Origins 2011 - Columbus, OH

[Phaethon]

My kids and I showed up late yesterday... just in time to see a viper barbecue...

Not sure who all was still there, but I know my son enjoyed watching.

[MattserTruckRally]

Thanks again to everyone who showed up. Also hats off to my buddy, weesel99, for all of his hard work. He had most of the maps set up on Wednesday night and was able to run things rather smoothly for the most part.

Quick Summary of the Events:

Origins Main Event - Saturday - 550 points

Glads x 3/Blasts x 2/Raelin/Krav Maga

2-2

I started 2-0, and quickly burned out to a disappointing 2-2 finish. In both of my two losses, the lack of special attacks was a factor, though the games were still pretty tight. If I had to play this army again I'd be half tempted to try three Red Wyrmlings in place of the Krav Maga. This is borderline as the Krav are redundant in this movie, but were helpful throughout my matches.

Origins - Lightweight - 380 points

Greenscales x 2, Braxas, Marro Warriors

3-0

Unfortunately we only had 6 people for this event, but I still enjoyed playing it. I never activated the Marro Warriors. Braxas and GSWs were more the enough to finish my matches. I rolled like a God killing Spartacus, Kaemon Awa, and Raelin with Acid Breath. In the finals I played versus ManTrain's Dividersx7*. Between a poor map for nondragon units and Acid Breath it was a rather lopsided match. The army was highly aggressive and a blast to play. If you like having 20-30 minutes to kill between rounds and the chance to play a relatively low maintenance army I'd recommend it.

Summoner Wars - Deep Dwarves

2-1, 2nd place

I ended up getting an awesome purple mat over the Master Set for second. This worked out as I wanted the mat anyway. This tournament was pretty fun and the Deep Dwarves were a perfect faction for me. They were a controlling and patient group that rewarded tight play.

All in all it was a great weekend. Mass props to the Columbus Crew and lefton4ya!


* Yes, ManTrain is good enough to play 350 points worth of units and disregard using an extra 30 points in an army and still get 2nd.

[killercactus]

Who won the Saturday summoner wars tournament?

[lefton4ya]

I had some great fun. I really appreciate all the effort you guys put into it. Also thanks for the free hotel room as a GM even though I didn't put much work into it besides letting everyone borrow all my stuff (which BTW I am missing 3-4 red wrymlings and I think one set of order markers and dice which I really don't need. I will be slowly adding my tournament & battle reports here, but in a nutshell I won General wars and the Draft tournament and came in close second in Heat of the Battle and third in Liteweight both due to a loss to ManTrainChooChoo (who with his brother MattserTruckRally's are like the Venus and Serena Williams of heroscape), but did abysmal in the championship having the worst record besides one win to a 10 year old girl playing multiple one-squad commons, and KC who dropped out after 2 games.

If you remember what maps, armies, opponents I played, fill them in, as trying to recollect is proving difficult and slow.

General Wars - 1st of 6 people
Army: 10th x 5 + Kaemon Awa
Match 1: W
Match 2: W
Match 3: W
Notes: This was no contest in most games - this army is just sick especially when I play it as they are my favorite squad and hero (not counting Raelin). Of course with only 6 people including a couple newbies it was not that stiff a competition.

Heat of Battle - 2nd of 10? People
Army: Heavy Gruts * 4, Grimnak, Nerak,
Match 1: W
Match 2: W vs. Rÿchean - 10th * 6
Match 3: L vs. ManTrainChooChoo - Gut Orcs * 5, Grimnak, Nerak, Raelin
Notes: A lot of players players had orcs + Grimnak but I think I was the only one playing heavy gruts. Needless to say, Grimnak was insane on all fronts in this tourney. I had a really good placement in the first game that guaranteed victory. Rÿchean gave me a run for his money with 6 squads of 10th (killercatus had the same army), but Grimnak really showd his worth by chomping every turn. Rÿchean went for a glyph in the center instead of trying to get height, so every turn I was killing 3-5 10th while he had 1-3 kills on orcs or wounds on heroes. In the last game, facing a near mirror match was fun, but I think I did not play as good making a couple of bad decisions. The dice were even and we both had decent placement, ManTrain just outplayed me so he deserved to win.

