the next day. So I wrap this one up myself, removing Khosumet and the Dumutef Guard from play. So, to recap:
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/reset.jpg

Things begin wrapping up quickly as Finn and a viking take down the last Stalker. This is one of my favorite photos.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/stalkerdown.jpg

Meanwhile Krug and the wolves try to hide behind the ruin. Maybe if it was the *big* ruin, guys.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/los.jpg

Krug takes damage. Lots of damage.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/wmarkers.jpg

But he’s served as an effective distraction. The wolves come pouring out from behind the other end of the ruin, and Krug does manage to dispose of a viking or two. Here are a few pictures of the same scene.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/bloodbath.jpg

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/bloodbath2.jpg

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/bloodbath3.jpg
Note the little viking with the big spear, trying to get Krug’s attention.

Krug finally falls, to Finn, who (curse him!) has survived as the vikings all perish, without the benefit of his warrior spirit. The 4th has its hands full with this squad of wolves, or perhaps this squad of wolves has its hands full of the 4th.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/linedown.jpg

In a photograph very much like the one above, but I think even better because of the lighting, we see Finn dispatch another wolf.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/finn.jpg

The surviving wolves dispose of Finn and begin the approach to the remaining 3 of the Fighting 4th. Unfortunately just as they reach the slope of the mountain one of them spontaneously combusts.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/one.jpg

3 Massachusetts 4th with height against 3 wolves, the outcome is not in doubt.

Here, in another one of my favorite pictures, perhaps my 2d favorite from all my battle photos, we see Cpl. Peterson humanely look away as he kills the lycanthropic beast.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/end.jpg

What a hero.

[Dad_Scaper]

:boring:

So, how 'bout those pictures? :D

[monte_kev]

personally I think gaming with your kid is an awsome thing to do. I think you can bring up some issues that I see in a younger genereation of gamers such as good sportsmanship. not to mention just the quality time spent....

very cool guys keep it up.

[monte_kev]

personally I think gaming with your kid is an awsome thing to do. I think you can bring up some issues that I see in a younger genereation of gamers such as good sportsmanship. not to mention just the quality time spent....

very cool guys keep it up.

[Dad_Scaper]

good sportsmanship. not to mention just the quality time spent....

Funny you mention that. . .

When things get tense now, I repeat a new proverb I just invented myself a couple of weeks ago.

"Remember," I tell him, "win, lose or draw. This is what you say after the game. Repeat after me: 'My daddy' [he repeats] 'is the best daddy' [repeats again] 'in the entire world.' [repeats again]"

Now if that's not good sportsmanship on his part, I don't know what is. If he refuses to repeat, I send him to his room. :)

Thanks for the kind words, kev.

[markwars]

You are in the 5ive!

[yagyuninja]

Here, in another one of my favorite pictures, perhaps my 2d favorite from all my battle photos, we see Cpl. Peterson humanely look away as he kills the lycanthropic beast.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/end.jpg

What a hero.

That made me :lol:. Hard.

[markwars]

I just love this thread. :D

BTW, yagyuninja I'm back from New Orleans. ;)

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks for the kind words. I have (I think) one more battle in the camera, I'll post it when I can. KidScaper & I have been playing Settlers of Catan recently but I'm getting tired of losing so we will get back to HeroScape soon. :)

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks for the kind words. I have (I think) one more battle in the camera, I'll post it when I can. KidScaper & I have been playing Settlers of Catan recently but I'm getting tired of losing so we will get back to HeroScape soon. :)

Well, the losing carried on for more months then I expected. But the arrival of SotM sparked a new interest in 'Scape, and KidScaper's skills are markedly improved. So we've played a few rounds on a map of our own design, and I look forward to posting more battle reports once I get batteries in the camera.

Welcome back, me! :D

[Dad_Scaper]

December 20: KidScaper’s Revenge

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1453.jpg

We had already played a few times on this map when we brought the camera out again. I might have won once, I know KidScaper won most of the time. The middle area of the map is steep, jagged terrain. Slow going for non-flyers and particularly inhospitable to 2 hex figures, with the exception of Brunak, who I’d used ineffectively in one of my earlier losses.

This time my band of losers consisted of Tagawa Archers, Tagawa Samurai, Agent Carr, Kaemon Awa, Shades of Bleakewood and Shiori. KidScaper fielded Charos, Minions of Utgar, Einar Imperium, the Dumutef Guard, Deathwalker 9000 and the new Marro Stingers.

Prior experience with this map had taught us each the importance of the four glyphs, one on the snowy ledge on the north side of the map, three on the volcanic terrain on the south side. You can see the glyphs in the picture above.

So naturally I put my first order marker on the Tagawa Samurai.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1458.jpg

For his part, KidScaper put several order markers on the Einar Imperium. Probably a better strategy.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1459.jpg

He uncovers the Glyph of Wounding. Ouch!
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1460.jpg

I end up leaving Agent Carr in the back and piling up wound markers on him, one a round until dead.

I did eventually get a shade on the Glyph of Just Give Up. This is a good photo of the terrain, too.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1462.jpg

The battle begins in earnest when the Tagawa Archers, accompanied by the Samurai, fire on Charos.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1463.jpg

Charos comes down to give them a piece of his mind. If I remember correctly Charos had at least a +1 attack from one of the 3 glyphs occupied by KidScaper.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1464.jpg

Shiori joins the fray.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1466.jpg

With careful maneuvering and a little luck I am able to bring down the big dragon.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1469.jpg

Kaemon Awa knocks one of the Einar Imperium off a glyph.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1470.jpg

Yes, the date on my camera is wrong.

The Stingers come out. By this point Agent Carr has fallen to the Glyph of Wounding. Pictured here is the Shade who went down next. I hate that glyph.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1471.jpg

Kaemon Awa approaches the peak held by KidScaper’s various Minions & Imperiums.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1472.jpg

By this point Carr and Shiori have fallen to the glyph and to Charos, respectively, so Kaemon Awa is my only remaining hero.

KidScaper, smelling blood in the water, risks landing on lava to gain height advantage with his Minions. A risk that pays off:
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1474.jpg

KidScaper has begun to learn how to play chess, and the concept of honorable concessions has entered our gameplaying vocabulary. So I throw in the towel.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2019%2007/100_1475.jpg

I have one more battle in the camera at the moment. I think I took much better pictures of that one; I will try to get it up some time later this week.

I missed this game!

[Dad_Scaper]

12/23/07

‘Return to Twin Peaks’, or
‘It Is Statistically Unlikely Daddyscaper Will Lose Every Single Time’

Me:
Shades of Bleakewood
Izumi Samurai
Shiori
Sgt. Drake Alexander (v. SoTM)
Kaemon Awa
Tagawa Archers

KidScaper:
Charos (naturally)
Marro Stingers
Minions of Utgar
Einar Imperium
DW 9000

I win initiative in round 1. A shade reaches the nearest glyph, only to discover the ‘Intercept Order’. I look up expectantly and realize KidScaper has put all his order markers, including X’s, on one card: the Einar Imperium. So some of the fun is removed from the glyph. What remains of the fun is removed when I blow the roll on the 20 sider anyway.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1478.jpg

The Einar Imperium take the middle - +1 attack - glyph and the one nearer his start zone. The Shades are fast but not as strong.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1479.jpg

Meanwhile on the snowy ledge (see previous battle report for overview of terrain) there is something of a bloodbath. I grab the glyph with a Shade but am immediately whacked by one of the Imperium. Drake, approaching from below, takes revenge for his undead brother in arms.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1480.jpg

KidScaper mobilizes Charos, a good choice for seizing the glyph (the move glyph, I think), and I respond with Drake and the archers.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1481.jpg

Drake knocks a member of the Einar Imperium off the attack glyph.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1482.jpg
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1484.jpg

Drake seizes the attack glyph, but Charos abandons the move glyph (and risks landing on lava) to take me off again.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1495.jpg

Charos holds down the attack glyph while Kaemon Awa approaches, and the archers open fire. In retrospect this may have not been the best tactic for KidScaper.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1496.jpg

Charos comes down to get height advantage on Kaemon Awa and attack. Meanwhile the remaining (mostly forgotten) Shade slips behind him and seizes the attack glyph.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1497.jpg

Kaemon Awa shuffles off this mortal coil.
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1498.jpg

But the archers and the late-arriving Izumi Samurai finish the job Drake and Kaemon Awa started. Eventually Charos goes down.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1500.jpg

The Minions come out as I position my archers. A massacre ensues.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1501.jpg

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1503.jpg

In a desperation move, DW 9000 comes lumbering out. I already have the perfect counter to him near enough to engage:

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%2012%2023%2007/100_1507.jpg

KidScaper gives up with nothing left but the Dumutef Guard and one of the Imperium hiding out of the way.

[Dad_Scaper]

:boring: ity :boring:!

How bout those action photos? And the thrilling battles? :D

[DrLivingston]

I'm sorry. I've gone through this thread 3-4 times and never stopped to tell you how much I have enjoyed them.

I always root for kidscaper(and charos).

[Dad_Scaper]

Dr Livingston, coming out from the jungle gloom, thank you for the kind words.

Really KidScaper does not need your help, because he is a dice god; please do not give him more good karma then he already has. :D

[n1ck3l]

I love this thread... and I think Charos is possibly the single MOST annoying character in the history of all time (literally, Heroscape is the battle of all time... huh? Huh? Get it?).

Oh well, I like the landscapes too.

And you have my supprt, Daddyscaper. Put kidscaper back in his place.

lol

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks, n1ck. I can use all the help I can get.

We had a great 3 player game on a map when a friend of mine came over recently. The map is still up, but the game was aborted near the end when my friend left. I'll put up a few pictures of the map - hopefully it will help aid the cause of those who are in need of 3 player map design inspiration - with a brief description of the battle itself.

[rym]

Nice photos and descriptions. I love how the warriors "fall" in the photos. Do you leave them like that for the rest of the game?

[Dad_Scaper]

Nice photos and descriptions. I love how the warriors "fall" in the photos. Do you leave them like that for the rest of the game?

No, but it's hard to imagine chronicling the battle without showing the photos like that.

I've read about interesting looking variations including stuff like that, but we have enough trouble remembering whose turn it is after the phone rings, so we're not ready to complicate the game like that.

[BRUNAK]

When will your next battle be?

[Dad_Scaper]

Ahh. Good question. I want to post some photos of the map that's up right now and I might throw in a description of the battle, but I didn't take any action shots.

We were teaching someone how to play and I didn't want to rattle him too much with the camera.

Anyway I have those photos, and then I'll have to break this 3 way map down, to set up something more appropriate to a 2 player game.

[BRUNAK]

Ahh. Good question. I want to post some photos of the map that's up right now and I might throw in a description of the battle, but I didn't take any action shots.

We were teaching someone how to play and I didn't want to rattle him too much with the camera.

Anyway I have those photos, and then I'll have to break this 3 way map down, to set up something more appropriate to a 2 player game.

Sweet! I need a new idea for a map.

[raholiver]

Wow:shock:

[Einar's puppy]

You know, I'm almost always bored by regular battle reports. Not hte case here. They are exciting ( they are close games) have pictures (Adds a ton) and have cool units (I love the shades and Tsa. Not to mention that Charos is awsome. Even though I don't have him...:cry:)

[Tai-Pan]

This is one of my favorite threads ever. Where has daddyscaper gone?

[StarofEarendil]

Nice battle reports, Daddyscaper!

[ABOMINATION]

Nice battle reports, Daddyscaper!
Daddyscaper won't be answering you for a long time.;)

[edridtc123]

If you ever do return, Daddyscaper, know that these battle reports are the original reason I was attracted to Heroscapers a year ago!

[Dad_Scaper]

Wow, thank you for the kind words, over a year later. We've been playing again though without the photojournalism. I am thrilled to see new material coming out and perhaps one day I'll be busting out the camera again.

I am really touched by some of these kind words, over a year old but new to me.

I really love some of the battle reports I'm reading now, particularly A-Train's.

:toast:
_____________________
Daddyscaper

[Dad_Scaper]

The More Things Change…

KidScaper and I were delighted when grandpa came to visit because we knew he’d play. So I built a map for a three way free for all, incorporating terrain from the new(ish) master set in a large map for three.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/3%20way%20ffa/100_2682-1.jpg

Clockwise from the left: KidScaper, me, grandpa.

The theme for the map was a forest glade with a volcanic disturbance in the center. The three 23 hex start zones are each separated by some elevated hexes. In the foreground is a small rise with a little bit of water and no significant obstruction, at the far right is a steeper and taller hill with several trees both on it and in front of it, and in the far left is a low, flat plateau with ruins and a tree separating it from the road that circles the volcanic area in the center. I incorporated the new terrain in three ways: The stalagmites provide both the illusion of extra height and effective obstructions at the center of the map, the shadow tiles mix well with the asphalt and lava field in the surrounding hexes, and the dungeon tiles with their gray edges give a more volcanic look to the central spire than the brown-edged 7’s would.

The Defense +1 glyph is at the center of the map. If I were to play this map again I would probably substitute the Defense +2 and perhaps remove some of the water in the foreground to draw a little more action into that corner.

I did not take any pictures during the game, I’ve found (heresy!) Heroscape is easier to teach – and to play – when not pausing to compose and illuminate a photograph twice every five minutes. So I put together a few pictures afterward and here is the report…

Me:
KoW x2
Mass x2
Eldgrim
Nilfheim

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/3%20way%20ffa/100_2679.jpg


KidScaper, displaying his fondness for Mittens and the WoA, which are a much better unit than I used to think:

Mittens
Venoc x1
Armoc x1
Aubriens x1
EoV
Syvarris
WoA x2

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/3%20way%20ffa/100_2681.jpg

This picture also shows the different types of terrain creating the volcanic field. I’m not a big fan of using large amounts of the lava field or the lava terrain, but by mixing in the shadow (right), stalagmites, and asphalt from Marvelscape (upper edge of the volcano), I can get the effect without using much of the nuclear lava and lava field terrain.

KidScaper had prepared two 600 point armies for grandpa to choose from; grandpa chose Utgar over Einar and played this:

Werewolves of London x2
Khosumet
Deepwyrm Drow x1 (another KidScaper favorite)
Pelloth
Othkurik

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/3%20way%20ffa/100_2680.jpg

For those keeping score at home, yes that is 600 points for KidScaper & grandpa, and 500 points for me. What can I say, he’s a tough negotiator and I’m a sucker.

The Battle, or “How Not to Play a Free For All”

KidScaper won initiative and sent his Mittens-boosted Armocs toward me. This is a strategy he’s had mixed success with; his hope is, of course, to get on some of my softer units with a lucky frenzy roll.

He doesn’t get it, and I overextend and use a bonded Eldgrim to destroy two of them immediately. I then make the mistake that led to my early elimination: I attempt to (a) defend from KidScaper and simultaneously (b) occupy the high ground overlooking grandpa’s start zone. Shouldn’t have done both.

Mostly I was dealing with grandpa, in this area:
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/3%20way%20ffa/100_2684.jpg

I sent 4 of the Mass up the hill with a couple knights on the road to try to head off any wolves/drow.

Unfortunately grandpa, no fool as a game player, realized that after my opening skirmish with KidScaper he could, diplomatically, safely focus entirely on me. So the Mass wound up defending from *both* the wolves and the drow, and Pelloth and Khosumet both came wandering over. I held them off for awhile, peppering Khosumet and Pelloth and forcing grandpa to save his Drow over and over again with Hide in Darkness, which he obliged me by successfully doing.

Meanwhile, KidScaper
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/3%20way%20ffa/100_2685-1.jpg

sent his Aubriens down this road and up into the central area to start harassing me from behind, like grandpa understanding that I had painted a bullseye on myself and he needn’t worry about anyone but me.

The Aubriens picked off one or two of the Mass I’d sent out as reinforcements and then Syvarris emerged, really getting on my nerves from the opposite corner of the battlefield. Range of 9??? I know he’s from the original master set so I should be over it, but come on. That’s ridiculous. Nilf started to take wounds in my start zone.

Anyway it got to the point where if I had any brains I would have pushed toward grandpa, where at least I had height with a couple of my remaining Mass, but I was so annoyed at KidScaper that I put a couple orders on Nilf and sent him out after Syvarris.

I did put a couple wounds on him but sadly he and a single surviving Aubrien finished me off. Meanwhile Othkurik flew to the top of the hill and wiped out my remaining activated Mass. All that remained of my units was two or three KoW and one or two Mass and, though I had injured Khosumet and Pelloth, I don’t think I killed anything besides KidScaper’s squad of Armocs and one or two of grandpa’s squaddies.

All in all a very poor showing for me.

But the game went on without me, leading to a thrilling conclusion as Syvarris and the Aubrien went down after destroying Othkurik and Pelloth.

In the center of the board it was Kidscaper’s Mittens + Venocs + 1 WoA battling Khosumet + 1 squad of Anubian wolves with the high ground and the glyph. KidScaper was quite the little gentleman throughout the game, reminding grandpa do take his Hide in Shadow rolls, etc., but I think he knew when to keep his mouth shut and gained one decisive advantage in the endgame: Grandpa had been neglecting Khosumet, recognizing that the wolves could do much more damage on any given OM than he could, so Khosumet sat out of the way on low ground. +5% on the Unleashed Fury roll was just not enough reason to play the several OM’s necessary to get him up the spire.

What I think KidScaper realized before grandpa was that Khosumet could have held the glyph in the center of the volcano, then all 3 of the surviving wolves could have stood on the perimeter *and* benefitted from the Relentless Assault enhancement.

Grandpa did figure this out, during a break from the game, but it was too late. KidScaper’s first OM after the break committed his one remaining WoA to tying down Khosumet, who with one wound already could neither destroy her or safely disengage and make a run for it. As I recall Khosumet was destroyed trying to get a lucky roll and destroy the cursed elf warrior.

Anyway the endgame was very exciting, if not completely balanced:

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/3%20way%20ffa/100_2688.jpg
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/3%20way%20ffa/100_2691.jpg
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/3%20way%20ffa/100_2693.jpg



Needless to say, KidScaper eventually wore grandpa’s brave warriors down.

There would have been more drama had the EOV ever left KidScaper's start zone.

[TheSparkleInYourWater]

Everything looks good on my end Daddyscaper.

Nice battle reports, it must take a bit of work to do. I really appreciate you (and the others that do) posting them on here just so bums like me can be entertained.:D

[Dad_Scaper]

Not so much a true 'Scaper family battle, KidScaper and I went to a tourney today directed by champ TD clancampbell and here is my battle report as it relates to my own games:

Congratulations, EP!

Many thanks, Clan, for running such a fine tournament after relocating on short notice. Also I thought the format was very interesting: no more than 3x common units total. A close reading of the armies listed above reveals that *one* of us, *ahem* Technomagus, had excessive commons. I think, Clan, he actually had 10th Reg. x2 ,which would have been a total of 5. But who’s counting, except for KidScaper, who busted ‘Magus when they faced off in round 2. In ‘Magus’ defense, he apologized profusely, felt badly, and was mocked the entire afternoon.

Several ‘Scapers on this forum were kind enough to give me some advice on army construction. In the end I went with an army I thought would do pretty well, and I think it was not the army but my own failures in command that did me in, at least in round 1.

Round 1:
Map: The Frozen Cavern
Me: 4th Mass x2, AE, Drake (ROTV), Eldgrimm
Drewcula: Fen Hydra x2, Stingers x2, Rats
I don’t think on paper this should have been the blowout it was. But Drewcula played flawlessly and I made a series of strategic blunders, large and small, that cost me the game.
Fairly early drop for my AE, as I recall I disposed of 2 ‘Reavers with grenades. Drewcula deployed his Stingers and clamped down the area in front of his start zone for the duration of the game. I did some minor damage with the AE but I was foolishly pushing my Mass x2 up also, trying to keep cover, when I should have been turtling with everything but the AE until the AE were gone. I don’t recall getting off a single WTF. And obviously Drake should have been the counter to the Stingers. *Doh!* I lost badly.
0-1

Round 2:
Map: Marpesia’s Glory
Eamonn: Nakitas, Q9, Krav Maga
Again I had a nice early AE drop. Round 1, and I won initiative, and Eamonn had all his units bunched up tight in his start zone. My eyes did the cartoon thing where they spin and come up dollar signs as I picked up dice for the grenades. Every single grenade affected every single one of his units except for one Nakita, and the most I got out of it was one Krav agent. That was it. I really think it was basically over right there; the AE were no match for Q9 after that and it basically came down to whether I could get a favorable engagement with my Eldgrim-enhanced Drake that would bring down the robot. If I couldn’t do that, I was done. And I couldn’t. I think I got in one swing with the 6 dice attack and that was it.
0-2

Round 3:
Map: Frostbite
Xanth: Q9, Q10, Blastatrons, Otonashi
Again the AE dropped early, but Xanth’s units were spread out so I held them back & fanned them out as snipers. Their height-boosted normal attacks did some damage to the large robots, but eventually Q10 disposed of them. Poor Xanth was completely done in when my Eldgrim-enhanced Drake went *crazy* with the dice, hitting 4, 5, or 6 skulls each time. Q10 went down, Q9 soon after. I remember one blastatron getting in front of my start zone where the 4th Mass was still packed tight and killing one of them, but my next OM was on the 4th and it looked like a firing squad. Anyway it surely would have been closer but the dice were my friends.
1-2

Map: High Point 2
Son of Mad Wookie: Stingers x3, Cyprien, Sonya, Marcu
This was the first matchup I thought really favored my army. I don’t know how it normally plays out, but I thought 4th Mass *ought* to be able to handle flying vampires, as long as they stand in a clump.
Once again the AE dropped in the first round. They took height right in front of SoMW’s start zone and *crushed* with the grenades. When they were done there were only 4 surviving Stingers and Cyprien had taken two wounds. The dice turned in SoMW’s favor in the second half of our game, as Cyprien and Sonya made saving rolls over and over with the defense dice. Drake went down, but there was too much WTF for the vampires. Cyprien went down, finally, doing his two damage to Sonya who, wounded already, succumbed as well. I felt like the dice cut both ways in this game but the vampires, melee units that can only take down one squaddie at a time, were just going to have a rough time against my WTF army.
2-2

Many thanks to all attendees and especially Clan; KidScaper and I had a splendid time and are looking forward to the next one, wherever it may be.

Tourney thread with images of the maps here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=29248); post tourney thread here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=29776).

[Dad_Scaper]

The 'Scaper Family Invitation Tournament

Leading into our first tournament, the one in the preceding post, KidScaper and I hosted our first ‘Scaper Family Invitational Tournament, by which I mean we had visitors who already knew how to play. So we played a mini-tourney with premade armies we were fooling around with in preparation for Clancampbell’s tourney, so we used appropriate armies and maps.

Set up on our table were Wicked Wall, a weird brute of a map, and High Point 2, a really delightful little map that I could play on again and again. Find the maps at the tourney linked above.

My first game was played on High Point 2. My team of players consisted of my buddy, his youngest son, I think 6 years old, who was responsible for many of our decisions, and me. Our opponent was my buddy's oldest kid, Jesse, I believe 11.

Our army was, for a long time, the army I was going to bring to the tournament. Jesse’s army was one I was, at the time, inclined to bring instead. Remember 400 points, single general, no more than 3x total common units:

Us:
Einar –
Kozuke
Kaemon Awa
Tagawa Samurai Archers x1
Valguard

I will say about this army that I believe in it. I do not think, though, that I have the skill level necessary to play it effectively, and I do not regret leaving it at home for Clancampbell’s tourney.

Jesse:
Utgar –
Mimring
Phantom Knights x2
Brunak

With the idea being that Mimring would rush in, go off like a bomb, and the PKx2 and Brunak would clean up. This later evolved into PK x2, Hyrda x2, which lacks the Mimring bomb but more than makes up for it with the beefy attacks of the hydras. Anyway, on to the battle.

Jesse won initiative and (correctly) led off with Mimring, who managed to get close enough to fry a single TSA. My teammate, Jesse’s little brother, switched around our order markers while I wasn’t looking and I think we ended up with our 1 on the archers instead of the Kozuke, where I had put it. I believe we didn’t take down Mimring until KA got to him in Round 2, by which time Mimring had done tremendous damage. “I fryalated half their guys,” quoth Jesse.

The scattered remnants of the Einar army were no match for the stealth flying PK’s, who always had height and were just too tough and too many for the few units we had left. Brunak watched the whole thing from the start zone.

Meanwhile, on the other map…

KidScaper was using the Utgar army he eventually brought to the tournament:
Stingers x3
Marro Warriors
Me Burq Sa
Krug

His opponent had a Jandar army KidScaper had thrown together. As I recall it included:
Nilfheim
Knights of Weston x1
Greater Ice Elemental
And maybe something else. I don’t remember.

KidScaper hit that army like a truck.

On to the championship:

KidScaper –
Stingers x3
Marro Warriors
Me Burq Sa
Krug

Jesse –
Mimring
Phantom Knights x2
Brunak

Mimring again drew first blood, I think taking down one Marro Warrior. The Stingers responded by tearing Mimring into little dragon-pieces, exposing the weakness in the army I’d built & Jesse was using – if the Mimring bomb does not go off properly, trouble follows.

The PK’s crested the ridge soon after and did quite a bit of damage to the Stingers before KidScaper started chasing them around with Krug. Jesse, unfamiliar with the D1 units, chose to try to bring down Krug. Given control of his units I probably would have danced away from him & continued to hunt Stingers, but we were not playing in a point-counting format and I don’t think it would have changed the result. Krug took a few wounds and was strong enough to dispose of the remaining Phantom Knights.

Brunak was still alive and he came stomping up the hill, where he was encounted by Krug and the various remaining Marro. I'm a fan of Brunak but he was way overmatched, and down he went.

And that, to coin a phrase, is the rest of the story.

[Dad_Scaper]

Everything looks good on my end Daddyscaper.

Nice battle reports, it must take a bit of work to do. I really appreciate you (and the others that do) posting them on here just so bums like me can be entertained.:D

Thank you for the kind words, Sparkle. It is a lot of work, which is why we've been playing more but I've been writing less since we reentered the hobby. Feedback like yours is encouraging, thanks again.

[Dad_Scaper]

The Return of the King

We went to the BoV for our new map and KidScaper picked out Ch1can0's Road Rampage:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//road_rampage_J4K.jpg

Before I get into the battle report I want to take a moment to lament Ch1can0's (hopefully temporary) disappearance from the boards. There are many fine cartographers out there, but I always found Ch1can0's maps especially appealing. Not only are they well laid out for game purposes, but they always seem to have appealing landscapes as well. I've noticed, for instance, that the roads he is so fond of blend seamlessly with the terrain around them and never sit awkwardly on top.

Ok, on to the game.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%209%2010%20greenroller/100_2788.jpg

400 points, single general, here we go:

Me:
Tagawa Samurai Archers x2
Kaemon Awa
Tagawa Samurai
Guilty McCreech
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%209%2010%20greenroller/100_2785.jpg

KidScaper:
Charos
Greenscales x3
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%209%2010%20greenroller/100_2787.jpg

Well, well, well. If it isn't the return of Charos, untouched by KidScaper for several months now.

For our opening round OM's, I went with 1 Tagawa Samurai, 2 & 3 on the TSA's, hoping the purple samurai could hold down the center of the map while the archers did some damage from the back ranks.

The thing is, Charos and Greenscales move *incredibly* quickly. I was rolling defense dice for dragon and Greenscale attacks on OM 2 and my second Tagawa Samurai went down on OM 3. The Archers started to drop to the Greenscales, whose attack, boosted by Charos, did not let me get in a counterstrike until way too late.

So in Round 2 I rushed Kaemon Awa out to stop the bleeding. With his double special attack avoiding Charos' counterstrike, and getting in a few counterstrikes of his own, KA put 5 or so wounds on Charos during Round 2. Round 3, KA wearing two wound markers out of four life, I shifted to Guilty.

KidScaper sent Greenscales up from his reserves to take extra shots at KA as quickly as he could get them to the front. The first couple dropped to counterstrike but the last one finished what Charos had started:
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%209%2010%20greenroller/100_2780.jpg

From that point on it was cleanup. Charos pushing all the way into my start zone to take out the archer hiding there while his aura just barely reached the Greenscales surrounding Guilty on the hill on the right.

Finally - though this was easily the fastest game we had played in a long time - my last archer went down:
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%209%2010%20greenroller/100_2784.jpg

It was good to see KidScaper rolling with Charos again, and clearly I'm going to need to find something effective to counter this Greenroller.

[Dad_Scaper]

Winning Ugly

Ok, same map, new army build rules. Modeled after Tom's upcoming tourney in Philadelphia, 500 points, no more than 12 figures.

KidScaper embraced the format more than I did:
Charos
Q9
Ullar Protectors x1
500 pts, 5 figures

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2010%2010%20500%20pts/100_2789.jpg

I went with a more traditional looking army:
Deathreavers x2
Hydra x3
Shiori
500 pts, 12 figures
I think I could have done better than Shirori for 60 points but I wanted a special attacker and I needed it to be one figure, so that's what I did. I also considered MBS though he does not technically have the special attack.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2010%2010%20500%20pts/100_2790.jpg

KidScaper led off with the Protectors; I sent out the Rats, who scattered at the Protectors, denying them the opportunity to get off a single Arablast at a hydra.

The first hydra took the center bridge, devouring one Protector but then going down to Q9, who took the high ground on the hill closest to KidScaper's start zone.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2010%2010%20500%20pts/100_2792.jpg

The second one came lumbering out with the rats tying down the Protectors. KidScaper made, to my mind anyway, a serious strategic blunder here, keeping Q9 on the top of the hill and mostly using him to Queglix Gun the rats, not taking shots at the approaching hydra. Later he explained that he didn't want the rats engaging Q9, which I'm sure made sense at the time, but I think KidScaper seriously overestimated the number of shields Q9 would be able to roll consistently once the 4 headed beast got close.

Anyway the hydra got close enough and 4 attacks of 4 was enough for the Major who, dramatically, whiffed against 3 skulls. Ouch.

I was *ahem* discouraged from taking a photo.

KidScaper bravely marched out Charos, his only unit left.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2010%2010%20500%20pts/100_2793.jpg

The same hydra, still full health, came plodding over from Q9's rusting corpse and from two hexes away, thus avoiding counterstrike, put 5 wounds on the big fella.

KidScaper and I agreed to call this one over and save some of our brainpower for another game, another day.

[tom]

Great report DaddyScaper! Your triple hydra army seems pretty scary. Swap out Shori for Zetacron and I think you have got something. I will include the army in my playtesting.

[Krizo]

Awesome report!!! I love the ones with pictures the best.

[legoboy]

I love playing against the kids and seeing how their ideas about strategy evolve. I lost a game the other day where I played elves against my daughter's (7) army of agents and Quasatch. The next day my Krug and Heavy Orcs beat my son's army with Skahen and Drow. I haven't been able to convince Mrs. Legoboy to play in a while though.

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks Tom, I've never had a rooting interest in someone else's playtesting before. :) Good luck in the tourney & I hope TDing goes smoothly for you.

Krizo, thanks, I do too.

Legoboy, thank you for the kind words. I should definitely try to draw my 7 year old in a little more, but she just doesn't have much patience when the dice start going against her.

[Dad_Scaper]

The Warriors of Ashra: More Durable Than Kate Gosselin and Twice as Annoying

Same map.

KidScaper built an army he hoped would counter hydras.

KidScaper:
Warriors of Ashra x2
Q9
Wyvern
Krav Maga Agents

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2012%2010/100_2797.jpg

I think for its intended purpose it was pretty well designed. I believe the Wyvern was included for its coolness factor, but otherwise this packs a lot of firepower and the WoA should be enough to slow down the massive hydra melee attack.

Regardless, after the emotionally draining slaughter of the previous battle I was going to mix things up.

DaddyScaper:
Q10
Nakitas
RotV Drake
Otonashi

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2012%2010/100_2798-1.jpg

I opened with Q10 up the middle and the Nakitas close behind to keep him protected as much as possible. KidScaper again sent Q9 up the hill nearest his start zone. Q9 killed a Nakita.

As I recall the Nakitas put a wound on Q9 and Q10 finished him off with a couple normal attacks from range.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2012%2010/100_2800.jpg

I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that this would be another blowout.

The Krav came out. Not a good matchup for Q10's machine pistol, four 2 dice special attacks with a range of 7. They went down without doing anything.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2012%2010/100_2805.jpg

The wyvern fared no better.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2012%2010/100_2806.jpg

The WoA came out getting some key saving defense dice as they made their way up the road. Completely overconfident by this time, I didn't bother maneuvering a defense.

My favorite of the photos I've taken in the last couple of months:
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2012%2010/100_2807.jpg

Note to self: Do not let the WoA get close to your units. The Major went down. I whiffed repeatedly on the Nakitas' engagement strike.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2012%2010/100_2808.jpg

Without the engagement strike there was no way the Nakitas would last. By the time the Nakitas were gone there were four Warriors of Ashra still remaining. Not a good matchup for Drake.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2012%2010/100_2796.jpg

This is a pretty good shot of our WoA repaints. I think I could have done a lot more with them but I was using Testors and not the acrylic paint that the smart people use.

Time for the last stand.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/4%2012%2010/100_2794.jpg

Not likely.

KidScaper got revenge on his dad, this time.

[Obsidian]

Were Q10's dice really bad against the WoA? I would think that two attacks of 4 would be good enough to take out more than one Warrior.

[Dad_Scaper]

Were Q10's dice really bad against the WoA? I would think that two attacks of 4 would be good enough to take out more than one Warrior.

I hit two of the approaching WoA with Q10's Assault Pistol, which I was using because of the larger number of targets, and the long road on the map meant their approach was quick. Plus they were rolling hot on defense, as I wrote above.

In a more competitive environment I might have chosen to pull back with Q10 to keep the WoA at range and allow the Nakitas to remain in place as a screen. But this was the second game in a row in which KidScaper's Q9 had dropped very early, and as his dad I was at this stage playing, to say something other than what I precisely mean, overconfident.

Shrewd question, sir. :)

[Obsidian]

nevermind

[Kaiser Cat]

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/battle%20log%203%203%2007/bloodbath3.jpg
Note the little viking with the big spear, trying to get Krug’s attention.


Run, Sven! Run!

...Had to mention that.

[Dad_Scaper]

Maryland Multi-player Madness Post Tourney Post

Once again we had a terrific time at one of ClanCampbell's tournaments. Clan's events are competitive and family friendly, interesting and well organized. Plus they're all within 45 minutes of my house.

Before the battle report I will say a word (well, a lot of words) about the format, which I think has a lot to offer the HeroScape community. Because other tournament directors out there might be poking around for new ideas as Clan does, I will deposit my detailed thoughts about the format in the spoiler below and apologize in advance for those who are only looking for the blood and gore, which will follow.

The Rules:
300 points mixed marvel
12 hex start zone
Multiplayer FFA
Points scored for damage done, calculated as fractional increments of unit point cost. In other words, a Stinger is worth 20 points because it is 1/3 of a 60 point squad, and one wound marker on Kaemon Awa is worth 24 points because that's 1/5 wounds to a 120 point figure.

The point of the scoring system is to prevent turtling in a FFA and it proved to be a very effective strategy. I played three 4 player games and one 3 player game and I only observed two players, both from the preteen set, conducting any sort of a turtle and for both of them it was only for part of the game, otherwise ever single player knew he had to get out and start kicking butt.

One interesting twist to this format is that a player could be the first one eliminated and still secure the most points on that board.

Another interesting twist was that the incremental point value of each unit became very important. My Phantom Knights were worth a healthy 23 points each; 70/3 rounded down = 23. So they were a worthy target for the types of units that might match up well against them. Worth significantly less was Sonya Esenswein, 45 points / 3 life = 15 points for each wound. The most choice of delicacies were the high point cost squaddies, like KidScaper's Protectors of Ullar (110/3 = 33 points each) and the very high point value heroes, like ClanCampbell's Nilfheim (185/6 = 30, always rounding down). So in an ordinary multiplayer game I might be chagrined to see, for instance, Niflheim charging right at my start zone, in this format it was, for Clan, a double edged sword, and as it turned out for me it was being attacked by a giant point machine.

Some abilities really affected game play in ways that they otherwise would not. You might not *want* Ne Gok Sa's Mind Shackle to work, and if you only have Sir Hawthorne left you might *want* him to stab you in the back, under certain game circumstances. Also you might want to think twice about bringing a regenerator, or as Mikelizzio called his own vampire king, a flying slot machine.

Concerning maps, I did at the tourney observe that the 4 player maps, each of which was distinctly rectangular, tended to result in 2 duels, and that was true of each of my 4 player games. At the time I meant it as a mild objection to the maps, but in retrospect I don't think it was a drawback at all, it was just what programmers (I think) call an undocumented feature. Certainly two of my three four player games quickly broke out into more complex interplay between the players, only one remained a pair of 1v1s until near the end. It was just part of the game and didn't detract from my enjoyment of it at all.

Another virtue of the format was that it gave players an opportunity to play with several others at once. At a traditional tournament, I would not get the opportunity to play such excellent players as Johngee, Mikelizzo and Einar's Puppy all at the same event. Maybe one or two of them, but not all three, and on Saturday I had the opportunity not just to play with each of them but with virtually every single person at the event at least once. So on the HeroScape Community side, this format works great.

There was not really any diplomacy conducted at all. I had been worried about it, but I think everyone instinctively treated it as taboo and I think it was better that way.

On to the event.


Round 1:
The map -
Dignan's Spelunk-o-Rama
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//spelunkorama_Cq0.jpg
Clockwise from the 11:00 position:
Einar's Puppy - Venom, Zettians, Rats x2
Phill the thrill - Cyprien, Nakitas, Isamu, Marcu
DaddyScaper - Crixus, Phantom Knights x3
Follower of Vydar - Torin, Stingers x3

The big trees on this map seemed to be a disincentive for players next to each other to attack each other, so play went the other way. As I recall EP won initiative and opened his rats toward Follower's Stinger mob and Phil opened with his Nakitas toward me. The Nakitas were worth a fat 40 points each and they looked to me like the giant T Bone steaks the lion character sees sometimes in the movie Madagascar in place of his friends.

So I opened back toward him. Follower, taking a minute (don't think I didn't notice) to give my PK's the hairy eyeball, opened against EP's approaching rats. As the first few rounds played out, the Stingers wore down EP's rats as Venom came out & started taking down the Stingers. I managed to take out the Nakitas without suffering an engagement strike & got off to a quick point start with their 120.

Then Phil rolled out Cyprien, who fought an interesting and losing battle against the PK's. He probably took out his points worth of PK's, healing all the while. Unfortunately for Phil (and for EP and Follower), Cyprien was regenerating, which meant that as he got ~150 points, maybe as much as 175, off my PKs, according to my notes I got 275 points off him.

On the other side of the board, Follower's army proved to be a bad matchup for Venom and the Rats. Torin's protective shield was useless but his bonus against small or medium figures proved devastating and once the Reavers were gone, or near gone, EP wisely kept his distance from the draining Stingers and was forced to try to pick things off from the perimeter.

Eventually Cyprien went down on my side and Phil and I started to mingle in the activity elsewhere on the board. I wanted no part of Marcu, who was worth a pathetic 4 points/wound marker, and Phil was undoubtedly sick to death of my little green assassins, who were mostly gone anyway. In the end I was the first one eliminated, in fact the *only* one eliminated before time was called.

One fun little thing that happened in this game was, after my elimination, on consecutive OM's Marcu turned on Phil. Generously I got control of him both times & took out a Zettian Guard (35 points) and a Stinger (20 points) for a total of 55 points, giving me the 50 point cushion I needed to edge out Follower for 1st place on that board. Thanks Phil the Thrill!

First place of four (1/4)
410 damage done
5 victory points

Round 2:
The map -
Ch1Can0's Tr3s
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//tres_y0r.jpg
Clockwise from the 11:00 position -
Johngee - Venoc Warlord, Venoc Vipers, Mohicans x2
Daniel - Kaemon Awa, Stingers x3
DaddyScaper - Crixus, Phantom Knights x3

More @#$!ing Stingers. Every round. But it makes sense; they are a very cost effective 3 figure range squad. The 4 figure squads create start zone problems.

I won initiative and opened toward the center of this oceanic map. Ch1Can0's maps are distinctively elegant to look at but this one was just massive.

Johngee sent his vipers slithering toward the center also, and with Mittens-boosted movement and a timely frenzy I found myself rolling defense dice on his OM1. I lost one PK; Daniel rolled out some Stingers & I managed to dispose of the entire squad of Venocs. The dice were not favorable to me in this round, unlike the entire rest of the tourney, and for the first couple rounds I was sending out PK's only to have them picked off by Johngee (normally) or Daniel (sometimes).

Johngee activated the entire remainder of his army, bringing them to the high ground near his start zone, and Daniel activated only one squad at a time. I realized I was playing for second place here - my PK's were getting whacked too quickly and I wasn't getting skulls on offense - so I took advantage of the format and sent everything at Johngee as Daniel tried bringing a squad of Stingers around the perimeter to flank Johngee. Possibly a good maneuver in a last-man-standing format, but by doing bite sized bits of damage I stayed well ahead of Daniel in points. Between the size of the map and other issues, this game was not particularly well developed when we had to stop it, but I'm not complaining because I think time favored Daniel & not me. So it's good it ended when it did.

2/3
149 damage done
3 victory points (8 total)

Round 3:
The map -
ClanCampbell's Swamp & Jungle Map
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//spelunkorama_Cq0.jpg
Hah! Just checking to see if you were paying attention. Clan threw together a very interesting 4 player map. Imagine the pictured map with a smaller footprint with a very large plateau 2 hexes high, and the corner start zones insulated by blobs of swamp water, jungle, and ruins. Swamp water and jungle are dotted all around the map, which is nowhere higher than the 2 hex plateau, at the very center of which is a depression with more swamp water & jungle trees. It was an interesting map and pleasantly different from Spelunk o Rama.

Clockwise from the 11:00 position:
JohnGee - Venoc Warlord, Venoc Vipers, Mohicans x2
Follower of Vydar - Torin, Stingers x3
Mikelizzio - Cyprien, Sonya, Krav
DaddyScaper - Crixus, Phantom Knights x3

Now that I think of it, this game actually did not open up as a pair of 1v1s. Perhaps this was a result of the smaller footprint of the map, but I believe it is a credit to Clan that this game produced more wide-open 4 way play.

I believe JohnGee won initiative and opened with his MRT toward Follower's Stingers and Follower reciprocated by sending his Stingers toward the MRT. Mikelizzio sent Cyprien toward the Stingers, which was probably a good idea because their relatively low defense made them more suited to his attack style than my tougher PK's, plus Follower was then fighting on two fronts.

Mikelizzio's Krav Maga Agents were a juicy bite at 33 points each without, apparently, any OM's on them. So I didn't get a full squad of PK's into Mikelizzo's start zone until the end of Round 1 but I got every single one of the KMA without a fight.

Cyprien, meanwhile, was dancing around as he does, getting bites from the occasional Stinger (or Torin) and eventually making his way back toward his own start zone to attempt to staunch the bleeding I'd started there. I got 50 points off hitting Cyprien twice and finishing him, triggering 30 more points for the consequential damage to Sonya.

Between picking on the remnants of Mikelizzo's army and doing a fair amount of damage to the remaining MRT & polishing off the Venocs and the full strength Mittens, I won in what I thought at the time was a commanding fashion.

1/4
449 damage done
5 victory points (13 total)

Round 4:
The map -
ClanCampbell's Swamp & Jungle Map
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//spelunkorama_Cq0.jpg
for reference purposes.

Again, clockwise from the 11:00 position.
Clancampbell - Nilfheim, Sgt. Drake ROTV
Mikelizzio - Cyprien, Sonya, Krav
Kidscaper - Atlaga, Protectors, Ashra x2
DaddyScaper - Crixus, Phantom Knights x3

As I looked across the table at Clan, I realized that Nilf could literally fly from Clan's start zone *into* mine. I observed as much & Clan conceded it might be a weakness in the map. Might need a little tweaking, but not much.

I set up at the far corner of the start zone & hoped for the best. Clan won initiative and apologized to me. I told him not to worry about it and apologize after the game was over, depending on how it went. :twisted:

Nilf flew right up to the ruin shielding my start zone from his corner and, peering over it, let loose with his ice shard breath. As I recall he killed one PK and that was it.

Mikelizzio opened at KidScaper, who saw the approaching vampire and turtled completely, using his WoA to wall off Atlaga & the Protectors.

On OM 1 the PK's flew out and put 4 wound markers on Nilfheim. On OM 2 they put one more and on OM 3 they finished him off. I'd lost, if memory serves, 2 PKs and had 180 Nilfheim points (yes I know he's 185 but if you've been paying attention you'll know why it's 180) in my pocket.

Cyprien at this point wanted no part of the WoA and was drifting towards Drake. Round 2 opened with Clan urging me to go after Mikelizzio's approaching Cyp ("Banana Smoothie! Banana Smoothie!") and Mikelizzio was urging me to go after Drake.

I split the difference. On one OM, 2 PKs killed a full health Drake, meaning I had destroyed Clan's entire army & gotten all his points for myself, and one other put a wound on Cyp. Meanwhile KidScaper came out of his shell & started attacking Mikelizzio's other units. I poked a bit at the edges & got a KMA for myself and a Protector. Cyp chill touched a full strength Atlaga who never did get to fire the bolt.

I chased Cyprien around for awhile, putting wounds on him, and I was eventually eliminated by KidScaper, whose WoA were a perfect counter to my army. Neither Crixus nor the PKs could do much to them.

But between Clan's army and the lion's share of Mikelizzio's, and the bits & pieces of KidScaper's I could squeeze out, I roared to a commanding victory and the tourney prize.

1/4
548 damage done
5 victory points (18 total)

There is no doubt in my mind that a 4th squad of PKs would have served me better than Crixus, who didn't do much all day besides serve up slices of 18 point snacks to the other players. But I can hardly complain about my result, can I?

Many thanks again to Clan, the shop, and all the attendees. These tournaments are just plain fun, win lose or draw. KidScaper, who came in a stunning third (!!!), and his friend had a blast as well.

[Dad_Scaper]

The date: August 7, 2010
The event: HeroScape tourney in Parkville, Maryland
My quest: Defend the Golden Viking
The mission: Failed utterly

The format was 450 points, mixed Marvel, no more than 3 squads.

My troops - Mimring, James Murphy, Phantom Knights x3, Isamu
My first draft for this event was Q10, Hydra x1, Raelin, Rats x2. Eerily similar to the @#$!ing GenCon winning army fielded by Dok on this very day, several states away. KidScaper crushed it when I misplayed Raelin early and I began to think it just didn't have enough punch with so many support units. So I scrapped it, and last night stumbled into this Phantom Knight build.