Draft Tourney - 1st of 10? people
Draft pool: Dzu-tuh * 3. Granite Guardians * 2, Obsidian Guards * 2, Warden 816, Moltenclaw
Match 1: W vs Rÿchean - Dzutuh*3 + Guilty + James Murphy + ? v Moltenclaw + Granite Guards * 2 + Airborne Elite + ?
Match 2: W
Match 3: W on Hot Heights - Moltenclaw + Hydra + ? vs. Obsidian Gurads * 2 + Shurrak + ?
Notes: I really oudrafted my opponents all games, but also had good luck. In the first game on the snow map, Rÿchean got 1st pick and choose Moltenclaw and I drafted Yettis*2, so he felt he need to follow suit and get some squads so he got GG * 2 from me. I had a lot easier time winning this just based on he draft results. In the last game on hot Heights, I was encouraged by my opponent to draft Hydra over KA and man did I clean up with him, partially do to my good use of maintaing height an dusing surprise, and partially do to great luck on my part and poor luck on his. I killed almost his entire army with him except I killed Shurrak with Moltenclaw. In the end I only had 2 wounds on Hydra and killed his army in less than 30 minutes.

Championship - 3rd worst of 14? total people
Army: 4th * 5 + Sgt. Drake v2 + Eldgrim
Match 1: L vs. moxilla (who won) - Minions * 4 + Atlaga + Marcu
Match 2: L vs. older but newer player - Mezzodemons * 4 + Major Q9 + Rats *1
Match 3: W vs. a 10 year old girl - Grut + Heavy + Arrow gruts * 1, Mimring, Grimnak, Nerak, Swog
Match 4: L vs. guanolator - Braxas + Rats * 3 + Airborne Elite + Sgt. drake v1
Notes: First of all, up until 10 minutes before it started I was planing on playing either a bonding army such as knights or dwarves or a melee/range combo army such as 10th or Mohicans or some wrymlings and D&D heroes. I had played the 10th too much both in this and past tourneys, I did not own enough Mohicans for the army I wanted, and seeing what others were playing made me think I needed some range, which made me give in to others who were saying I should go with the 4th. I did horrible here, loosing do to a combination of bad luck, bad map and army matchups, poor playing on my part, and good playing by opponents. Game one against the winner of the tournament was actually the closest game I played. The jungle/road map really helped the Minions, but I was dooing relatively good... until... Atlaga got the teleportation glyph, I got him down to one life, but then he teleported in my start zone and Bolt of the Witherwood'd my Sgt. Drake! Luck was on his side as he killed everyone he attacked and I had trouble getting through the minions defense although I was maybe too aggressive and forfeited wait than fire too much. In the end it was three 4th on one minion + full health marcu and with full points scoring he won. To be fair, I figured it out and with partial scoring he still would have won, and most likely Marcu would have won if we played it out. But if he hadn't got the bolt I definitely would have won and moxilla got the bolt 3 or 4 times out of 5 games that day. My second game was against Mezzodemons, Q9, and rats and I played well. I got height most of the time and killed Q9 a his mezzodemon markers easily but his rats gave me trouble. He was newer and took his time but that won him the game in the end as I had only actually killed one mezzodemon plus Q9 and 3/4 rats and him killing one quad of 4th, Sgt. Drake, and an overextended Eldgrim was enough to win on points when it ended on time, although I would have easily defeated him if we played 10-15 minutes or so more. Being ranked equally in last place (killercactus also lost the first 2 and dropped out) after that I played a little girl (with some help from her dad including helping her not to cheat) who I intentionally played the least strategic plays I could even not making the most attacks as possible but I still easily won. The last game I lost because I was immensely outplayed, but the map did help and Braxas and 3 squads of Rats on a snow map was probably the matchup that would give anyone playing the 4th the most trouble. I just couldn't get past the rats to get to braxas. As normal, I was way to aggressive with the 4th and probably would have been better off if I made Braxas come to my start zone, but I always feel like punk making people come to me, which is one reason I hate playing the 4th and why I never should in the first place. The 4th Mass are a great army and they (along with captain america) came in 1st before the bracket, but I proved to myself once and for all that I just am not good with the 4th Mass as it clashes with the way I play being part aggressive and part defensive.