I played a few games with it and began to think it had a *lot* of flexibility, a tool for every job, really, and not much fat. I was feeling pretty good about it, it play tested very well.

Round 1:
Nightswipe - Captain America, Airborne Elite, Stingers x2
Daddyscaper - Mimring, James Murphy, Phantom Knights x3, Isamu
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//spring%20thaw%20pic_4r2.jpg

Nightswipe took excellent notes and he *promised* me he would put up a battle report, so hopefully sooner or later he will have a much better battle report than I can scratch together from memory.

I sent Mimring out to snipe at Stingers from a safe distance for awhile, and he did some damage to them but not much. The Stingers overwhelmed his 3 defense and he went down.

The Airborne Elite dropped on round 3, I believe, and when Nightswipe won initiative they came running in to throw grenades in my start zone. The grenades, combined, took out one PK. Unfortunately the PKs were able to overwhelm two of the four AE but not the third or fourth until *much* later, one may even have survived until the end of the game, because my dice were just atrocious.

Meanwhile Captain America pounded them with his shield throw special attack. Once my dice started failing me against the AE, I had no momentum in this matchup and Nightswipe played out the string flawlessly.

Round 2
Phil the Thrill - Captain America, Guilty, Marcus DG, 10th Foot, Chain Fighter
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//high%20point%202_8aw.jpg
Mimring went out first, again. He managed to circle around Cap and do some damage in the start zone. After Captain America caught him, he was finished. James Murphy and the Phantom Knights then dueled with Captain America on my side of the hill for awhile, as other Phantom Knights circled the hill and tried to assassinate MDG. It was a good battle, but I could never really get to Captain America with his evil counterstrike, and I lost.

Round 3
Bill - Hive, Stingers x2, Otonashi, Venom
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//high%20point%202_8aw.jpg
This was Bill's first tournament. Until today he'd only played with KidScaper & me at our house, but he's been a game player for many years and he's picked it up quickly. In playtesting I'd come to appreciate just how annoying Venom is against melee troops: move up to him, attack him; if he hits his d20 then he swings away and you have no more attacks.

Well, Mimring went out and did his thing, mowing down a bunch of Stingers, and Venom was not quick enough to stop the Phantom Knights from slipping past him to destroy the Hive. I had an absolute *bear* of a time bringing down Venom, though. I think I spent over 2 squads of PK's *just* trying to bring down Venom near the end of the game.

Round 4 - bye
Yeah! Chalk it up as a win for me!

Round 5
Nyra90 Grimnak, Raelin V.1, Syvarris, Krav, Marro Warriors
The map was a weird tree/snow thing, wide open with a road running right from start zone A to start zone B. It was a last second thing thrown together by Clan & I'm not sure anyone would want to remember how it was done, no offense Clan. ;)

I looked across the table at a guy who had never been to event before & fielding a bunch of normal attacking heroes, and I thought, this one is mine. But the dice were not kind to me for the Phantom Knights, failing to kill Syvarris countless times even though he was out of Raelin's aura, and failing to kill Raelin herself countless times when I managed to slip past Grimnak to get to her. A few chomps here, a few lucky shots by Marro Warriors, and down go the Phantom Knights. Very frustrating game for me, and very well played by Nyra90. Isamu, at the end of the game, ran right through the heart of Nyra90's army, killed Raelin, then came out again to put a bunch of wounds on Grimnak before the mighty ninja was finally dispatched.

Final result: 2-3. And that's counting the bye as a win. Bad day for me, great day for KidScaper, so I can't complain. I just sprained my pride, that's all.

Many thanks to all for coming out and to Clan once again for running the show. Also thanks to the Charm City Roller Girls, who were very different from the Heroclix tournament attendees we shared the shop with last time.

[Dad_Scaper]

My tourney report from Heroes' Gauntlet Run, 11/7/10:

I do hope to read some others. Mine is long winded, but we played 8 games in one tournament, so that's just how it is.

By the time this event rolled around, the streak of TDs winning their own events in our region had ended in Pennsylvania. So the pressure was off.

The official tournament thread is here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=32035).

Each map is small and features one type or theme of terrain. The snow map is virtually all snow with icebergs & a little ice. The swamp map is swamp terrain, swamp water and jungle trees. There were 4 such maps, each set up in 2 places, to accommodate 16 players who would each get to play once on each type of terrain. Each map also had its own “house” army.

In each round of the tournament the players would alternate playing their own band of heroes against the house army, and playing the house army against their opponent’s band of heroes. So the army I bring from home *never goes head to head* with an army someone else brings from home, and the house armies are known in advance.

So preparing for this tournament was different from comparing for others: I know what 4 maps I’ll be on and I know what the opponent will have on each.

At first I wanted to build around Sonlen for my 380 points. I considered Sonlen + Shurrak, but I didn’t know what to do with the remaining 60 points. I wonder, if I owned a Zetacron, if I would have just brought Sonlen + Shurrak + Zetacron. Probably not; I always tinker and that was too early in the process. Anyway I didn’t think I could make Sonlen work with the limited value of healing in battles that were likely to be over quickly.

From there I went to Jotun. I know Jotun has had success in Heroes-only formats and I *love* using him, so for the longest time I had Jotun + some other odds and ends. I had Jotun + Q10 for a long time, but the night before the event during playtesting I realized that I was powerless on Snowpocalypse, the ice map, because Nilfheim – part of the ice army, naturally – had a perch in the middle of the map and Q10 could not knock him off without getting in range of the ice shards, and the heavy snow and a nasty single hex of normal ice at the base of the perch made it impossible for Jotun to get there.

So I gave up my precious Jotun, keeping Q10 as my ranged unit. I went through a few Q10-based armies, one of which included Dund, though that one never actually made it to playtesting. I *did* playtest with Laglor, thinking that a Laglor-boosted Q10 could drop 4-5 dice attacks on the opposing start zone on OM1, though in the end that boost, as miserable as it made my opponent, was not worth 110 points.

Then I realized a real one-hex beatstick of a guy, someone who could take a pounding, could trudge through the snow and get to the critical ice hex at the base of the perch on OM1. I went with Crixus and his one shield defense. Combined with Q10 that’s 240 points. KidScaper had been planning on using Krug and then swapped him out, meaning I could add the ultimate hero killer in for 360, and Marcu would give me mobility on a couple of the maps where I might need it, making a perfect 380. In the end they all served their roles even Marcu, who only did a little bit besides getting himself thrown into lava in round 4. I see I’m getting ahead of myself…

Round 1:
DS: Q10, Crixus, Krug, Marcu
Follower of Vydar: Q9, Brandis Skyhunter, Mika Connour
The Map Army: Mika Connour, Black Wyrmlings x2, Isamu, Darrak Ambershard
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/vs%20pics/doctordanksdarkdungeon.jpg
Dr. Dank’s Dark Dungeon

My heroes vs. the map army –
I led out with Q10 to drop as many of the low-life heroes as I could with special attacks. As I recall Q10 neatly disposed of Mika Connour and Darrak Ambershard. I watched Follower’s unrevealed OM’s carefully and made a few good guesses to get a few extra rounds of wrist rocket special attacks. I believe Q10 put a few wounds on Othkurik, too, but eventually gave way to bonding wyrmlings. Krug and Crixus finished off the young black dragon and the wyrmlings with 170 points worth of my various heroes surviving.

1 – 0

My map army vs. the heroes –
My plan here was to lead with Mika Connour to drop a few shadow tiles, and then take advantage of the shadow tiles to bring up Othkurik and Darrak. No plan survives contact with the enemy, as the expression goes. Mika got down one shadow counter and then had an opportunity to shadow step and try to put a couple wounds on Q9, so I did that with little success. Mika may have put a wound on Q9 and I know she put a few on Follower’s Mika, but mostly she just got killed. Brandis Skyhunter also put in an appearance, putting wounds on my wyrmlings and on Othkurik, but mostly it was the Q9 show. Big lumbering robot Queglixing everything around it; I lost an OM on Darrak, who never even got to move, and so on. I did have some fun with Isamu, who was trying to put some wounds on the big robot, and then when hit right in the face he’d vanish and reappear on the hex *behind* Q9, outside of the line of sight. My notes tell me I did 156 points of damage overall, which is basically Mika Connour and a couple stray wounds elsewhere.

Round 2:

DS: Q10, Crixus, Krug, Marcu
Xanth: Cyprien, Wo Sa Ga, Ne Gok Sa
The Map Army: Krug, Fen Hydra, Ne Gok Sa, Me Burq Sa
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/vs%20pics/bludgeonbog-1.jpg
Bludgeon Bog

My heroes vs. the map army –
I led out with Q10 racing up the hillside, fearing a hydra rush. Like Crixus rushing the center on Snowpocalypse, I knew my success on this map would depend completely on this one tactic succeeding. Xanth sent out Me Burq Sa instead. Regardless, I used Q10’s long range and height to take shots at the hydra, dormant in Xanth’s start zone. As Me Burq Sa executed a paralyzing stare attack on Crixus I hit the hydra once, then Xanth sent Me Burq Sa up the hill to engage Q10. Q10 killed Me Burq Sa and then hit the rushing hydra again; by the time the hydra got to my start zone it had one remaining head. The rest was clean up and avoiding Mind Shackles, which I managed to do.

2 – 0

My map army vs. the heroes –
I sent out the hydra. Cyprien came out to attack it, whiffed on Chill Touch and couldn’t overcome the beast’s 6 defense in the one attack he managed to squeeze out. On my OM 2 the hydra, needing all 4 of its attacks, wiped out Cyprien. By, I think, OM 1 of round 2, the hydra had height on both of Xanth’s remaining heroes, which never moved, from two hexes away. Two attacks later, Wo Saga was gone, two more, Ne Gok Sa with him. Perfect score with the map army, qualifying me for a prize (Best single score with the map army on each map got a prize. There was also a trophy for the player who threw the most heroes into Hot Lava Death, which wound up going to Clancampbell, with 4 (!!!)).

Round 3:

DS: Q10, Crixus, Krug, Marcu
Bill: Nilfheim, Cyprien, Sonya
The Map Army: Nilfheim, GIE, White Wyrmling x2
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/vs%20pics/snowpocalypse-1.jpg
Snowpocalypse

My heroes vs. the map army –
If you look very closely at the map you will see a single hex of ice almost right between the two icebergs in the middle of the map. Just beyond that single hex is a two hex ledge on which Nilfheim just barely fits, and from which he can blow ice shards to all but the back-most row of hexes. My strategy was to use Crixus on OM 1 to go stand on that ice hex and battle with Nilfheim, or at least to stand there and single – hex defense Nilfheim while Q10 wrist-rocketed the dragon to death. And between Crixus and Q10 that strategy worked pretty well. The map’s white wyrmlings did some damage and as I recall I ended up with Marcu + Krug against the GIE on a snow map. I sent out Marcu, figuring he couldn’t really hurt me that much, and in the end the GIE just stomped him into paste. So then it was a game of two huge melee figures chasing each other through massive snow drifts. Took forever, but the GIE, even on snow, was no match for Krug.

3 – 0

My map army vs. the heroes –
My Nilfheim scattered a few wounds through his start zone with Ice Shards and ultimately destroyed Cyprien with a normal attack, finishing off a sad Sonya with a broken heart. Bill then finished off my Nilfheim with his and took the central perch, from which he Ice Sharded a few times. I tied him up with the White Wyrmlings, who inflicted a few wounds with adjacent attacks, and then sneaked a pair of OMs onto the GIE. The GIE came up and finished off Nilfheim with one massive, icy fist.

Round 4:
DS: Q10, Crixus, Krug, Marcu
Phil the Thrill: Sonlen, Zetacron, Estivara, Raelin
The Map Army: Shurrak, Brunak, Fire Elementals x3
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p176/daddyscaper/vs%20pics/moltenmayhem-1.jpg
Molten Mayhem

My heroes vs. the map army –
I played this one horribly. There is *no reason* it should have been close. But I clumsily left Krug, Crixus and Marcu where they could be sword swept by Shurrak while my OMs were on Q10, and I ended up losing Crixus and Marcu both to hot lava death *and* getting a bunch of unnecessary wounds thrown on Krug. Eventually Shurrak went down, but the FE’s managed to wear down Q10 with their searing intensity and I only finished off the last FE with a seven wound Krug. If I had played with any brains in my head, from setup to OM management, I should have had a strong finish. As it is, I’m lucky I pulled it out; if I’d lost I would have ended up somewhere around 5th place instead of 2d.

4 – 0

My map army vs. the heroes –
Neither Phil the Thrill nor I knew it at the time, but this was the title bout. If he won, we would both be 4 – 0 and he would win with a much higher total score; if I won, I would win with a low total score but the only 4 – 0 record. The only way to play this map is to rush Shurrak, I believe, and that’s what I did. Zetacron shot at him a couple times and may have put a wound or two on him, but he slipped around Zetacron and went directly to work on Raelin. Unfortunately, the dice were *not* kind to Shurrak’s attack, either with the sword or with the throw for HLD. I wonder, had I thrown Raelin into lava early, if I would have won the game. Probably not. I’m a big fan of Sonlen and Phil played him expertly, occasionally healing, keeping him on height & at range, and eventually the big giant went down. Brunak is a paper tiger and, except when they’re used against me, the Fire Elementals are harmless, so the rest was cleanup for him.

I do really enjoy these events and I’m looking forward to the next one.

I seem to play Phil the Thrill at every tournament and he is a great guy to play with, as is Follower of Vydar and, of course, Bill, with whom I’ve been playing various games for ~20 years. We almost came to blows over a d20 laying on an angle, but that’s what happens when you’re old friends I guess. I really would have let him have the 18 if that was on top, but it was laying on an angle in the dish and the argument was over when the dish was nudged ever so slightly and the die flopped off its edge, showing a 5 on top. It was for a chill touch, I believe, making a huge difference. So it goes.

Many, many thanks to Drewcula for building the theme & the maps and for being my co – TD, I think we complement each other very well and I’m looking forward to the next one.

[Dad_Scaper]

Christmas Chaos II (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=33126) Battle Report.
12/11/10 Collector's Corner, Baltimore, Maryland

The format in a nutshell: 435 points, Marvel allowed, each army must have 3 generals with at least 100 in each.

My observations about the format:

This is a typical Clancampbell format. Basically his tournaments are always different and there is never a way to bring Stingers x4, which I think is the point.

The 435 is a devilish point total to work with. Squads costing 60-70 are limited to 3/army, and squads costing 80 or more are only 2/army. Plus bonding is only practical with inter-general bonding, which explains why so few bonding armies were at the event. It is worth noting that each of the 3 bonding armies placed in the top 4 of the event, at positions 1, 3, and 4.

I knew from the beginning I would want to build a bonding army despite (because of) the format challenge. I considered wyrmlings but in the end abandoned them because I was worried I couldn't construct a wyrmling army with enough punch to take down a heavily armored hero.

After conferring with a few of my fellow HeroScapers among you, you know who you are and thank you, I settled on this build. Death Chasers x4 allows an absolutely ridiculous Battle Rush ("Are you finished yet? What do you mean you get to move them all?"), and I needed Nerak to protect them, which left Me Burq Sa for some range. Leaving 115 points with the Airborne Elite filling that gap & giving me some serious ranged firepower to fill out the army.

My army:
Death Chasers of Thesk x4 (220/220)
Me Burq Sa (50/270)
Nerak (50/320)
Airborne Elite (110/430)

My attacks tended to be 4 or more; my defense tended to be 3 or less. It crushed in playtesting and I felt pretty good bringing it to the tournament.

Round 1:
kldonnelly Agent Carr, Hydra, Estivarra, Raelin V2
DS DCx4, MBS, Nerak, AE
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k485/corzan5/1.jpg
Fall Through by Corzan
This was a very funky map. Two hex walkers with fewer than 7 move could not get to the upper level, even on the road. The only other way to get from one end to the other is to follow the riverbed, which snakes from one end of the map, under the bridge, to the far corner. Bad news for the hydra, not so bad for my Nerak & MBS.

This was the only game in which I got a Round 1 drop for the AE. My dice were not particularly good most of the day, particularly for the drop. Anyway, the map was absurdly favorable to the Airborne Elite. kldonnelly wisely put her OM's on Agent Carr at the beginning, but the Airborne Elite killed Raelin, Carr, and the Hydra, which couldn't even get up to eat them. As I recall the orcs had to come in to finish off Estivara, but this matchup on this map was just going to go badly for the non-AE, slow 2 hex walker side.

1-0

Round 2:
Follower of Vydar Nakitas, Stingersx3, Tarn Vikes, RaelinV1
DS DCx4, MBS, Nerak, AE
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k485/corzan5/1.jpg
Map of Doom by Clancampbell

Hah hah, no, not really. The Map of Doom was something horrifying thrown together by Clan on the spot. Imagine this map, but with a gradual rise where the hills are, and a pool of lava where the water is. There is a ring of lava field around the pool of molten lava, with three hexes of non-lava field on both sides. The entire central area is inhospitable to two hexers, and also inhospitable to anything not lava-immune.

No walkers could rush through the central area with its narrow paths around the edges & changes in elevation and FoV was loaded with Stingers, so I thought I was doomed.

The AE did not drop in the first round, so I sent out a few Death Chasers with Me Burq Sa to try to snipe Raelin. I think I put a wound on her and maybe got a Stinger or two before I lost that expedition force. In Round 2 the AE dropped and the tide was completely turned. With their range of 8 they could take the highest points on the map and shoot at Stingers & the Stingers couldn't get close enough to match their height. The AE wiped out the Stingers and a Nakita or two before going down.

It took ages for the orcs & Nerak to finish off the vikings and Raelin; FoV was rolling very hot defense dice. But the outcome wasn't really in doubt.

2-0

Round 3:
Tom Mogrimm, Me-burq-sa, Marro Warriors, Romansx4, Isamu
DS DCx4, MBS, Nerak, AE
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//jotunsgap_WTe.jpg

This was probably the best map for my army. I think if I'd encountered Spidysox on this map, instead of Forest Brawl, I might have been the one losing to Arcus in the final instead of him in a Battle of Deathchasers.

Once again the Airborne Elite made me wait. In the meantime we set up in the center of the board, he slowly advancing Romans & me bringing orcs at him from all angles. I positioned Nerak on high ground adjacent to his Me Burq Sa. It was some nasty trench warfare until Round 2 (3? Might have been 3.) when the AE dropped.

Tom had no answer for them. I held them back, sniping at Mogrimm from extreme range and forcing him to come up to try to take them down. At which point I threw a bunch of grenades at him, almost finishing him off & taking some Romans out, too.

We had a few tense moments after the grenades; Mogrimm did finally catch up to one or two AE, but mostly it was my speed & hard hitting vs. his guys trying to stand on shadow hexes and not get killed.

Round 4:
Spidysox Nilheim, Keamon, Ratsx3, Isamu
DS DCx4, MBS, Nerak, AE
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//forestbrawltitle_1k3.jpg
In tourney prep this was one of the maps I identified as a good one for my army. I could use the central starting position for my orcs & battle rush onto the road and race around killing *everything*.

It turned out to be an abbatoir, and not the good kind, which is the kind where I win (see Round 1 for an example of a favorable abbatoir.).

I knew a rat podge would be the toughest type of army I was likely to face, considering I didn't really have a special attacker. Still, my army could storm a position on most maps just by rushing from all angles, and I knew with 4 attack I could chew through rats that got in my way anyway.

I set up with Nerak and Orcs in the middle with everybody else further back. I Battle Rushed onto road hexes everywhere but the AE, once again, failed to drop on OM 1. In retrospect I might have had a good chance of winning with an OM 1 drop and a chance to put some wounds on Nilfheim before he came out.

Anyway I did kill a few rats. Spidysox later observed that my dice were very cold this game, and they were, but I don't know that I ever really had a shot because of the map: Nilfheim camped on the hill on his side of the map and I could not get to him. There were a couple key hexes on which he camped rats and if I killed one another would scatter in to take its place. I managed only a couple attacks on Nilf and his defense always held.

Round 3 the AE dropped and I placed them in such a way that I thought Spidysox would bring Nilfheim out to kill them and I sneaked an OM onto the orcs so I could swarm the big dragon when he did.

But Spidysox really played an error-free game, not taking the bait until he could move Nilfheim safely, and I ended up throwing grenades onto rats adjacent to Nilfheim just to *try* to get some wounds on the big fella even though the rats were adjacent to the AE, too. One of the AE blew himself up with the grenade.

Anyway it was all very sad and I wept until I got to get my revenge on the guy I hold personally responsible.

3-1

Round 5:
Clancampbell Nakitas, Tagawa Samurai, Mohicansx2, Brave Arrow
DS DCx4, MBS, Nerak, AE
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//blackroot1_RLh.jpg
"Wait, you get to move all of them?"
"They *bond* with Me Burq Sa?"
"OMG They are broken!"
Oh, the tears of a tournament director.
etc.

No, seriously, I love playing against Clan. Everyone I played with was a great sport and as usual I had a ton of fun.

In the final round the AE once again hid in the plane for awhile, but I don't think the result would have been different if they had never emerged. By the time an orc fell to Tagawa counterstrike it was the only Tagawa left, and it went down almost immediately after. I don't think anything was killed by Engagement Strike.

The worst thing I did in this game was put any OMs on the AE. I should have just let the orcs overrun Clan's army; Hide in the Bushes (or whatever it's called) protected them from grenades, which I'd overlooked, and most of the AE ended up getting killed before the orcs finally finished off Brave Arrow.

4-1
Third Place

[Tripedge]

I love these family battle reports Dadscaper and Kidscaper .. you guys are amazing

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks for the kind words, Tripedge, sorry I didn't see your post until just this moment. I hope you get out to play sometimes; I think there are other Ontario 'Scapers around here somewhere.

[Dad_Scaper]

My Battle Report:

I knew I wanted to take Eltahale for a spin at this event. I went through a few iterations of Eltahale-based armies. First was Goblins, then a few other things, then I settled on the Knights. I felt pretty good about bringing melee to this event because most - not all, but most - of these unorthodox maps allow melee to get into the opponent's face early.

Eltahale 140/140 1
Gilbert 105/245 2
Knights x3/255 14
455/14

Round 1:
AliasQTip: Marcus, Romans x2, 10th Regiment, Krav Maga, Raelin
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//cantseejungle_EZB.jpg

This was one of the maps I particularly wanted to play on, and AQT was one of the guys I particularly wanted to play against, so this was a good beginning.

The split start zones favored me with my swarming and bonding knights. Poor AQT ended up defending everywhere at once. The Krav went down first, Raelin not long after. Marcus was eventually worn down elsewhere and, like most of my games at this event, it was eventually called on time.

I had a comfortable lead on points & got the win. For a guy in his first tournament game, though, AQT played very well I look forward to next time he & the Mrs. can join us at an event.

1-0

Round 2:
Tom: Zelrig, Greenscales x4, Isamu, Marcu
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk47/LongHeroscaper/My%20Maps/HotBorder2.jpg
Hot Border, by Longheroscaper
I had playtested a fair amount against KidScaper's Zamboni (Nilfheim + Greenscales), though never with the knights. This was the reason I'd brought Eltahale, though. She is a mobile beatstick with a special attack.

I loaded her up with Order Markers and, for all his dancing and throwing around Majestic Fires and hiding behind Greenscales, Eltahale caught up to the Emperor and beat him to death with her massive sword.

She went down immediately after, but at that point it was really just clean up for the remaining (fireproof) knights and Gilbert, who was still full health. Isamu put a few wounds on Gilbert and kept vanishing, but the game ended on time and that was that.

2-0

Round 3:
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk47/LongHeroscaper/My%20Maps/HotMeal.jpg
Hot Meal, by Longheroscaper
Sedric: Zelrig, Charos, Zetacron
I've played with Sedric roughly 1,000,000 times. He's gotten much better and is taking his Scape very seriously.

I led with Gilbert and the Knights; he led with Zelrig and Zetacron. I managed to hunt them both simultaneously, catching Zetacron with a couple of knights and catching Zelrig with Gilbert and a couple more knights, Dispatching the reserves forward as I went to work on his heroes, who both eventually went down.

Charos is a real pain with the Knights, because of course they die to counterstrike easily. Charos eventually went down to a full strength Eltahale, as a couple surviving Knights watched from a safe distance.

3-0

Round 4:
Spidysox: Marcus, Romans x4, 10th Foot x2
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//arena1_4fv.jpg
Capuan Arena, by mad_wookiee

This was one of the maps I'd identified as a particularly good one for my army. My knights wouldn't have to go far to start the killin' and my opponent's army would be spread out. Spidysox' army was similarly built, though; it had swarms and slowish melee who could jog to the nearest enemy and start killin' at leisure. Plus the WTF wouldn't even have to move to get into the action.

I led with Eltahale again so I could Thunder Ram Special Attack the nearest pod to her.

It worked smoothly; I looked at Spidysox' OMs and saw he'd be emphasizing the 10th and I managed to take out 2 on OM 1 and 2 more on OM 2, plus a wound or two on Marcus.

Spidysox wrote very kindly about our meeting in December that my dice were cold. That may be true, I don't know. I *do* know his dice were historically awful in this round.

Would the final result have been different if he'd been able to roll defense dice when I attacked, or if he'd been able to roll skulls when he was the attacker? I don't know. But the dice will do what they'll do and this one fell in the win column for me.

4-0

Round 5:
Zak: Finn, 4th Mass. x4, Raelin
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/HSKillometer/RisingPressure4-1.jpg?t=1270264238
Rising Pressure v4.0

First, a word about our tiebreak system, for those who did not see it or understand it in the tournament thread.

As everyone knows the Swiss System means the 1-0 players match up against each other, the 2-0 players match up, and so on. In competitive chess, the players who stay in that upper bracket longer, fighting to stay alive with a perfect record, are rewarded as follows: early wins count more. So if two players finish 4-1, and one of them didn't lost until the championship game in Round 5, that one is going to be rewarded with the 2d place prize because he has beaten all comers until losing in the championship round.

It's a good system, I like it, it was described in some detail in advance, and it meant when I sat down across from Zak one of us would win and the other would be in 2d place.

Now a word about where I was as this round was setting up: in the game shop, collecting the store credit slips we'd need after the event was over. When I returned to the tournament room I saw we were set up on a map I'd already played on.

So we went to Rising Pressure. Really the opposite of Capuan Arena: a horror show for slow moving melee. Not good for me, regardless of whether I get the high ground or low. Either way I have to come to him. Then we rolled for who gets to pick the start zones. Zak won, which meant I'd be starting on the bottom. More bad news for me.

I sent Eltahale up to do her magic and try to put some wounds on Raelin. I got two attacks on height with Eltahale - two attacks of 6 - and put one wound on the old girl. Raelin had one OM and put a wound right back on Eltahale. Then the 4th went to work on Eltahale and she went down pretty quickly. I think she may have attacked Raelin three times with 6 dice each time and done a total of one wound.

Zak played a strong game. I did the level best I could to get up that hill and I *did* a few times, Gilbert and the Knights eventually managed to dispose of Raelin. Zak was rolling insane defense dice, though, and he played well and won.

It is difficult to write about this game without talking about the dice, but they are part of the game, so I suppose it wouldn't be right to try.

4-1, Second Place

Congratulations to Zak and Robber.

I could not be happier, personally, with the huge turnout. One bonus was I had the opportunity to give five prizes, one for each of the top four finishers and another for the Junior Champion. And the top prize was $45 in store credit at a great game shop! Others were for lesser amounts, and Drewcula of course had produced awesome trophies for First Place and the Junior Champ.

It was a great, great, day. And with my winnings (and a little loose change) I grabbed Dominion: Intrigue from the store shelf, a game we'd really been wanting.

So thanks again to all for coming and I look forward to next time. You can forget about cheese next time, though, it'll be different. Waaay different. :twisted:

[Dad_Scaper]

My Post-Tournament Report:

Thanks, Clan, for running another awesome event.

Thanks to all the attendees who braved the elements, some of you coming far and some coming from further. I hope all your basements were dry when you got home.

Without further ado, here is another ridiculously long Dad_Scaper tournament report.

Tournament thread here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=34728); post tournament thread (from which I copied this report verbatim) here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1387140#post1387140).

This was my second trip to a Clancampbell multiplayer free for all and I encourage those interested in my thoughts, for what they're worth, on this particular brand of multiplayer (in a nutshell, I think it's awesome) to dig out my previous post tournament report, upthread somewhere in my Battle Reports thread.

The limit was 360 points, twelve hexes, Marvel allowed. Points are awarded for partial card damage done, not for surviving, so your goal as a player is to shred as much as you can without much care for survival.

Units that heal - Cyprien - can be disadvantageous, because others keep taking slices off them for more points, and units that self destruct - Wolves of Badru - can have a certain advantage they might otherwise not enjoy. It's a fun format and putting together a build is a real brain burner.

This time around I went with Syvarris, Axegrinders x2, Migol Ironwill, and Isamu. My sense was that several of the maps would allow me to get height on opposing start zones with Syvarris with OM1, so ideally I would use him up on long range bombing missions and then use the dwaves to go hunt large and huge opposing units, or swarm melee if Q9 wasn't available. I had playtested with Mogrimm instead but my calculation was that Tough would be advantageous and, with several players rolling initiative, Mogrimm's boost would be even more useless than ever. Plus, I figured, Isamu *always* gets his points, right?

The format rewards players for killin' and nothing else. This year and last there were players who won their boards having been the first eliminated.

Ok, bearing that in mind, here we go:

Round 1:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//junglerot_I57.jpg
Jungle Rot (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3084), by dignan

Because of the assembled maps and number of attendees, each round one of the four player maps had three players on it instead of four. This was my turn in that particular barrel, the three of us on this map, clockwise from the 7:00 position:

D_S Syvarris, Migol, Axegrindersx2, Isamu
Bill Captain America, 4th Massx2
Legos of Bleakwood Moltenclaw, Greenscalesx2, Johnny Shotgun

Those of you who have read these reports before may recall that I've been playing games with Bill for over 20 years. I was impressed with this little build he put together for himself and he ended the tournament at 15 but in Round 3 he missed taking first place in his game by just a hair, and his results are getting better and better. Also he normally beats me at Agricola.

Anyway. I opened with Syvarris to the center-ish, taking high ground and trying to put a few wounds on the Captain. According to my notes I did get a few wounds on him as he brought up a pod of Cap & 4th, putting a couple wounds back on Syvarris.

Legos of Bleakwoode opened to the center with Moltenclaw and then stunned me by attacking Syvarris instead of Cap and the huddled 4th. What are you going to do. The second time he hit Syvarris with his special he did get Captain America at the far end of the line of fire, killing them both, but I'd gotten most of the wounds on Cap and I was ready to say goodbye to the elf archer.

Legos of Bleakwoode then continued after the dwarves with Moltenclaw and the Lizards, which was of course fine with me. Mixing up bonding/four move turns with non-bonding six move turns, the dwarves crushed the dragon and ran around doing a little bit of damage here and there until the game was called on time.

Big tip of the hat to Legos of Bleakwoode, I'm pleased to have played against him in his first Heroscape tournament game, and I look forward to seeing him again in May. He told me he had fun, and what more can you ask.

355 points
1/3
7 Victory points

Round 2:

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//fightintheshade_bFV.jpg
Fight in the Shade (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=2895) by Dignan

Fight in the Shade by Dignan

D_S Syvarris, Migol, Axegrindersx2, Isamu
Clancampbell Spiderman, Heirloom, Northwind Ninjas
Shaugville Q9, Raelin V1, Marro Warriors, Rats, Isamu

These were both the types of armies I'd come prepared to play against and the setup was fantastic. Clan was thinking (hoping?) I'd go after Q9, but I don't think so, that's not why I brought Syvarris...

On OM1 Syvarris climbed to high ground and put a pair of wounds on Spidy. Clan, who'd loaded his OMs onto Heirloom to go Start Zone bombing himself, sent Heirloom after Syvarris instead. Double attacks of 4 proved too much for Heirloom and, soon after, for Spider Man himself; even when he hit his Swing Line he could not get far enough to prevent the second attack.

Shaugville maneuvered Q9 to high ground himself, in Raelin's aura, with just a sliver of my Start Zone in his range as he picked at a dwarf or two.

In Round 2 the ninjas came out and slaughtered Syvarris, who *really* had it coming, as I sent the dwarves out to put a few wounds on things. Between ninjas and dwarves, the rats weren't enough to protect the big robot and Q9 went down. After that it was clean up until time was called.

Was this the first time I'd played against Shaugville? Maybe. Anyway he and Clan are the best and big, big congratulations to those guys for their fine results yesterday.

460 points
1/3
7 Victory points

Round 3:

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//basaltcathedral_EE5.jpg
Basalt Cathedral (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3085) by Dignan

Basalt Cathedral by Dignan

From the 12:00 position:

Kid Scaper Stingersx3, Hydra, Shiori
Mason Sir Hawthorne, Mezzodemonsx4
Justine Heirloom, Zetacron, Microcorp, Warriors of Ashra
Dad Scaper Syvarris, Migol, Axegrindersx2, Isamu

A word about KidScaper's army, which he, as usual, molded over time with no input from me. As much as we scoff, institutionally, at Shiori, in this format she made sense when he had 60 points and one hex. I didn't see it, but he tells me she did run around and do some damage in rounds 1 and 2, when I wasn't playing with him.

I was expecting the exoskeleton markers to scare KidScaper away from Mason's army, but KidScaper won initiative and sent the hydra right after them. Perhaps the dwarves scared him more.

Anyway, I had in my head that Justine would rush Heirloom at Mason's clusterd Mezzodemons, worth 30 points (32?) each, and if she had then it would have been a very different game, but she came after my clumped dwarves instead. Perhaps she was (justifiably, now that I think of it) worried that the hydra would come over to Heirloom and eat the heck out of him instead of struggling against the beetles.

Anyway by the time Syvarris had dispatched Heirloom, he'd orbed my start zone twice and my dwarves were a mess. I think I'd lost six of them. For most of this game it felt like I had OMs on Syvarris when I wanted them on the dwarves, and on the dwarves when I wanted them on Syvarris. Migol with his one shield defense whiffed and ate 4 skulls from a draining Stinger. Isamu died pathetically.

The dice *loved* KidScaper in this game, as his hydra destroyed the Mezzodemons, not taking his second wound until there were only a couple left. Mason may have done one or two things differently from the way I would have done, but mostly his dice were just not kind to him.

The Stingers disposed of Mason's Hawthorn and what was left of Justine's army, I'm thinking she still had an elf or two and a couple Microcorp Agents running around near the end. But KidScaper had plenty of Stingers and Shiori was untouched in the back.

221 points
3/4
1 Victory point

Round 4:

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//mergainesredoubt_3Yv.jpg
Mergaine's Redoubt (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1030) by Dignan

Clockwise from the 11:00 position:
Dad Scaper Syvarris, Migol, Axegrindersx2, Isamu
Kid Scaper Stingersx3, Hydra, Shiori
Orcs Blade Grimnak, Tornak, Heavy Grutsx2
kldonnelly Krug, Frost Giant, Wolves of Badru, Isamu

This was the championship match; we were the 4 with the highest scores at this point.

Orc's Blade's build was very similar to an army I'd considered, and Kolakoski had threatened to bring, but Kolakoski and I would both have put in Syvarris instead of Tornak. Other armies I had considered included, but were not limited to, Laglor + Krav, Charos + Greenscales x2, Microcorp x2, Tor Kul Na + Nagrubs x3 + Arkmer, and others. For whatever reason I was losing sleep over the build for this event, and if I hadn't finished so well I'd be second-guessing myself forever.

Anyway. KidScaper (winning initiative, again), Orc's Blade, and kldonnelly all opened cautiously to the middle, putting various units on the road. I, on the other hand, put Syvarris on high ground and started bombing kldonnelly's start zone. All three of my opponents had armies I thought I matched up well against, with the possible exception of Orc's Blade, but he was opposite from me and I thought I'd be ok.

KidScaper steered his hydra toward the orcs and they went at each other for awhile as I picked at kldonnelly's units from a distance. She scared me with the wolves but, luckily, Syvarris on height escaped a pair of pounces with only two wounds taken. He survived to bomb the snot out of, variously, the Frost Giant, Tornak, Grimnak, the hydra, and various other units. When he finished the Frost Giant, one of Orc's Blade's Heavies got killed by the dying swipe.

By the time Syvarris went down to Stinger fire he'd already earned plenty of points for me. Krug began approaching from around the edge, but a well placed dwarf forced him to stay on the low ground and he went down without much fuss.

The final round was a terrible matchup for Orcs Blade, with the hydra forcing him to stay in his corner and Syvarris sniping away at Grimnak and Tornak occasionally - I did say his was the army that scared me the most, after all, and they were juicy targets in the format - so I felt bad for him, but he was a good sport about it.

Kldonnelly's army fascinated me as, perhaps, the most intriguing abuse of the metagame. The Wolves of Badru could pounce and, if destroyed, give no points to the opposing player, and Krug with his high life and relatively low cost was not an appealing target. The Frost Giant with its considerable threat range (7 move!!) also fit in well.

Anyway, the last round went down in the books with a commanding victory for me. All the while, though, even as Migol crushed Shiori's skull with his little hammer, I knew this was a hollow victory, because KidScaper had done enough to come in second, which is what he needed to take the trophy for first place.

The little brat. I still haven't let him out of his room.

640 points
1/4
7 Victory points

22 total Victory points; 2d place overall.

KidScaper and I used a portion of our winnings to purchase Thunderstone, which we love.

[Filthy the Clown]

Great report, and congrats to you and the Kid. With 2 - 3 times the number of available targets, long ranged attackers seem to shine in this format, so nice use of Mr. Long Range himself. And, what a great format for the Badru. Kaemon/Badru x3 would be a blast to play.

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks, Filthy.

The problem with the Wolves of Badru is you have a lot of eggs in one basket. I'm not saying that means they won't work, but you would want to pair them with something that would be able to defend them from a large multi attacker - Q9, Nilfheim, Moltenclaw - and the dwarves as a squad of 4 which means start zone problems right away... Hmmm. Krug, perhaps? Plus if you fail a few Pounces you haven't exactly given away points, but you've surely cut down on your ability to do damage...

As I wrote in the report, this is a brain burner of a format. Threat range is important, keeping the relative value of your units down is important, disengage is important, multi-attacking is important, plus you want to have some protection for your start zone if you're going to wander off on OM 1.

Northgate brought Eltahale + Phantom Knights x3, which was a *very* strong build for this format. I know he ended up opposing Bill in one of his games, who had Captain America (multi special attacker) and 4th x2, which was perhaps not idea for the format but *was* ideal for countering Northgate's, and perhaps his dice and other matchups didn't help him other rounds.

Time to start thinking about next year's. I think I'll go with the Greenroller. :twisted:

[Filthy the Clown]

Thanks, Filthy.

The problem with the Wolves of Badru is you have a lot of eggs in one basket. I'm not saying that means they won't work, but you would want to pair them with something that would be able to defend them from a large multi attacker - Q9, Nilfheim, Moltenclaw - and the dwarves as a squad of 4 which means start zone problems right away... Hmmm. Krug, perhaps? Plus if you fail a few Pounces you haven't exactly given away points, but you've surely cut down on your ability to do damage...



Yeah, I would be wary of that turn right after Pounce, where your wolves are essentially easy targets. Of course, defense-based glyphs would help out (appears that some of these were available?), as well as height (so important with post-Pounce wolves). As far as supporting heroes in the 120 range, the Hydra is also an option, as you have the multi-attack, anti-hero capability, although perhaps without adequate support. I still like Kaemon's versatility in this situation, though, especially if your pounce dice are not kind.

Not sure if the Werewolf Lord/Badru (x2) combo would work in this format. The WL seems like a good choice to tackle heroes and bonding in general, and is more of an off-the-wall build (which is cool), but only 60 points of support (Zeta, I suppose) could make for a quick game. :(

Anyways, I hope that don't mind the speculation in your reports thread. :)

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Now I'm even sorrier, if that's possible, that we weren't there. Congrats to both "Scapers!

Hey Dad, how did Isamu really work out in this format? Also, I'm surprised at your assessment of Mogrimm. I'd figure it that his +3 Initiative would be more valuable in multiplayer, and Commander's Strike would be especially useful for those high defense figures (like the Kid's Hydra ;)). If I owned any Dwarves (boy, did I mess up by not getting them when I had the chance :oops:), I would have been tempted to field Syvarris/Mogrimm/Dwarves x 2, as opposed to the Syvarris/Grimnak/HG x 2 army in my bag, just to get Mogrimm into my army.

[Dad_Scaper]

Isamu did nothing for me. I won three games with Isamu + Dwarves to spare, and in the one I lost, where he should have been able to run around and kill stuff, he died before attacking anything.

It was humiliating.

Others said the same thing about the Mogrimm/Migol decision. Yes, the advantage of going first rose considerably in this format, but I *think* the likelihood that the +3 would help went down as the number of players went up. Which was my thinking; someone who knows about math is free to tell me how I'm wrong.

I also wanted Tough to deny opponents the opportunity to collect a bunch of points at once off him, though as I said he did whiff and take four wounds from a Stinger at one point. I wasn't crazy about Deadly Strike and I did prefer Commander's Strike to it, but on balance I'm pleased with the decision I made. In retrospect, the occasions when I could hit both skulls with an even ground Deadly Strike did come up a few times and I think Deadly Strike ended up serving me a little better than I thought it would.

Also the auto wound would have been very nice. But against the Hydra and many other units I had squads of 4/4 commons with 6 move, which was why I went dwarves instead of orcs. I think I made the right decision; I never felt like I needed disengage and I took *huge* advantage of Fearless in each of the three games I won.

The Orc build you and I were thinking of would have been good, too, without a doubt.

[Serenity]

I think you were right not to go with Mogrimm. My thinking is that if you roll 1-10 that still ends up at 13 or less and with 3 other people rolling the odds are good one of them will beat your number. Also, you aren't getting any benefits from the +3 unless you actually win initiative.

Migol provides the opportunity to both deny your opponent points (important) and by surviving an attack gives you a chance to use him to gain points on your next turn. (also very important)

I don't know the point standings going into the final matchup, but if you believed your son was likely to win, should you have tried to cut down his hydra and thus denied him points that gave him the lead?

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Serenity, since you would be rolling +3 versus each of them, the chances of going not only 1st over second, but second over third, and third over fourth, also increase, so your general initiative advantage is exponential, and far superior to the normal advantage versus only one player. You will not always happen to be battling the 1st place player in a four player game, or who you will be opposed to at any given moment. But your chances of moving up at least one place in initiative are excellent. And the chances of that move being advantageous are also excellent. And Isamu is a waste of 10 points.

[dok]

Others said the same thing about the Mogrimm/Migol decision. Yes, the advantage of going first rose considerably in this format, but I *think* the likelihood that the +3 would help went down as the number of players went up. Which was my thinking; someone who knows about math is free to tell me how I'm wrong. I think you were right not to go with Mogrimm. My thinking is that if you roll 1-10 that still ends up at 13 or less and with 3 other people rolling the odds are good one of them will beat your number. Also, you aren't getting any benefits from the +3 unless you actually win initiative.

Serenity, since you would be rolling +3 versus each of them, the chances of going not only 1st over second, but second over third, and third over fourth, also increase, so your general initiative advantage is exponential, and far superior to the normal advantage versus only one player. You will not always happen to be battling the 1st place player in a four player game, or who you will be opposed to at any given moment. But your chances of moving up at least one place in initiative are excellent. And the chances of that move being advantageous are also excellent. And Isamu is a waste of 10 points.The math gets a bit tricky with four dice being tossed around, but the short answer is that Mogrimm still gives you about a 15% better chance of winning initiative... you're just stealing 5% from three different people in stead of 15% from one. And kolokaski's point about winning initiative against whoever happens to be your immediate opponent is also well taken.

I also wanted Tough to deny opponents the opportunity to collect a bunch of points at once off him, though as I said he did whiff and take four wounds from a Stinger at one point. I wasn't crazy about Deadly Strike and I did prefer Commander's Strike to it, but on balance I'm pleased with the decision I made. In retrospect, the occasions when I could hit both skulls with an even ground Deadly Strike did come up a few times and I think Deadly Strike ended up serving me a little better than I thought it would.

Also the auto wound would have been very nice. But against the Hydra and many other units I had squads of 4/4 commons with 6 move, which was why I went dwarves instead of orcs. I think I made the right decision; I never felt like I needed disengage and I took *huge* advantage of Fearless in each of the three games I won.Fearless advantage was obviously pretty huge in this format.

Personally, I would have taken Mogrimm over Migol, but I'm just a guy with a keyboard and an opinion, while you're the guy with the shiny prizes.

[kolakoski]

Personally, I would have taken Mogrimm over Migol, but I'm just a guy with a keyboard and an opinion, while you're the guy with the shiny prizes.

Well met!

:bowdown:

[Dad_Scaper]

I think you were right not to go with Mogrimm. My thinking is that if you roll 1-10 that still ends up at 13 or less and with 3 other people rolling the odds are good one of them will beat your number. Also, you aren't getting any benefits from the +3 unless you actually win initiative.

Migol provides the opportunity to both deny your opponent points (important) and by surviving an attack gives you a chance to use him to gain points on your next turn. (also very important)

I don't know the point standings going into the final matchup, but if you believed your son was likely to win, should you have tried to cut down his hydra and thus denied him points that gave him the lead?
Serenity, you guessed something I didn't say earlier: The move goes clockwise from the winner of initiative. That will change the math, for those who didn't understand already.

Concerning whether I should have attacked KidScaper's Hydra. I didn't realize until later in the game that it was a two horse race between him and me for the tourney prize. At the time I was using Syvarris to maintain the balance between Hydra and Orcs, keeping Syvarris far enough away that even if one or the other disengaged they couldn't reach him, so they stayed at each others' throats. At the time I thought I was very clever but you could be right, that if I'd focussed on the Hydra I might have had a better chance at 1st place. Of course, kldonnelly did a fair amount of damage herself and if she had hung on for 2d place on that map it would have come down to the next level of tiebreaks. It's hard to second guess my strategy, but you may be right that releasing the Orc hordes upon the map would have been the better 'metagame' maneuver.

Well met!

Serenity, since you would be rolling +3 versus each of them, the chances of going not only 1st over second, but second over third, and third over fourth, also increase, so your general initiative advantage is exponential, and far superior to the normal advantage versus only one player. You will not always happen to be battling the 1st place player in a four player game, or who you will be opposed to at any given moment. But your chances of moving up at least one place in initiative are excellent. And the chances of that move being advantageous are also excellent. And Isamu is a waste of 10 points.
Somebody else's Isamu at the same event did 100+ points in one game. It didn't happen to *me*, but it can happen, and it has happened to me at other times.

Others said the same thing about the Mogrimm/Migol decision. Yes, the advantage of going first rose considerably in this format, but I *think* the likelihood that the +3 would help went down as the number of players went up. Which was my thinking; someone who knows about math is free to tell me how I'm wrong. I think you were right not to go with Mogrimm. My thinking is that if you roll 1-10 that still ends up at 13 or less and with 3 other people rolling the odds are good one of them will beat your number. Also, you aren't getting any benefits from the +3 unless you actually win initiative.

Serenity, since you would be rolling +3 versus each of them, the chances of going not only 1st over second, but second over third, and third over fourth, also increase, so your general initiative advantage is exponential, and far superior to the normal advantage versus only one player. You will not always happen to be battling the 1st place player in a four player game, or who you will be opposed to at any given moment. But your chances of moving up at least one place in initiative are excellent. And the chances of that move being advantageous are also excellent. And Isamu is a waste of 10 points.The math gets a bit tricky with four dice being tossed around, but the short answer is that Mogrimm still gives you about a 15% better chance of winning initiative... you're just stealing 5% from three different people in stead of 15% from one. And kolokaski's point about winning initiative against whoever happens to be your immediate opponent is also well taken.

I also wanted Tough to deny opponents the opportunity to collect a bunch of points at once off him, though as I said he did whiff and take four wounds from a Stinger at one point. I wasn't crazy about Deadly Strike and I did prefer Commander's Strike to it, but on balance I'm pleased with the decision I made. In retrospect, the occasions when I could hit both skulls with an even ground Deadly Strike did come up a few times and I think Deadly Strike ended up serving me a little better than I thought it would.

Also the auto wound would have been very nice. But against the Hydra and many other units I had squads of 4/4 commons with 6 move, which was why I went dwarves instead of orcs. I think I made the right decision; I never felt like I needed disengage and I took *huge* advantage of Fearless in each of the three games I won.Fearless advantage was obviously pretty huge in this format.

Personally, I would have taken Mogrimm over Migol, but I'm just a guy with a keyboard and an opinion, while you're the guy with the shiny prizes.
My shiny prizes say 2d place, dok, not 1st. ;)

Serenity did tap into the reasons I took Migol, but you could be right that Mogrimm would have been better.

In the end what did me in was my decision, in the Round 3 game, made at the last second right before the initiative dice rolled in Round 1 to pick up my OMs from the dwarves and put them on Syvarris. That would have been a different game, if I'd gone with my Plan A.

[Serenity]

Yes, I had assumed that turn order would go clockwise from whichever player had the high roll. While going by descending order of initiative roll might be 'more fair', it could be unwieldy and might lead to possible problems of players going out of turn.

Dad_Scaper, I want to be sure that you understand that I wasn't criticizing your decision not to go after Kid_Scaper's hydra. I wasn't there and certainly don't have a clear enough idea of the flow of the battle. I was mostly just curious if there came a time if you realized or thought your son might be winning and if you had a chance to do something about it. That kind of game within a game can be very interesting, both when it works out right and when it doesn't.

[Dad_Scaper]

*chuckle*

It was a good, fair question and gave me food for thought. I'm just glad to have other people posting in this thread besides me, Serenity, and as another person who goes out & plays competitive Scape, your :2cents: are particularly welcome here.

[kolakoski]

Others said the same thing about the Mogrimm/Migol decision. Yes, the advantage of going first rose considerably in this format, but I *think* the likelihood that the +3 would help went down as the number of players went up. Which was my thinking; someone who knows about math is free to tell me how I'm wrong. I think you were right not to go with Mogrimm. My thinking is that if you roll 1-10 that still ends up at 13 or less and with 3 other people rolling the odds are good one of them will beat your number. Also, you aren't getting any benefits from the +3 unless you actually win initiative.

Serenity, since you would be rolling +3 versus each of them, the chances of going not only 1st over second, but second over third, and third over fourth, also increase, so your general initiative advantage is exponential, and far superior to the normal advantage versus only one player. You will not always happen to be battling the 1st place player in a four player game, or who you will be opposed to at any given moment. But your chances of moving up at least one place in initiative are excellent. And the chances of that move being advantageous are also excellent. And Isamu is a waste of 10 points.The math gets a bit tricky with four dice being tossed around, but the short answer is that Mogrimm still gives you about a 15% better chance of winning initiative... you're just stealing 5% from three different people in stead of 15% from one. And kolokaski's point about winning initiative against whoever happens to be your immediate opponent is also well taken.

I also wanted Tough to deny opponents the opportunity to collect a bunch of points at once off him, though as I said he did whiff and take four wounds from a Stinger at one point. I wasn't crazy about Deadly Strike and I did prefer Commander's Strike to it, but on balance I'm pleased with the decision I made. In retrospect, the occasions when I could hit both skulls with an even ground Deadly Strike did come up a few times and I think Deadly Strike ended up serving me a little better than I thought it would.

Also the auto wound would have been very nice. But against the Hydra and many other units I had squads of 4/4 commons with 6 move, which was why I went dwarves instead of orcs. I think I made the right decision; I never felt like I needed disengage and I took *huge* advantage of Fearless in each of the three games I won.Fearless advantage was obviously pretty huge in this format.

Personally, I would have taken Mogrimm over Migol, but I'm just a guy with a keyboard and an opinion, while you're the guy with the shiny prizes.

Yes, I had assumed that turn order would go clockwise from whichever player had the high roll. While going by descending order of initiative roll might be 'more fair', it could be unwieldy and might lead to possible problems of players going out of turn.

Dad_Scaper, I want to be sure that you understand that I wasn't criticizing your decision not to go after Kid_Scaper's hydra. I wasn't there and certainly don't have a clear enough idea of the flow of the battle. I was mostly just curious if there came a time if you realized or thought your son might be winning and if you had a chance to do something about it. That kind of game within a game can be very interesting, both when it works out right and when it doesn't.

Well met!

Ah, I'm just picking up on the issue of turn order going around the table to the left of the highest initiative, as opposed to in initiative order. :oops:

The Gang of Four (primarily, I suspect, because I feel so strongly about it) always play the latter, using chas' giant, colored 20-siders to keep track of whose turn it is. I hate the idea of seating at the table determining the order of play, and who has initiative advantage over who, etc., for every turn. I'll jump through any number of hoops to avoid it. It is especially egregious in FFA. My Mogrimm analysis was based on initiative totally determining turn order.

[Dad_Scaper]

From the post tourney thread:

Tournament Report
Bring the Cheese, Eat the Cheese (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=36727)
NHSD 10/1/11
Savage, Maryland

The format was 415 points, Reverse the Whip. Keep your army for rounds 1-3; use your opponent's for rounds 4 and 5.

From the beginning I was planning on some Horned Skull Brutes / Goblin Cutters build, because there's synergy there but it's not easy to tease it out into effective tactics on the board. But then I saw C3V was releasing its first wave of figures (Zogross Hardscale, Zaeus, and Capt. John Varan) just in time for me to use them at my own event, and I couldn't resist the temptation.

Zogross (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1472772) 120
Greenscales x3 300
Krav Maga Agents 400
Otonashi 410

I was concerned I might be overshooting the mark a bit with the KMA, but I did *not* want a repeat of my disastrous outing in May, where early losses kept me from every being competitive in the event. So I risked it.

The good news? My army went 5-0. :twisted:

Round 1:
D_S (Zogross, Greenscales x3, KMA, Otonashi)
Bill (Spartacus, Gladiators x3)
http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/yy152/rjrjrj88/arboretum-1.jpg
Robber's Arboretum (with glyphs)

I had playtested with Bill's army and thought it was a good one for this format. It has a single point of failure - Spartacus - but it's not one easily exploited, with all those mobile gladiators running around.

I knew my army was no match for his when it came to fanning out & grabbing the glyphs, so I opened with the Krav on a mission to kill Spartacus. I sent one of the Agents over to protect the Defense glyph, which eventually Bill took, and I conceded the Initiative glyph.

The Krav did some damage but not as much as I'd hoped before they were tracked down & neutralized by the gladiators. Zogross, surrounded by boosted Greenscales, took the fight straight to defense-glyph-boosted Spartacus and a few gladiators near the Initative glyph.

Not for the first time, Zogross really frustrated an opponent with Tribal Protection, preventing Sparty from attacking him when Sparty was also adjacent to a Greenscale.

Eventually Zogross and a few Greenscales wore down Spartacus, who made a brave last stand. The remaining scattered Gladiators fell one after the other.

This was a tough game, though. In retrospect perhaps I should have left Spartacus alone and tried to secure the Defense glyph. Or not. I had a strategy, I pursued it, it worked. So I suppose I did ok.

1-0

Round 2:
D_S (Zogross, Greenscales x3, KMA, Otonashi)
Drewcula (SBN, MBS, NGS, Marro Warriors, Nagrubs x2)
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//the%20fallen%20pier_iDB.jpg
The map has been tweaked some. This is not precisely what we played on. Maybe I'll upload the new one soon.

It is always great to see Drewcula, the first guy I ever played at a 'Scape event, and trophy-maker-extraordinaire.

I think he probably did a better job of building an army for this event than I did, in that I think my army ended up being just too strong for this format.

Anyway. My plan was, throughout the first three rounds, to neutralize the opponent's range with the KMA, and I set about doing that here. Drewcula led with the Marro Warriors and MBS and I responded with the Krav, who wiped out the Marro Warriors and put a wound or two on MBS.

I shifted to the Greenscale Assault Troops while MBS was still riding around trying to knock off the last Krav, and using them I secured Wannok and attacked Drewcula's start zone.

Su Bak Na could not get a clean shot on Zogross because I had a Greenscale engaged to him (her?) most of the time. Ne Gok Sa tried to Mind Shackle Zogross and heck if Drewcula didn't give me a heart attack when he rolled an 18, but with SBN still alive he was still on short. NGS went down and the match ended soon after.

It's interesting: a weaker army would have helped me later, but reading what I've written here I don't know if I would have eScaped Drewcula with a W if I'd played anything weaker. That dude is good.

Round 3:
D_S (Zogross, Greenscales x3, KMA, Otonashi)
Twinkie (Sentinels x1, Q9, Atlaga, Isamu)
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//blackroot1_RLh.jpg

Again, I led with the Krav. I figured it would either be Q9 or Atlaga first and hopefully they'd be able to assassinate either before damage was done.

The Krav put a couple wounds on the Major, who Twinkie sent out to the high ground on one side, and one of them also surprised Twinkie with a couple wounds on Atlaga when she found herself out of position against the Unpleasant Robot.

Eventually Q9 wore them out with 2-2-2-2-1 and in came The Lizards. There was plenty of cover for the approaching Zogross and Greenscales and plenty of road, and with their Move 6 he didn't have many shots at them from range. Tribal Protection frustrated another opponent and Q9 ended up going down to two successful whacks with Opportunity Strike.

Lizards swarmed Twinkie's start zone, doing a fair amount of damage while Twinkie's OMs sat on a dead Q9, and this one was over soon after.

3-0

Round 4 (Reversed Whip!):
D_S (Q9, Stingers x1, Deathreavers x1, Marro Warriors, Raelin RotV)
hosj (Zogross, Greenscales x3, KMA, Otonashi)
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/gallery/files/4/9/7/1/soggy_bottom_v6_02.jpg

This was a fun game. I opened with Raelin, intending to use a Raelin-protected Q9 from the high ground on one side of the map to wreck hosj's squaddies while the one squad of Deathreavers slowed down traffic just a little bit on the other side of the map.

hosj opened up with his Krav on a collision course with Q9. My plan started to come unglued when the Krav would not die. I plinked them 2-2-2-2-1; I ran up to them and shot at them point blank. It didn't matter. They. Would. Not. Die. My attack rolls were fine, not great, but fine. hsoj's defense dice were on *fire*, though, and I could not break through.

Meanwhile his lizard army swept through my start zone and caught up to Q9 and, though I did put a few wounds on Zogross during his approach, I could not hold off the scaly enemy and Q9 went down bravely, but alone.

Hsoj played very well with an unfamiliar army and I hope he will be able to join us again in the future.

3-1

Round 4 (Reversed Whip!):
D_S (Q10, Sam Brown, Swogs x3, Arrow Gruts x3, Isamu)
Gurei-Ornery (Zogross, Greenscales x3, KMA, Otonashi)

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//smokey_3c7.jpg
I suppose this kind of thing is always hard to measure, but I think G-O's build may have been the best for the format.

I know Kid_Scaper won the event, but his army was ridiculously strong, and I am super impressed he managed to beat it twice, in rounds 4 and 5. G-O's army struck the balance perfectly: I thought he had the weakest army to get into the top five.

My plan was to use the Arrow Gruts and the Swog Riders to use the road and run up and hit the KMA by engaging them first, if possible.

Like in round 4, though, I just couldn't kill those damned agents. I shouldn't have brought them. I might have done better with a single squad of Microcorps, or Syvarris or something. Very frustrating.

Anyway. Zogross didn't have much to do, by the time the KMA were dead (mostly dead? don't rememeber.). He and a couple scaled brothers-in-arms cleaned Q10's clock after I failed to put a wound on the Lizard King with both barrels of Wrist Rockets, and the match was called on time.

3-2

I note with interest that my losses were to the players who finished in 2d and 3d at the event, and I beat the players who finished 6th and 7th. So I am not unhappy with my result.

Thanks again to all attendees, and in particular to my opponents described here, all of whom were gentlemen and the kind of relaxed compeititors I look forward to seeing at Heroscape events.

[killercactus]

Nice report.

I like the army choice - I think it's solid but not overpowered, which is what I look for in an event like this.

The other thing I look for is an army that you know how to get more out of than other people. If I play in a RtW event, I'll probably bring something like Runa + Minions, or Venocs or something (unless it's GenCon - then maybe I'll play something stronger, but maybe not).

Interesting to see Zogross tear through some armies, though it seems like the opposing armies weren't that tough. If you can get those scales in there, it seems like Tribal Protection is a very solid power. It's basically what Combat Challenge should've been. (Maybe Tandros just needs a bonding squad, eh? Hmmm....)

[Dad_Scaper]

It was a very powerful army in this format. It is, as dok commented elsewhere, countered by virtually every Tier 1 army. Deathreavers, Stingers, and the 4th would all be tough.

On the other hand, it was pretty tough. I wouldn't mind taking a disengage or two with him to get him on a suitable target, if I thought I had a chance to bring up his squaddies behind him.

Congrats to you, big man. ;)

[Dad_Scaper]

Well, I will set pencil to paper here as best I can a few weeks after the event.

Many, many thanks to mad_wookiee for setting up and running this event. It was the furthest we've traveled for 'Scape and it was well worth it. Also thanks to Spidysox for the great looking t shirts, which we treasure.

Let's see.

General Wars:
Mezzodemons x6 (390)

Yes, I know I could have squeezed in Isamu and made it an even 400, but I wanted to go pure Valkrill.

I also thought this would be a competitive build, counting on a bunch of swarms in this format. I'm not sure why, in retrospect, I should have expected a large number of swarms. Why would General Wars have more commons than any other format?

Anyway. That's what I did.

Round 1:
Johngee ~ Dwarves x4; Mogrimm
This was a reasonably favorable matchup. Plus John is about the best guy you could hope to play against. Relaxed, pleasant, skilled, and fun, all in the right measure. Those of you who have been lucky enough to play him know what I mean.

We played on
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//sirocco1_I4P.jpg
a *very* melee friendly map. But I was able to get height and slowly wear down the approaching dwarves before they could eat all my exoskeleton markers.

1-0

Umbra
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//umbra2_y9Q.jpg
Justine ~ Kaemon Awa, Red Wyrmling, Marcus, SB x3
Justine wisely opened with Kaemon Awa followed by the Red Wrymling and it cost too many poor cockroach lives to get through them. The Wyrmling, as I recall, rolled crazy defense dice, taking down way too many cockroaches before I finally got it down.

Justine plays very smart and didn't give me opportunities to get attacks from height, and the SB + Marcus was too many activations a turn for me to defend. I almost made a game of it but in the end I was only left wondering if maybe I should have included Isamu, after all.

1-1

Tom ~ 4th Mass. x5, Eldgrimm (I think? Something evil like that.)
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//isenfell1_6lP.jpg
This was a fairly range-friendly map, with its heavy snow. I just could not hold and secure the high ground against Tom's 4th Mass, with their 4 activations a turn and longer range.

1-2

Arcus ~ Krug, Marro Warriors, PKs x3, Isamu
I don't see the map in the tourney thread.

This was the closest game of the day for me. I was very nervous about Krug getting loose in my start zone, with the teleportation glyph in play. I figured he would plow right through my exoskeleton markers if he got to my back ranks.

I activated Mezzodemons & took shots at him & at Marro Warriors nearer the beginning. Arcus kept that X on Krug, not moving him, instead using the MW's to plink away from range and make me use my markers. I would have *loved* to wreck those annoying Marros, but unfortunately they are Uniques and therefore immune to the cockroach charm.

I whittled immobile Krug and Marro Warriors until Arcus finally brought Krug to the teleportation glyph and invaded my start zone. Luckily, by then I had positioned things so I could put a couple Mezzos on height and finish off the scary ogre before he could do too much.

Then it was a close battle between what remained of my Mezzos and my precious few markers and the combined remaining PKs and two or three surviving MWs.

On one key turn I guessed correctly about Arcus' OMs and took out the remaining Marro Warriors, stranding the rest of his OMs for the round and making the remaining PKs easy picking.

As I recall I finished the game with two surviving Mezzos and no markers left; that one was a thriller.

It's always great to see Arcus and Tom, and I hope they forgive me if I accidentally reversed the order in which I played them. I'm not sure.

Final: 2-2

I should never have brought that army. My guess that it would play well in the likely metagame was just not founded in reality. Wishful thinking, more like.

I'll come back later with my Main Event saga.

Preview: My army was gimmicky and I did not do as well as I would have liked with it.

Nice report. Looking forward to your main event report.
Surely not as much as I've been dreading writing it.

I enjoyed playing the Knights & wanted to give them another spin since my 2d place finish with them at Not in Kansas Anymore last year. But I wanted to do something different this time - I'd paired them with Eltahale then, to get some beatstick threat range - so I decided to try the FaT bomb. It looks so cool on paper!

Gilbert 105
Knights x4 385
Finn 475
Theracus 515

The idea with the FaT (Finn and Theracus) bomb is that you send Theracus across the board, carrying Finn. You use Theracus, receiving Finn's bonus, to get after high value targets. After Theracus is gone - or sooner, depending - you shift OMs to your knights and have them come up, bonding with Finn, who keeps beating on things in your opponent's back ranks.

It sounds like fun because it *is* fun, but it also has a couple related drawbacks.

What you are buying with the FaT bomb is those early attacks, one per OM, normally at 4 dice per attack. Plus you are getting, at the end, Finn's attack aura on one of your other heroes. What you are spending, though, is 130 points, *plus* the opportunity to bond with other heroes when you are instead bonding with Finn, who is walking dead. And by denying yourself the opportunity to bond with Gilbert, you are slowing down your knights considerably.

Bearing that in mind, here we go:

Round 1:
Jakall ~ Raelin RotV, Krav Maga Agents, Kaemon Awa, Dividers x4 (?) That's 20 points light, but the army was something like that.
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//isenfell1_6lP.jpg
again.

Heavy snow, slippery ice. A *long* walk for Knights. Raelin, however, was a *great* target for the FaT bomb, so off I went.

I managed to wedge Theracus behind a ruin and successfully got off a few attacks against Raelin, but the Kyrie witch's defense held. Theracus went down; Finn kept going and the Knights inched forward. The problem was, Raelin wasn't dead; I don't think I'd put more than a couple wounds on her, and soon Finn went down. I had the high ground and manged to get the Kravs but that heavy snow was an absolute *bear*.

Gilbert & Co. made a brave showing of it; I had the high ground, after all, and I came within a hair's breadth a couple times of being able to run Gilbert to the healing glyph. But I never thought I could successfully make that dash and eventually Jakall's range (and counterstrike) wore me down.

It was a real pleasure to meet Jakall and Civil War Dude; they're from Pennsylvania but I hadn't seen them at any cross-border events before.

0-1

Jay
Axegrinders x4, Migol, Mogrimm

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//overgrown_XSP.jpg

I used the FaT bomb to chase around Mogrimm or Migol or maybe both for a bit, and put a couple markers on them before using FaT to clog up the middle as I brought up the knights. Migol and Mogrimm both survived the FaT scare relatively unharmed.

This was not a good matchup for Jay. The knights are just superior sluggers to the dwarves, and eventually I ate away at his army. I focussed on taking advantage of Gilbert's attack aura where I could, and eked out a win.

I played Jay in my first 'Scape tourney ever, and this was the first time I'd seen him since. It's always a pleasure & I'm reminded again to thank mad_wookiee for putting on this Heroscape extravaganza that lured us over the state line.

Round 3
Fallow ~ Syvarris, Warriors of Ashra x3, Sonlen, Arkmer
Umbra, again.
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//umbra2_y9Q.jpg
It was great to meet Fallow, who has been on these boards a long time but we've never been at the same event.

His army was very interesting and I'm sure had some terrible matchups against many of the armies brought by my fellow Mechanicans. Mine, though, was not one of them.

I used the FaT bomb to get at Syvarris and I hurt him pretty badly. After Theracus was gone, Finn survived a long time, allowing me to bring up the Knights and finish off Syvarris and he took more than a few whacks at Sonlen, too.

Most of this battle was Fallow swapping OMs back and forth between Sonlen and the Warriors of Ashra as I tried to do damage where I could.

Unfortunately for me, the damn witches of the forest would. not. die. Sonlen did eventually go down, as did Arkmer (I think?), but I just could not get those Warriors of Ashra to whiff, and at the end of the game he had a few of them standing and I had nothing.

1-2

Round 4
Xanth: Arrow Gruts x4, Mimring, Krug, Swogs x3
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//hellsgate1_56z.jpg
I had been hoping to get a chance to play on Hellsgate so this was a stroke of good fortune for me.

I don't remember exactly what Xanth's army was; clearly what I've written above isn't exactly right.

I used the FaT bomb to grab a T Glyph and launch an attack against Mimring, killing him before he could get a lucky fireline and kill a bunch of knights. This was the one and only time the FaT bomb actually *killed* something.

The Knights were too tough for the Arrow Grut army, and all the road meant I had plenty of mobility. This match was eventually called on time, at a dramatic moment when I had four Knights throwing 4 attack dice each against a partly wounded Krug.

I won convincingly on points.

2-2

Many, many thanks to mad_wookiee for running this 'Scape extravaganza and many thanks to all attendees, with a particular shout out to Filthy the Clown, who came all the way up from Florida.

It turns out he looks nothing like his picture. :D

[dok]

Your math for the points of your army only counts for Knightsx3... presumably you had knightsx4 for 505. Did you have Isamu for the last points, or not?

Anyway, interesting build. Usually, when people play Finn+Knights, they play something else that can really benefit from that extra attack die. The classic choice is the Krav, but other multi-normal-attacking uniques (Marro Warriors, Airborne, Hydra, Skahen, Syvarris, Nakitas, Zetacron, etc) also work pretty well. Putting Finn's spirit on Gilbert doesn't really do that much for you.

[Dad_Scaper]

Your math for the points of your army only counts for Knightsx3... presumably you had knightsx4 for 505. Did you have Isamu for the last points, or not?

Anyway, interesting build. Usually, when people play Finn+Knights, they play something else that can really benefit from that extra attack die. The classic choice is the Krav, but other multi-normal-attacking uniques (Marro Warriors, Airborne, Hydra, Skahen, Syvarris, Nakitas, Zetacron, etc) also work pretty well. Putting Finn's spirit on Gilbert doesn't really do that much for you.
Correct. I was excited to try this gimmicky army but it performed exactly as you say. In retrospect I was expecting the Finn/Theracus combo to do more damage than it did; I knew I wouldn't be getting much from Finn's spirit.

You are right about the math.

It was

Gilbert 105
Finn 195
Knights x4 475
Theracus 515

That looks better. I am sure I am misremembering some of my opponent's armies, though.

I'll edit my post with the Superior Math.

In retrospect both my armies were high variance, depending for their success on favorable matchups, and not really appropriate for tournament play.

[Filthy the Clown]

It was great to meet Fallow, who has been on these boards a long time but we've never been at the same event.

His army was very interesting and I'm sure had some terrible matchups against many of the armies brought by my fellow Mechanicans. Mine, though, was not one of them.

I used the FaT bomb to get at Syvarris and I hurt him pretty badly. After Theracus was gone, Finn survived a long time, allowing me to bring up the Knights and finish off Syvarris and he took more than a few whacks at Sonlen, too.

Most of this battle was Fallow swapping OMs back and forth between Sonlen and the Warriors of Ashra as I tried to do damage where I could.

Unfortunately for me, the damn witches of the forest would. not. die. Sonlen did eventually go down, as did Arkmer (I think?), but I just could not get those Warriors of Ashra to whiff, and at the end of the game he had a few of them standing and I had nothing.

I remember watching you guys slug it out; you had some great attack rolls (height and Gilbert-bonus on a lot of them), but Fallow rolled at least one shield with those Ashra every time...If looks could kill. :)


...with a particular shout out to Filthy the Clown, who came all the way up from Florida.

It turns out he looks nothing like his picture. :D
Due to airport security, and in the name of human decency, I left the clown suit at home. Although, in retrospect, it would have fit in nicely at the hotel and convention.

Looking forward to the next time, where we can actually squeeze a game in.

[mad_wookiee]

It was great to meet Fallow, who has been on these boards a long time but we've never been at the same event.

His army was very interesting and I'm sure had some terrible matchups against many of the armies brought by my fellow Mechanicans. Mine, though, was not one of them.

I used the FaT bomb to get at Syvarris and I hurt him pretty badly. After Theracus was gone, Finn survived a long time, allowing me to bring up the Knights and finish off Syvarris and he took more than a few whacks at Sonlen, too.

Most of this battle was Fallow swapping OMs back and forth between Sonlen and the Warriors of Ashra as I tried to do damage where I could.

Unfortunately for me, the damn witches of the forest would. not. die. Sonlen did eventually go down, as did Arkmer (I think?), but I just could not get those Warriors of Ashra to whiff, and at the end of the game he had a few of them standing and I had nothing.

I remember watching you guys slug it out; you had some great attack rolls (height and Gilbert-bonus on a lot of them), but Fallow rolled at least one shield with those Ashra every time...If looks could kill. :)


His dice were really hot with those WoA. I ran into the same problem against him with Heavies - once Grimnak fell, I just couldn't crack that nut.

[Dad_Scaper]

Yeah, well. If I could hurt people with my evil looks, as Filthy suggests, I'd have to spend all the prize money at my events on body bags, and that wouldn't be fair to the people winning prizes.

Like the Earth itself, I am mostly harmless.

That was a terrible matchup, knights against WoA. I'm not saying I wouldn't have done better against something else; it was a matchup between two unorthodox builds. Oh well.

For the record, there was a fifth round of Main Event competition, but the Kid and I had a long way to go to get home, and things were running late and we were both well out of competition, so we left after round 4.

I'd been hoping to play on Hellsgate because it looks good but I was concerned it would play too narrow. Xanth and I, though, had a fair amount of action down the center *and* on the apron. And, when things were going well, in Xanth's start zone.

[Dad_Scaper]

I suppose each of you has a format at which you do better than others. I know I do. My favorite format is the mutliplayer FFA. It's tremendous fun, and it's friendly and social and it doesn't sacrifice any of the usual competitiveness I expect out of a Scape event. It's also the format at which, apparently, I do the best.

This time around it was 380 points, 18 hexes, 4 rounds. Full details of the tournament here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=38849) but a quick summary is you do partial card scoring, and whoever has done the most damage at the end of a round at a table is the winner, regardless of who survives. The winner gets 4 points; the 2d place finisher gets 2. The loser gets 0 and if there are four players at the map, the 3d place finisher gets 1.

In the past I've had success at these events by emphasizing units that could go out and assassinate *specific* high value targets. Last time I came in 2d with the Dwarfs, from which I leveraged Fearless Advantage for all it was worth, and the time before I won an event with Phantom Knights, with whom I could fly around and assassinate whichever high value attacker I wanted to chase.

This time I decided to go in a different direction. I knew I wanted to bring Eltahale, who is hard to bring down and has a powerful special with a good threat range. Originally I was going to pair her with Goblins and other moving parts, but in the end I couldn't get them to work against KidScaper's 10th in playtesting, so I scrapped them in favor of the Stingers. I figured the Stingers' Drain would give me some flexibility in how & where to chase things, essentially giving up the homing devices I'd used in past tournaments in exchange for brute force.

On to the event.

Round 1 -
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//thequad_V9R.jpg
From myself at the 6:00 position, going clockwise:
Friend of KidScaper 2: Kaemon Awa, Arkmer, Phantom Knights x3
Gurei Ornery: Drow x3, Pelloth, Zetacron, Marcu
Sagrilarus: Sgt. Drake SotM, Phantom Knights x1, Grimnak

I opened with Eltahale to my left, trying to get her Thunder Ram Special Attack to trigger against a bunch of Phantom Knights. He countered with a combination of Phantom Knights (mostly) and Arkmer (a little). Gurei Ornery opened by picking on Sagrilarus and on KidScaper's friend both, getting a little from each.

Sagrilarus opened with Drake and Grimnak heading over toward G-O, which illustrates the reason why I chose this map for the event: There is not destiny. You can go after either of your next door neighbors.

Eltahale did a fair amount of damage to various Phantom Knights and then to G-O's Drow, who were sneaking up behind her. She got out of a couple jams with Thunder Step, and the game ended soon after she Thunder Stepped down to the floor level to cave in the head of a Drow standing on the Defense glyph.

I'd shuffled the Stingers around near my start zone but most of my damage was done by Eltahale, and I ended the game with 184 points. To my surprise, that was enough to win the board, just edging out G-O's 181. KidScaper's friend came in third and played strong all day, despite this round 1 game being the second game of Scape he'd played ever.

The game, like almost all games all day, was called on time. That's to be expected in this format, but still, in retrospect I think 380/18 was too big.

1/4: 4 victory points

Rounds 2 - 4 tomorrow. Also I will try to email out the score sheets tomorrow to those who wanted them.

This one hurt because we only got 2 rounds in I think. One more round and I might have had you, but still a good game. BTW, it looks I short changed myself a victory point that would have moved me up to 6th. I only gave myself 1 pint (I mean point:drunk:) for second.
So you did! Ah, your time will come, I am sure of it.

As to the first round, as I recall I was muttering the entire time about how soon the game would have to end, so it did not exactly sneak up on you. :twisted: As I said, I think the army size was a little too big for the format, so many of us, particularly on the 4 player maps, did not really get to deploy our armies as we would have liked.

On with Round 2:

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//kampfzone_ebX.jpg
Clockwise from the 12:00 position:
Drewcula: Ne Gok Sa, Marrden Hounds x3, MarcuJohnGee: Marcus, 10th Regiment x3, Marro Warriors
Myself: Eltahale, Stingers x4
Rob: Syvarris, Raelin RotV, Warriors of Ashra x4

JohnGee's already written his own report of this battle; I'll expand on his comments a bit but I think his summary is a fair one.

I opened toward Rob with Stingers, figuring if I could knock out Syvarris I would be able to flatten the rest of his army. Rob put Syvarris on the high snow tile at the base of the tree on his side, in Raelin's aura. I had a fair amount of protection from him, though, with my advancing Stingers hiding behind the ruin and, later, the tree itself to protect them.

Syvarris did pick off a couple Stingers and maybe a Hound or two. Drewcula's Hounds had some trouble with the d20 for movement early on, but when they got rolling he ended up sharing Rob's parts with me.

JohnGee rolled out his redcoats well enough, but their defense and attacks were too low to match up against the fewer, but better armed, Marro Stingers, a couple of which I had successfully maneuvered to dominant positions on high ground in the center of the board.

In the end I got points for a big chunk of Rob's army, a medium chunk of JohnGee's, and one Hound from Drewcula, and that combined was enough for 284 points and a win on the board.

All four of us were fighting on both sides, which is what I look for in these 4 player maps and it made me happy. Thanks, dignan! :D

1st place / 8 total victory points

Round 3:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//fulcrum%20flurries%20copy_8ES.jpg
Clockwise from the top:
Mission: Devastation 10th Regiment x4, Raelin RotV
Bassist of Doom Death Chasers, Ogre Warhulk, Isamu
Myself: Eltahale, Stingers x4

I had thought about bringing Death Chasers myself, so I was pleased to see someone else had brought them.

I've looked at this map in the past and noticed the sniper positions along the edges. Imagine how much damage Syvarris could do from there! All I got out of it was one dead redcoat. :)

This was not a good map for BoD's Death Chasers, whose Battle Rush was severely limited by the moat in front of the start zones. Still, he gamely split his forces, sending Death Chasers after MissionD and the Warhulk after me.

I left a few Stingers next to the trench in the front of my Start Zone and the Ogre, in a fit of reckless ambition, marched into the water, giving me height. He killed a Stinger or two but after two OMs spent blasting the poor thing from height, the Ogre was dead and I had a fat 150 points in my pocket while the other two were just getting warmed up against each other.

The rest of the match was me trying to avoid getting overrun by the advancing redcoats, but the Death Chasers were equal opportunity harassers and the battle lines moved slowly enough that I had time to get equal height (or better) often enough. I finished with 470 points and the win.

It's always a pleasure to play against Bassist of Doom and I look forward to MissionD returning soon, even though they are Giants and Patriots fans, respectively.

1st place / 12 total victory points

With 12 victory points I was narrowly ahead of ClanCampbell, with 10, going into the last round. I'd been running a rough Swiss System throughout (well, kldonnelly had been doing most of the actual work, all I do is stand around and take credit, thanks kldonnelly!) which meant I was matched up against Clancampbell and akden, with 9, for the last round, which would decide the championship.

Round 4:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//fightintheshade_bFV.jpg
Clockwise from the top position:
akden Fen Hydra, Marro Warriors, Phantom Knights x3
myself Eltahale, Stingers x4
Clancampbell Nakitas, Gorillanators x2, Erevan Sunshadow

Clan won initiative and opened with Erevan going to high ground. Akden rolled the Hydra out and I pushed some Stingers up onto the road. Clan attacked the Hydra with Erevan but - and this would become a theme - did no damage to it. Akden surprised us with an OM on the PKs, leaving the Hydra to its own devices, but as it turned out the Hydra was fine on its own.

I battled it out against a few PKs as the Hydra chewed through Clan's army. Eventually I activated Eltahale, pushing her past one PK to get her on the road and in position for her Thunder Ram Special Attack. It was risky, and I lost the wound to engagement strike, but it paid off when I eliminated one of the attacking PKs and had Eltahale in position to come up behind the Hydra and she dropped more than a few wounds on various units hanging around near Clan's start zone.

By the time she went down I was still doing reasonably well and Clan was gone, having done very little total damage, and though Akden won a commanding victory on that board I still had 451 points with a score higher than needed to beat Clan and hold on for 2d place and the tourney win.

2d place / 14 total victory points

Many thanks again to kldonnelly for bailing me out with all the paper, now that Shaugville's abandoned us and fled overseas.

With the prize money I took home Blood Bowl: Team Manager and Dixit 2 (getting something for the daughter & the wife; gotta love Dixit as a family-pleaser).

[Dad_Scaper]

I am very pleased to add this tourney report to the collection I have going in this thread, for two reasons:
1. I won the tournament. (wOOt.)
2. It includes KidScaper's first ever tourney report, which I think is very well written and he did without any prompting from his old man.

Ok, here is my not-yet-overdue tournament report.

The event was Clancampbell's Clash of the Titans tournament on 4/21/12, with the tournament thread here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=40179).

The format was very simple: 340 points, at least one Huge figure.

It created an interesting metagame, and I was surprised both at some of the armies that did come, and some of the armies that didn't.

It seemed to me certain notorious hero killers would be very logical choices:
Cyprien
Krug
Stingers
Fen Hydra

And indeed they all made an appearance.

There was one unit, though, I was *certain* would be very competitive yesterday, but nobody brought it. Though I think if northgate had come we probably would have seen at least one guy with a bunch of axe-wielding pests.

I've been very busy with this and that recently and, for myself, had been casually thinking Jotun would be fun, so I'd bring Jotun + Raelin + Marro Warriors. And that would have been lots of fun. At 360.

So at the 11th hour I figured I'd bring Krug, who I thought would be widely used, and some sort of jack-of-all-trades of a common squad to handle whatever weirdness I might see from my opponent's non-huge units. I settled on the Mohican River Tribe, which I'd never used competitively and I thought would be fun and different.

My army:
Krug 120/2
Mohican River Tribe x3 210/9
330/11

Other armies I considered included:
Krav Maga Agents (to kill Stingers) + Hydras x2 (to kill everything else)
Brunak + Raelin + Cyprien (which Xanth brought)

I wasn't paying that much attention to Xanth's games but that is a nasty little 3 unit army and I'm not surprised at his fine finish.

Anyway...

Round 1:
Josh (Su-bak-na, Krav, Warforged)
D_S (Krug, Mohican River Tribe x3)
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//ice%20thistle%20v1-4%20(titled)_wUC.jpg
I think this was a tough match up for Josh, at least on this small map, because the MRTs didn't have any trouble approaching his starting position and either engaging the Krav or gunning down the Warforged from height.

Plus I was rolling ferocious attack dice, as hot as I ever remember them. MRT's rained death on everything from that central plateau, demonstrating that magic and secret agents and aliens are no match for an Enfield in the hands of a capable marksman or two (or three or four).

Josh was a good sport and I am very pleased to see he got a couple wins later in the afternoon.

1-0

Round 2:
kldonnelly (Nilfheim, Red wyrmlings x5)
D_S (Krug, MRT x3)
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//ariadne%20v4%20(titled)_1mP.jpg
Nilfheim makes a lot of sense in this format because he's good at pretty much everything, sort of a one man army, so at this low point total he was a natural fit.

The Mohicans and Red Wyrmlings went after each other for the first couple rounds in a battle of attrition. Unfortunately for kldonnelly, a battle of attrition will favor the superior numbers, which I had. As her supply of dragon babies dwindled, I guessed correctly that her OMs would swap over to Nilfheim, and I activated Krug to meet him in the center.

It was a good battle, and by "good," I mean I won. :p

I had more than a few MRTs left hiding here and there, too. I think the Wyrmlings made have fared better against melee opponents yesterday.

Kldonnelly and I have had a bunch of games against each other now, and I really appreciate her picking up the slack left by disappearing-ninja-assistant-TD Shaugville.

Ariadne was an excellent map. It was a tight squeeze for Nilfheim and Krug in between those columns, but it worked. Very balanced play with good LOS blockage but room for range still to do its thing.

I would consider this map at one of my events, definitely. Though I'm sure we weren't the only ones who used the 24 dungeon hexer as the start zone, instead of what's actually depicted in the image. My experience playing on this map a second time, later in the event, exposed what may be a flaw in the design (read on!).

2-0

Round 3:
Rob (Su-bak-na, Stingers x3)
D_S (Krug, MRT x3)

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//high_water_mark_28G.jpg
High Water Mark 2.0 by cmgames

I think Rob had one of the power builds for this tournament and I am not surprised at his strong finish.

This map favored me, I think. There was plenty of jungle cover for my advancing MRT's to get that precious second or third defense die from the Stingers, and any time Rob advanced a Stinger to the top of the hill I could rush it and get my War Cry bonus.

Still, Rob played very well (and was insanely lucky with his Drain), and eventually a full health Krug set out after a Stinger & a full health Su Bak Na.

Krug took four wounds before crushing Su Bak Na's tiny skull, and the last Stinger put three more before Krug finally polished him off.

One of my two very narrow victories on the day...

This was probably my favorite map of the day, and not just because somebody built it with sparkly water. I liked the play at the edges and at the ridge in the center.

3-0

Robber (Hydra, Syvarris, Rats x3)
D_S (Krug, MRT x3)
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//ariadne%20v4%20(titled)_1mP.jpg
I think Robber probably had the best build of the tournament. Thinking about it now, the day after, I wonder if it would have made sense to use Krug instead of the Fen Hydra. The Hydra is an outstanding unit and probably superior when all other things are equal, but Krug is more of an endgame unit, and clearly Robber's army is designed to lead with Syvarris and the rats. Perhaps Krug would have been better in mop up duty. On the other hand, the Hydra has a greater threat range.

Interesting, hmm...

Anyway. Robber is a very capable player and his army was probably the last one I wanted to face, because the Rats really couldn't do much to the MRTs, who could deal with them well enough, but then with Syvarris raining arrows down from a mile away eventually the MRTs were wearing down.

And the Hydra was a good match for Krug, who did manage to kill it, but Syvarris was able to finish off the ogre and dispose of the last couple MRTs without much trouble.

The one thing I will say about Ariadne that I wasn't completely thrilled with was it was *very* difficult to maneuver a 2 hex figure around in there, when it was trying to get engaged to a one hex figure with range on height.

Now that I think of it, that might be a flaw. Or maybe just a design feature.

3-1

Round 5:
Kid_Scaper (Nilfheim, Deathreavers x3)
D_S (Krug, Mohican River Tribe x3)

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/HSKillometer/HorseshoeHill.jpg?t=1273111855
Killometer's Horseshoe Hill

Those keeping score at home may notice that, if you count Su Bak Na as a giant white dragon, I battled giant white dragons 4 out of the 5 rounds of the tournament. How weird is that?

Anyway, this particular battle has already been skillfully narrated by my opponent, and I reproduce his comments from the tourney thread here:
The other person I lost to was your friend DS, my own father.:evil:
In my match against my own father, which turned out to be the championship when Robber lost to Xanth:shock:, it all came down to initiative rolls. I won the first initiative, and moved out my rats. His MRTs moved up on to the medium ground and tried, unsuccessfully to kill off a few rats with range. My rats scattered and moved up to the MRTs and unsuccessfully attacked them. He killed a couple rats, and I scattered some out of my start zone. Then I moved some rats out of my start zone. We repeated this cycle until all of my remaining rats were on the MRTs. Then I moved out Nilf. I sharded a couple MRTs, and my dad moved out Krug. Krug moved around my rats without attacking them, and once again, found a gap in my defenses. Krug came up to Nilf and attacked unsuccessfully. I decided the best thing to do in this situation was to try to kill him as fast as I could. So I was normally attacking him with six dice, and by the end of the round, both figures had one life left. This is one of two major initiatives in the game. I won initiative, and used ice shards. I killed Krug and I thought it was game over because I had the remaining MRTs bagged up with rats. I could not take them out in a whole round where I ice sharded every turn. I couldn't take them out in two rounds either. One of the MRTs killed a rat at the end of the second round and was within range of a one-life-Nilf. This was the initiative that decided the game. My dad won initiative, and killed off Nilf.:cry: All I had left was two rats. One of my rats went to avenge Nilf's death, and raging, killed the MRT who committed this horrible crime. It was two on two, rats vs. mohicans. The MRTs, angry, killed the rat who killed their tribemate. The last rat couldn't kill any MRTs, and was killed after a few attacks.

This was part of his first ever tourney report, and he was hoping for some feedback so if one of you fine readers has a few things to say I'm sure he'd like to read your comments/criticisms/concerns.

His full post from the other thread is in this spoiler:


This is KS's "short" report:
I had a lot of fun at the tourney, but the games that I enjoyed the most were my losses.

In my loss against Robber, both squads of rats went out and blocked the middle of the map. A couple of Robber's rats attacked, but then he decided the only thing it was doing was giving me more movement so he stopped. Then, I sent out Nilf and killed a couple rats using ice shards, trying to make room on the high ground. Robber decided it was time to move out Syv, so he got a little too close to Nilf, and fired two unsuccessful shots. I took another turn with my rats and got one next to Syv with height, and put a wound on him. On Robber's next turn, he disengaged and took another wound, and fired two more shots at Nilf, damaging him with two wounds. Then Nilf retaliated with his deadly ice shards and finished off Syv, while also killing a few rats that were too close to Nilf for comfort. Robber's next OM was on Syv, so I had a free move with Nilf onto the high ground in the middle. A new round started and Robber won initiative, and started moving out the Hydra to avenge his fallen ally. The Hydra took no damage, surviving a few shards. When I thought he was going to try to kill my rats in the front and reach for Nilf, he went around the back of the high ground in the middle, through a gap in my wall of rats that I didn't see and killed Nilf with one series of attacks. Well that was game over. Or so it seemed...
The Hydra was in a vulnerable place where I could get three rats with height on it. The rats little teeth bounced right off of the Hydra. Robber killed a rat, but remained in the same place. On my next turn, when I thought all hope was lost, when I thought two attacking six was impossible, my rats put a wound on the Hydra. The Hydra, raging, killed another rat. My rats unsuccessfully put another series of attacks on the Hydra. The Hydra moved to the high ground due to the lack of rats and not as much height. I could still get height with two rats though. Over time those rats and a few others that replaced them wore the Hydra down and actually killed it with a series of scattering, returning, and attacking. I was left with two rats. I put them both on the high ground and killed one of Robber's remaining seven or eight. Then Robber's rats came to avenge their brother's death. I killed off some of them, losing one of mine in the process. It ended up one on two. I was wailing on one of Robber's rats that was running away, and he decided to attack mine back. After a few rounds of one-on-one, his rat landed a hit and killed mine. It was game over, but maybe the most fun game I've ever played.

The other person I lost to was your friend DS, my own father.:evil:
In my match against my own father, which turned out to be the championship when Robber lost to Xanth:shock:, it all came down to initiative rolls. I won the first initiative, and moved out my rats. His MRTs moved up on to the medium ground and tried, unsuccessfully to kill off a few rats with range. My rats scattered and moved up to the MRTs and unsuccessfully attacked them. He killed a couple rats, and I scattered some out of my start zone. Then I moved some rats out of my start zone. We repeated this cycle until all of my remaining rats were on the MRTs. Then I moved out Nilf. I sharded a couple MRTs, and my dad moved out Krug. Krug moved around my rats without attacking them, and once again, found a gap in my defenses. Krug came up to Nilf and attacked unsuccessfully. I decided the best thing to do in this situation was to try to kill him as fast as I could. So I was normally attacking him with six dice, and by the end of the round, both figures had one life left. This is one of two major initiatives in the game. I won initiative, and used ice shards. I killed Krug and I thought it was game over because I had the remaining MRTs bagged up with rats. I could not take them out in a whole round where I ice sharded every turn. I couldn't take them out in two rounds either. One of the MRTs killed a rat at the end of the second round and was within range of a one-life-Nilf. This was the initiative that decided the game. My dad won initiative, and killed off Nilf.:cry: All I had left was two rats. One of my rats went to avenge Nilf's death, and raging, killed the MRT who committed this horrible crime. It was two on two, rats vs. mohicans. The MRTs, angry, killed the rat who killed their tribemate. The last rat couldn't kill any MRTs, and was killed after a few attacks.

It turns out, I was playing 35 points light the whole time. :oops:
In the end, it was two rats and two MRTs that kept me from being a three time tourney winner and undefeated in Clash of the Titans.
Please tell DS what you thought of this report because this is my first.
Happy 'Scaping!


A few words about Horseshoe Hill: It looks like a foot race to the high ground, favoring some units that don't need the help. The Krav, Zelrig, Nilfheim. Major Q9 would like it too, I suppose; his long range allows him to fire around the curve at his opponent as he lumbers toward the high ground, too.

But it was surprisingly fun. I took full advantage in the early going, firing bullets around the curve from height at rats on the bottom level before they hit the curve. It was an interesting, entertaining map.

As KidScaper said, we had two *huge* initiative rolls. He won the first, allowing a one-wound-left Nilf to get a second consecutive swing at a two-wound-left Krug to finish him off.

Then, with Nilf limping down the hill, facing 3 MRTs with 3 rats holding them down, I managed to kill a rat, freeing up a rifleman. End of round.

The second time around, *I* won the key initiative roll. And Nilf paid the price.

The rest was just hunting rats.

4-1

Making me one surprised tournament champ.

Thanks to Clan for running the event.

The Kid and I pooled our winnings and picked up Lords of Waterdeep, which looks like an interesting new game. I'm excited to learn it.

Now I'm looking forward to seeing some of you guys in May.

[Eraguy816]

Keep it up!!!!!!!

[cmgames]

Thanks for the commentary on my map, High Water Mark. You are the first person I've had any feedback from (other than my next-door neighbor - my regular casual-play partner) on this map. I really liked it back when I was playtesting it. Maybe I'll dust it off and try it again.

~Z

[marrowick]

Wow these are great battle reports I can tell you put in a lot of work. Keep it up!

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks for reading my reports, guys.

Marrowick, these reports represent (I think) the best part of my contribution to this site. I hope people will read them and think "Hey, that sounds like fun," or even better, "Hey, that sounds like fun, I should go to a tournament," or even better than *that*, "Hey, that sounds like fun, I should have a tournament."

We've had tournaments in our own basement with just 6 people and 3 maps. It's fun.

Thanks for the kind words, and spread the love. :D

[marrowick]

Well these are really great battle reports.

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks, marrowick.

Here is the new one:

My quick tourney report:

Round 1 ~
Robber 3-2 1980 (Stingers x3, Tor Kul Na, Nagrubs x2)
D_S 3-2 2094 (Tor Kul Na, Nagrubs x3, Major Q10)

Highway or the High Way

Loved this map.

It worked out pretty well for me, too. I had considered Robber's army and, if the 20 sider had rolled differently on the morning of the event, Kid_Scaper would have been bringing it.

But I like 3 squads of Nagrubs and I love Q10 (see my SotW interview linked in my sig), so this was a better fit for me.

I think it was a better army, too; I used Q10 to keep the Stingers busy and pick some of them off while TKN circled around the edge to stomp Robber's Nagrubs and put some wounds on his TKN.

Sadly, my Tor Kul Na rolled *extremely* poorly for stomp, and ultimately could not chase down and polish off Robber's lone surviving Stinger. Painful loss, and I blame the d20. ;)

0-1

Round 2 ~
D_S 3-2 2094 (Tor Kul Na, Nagrubs x3, Major Q10)
Rob 2-3 1623 (Omnicron Snipers x2, Romans x3, Marcus)

Fireworks

Loved this map, too, and played it with GameBear's custom glyphs. Very fun.

I brought Q10 out and ran him around a bit and ultimately parked him on high ground near the road. Rob sent Romans after him.

I then sent Stompy around the other way to take the custom adjacent attack bonus glyph and bring his entourage of Nagrubs around the back way to stomp the heck out of Rob's start zone.

Again my TKN had the world's smallest feet, like a ballerina, but as I recall the Nagrubs were rolling pretty hot attack dice and on this relatively small map they did a fair amount of damage. Plus, of course, TKN's 6 attack dice are nothing to sneeze at, even when he's not stomping.

1-1

Round 3 ~
D_S 3-2 2094 (Tor Kul Na, Nagrubs x3, Major Q10)
kldonnelly 2-3 1621 (Roman Legionnaires x3, Roman Archers x1, Tornak, Marcus)

Fallen Pier

Have I said recently how wonderful kldonnelly is, gathering all the paper and keeping things organized between rounds? She is the best. On a scale of 1 to 10, she is an 11.

Also I (:twisted:) love this map too.

I guessed correctly that kldonnelly's opening OMs were on the Roman Archers and I battered them with Q10's machine pistol SA. I didn't realize until she revealed her OM1 that she only had *one* squad of them. So things did not open well for her.

Also I think TKN matches up pretty well against the Romans, who have to stand next to each other like dominoes. Stomping was mediocre but not great and kldonnelly made a good game out of it, as always.

2-1

Round 4 ~

Drewcula 3-2 2045 (Major Q10, Stingers x2, Sgt. Drake SotM)
D_S 3-2 2094 (Tor Kul Na, Nagrubs x3, Major Q10)

Guardian

Another excellent map. I played on many fine maps last Saturday.

We each opened up with our Q10s.

I made a risky move near the opening, *knowing* it was risky, to get within range for a Wrist Rocket SA, knowing drewcula could follow it up by getting to the high ground in the middle with his own Q10.

I remember thinking, as I made the move, that it was OM2 of Round 1 and the rest of the game hung in the balance of my 2 attacks of 4, to see if I could kill or cripple drewcula's Q10 before he took the high ground.

Sadly I don't think I did more than one wound, if that.

The rest of the game was me failing to stomp Stingers and dancing around his badly wounded Q10, still on the high ground, as he used Stingers to pick off my Nagrubs and wound Q10.

Drewcula was down to one or two Stingers and a thrice-wounded Q10 and I was just beginning to think I could make a game of it when out popped Sgt. Drake, who had been hiding, completely forgotten, behind a ruin.

Oof.

2-2

Round 5 ~
D_S 3-2 2094 (Tor Kul Na, Nagrubs x3, Major Q10)
JohnGee 3-2 1596 (Raelin, Sgt. Drake, Airborne Elite, Krav, Izumi Samurai)

Highway or the High Way

If JohnGee had won he would have been battling drewcula for 2d and 3d place in the tourney, depending on partial card scoring.

Unfortunately for JohnGee, though, my dice were super hot for the first time all afternoon.

The game took awhile, and JohnGee made a really good game of it, but this is a microcosm of the game:

My TKN was on low ground near a few of his units. He activated Sgt. Drake and brought him out of the start zone. On level ground the good sergeant took a swing with his magic katana and did no damage.

TKN responded with a stomp for one damage and five unanswered skulls to one-shot Sgt. Drake Alexander.

3-2, 5th place

Many thanks to all my friends for coming and big congrats to Bill for his first Heroscape tourney win. Possibly the first ever by someone who literally owns no Heroscape of his own.

[Dad_Scaper]

My Tournament Report:

The format here was 400 points, 12 figure max, and every map had lava. Tourney thread here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=41705), post tourney thread here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=41705).

We had 27 people, almost a Maryland record, and far and away the most we've had at Collector's Corner, which is a great shop and an excellent location for my crew & for me. Not too far from my house, and, near Baltimore's NE corner, just close enough to our friends in PA and NJ that sometimes they can make the trip, as many did Saturday.

My strategy in formulating an army for this tournament was as follows:

1. Jotun
2. 175 points of filler

I'd always wanted to bring Jotun to an event and I figured with his Huge immunities to throw/knockback and his Throw, it was now or never. The Chainfighter also seemed like a good pick and I like the Goblins so it all came together thusly:

1. Jotun (225/2)
2. Goblin Cutters x3 (375/14)
3. Drow Chainfighter (400/15)

And drop to Cutters to get to the 12 figure limit.

Round 1:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//smolder_57o.jpg
D_S (Jotun, Goblin Cutters x2.5, Chainfighter)
Xanth (Dr. Doom, Cyprien)

This was an interesting match up. The Cutters matched up favorable against Dr. Doom and Jotun matched up fine against either one, provided Xanth didn't get lucky with his d20.

And this is a map where the Chainfighter could do some serious damage, against two heroes who were both eligible targets.

So I sent out the Chainfighter and the Goblins in Round 1 and Xanth countered with Dr. Doom.

Over two rounds I rolled for Chain Grab *4 times*, needing only a 9, to pull a full health Dr. Doom into the lava.

Never hit it.

Eventually the Goblins put a couple wounds on Dr. Doom and Jotun finished him off. Jotun met Cyprien in the middle of the map, where Xanth's d20 was as cold for him as mine had been for me, and the giant managed to destroy the nasty blood draining vampire before taking too much damage.

Smolder looked very elegant on the table and play moved around a bit, from the apron on my left to the center, though there wasn't going to be *that* much movement when my opponent only had two figures in his entire army.

1 - 0 400/400

Round 2:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//vfountainii_350.jpg
D_S: Jotun, Goblins x2.5, Drow Chainfighter
Kyle: Black wyrmling x2, Blue wyrmling x2, Red wyrmling x2, White wyrmling, Kaemon Awa, Isamu

Jotun dominated in this game. I'm looking at the post-tourney report and I think something's not right, because I remember a mixture of Kaemon Awa, Wyrmlings, and the Izumi Samurai. Which was important, because Jotun threw pretty much everything that didn't fly right into the lava.

I think he may literally have thrown all three Izumi Samurai and a full health Kaemon Awa into the lava, going 4/4 where the Chainfighter, needing a 9, went 0/4 in the previous round. It was crazy.

Not that Jotun needed that kind of help. This was a favorable matchup for him, and for the swarming Goblins, who may have taken down a Wyrmling or two, I don't remember, at the end. Mostly it was the :jotun: show. Kyle, a tourney newcomer, was a good sport.

I liked playing on this map, though I'm not crazy about the pillar in the middle. Obviously it makes much more sense if you put a glyph on it, as Mmirg did, but when I built it I just threw another hex on it for a little height and let it go without the glyph, as Clan intended.

There was a lot of play on both aprons, and (unfortunately for Kyle) in and near Kyle's start zone.

2 - 0 400/800

Round 3:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//vorago2_el4.jpg
Tom: Iron Man, Raelin, Deathreavers x1,000,000
D_S: Jotun, Chainfighter, Goblins x2.5

I love playing against Tom. People needle him for bringing cheese, and no doubt Raelin and the Rats qualify, but it took some guts to invest all those points in Iron Man, and he made it work. I think the three times I've played him he's had (a) Romans+Mogrimm+MBS, (b) Zelrig+Greenscales, and now (c) Iron Man+Rats & Raelin.

It's not really cheese. He's just good, that's all. Don't tell him I said it, though, he won't like what it'll do to his reputation.

Anyway.

As good as the previous matchup had been for me, this one was bad. The Goblins were going to be horrible against the Rats and there was nowhere on this map for the Chainfighter to pull something into the lava because it has to be a same-level hex.

I led with Jotun because I figured my best chance was to take out Iron Man, with his paltry 4 life, with a lucky stroke or two, but it wasn't meant to be. I couldn't catch Tony and had to settle for beating Raelin's brains in.

That left a bunch of rats and Iron Man, who the Goblins successfully caught and killed. The rats wore out my last couple of Goblins and the Chainfighter bravely tried and failed to kill four of them on his own.

I'd played on Vorago before. Like all mad_wookiee's maps, I love it. For those who like playing without glyphs, this one is particularly recommended.

2 - 1 360/1160

Round 4:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//canttakeheat2_gqi.jpg
D_S: Jotun, Goblins x2.5, Drow Chainfighter
Johngee: Kurrock, Fire Elementals x8

I decided a long time ago not to bother trying to collect the Firestorm, and this was my first chance to see it in the hands of someone else.

It was a thriller, and I count myself very lucky we got to play this exciting matchup on dignan's fine If You Can't Take the Heat, where there was lots of room for the many figures to try to pick their ways through the obstacles and get positioning.

This was the second of the only two maps on which the Chainfighter could, theoretically, Chain Grab someone into the lava. I *really* wanted to get Kurrock that way...

... So I led off with Jotun (!?) in a mad dash for Kurrock. My plan was to take some disengages if I had to just to get a swing or two on him.

The Green Giant did manage to wreck 4 or so fire elementals on his way to Kurrock, a setback from which I don't think JohnGee ever fully recovered. But he did not reach his target.

Kurrock moved to the center and tried a few times to resurrect a Fire Elemental. By game's end he did get a couple, but his d20 was not especially kind to him.

Anyway. I countered with the Chainfighter, because the Fire Elementals were pretty well spread out after the battle with Jotun and Kurrock's advance. The Chainfighter, trying to navigate through all the jungle bushes, ultimately did chain grab Kurrock, but it was only to put him on the lava field, not right into the molten lava, which he couldn't quite position for without breaking engagement.

Kurrock survived two or three lava field rolls while engaging the Chainfighter in hand to hand combat, and I believe he did resurrect a FE around then, but the Chainfighter also put a couple wounds on him.

By the time the Chainfighter went down, the Goblins were able to successfully chase down the remaining Fire Elementals after Kurrock, ironically, was forced to suffer the loss of his last wound marker from the lava field.

This game, I think JohnGee would agree, was absolutely *thrilling*, and that is a testament to dignan's work as a cartographer. If there is one thing I've learned about tournament 'Scape, it's that the games are more fun when the maps are better.

3-1 400/1560

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//vgpic_9ny.jpg
D_S: Jotun, Goblins x2.5, Drow Chainfighter
mad_wookiee: Spiderman, Warforged x3

I fear I made a terrible tactical decision here, when I opened with Jotun and he opened with the Warforged. I could have / should have, in retrospect, let his Warforged go pick on my goblins and slogged all the way across the map with Jotun for just *one* shot at an OM-less Spider Man, who is relatively defenseless without OMs. And I might even have gotten a successful Throw. I *think* I could have reached him, and I didn't try.

Anyway.

Jotun dispatched most of the Warforged and the Goblins didn't have much trouble with the rest, but the Goblin Cutters were never going to be able to catch Spider Man, especially on this map where he could swing back and forth from high ground to high ground on opposite sides of the lava pool, and I accidentally let the Chainfighter cook on the lava field, so I got hurt pretty bad on the tiebreakers here.

3 - 2, 307/1867

Now that I look at the OP of the post-tourney thread, I wonder who made the mistake. It looks like I should have been 7th (?) instead of 11th. Not that it matters, but somebody's math is messed up. Also i see my wins were against players who finished 6, 9, and 15, and my losses were to the guys who finished 2d and 5th. Not a bad day of 'Scape at all.

Anyway.

The point, of course, is the fun, and this event was outstanding. It's just the finest way I can think to spend a Saturday, and I hope those of you reading these words are inspired to get to an event if there's one near you, or to make an event near you if there is not.

Thanks, Clan, and thanks, everyone else for coming & being awesome.

Edit: As I was drifting off to sleep last night I had a sudden, painful recollection of Tom massacring my Mezzodemons with the 4th Mass. I changed my mind, that guy does bring the cheese. :D

[The CEE]

Excellent reports for what sounds like a very fun tournament format! Just so you know, after the fifth game you accidentally recorded your final record as 2-3 instead of 3-2. You need to give yourself some more credit. :p

[Dad_Scaper]

Hah! I'll fix it. Thanks for reading; I'm always glad for evidence that people read the whole thing.

[Arch-vile]

Very cool reports, D_S. It kinda seems like Kidscaper wins more often than you do! :D

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks, Arch-vile. It's very close.

When it comes to tournament play, he had the edge on me for a bit with two tournament championships to my one, but I've since gotten two more.

I'm glad you like them.

This thread, chronicling the actual enjoyment of Heroscape inside and outside my home, is why I'm involved with the C3V. Not because I'm a designer - I'm not - but because it's important to me that people do not think of Heroscape as a "dead" game.

I love the tournaments, so I go to them, and sometimes I run them, and I work on the C3V to do my very small part to keep up the community's interest in the game.

So yeah, thanks. :D

[Dad_Scaper]

As I prepare for another event on 11/10 and maybe (:pray:) one on 11/3 also, I'm going to drop some useful links in this post as I consider overhauling my signature:

C3V (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=75) "Easily the best quality classic customs I have ever seen." :gb:
Posting for Young Persons (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=34914); Rep (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1466755#post1466755); Go to a Tournament (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=35926); Balance (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showpost.php?p=1350553&postcount=580); My (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1583449#post1583449) title (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1676761#post1676761).
Soldiers of Valhalla (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=33458) Populating Valhalla, one custom at a time (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/blog.php?b=1616).
House Rules (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=34128), Maps (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=35910), SotW 53 (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/blog.php?b=1565), SAVAGE THROWDOWN 11/10! (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1668695#post1668695)
Battle Reports (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=6827)! And internet fame (http://fortressat.com/index.php/blogs-by-members/3117)!
Events (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showpost.php?p=1025581&postcount=1) in the MD/PA/NJ area; C3V/SoV Books Thread (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=33402).

[Dad_Scaper]

PA/NJ NHSD 2012

Tournament Report

The format was 520 points, 18 hexes. Otherwise vanilla. Tournament thread here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=45101), post tourney thread here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1707414#post1707414).

I thought the metagame encouraged high priced squads so I wanted an auto-wounder. My first thought was Stompy, three squads of Nagrubs, and Braxas, but that would have been a bit overkill on the auto-wounding.

The PA/NJ crew is *really* good, so I figured I'd load up on the cheese and go TKN, Nagrubs x4, Krav Maga and Raelin. Not pure cheese, but a moderate amount. :)

So Kid_Scaper, running Zelrig and 10thx4 (yes, 40 points light) and I drove two hours to West Chester, Pennsylvania, way outside our normal range, with revenge on our minds for the butt-whipping we both suffered at Mechanicon last year.

Round 1:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//embattled_fen_QiE.jpg
Johngee: Mimring, Nilfheim, Zelrig
DS: Stompy, Nagrubs x4, Raelin SotV, Krav

Well, look at that. Round 1 and nothing to stomp.

Still, I was pretty confident Tor Kul Na's huge attack and healing ability would be enough to take care of the scary dragon horde.

30lGrarz3MQ

I placed Torky on the two start zone road hexes. When the game began I led with Raelin and the Krav and JohnGee led with Mimring, trying to position for a good Fireline. I also brought Torky up the road.

Looking at JohnGee's OMs I realized he had one on Nilfheim or Zelrig still in his start zone, so I pushed my luck (hard) and sent Tor Kul Na *way* out ahead of Raelin, and temporarily ahead of the trailing Nagrubs, to get him adjacent first to Nilfheim and then to Zelrig, both still in JohnGee's start zone.

Over the following couple of rounds I managed to slip a couple Nagrubs between the dragons to keep Tor Kul Na alive as he first thrashed Zelrig
30lGrarz3MQ
and then badly wounded Nilfheim. The two surviving Krav didn't have any trouble finishing off first Mimring and then, along with a couple Nagrubs, bringing down Nilfheim.

1-0

Round 2:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//gravelgarden_P2l.jpg
GameBear's Gravel Garden

I love this map. It is a real brain burner, which is why my game went to time this round. I am sure I have somewhere an excuse for why my round 3 game also went to time, and probably decent excuses why I was playing the last game to finish in rounds 4 and 5 also, but I left my notes in Pennsylvania (again) so I don't have those excuses anymore.

But I highly, highly recommend this map. It is like a boss.

Peteparkerh: Rats x3, Nilfheim, Braxas
DS: TKN, Nagrubs x4, Krav, Raelin RotV

More dragons!

Pete and spidysox are both terrific players and I wish we got to play with them more often, but it was great to see them and as Pete and I played this game, spidysox and KidScaper played on the next board over. So this round was a double treat for me.

Pete spent a couple OMs positioning his rat screen and I spent a couple OMs positioning my units. Nothing is easy on this map. In round 2, Pete sent out Braxas and I tried to meet her in the center of the board with TKN. Braxas risked a disengage, though (I missed it) and circled away from TKN toward my start zone.

So TKN went storming into Pete's start zone, trying to catch Nilfheim. I successfully trampled more than a few rats but couldn't quite get to Nilf, partly because the sculpts made it impossible at one point.

Braxas meanwhile was struggling to get much done in my start zone, because my Nagrubs were alternately scattering and engaging her.

Pete did get one huge roll on the 20 sider, killing a full health Raelin with Acid Breath, but the pesky Nagrubs, moving in and out of her range, eventually brought her down with the help of one or two surviving Krav.

Eventually Tor Kul Na and Nilfheim met near the center, with Tor Kul Na both more healthy and buoyed by lingering Nagrubs. The Ice Dragon went down, and I secured the win.

There was a lingering Deathreaver hiding under a bush.

"How," I asked tournament director Northgate, "should I score a game called on time? Should the winner take the full 520, or subtract what remains of the other player's army, which here would be 510," I asked him. "Partial card scoring," he said, which is I think the way it's normally done in our area.

It was all the same to me; it was the difference between 510 and 520 points. I was happy with the win, but Northgate's answer would have effects beyond this round...

2-0

Round 3:

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//swampthing_7w9.jpg
KidScaper: Zelrig, 10th Regiment x4
DS: TKN, Nagrubs x4, Krav, Raelin RotV

Somehow, after two rounds my kid and I were the only players at 2-0. So after spending two hours in the car with him I was playing him in round 3 at the event.

Though the matchup was not a bad one for my army, the combination of the map and the matchup was tough. Tor Kul Na could not really get up and down the hills to chase Zelrig, and Zelrig could, from those perches, bomb the snot out of my start zone. Still, Zelrig's magic does not work on the unique Krav, so I led with Raelin and the Krav and KS countered with Zelrig.

KidScaper did not get his point's worth out of Zelrig, but unfortunately the awful dragon did manage to kill off all 3 Krav, which left me in a tough position against the 10th. I managed to kill most of them, but Tor Kul Na was pretty much a goner when this match was called on time (I had 30 points left on the board, he tells me), and he still had six or seven of the Redcoats hanging around.

2-1

Round 3:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//crystal%20watch_Z2H.jpg
Man of War: Zelrig, 10th Regiment x4
DS: TKN, Nagrubs x4, Krav, Raelin RotV

Are you kidding me?

Check this out:

Round 2 opponent: KidScaper - Zelrig, 10th Regiment x4
Round 3 opponent: Man of War - Zelrig, 10th Regiment x4

The bizarre thing is, this army is 40 points light. And two people out of 16 both brought it. They had played each other in Round 1 in a mirror match, even.

But this was a very different map. Zelrig would not be able to threaten my start zone from anywhere I couldn't Loki him with Tor Kul Na.

Man of War led with Zelrig; I positioned Raelin and countered with Tor Kul Na. Zelrig took a couple disengages to blow Majestic Fires through my start zone and decimate my supply of Nagrubs, but in the end TKN got him by his majestic neck and that was that.

If you look closely at the image of the map you will see at roughly the 12:00 position the highest point on the map.

I parked my Krav/Raelin pod up there and spent the remainder of the game bombing MoW's Redcoats. On one order marker turnaround he got close enough to bayonet one of them, and he did kill off an OM-less TKN and the remaining Nagrubs, but the Krav dominated the game with their Stealth Dodge and six defense dice.

3-1

Round 5:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//artic_divide_88J.jpg
Clan 10th Regiment x3, Kaemon Awa, Sgt. Drake (SOTM)
DS: TKN, Nagrubs x4, Krav, Raelin RotV

For those keeping score at home, this means I battled, over 5 rounds, 11 squads of 10th Regiment of Foot, 2 Nilfheims, and 3 Zelrigs. Clan commented that this was the first time we've played each other one-on-one, but I recall playing against him once at an event at Collectors Corner when I had Deathchasers against his Mohicans. It's in my tourney report thread somewhere.

Anyway.

This was the only time when I looked at my opponent's army and thought "My army has a favorable matchup here." I could stomp everything, I defended well against his non-exploding ranged attacks, and I was pretty confident when we started placing our OMs.

Clan led with Drake, who I met in the center with Tor Kul Na and a few Nagrubs. Drake is quite a beatstick, but eventually he went down. Clan had also been maneuvering Kaemon Awa around the edge, but I was simultaneously positioning the Krav, and they bounced a few shots off each other harmlessly.

Then TKN, walking away from Drake's steaming corpse, stomped the samurai for one wound and smashed his skull in for the remaining three. Down went Kaemon Awa.

The rest was mop up, with Krav (all 3? maybe only 2?) and a healthy Tor Kul Na chasing around a handful of 10th until they'd all been smashed into paste.

Clan was a very good sport. This was a terrible matchup for him, and he was just as good natured as always.

4-1, 2436 points.

2d place.

Edging out my own son, KidScaper, with 2430 points.

If I played as fast as a normal person, and my game with KidScaper had drawn to its likely conclusion, it is almost certain he would have overtaken me for second place and dropped me to third.

Oh well. :twisted:

We were very pleased with our fine results on Saturday, because we both have tremendous respect for the NJ/PA 'Scaping crew, and we have never, as a pair, had our butts handed to us like they were at last year's Mechanicon, also in West Chester. So with great pride and gratitude to Northgate, for doing a terrific job running the tournament, we took our prize money and got a Munchkin pack and the Ascention expansion that can be played standalone.

One day soon I hope to play it.

Many, many thanks to Northgate for running the event, and it was great to see Spidysox, Peteparkerh, Shooter, and all our friends from the 'Scaping region.

[capsocrates]

Well D_S, you can no longer say that you've never brought Raelin to a tournament. :)

[dok]

Well D_S, you can no longer say that you've never brought Raelin to a tournament. :)He had an devil on his shoulder, or at least in his e-mail inbox. :twisted:

Great report, DS. I love that army so much. It's fascinating to me to see the ways you seemed to play it the same as I would, and the ways you played it differently.

I'm gonna comment on some stuff out of order because it will make more sense that way.

This was the only time when I looked at my opponent's army and thought "My army has a favorable matchup here." I could stomp everything, I defended well against his non-exploding ranged attacks, and I was pretty confident when we started placing our OMs.Interesting, because... well, admittedly, I am irrationally confident when playing TKN/Raelin/Vydar Range. That said, I actually liked your army in every matchup you had. Braxas scares the Krav and the 10th scare TKN, but if you get things lined up how you want them, they all look pretty good. I love bringing TKN against big guys like Nilfheim, Braxas, and Zelrig. Yeah, he can't stomp them, but he beats them pretty easily, anyway, and there's no quicker way to earn your points.

... well, actually there's one game where I didn't really like your chances, but not because of the opposing army.

Well, look at that. Round 1 and nothing to stomp.

Still, I was pretty confident Tor Kul Na's huge attack and healing ability would be enough to take care of the scary dragon horde.Exactly, right. TKN doesn't fear opposing bigs, unless they are easily angered trolls, four-headed Marauders, or jolly Giants of Ullar.

Looking at JohnGee's OMs I realized he had one on Nilfheim or Zelrig still in his start zone, so I pushed my luck (hard) and sent Tor Kul Na *way* out ahead of Raelin, and temporarily ahead of the trailing Nagrubs, to get him adjacent first to Nilfheim and then to Zelrig, both still in JohnGee's start zone. Interesting. I don't think I would have done that with the juicy Braxas target available (especially since Braxas can cripple the Krav so easily), but sometimes you have to make plays like that. (I did the same thing with a TKN/PK army recently (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1703365#post1703365), sending TKN bombing into a startzone to take out the Fen Hydra.

Peteparkerh: Rats x3, Nilfheim, Braxas
DS: TKN, Nagrubs x4, Krav, Raelin RotVHeh. Not PPH's first go (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=37272) against TKN/grubs/Raelin/Krav. I love TKN against that army, though.

Interesting that in both of your first two games, you left Braxas in the middle of the map to go after Nilfheim in the startzone. I don't think I would have done it either time - I'd rather take care of Braxas, and then let the Krav pull Nilfheim to TKN. But I can't argue with the results.

(FWIW, from the sound of it you did pretty much just what I would have done in the later games.)

Somehow, after two rounds my kid and I were the only players at 2-0.:confused: With 16 players in the tournament, there should have been 4 2-0 players, not 2. Are you sure there wasn't another undefeated game out there?

Though the matchup was not a bad one for my army, the combination of the map and the matchup was tough. Tor Kul Na could not really get up and down the hills to chase Zelrig, and Zelrig could, from those perches, bomb the snot out of my start zone.Yep. Hate that map. Worst map in the BoV, IMO. I don't like your matchup here, but it's at least as much because of the map as the army.

Again, really great report, and congratulations on successfully playing a tricky army against strong opponents.

[Dad_Scaper]

Well D_S, you can no longer say that you've never brought Raelin to a tournament. :)

I have never, Cap, had any success playing with Raelin in casual games. I have had *much* more success with units like the Warforged and the odds and ends of the canon. And I continue to reject the suggestion she dominates the metagame, at least in my area.

I will say that, except for the Round 4 game against Man of War, I don't think I used her especially well, and in Round 2 she was burned to a crisp by Braxas pretty early on.

Dok, thank you for the suggestions and the kind words. Johngee didn't have Braxas; it was Mimring I let run around behind TKN. Pete had the only Braxas I played against all day.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to run this weekend, but the Raelin / Krav combo was originally intended to be used in both events just to keep things simple. I've had second thoughts, and I probably won't, but that was the original plan.

Also, dok, you are surely correct there was another 2-0 table. I suppose, in retrospect, we just never figured out which one it was.

I foreshadowed a discussion of high value squads in at the event. There were no Minions of Utgar, no Sentinels of Jandar, no juiced Omnicron Snipers, and that's the type of event I was expecting.

The one army that I thought was really designed with that metagame in mind was spidysox' Taelord + Stingers build, which would have done *very* well if it had drawn Nilfheim and Drake armies, except the poor guy ran into the Zelrig + 10th builds in back to back rounds and it was a cruddy matchup for him.

edit: As to my comment about the favorable matchup against Clan's army, I thought the others were all fine. I didn't encounter any truly *bad* matchups, but a few errors or rolls of the dice at the wrong time and I could have lost any of the other games. Did lose one, in fact. I didn't think the outcome against Clan's army was going to be that close, just because I thought I had a rock to his scissors.

[Arch-vile]

Great reports D_S, as usual. I've never played TKN; I think I need to try him sometime soon.

[Filthy the Clown]

A slightly more intimidating TKN might have helped you with that one loss, DS (or at least helped you to lose with [more] style):

http://i1029.photobucket.com/albums/y358/thantos_kalev/TKN-glowing.jpg

[kolakoski]

Well met!

I wasn't sure what you meant until I looked closer . . .

http://www.heroscapers.com/community/gallery/files/5/4/9/9/tkn_glowing.jpg

[Dad_Scaper]

Savage Throwdown 11/10/12
NHSD 2012

For NHSD this year I decided to run a vanilla event. I haven't done that before and I was curious to see what people would bring.

My one tweak - aside from, as usual, permitting SoV/C3V - was to keep the point value low, at 435. My goal was to keep the rounds as short as I reasonably could, and despite our late start we finished with plenty of time so it was certainly a success that way.

There were a few things I wanted to do with my army for this tournament:

1. Use Vipers.
2. Pair them with something that had long range.
3. Play fast.

I went through a few different options but Q10, Vipers x7 fit perfectly and gave me a special attack and a unit with large/huge immunities, too, so it was settled. Sure, Raelin/Krav Venocs x6 might have been more of a power build, but I ran Raelin/Krav last week and I was feeling pretty good about my little merciful buddy Major Q10.

There were several *very* unfavorable matchups I was hoping to avoid, such as Q9 and Zelrig, and for the most part I succeeded. For one part, though, I didn't.

Round 1:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/gallery/files/2/8/4/3/gravelgarden.jpg
GameBear's Gravel Garden

DS: Major Q10, Venoc Vipers x7
Clancampbell: Axegrinders x2, Mogrimm, Airborne Elite, Zetacron

The AE didn't drop in the first round, so I had an opportunity to spread out my Vipers a bit without fearing the grenades. I also did a bit of bombing with Q10.

In Round 2 the AE didn't drop again, and I activated more Vipers and continued Q10's bombing campaign. Things were looking pretty good; my start zone was thinned out and the dwarves were hurting.

In Round 3 the AE dropped and things went completely off the rails. Clan rolled very hot on the grenades, getting one or two skulls on each, and I lost a bunch of vipers, including those who were next to jungle bushes and rolling defense dice.

Then my dice went cold, and the remaining vipers could not kill the AE and their two defense dice, and the dwarves finally caught and killed Q10.

When we finished I'd done more damage than I'd realized, which set me up for the difference between 4th and 5th place at the end of the tournament.

In retrospect I should have invested even more OMs in fanning out the Venocs before the AE dropped. Doh.

0-1 (351 points)

Round 2:

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//trepidation_Oqf.jpg
DS: Major Q10, Venocs x7
Crichton: 1-4 Spartacus, Retiarus, Capuans x1, 10th Regiment x1
I confess to using a little privilege of rank here, and I made sure I had a chance to play on this interesting map.

A word about the map: It has a *huge* footprint. It was the only map that needed a table all to itself. On the other hand, it plays all across the map and really brings something different to the tournament scene. There's plenty of LoS obstruction but also open space in which range can do its thing; I highly recommend this one to the TD's with the table space.

Crichton led with his gladiators & their heroes. They proved durable as Q10 couldn't hit them for a bit, though he did get a few wounds on Spartacus from very long range with height.

Eventually, though, the gladiators had to creep across the glacier and start trying to tangle with my Venocs, who had no trouble downing them (Venocs x7) in a war of attrition (Gladiators x1). And the Venocs, with their defense already 0, laughed at Retiarus' net. "I wasn't going to roll defense dice anyway!" they said to him, in parseltongue.

1-1 (786 points)

Round 3:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//blackroot1_RLh.jpg
DS: Major Q10, Venoc Vipers x7
Micah: Aubriens x2, Arkmer, Syvarris, Acolarh, Otonashi, Isamu

What a coincidence! Third round, and third excellent map! I like having the opportunity to pick maps for a tournament. I feel like, once the event starts, I can't go wrong. :)

Micah played very well, pushing the Aubriens and Syvarris to high ground to take shots at Q10 and the Venocs, while I returned fire and tried to get the Venocs in position behind trees where a lucky Frenzy roll would let me get on top of Syvarris.

Eventually my patience paid off and I was piling Venocs on Syvarris faster than Micah could shake them off, and the archer went down.

Two Venocs survived Arkmer's engagement strike and he didn't last, either.

Q10 observed from the sidelines (or was he dead? not sure. he may have been dead.) as Micah turtled and the entire Venoc swarm came up, one squad at a time, to encircle Micah's remaining units.

2-1 (1,221 points)

Round 4:
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab1/HSKillometer/Erosion.jpg?t=1305135402
Killometer's Erosion (this was Robber's Surprise map)

DS: Major Q10, Venoc Vipers x7
Zach: Zetacron, Kaemon Awa, Q10, Krav Maga Agents

With some careful maneuvering and a timely loss of initiative I managed to destroy Zetacron from height with Q10. Then, keeping height with Q10, I managed to defeat Kaemon Awa and Zach's own Q10. Encroaching Vipers managed to finish off the last of his Krav Maga, but the story of this game was really me getting the height with Q10 and then using his 8 range to drop 5 attack dice on Zach's small army.

3-1 (1656 points)

Round 5:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//overgrown_XSP.jpg

DS: Major Q10, Venoc Vipers x7
Stephen: Romans x3, Roman Archers x3, Marcus, Dumutef Guard

My dice were on fire this round. On OM1 I managed to get Q10 far enough forward to hit Marcus from height, and he rolled only one shield against my 5 skulls.

The road section became very cramped, with Q10 on high ground and the Dumutef Guard below him, blocking off the approaching Romans.

Vipers worked their way around the edges and eventually caught and killed Marcus and chewed their way through his start zone and, eventually, came up on to the high road from *his* start zone to finish off the Roman Archers hiding up there.

My attack dice were super hot this game, and poor Stephen never stood a chance.

4-1 (2,091 points)

4th place.

Many thanks to all attendees and especially the new ones, and especially the ones who brought maps, and especially AliasQTip for making cool tourney sheets, and (most) especially drewcula, for making an awesome trophy and coming by to visit even though he wasn't technically playing.

Thanks Drew!

Congrats Gurei-Ornery, and congrats to everyone else, too, because really once you've shown up and sat down you've already won. :)

[awesomeunleashed]

Hey D_S, you have your record there going 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 3-1, 4-1, but from the reports, it looked like you lost your first game, not your third. A typo, I assume?

Sounds like you guys had fun. :)

[Dad_Scaper]

Yup, thanks, AU.

[dok]

Nice report.

I like the layout of Trepidation a lot, too. My one issue with it is the asymmetry of the location of the central glyph, which can have a pretty big impact. Of course, you can play without the glyphs, but in my opinion a map of this size really needs glyphs to drive the action.

[Arch-vile]

Good report. Bummer you didn't see much C3V/SoV.

[MegaSilver]

Looks like you had very favorable matchups indeed. Based on what I'm reading, it looks like for the most part you used your Vipers correctly. CoNgrats!

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks.

Dok, I think it's part of Trepidation's genius that it plays well at that size without glyphs.

AV, all I ever wanted from SoV and C3V is occasional appearances. I don't want to scare or overwhelm people. KidScaper brought Incendiborgs and GO almost brought the Zombie Hulk. One was good, two would have been perfect.

I'm happy. Everyone had fun and, by a wide margin, that's the most important thing.

[Dad_Scaper]

Savage Multiplayer Madness FFA 2/23/13
Post Tournament Report

The format was 315 points, 18 hexes, multiplayer FFA with the partial card scoring system I've written about several times. Tournament thread is here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=47338). Post tournament thread here (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=47338).

I do love this format, for which credit goes to Clancampbell, but now I think I may have run more of these than he has. I enjoy the social aspect and I enjoy how the format punishes those who would otherwise turtle: You only get points for stuff you kill. So haul your you-know-what out there and start killin'.

You get 4 points for winning your map, 2 for coming in second, and none for losing. If you're at a 4 player map you get 1 for coming in 3d.

I decided to go with the Microcorps Agents pumped by Laglor. At 315 points they fit neatly at 310, with two measly squads, worth a fat 33 points per Agent. But with a range of 9, on maps where I could secure quick height I could wreck many armies.

And the point isn't survival, the point is the wreckage...

Round 1:

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//mergainesredoubt_3Yv.jpg
From the 11:00 position:
Gurei Ornery - Capt. America, Marro Warriors, Kira Jax, Isamu
Xanth - Atlaga, Jotun
Stagusaw - 10th Regiment x3, Raelin, Otonashi
DS - Microcorps x2, Laglor

I was excited to play on this, my favorite 4 player map for this format. It did not disappoint, with play available in every direction.

One of the things about this format is you need to be aware of how much each unit is worth per wound. My squaddies were worth a fat 33 points each, but a person might choose to shoot Syvarris instead, because 2 wounds on Syvarris are 50 points, and you'll never get more than 33 off a single Microcorps.

So this game was a target-rich environment: Xanth's low-defense Jotun was worth a fine 31/wound, and G-O's Captain America was worth a stunning 44/wound.

I commented that Xanth's fortunate Round 1, OM 1 shot against GO's Cap affected the final outcome of the tournament, and I'm sure it did, but bringing superheroes to this format is like bringing a rabbit to the kennel.

Anyway.

Xanth blew up Captain America at the beginning of the game. Xanth and Stagusaw tangled with each other a bit while I took the high ground with my Microcorps and shot at anything that moved. I took almost all of Jotun and a couple hundred points of odds and ends from GO and Stagusaw.

1st of 4, 422 pts.

4/422

Rounds 2-4 tomorrow...

DS' 2/23/13 Post Tourney report, continued:

Round 2:
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//sacrifice_ev7.jpg

First of all, I will say this about Knight 1231, and virtually every other first time tournament attendee I have ever played with: I wish I was as composed and smart as he was at my first tournament.

Clockwise from the 11:00 position:
Legos of Bleakewoode Eldgrim - 4th Mass. x4, Eldgrim
Knight 1231 - Syvarris, Deadeye Dan, 10th Reg. x1, Reavers x2
DS - Laglor, Microcorps Agents x2

In this and all other rounds my opening placement was everything. (1) Where will I be able to get height against opposing start zones on my opening OMs, (2) where do I put Laglor to get those hexes in the aura, and (3) where do I put the Agents to maximize access to those hexes.

Here I picked on LoB for two reasons:

1. Knight 1231 had smartly positioned his rats to my side of his start zone. I didn't want to have to start chewing through rats. Syvarris and DED were on the other side.

2. His 4 activations per OM made me nervous.

So I opened against LoB, he opened against me, and Knight 1231 opened *very* cautiously against LoB. I got height against 4th Mass and mowed them down pretty effectively, but his superior numbers meant I had to keep creeping up the central pyramid to get height for my attacks. Which, by the way, were worth 4 dice when I had height but only 2 when I did not, as some of you know but others may know, because that's how they are.

So I crept up and up until I was at the top, grinding down 4th Mass. and occasionally taking shots at Knight 1231.

Knight 1231, meanwhile, took occasional long shots with DED or Syvarris, sometimes at LoB and sometimes at me.

Once I was at the top of the hill with 3 Agents I made a fateful decision that, like Xanth's roll against G-O in Round 1, may have changed the direction of the tournament: With three attacks of 4 dice each, and nearing the game's end, I decided to go "all in" and attacked Syvarris and DED, looking for a big payoff in points, instead of continuing the pitched battle against the encroaching 4th Mass.

My attack dice were atrocious, though, and I finished my OM with just one wound on Syvarris, and LoB's mountaineering 4th Mass. took out those agents when their defense dice turned cold, too.

I was the first out. In this tournament, of course, being "first out" does not mean you lose.

I still had a good lead in points, but unfortunately Knight 1231 whiffed on a few key attack rolls, and LoB took advantage and got past me before time ran out & he took the win on the board.

2d of 3, 248 pts.

6/670

Round 3:

http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//the%20road%20to%20nowhere%2018%20hex%20v2_01_863.jpg

From the 11:00 position:

akden - Stingers x3, Krug, Isamu
Robber - Stingers x3, Fen Hydra, Isamu

Almost a mirror match! How weird was this matchup?

This was a favorable matchup for me. The only two things that could have gone poorly were (1) they gang up on me in an organized way, which was not likely given the format, and (2) I screw up in some way.

The way it played out was like this:

I opened with Microcorps to good locations so they could bomb anything that came near me. I also sent one to the edge near Robber so it could, from height, pick on his Hydra for points, while all his OM's were on Stingers.

Everything went neatly according to plan except for the part where (2) I screwed up in some way, which was an ill-timed OM on Laglor, where I wanted him to remove one of Robber's Stingers from height near my start zone. I couldn't get height with the agents, so I thought I'd give Laglor a chance.

Big mistake.

Having moved Laglor toward the center and failed to kill Robber's Stinger, the rest of the match was closer than it needed to be. Still, with my points off the Hydra and Stingers who could never get close enough (the one excepted) to really threaten me, I came away with the win on this board.

A word on the map:

Many, many thanks to tannergx for putting this together. It played very well as a FFA map, with good LoS blockage throughout. It's a keeper for this format.

1st of 3, 10 pts.

10/840

Round 4:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/gallery/files/1/3/5/5/fulcrum_flip_copy.jpg

From the 9:00 position:
Jbbnsmith - Brave Arrow, Mohicans x3, Warriors of Ashra x1
John - Captain America, 4th Mass x1 (?)
DS - Laglor, Microcorps Agents x2

One last word about the army I brought for this event:

KidScaper told me afterward he was ashamed of me for bringing only 2x of a common squad. But I thought at this point total I might be effective with it, and but for that one poor decision I made in Round 2, I might have gotten the tourney win with this army.

Of course, I escaped the entire tournament without having to play OverEngineered, whose Phantom Knights would have crushed me. So who knows what might have been.

I've now been through the score sheets a few times looking for John's, and I can't find it. So I think these two things happened: 1. John took his score sheet as a souvenir, which I don't mind but I would have scanned it & emailed it if he'd wanted, which would have made my life easier, and 2. Somebody out there didn't give me $5. I don't think it was John. I have another suspect in mind... :twisted:

Anyway...

The interesting thing about this map was the huge range and 4 die attacks I was ready to throw from my start zone meant nobody left his opening bunker for the first few OMs. It was exactly the kind of game this kind of event is meant to avoid.

For heaven's sake, there were more rolls for line of sight (I think I can see your guy behind the battlement...) then I've ever had in all my years of 'Scaping, and I was the one asking for most of them. It was not the kind of game I especially like.

John and jbbnsmith crept outward at the far edge of the map, beyond my range, more or less as I slipped a single agent over the wall toward the tower in the center. He got to the top just as Captain America hopped over the wall himself and, after a long Round or so of picking off an occasional 4th Mass., I managed in 2 OMs to kill Captain America. On the one hand, down with me (:twisted:), on the other hand, good for me.

We didn't do much beside finish off poor John, who was a very good sport, and I had an overwhelming lead on points at this map when it was called (by me, at the end of the tournament) on time.

1st of 3, 14 pts.

10/1136

2d place overall

Many thanks again to the attendees, who are always the best, and to those who brought maps and/or traveled great distances, who are also the best, and to kldonnelly, who is even better than all of them, and to xorlof, who printed a few cards on fancy paper and cut half of them for me. :thumbsup:

After the tournament G-O showed us Descent, and KS and I pooled our winnings and picked it up with a few more bucks. It's been great fun & I'm looking forward to the next tournament and to the next shot at Descent. :D

[Arch-vile]

Great report D_S, I always enjoy reading these tournament games. The FFA format looks like it was a big hit.

[Dad_Scaper]

Thanks, AV. As I've said before, everything I do on this site - from this thread to the C3V and the SoV, even to my decision to become a TD - flows from how much I enjoy these tournaments, and this is my favorite format.

I'm glad you enjoyed reading the report.

Two updates, by the way:

1. I should have mentioned that AliasQTip made awesome tourney sheets for us to use. I'm so embarrassed to use my homemade ones now that we get his sometimes, which are pro. Thanks, AQTip, next time I'd rather you & the Mrs. joined us, but I was glad for the great forms.

2. I found John's form. So he is innocent. :D