Liteweight - 3rd of 6 people
Army: Marro Drones * 5 + Kaemon Awa + Isamu
Match 1: W Vs. ____ - Q9, Raelin, Kaemon Awa
Match 2: L Vs. ManTrainChooChoo - Dividers * 7
Match 3: W Vs. TurkeyClubSamich - Vipers * 6, Venoc warlord, Marcu
Notes: I wanted to play a fun army and it was either drones or zombies, and I think drones worked out well. I was fearful of Q9 + Reelin, but managed to take out Raelin with 2-3 turns of drones and Q9 with two turns with KA - after that game 1 was over. When facing dividers, it was a very even army, but I made a critical failure one round where I moved KA to where ManTrain could get height with two dividers and stupidly put 3 order makers on him, lost initiative, he double engaged on height, I could not kill his engagers, and he was killed after one turn, allowing ManTrain to take 2 turn against my drones unopposed. He had crappy luck dividing in the early game but good luck later and it was over once I made that fatal flaw - before which it was more in my favor. The last game I had really good luck on my hive swarm, only rolling less than 13 once out of 15+ turns, while my opponent only frenzied once all game. At the end he had some good luck and some chance of winning with Marcu and the Venoc Warlord left, but my numbers were too much.

Origins Heroscape Total: 11 Wins out of 16 games
Swag: Lava * 2, Tundra, Vydar Flagbearer, Fortress, plus some master sets I deferred to give to the newbies.

I also played 2 games of summoner wars using guild dwarves and lost the first game (to the eventual champion) and won the second game.

I also got to play and learn a couple new games, play a massive star wars mini game, play some werewolf late one night, bought the last Summoner Wars master set truth brought as well as some other games, went to Comfest, hung with my cousin, and hung with a friend I know who just moved to Columbus and was feeling lonely.

All in all a very good time!

[killercactus]

I played in HoB and the Championship, though I'm not sure you can really classify my performance in the championship as "playing".

I played 10th x6 in HoB and went 3-1, taking 4th. My loss was to ManTrain's Blade Gruts, Grimnak and Raelin. I think that this army is superior to the Heavy Gruts build for this event because without Raelin, I felt I could take Grimnak down in a turn or two thanks to WTF. With Raelin I couldn't. He pretty much outplayed me in every sense of the word. It also didn't help that I played him on a lava map so I couldn't camp on the high ground, and he rolled insane dice. Insane. The other 3 games were a lot of 10th dominating stuff, and Hawthorne turning on Brownsfan82 for the 4th straight game.

My championship army was Eltahale, Raelin, Krav, 10th x3, which looks really good on paper. In practice, it wasn't. Pickle4192 completely ran me over with the Steamroller, and then weesel99 beat me after that playing some Knights / Gilbert / Raelin garbage. Knowing that I had to leave Origins early for a bachelor party, I dropped at that point to get some more time in at the dealer hall and demo Dungeon Run. So, lefton4ya, there was one other player besides that little girl that had a worse record than you in the championship. I should've just played Vipers or Runa/Minions/Atlaga instead and had more fun.

[jacob_j_p]

Lefton, you played moxilla who won the main event, not me. I provided his army if that counts Can you believe I had to convince him to play?!?

The 20 sider was definitely with him that day.

Your last opponent was guanolator, he also had airborne and old drake in his army.

[Moxilla]

yeah I winned!

Big thanks to Weesel99!

[TurkeyClubSamich]

Originally Posted by Phaethon

My kids and I showed up late yesterday... just in time to see a viper barbecue...

Not sure who all was still there, but I know my son enjoyed watching.

Yeah, that was me getting smoked by ManTrainChooChoo. I'm glad that in the wake of my defeat, I was at least able to provide some entertainment.

[Guanolator]

I was able to participate in the Origins Main event. My second tourney under the fine tutelage of jacob_j_p and the Columbus Crew. Hats off to Wessel99 and the Crew for running such a fine event.

My Army: Braxas, 3 x Reavers, Airborne elite and RoTV Sgt. Drake.

M1:L
M2:W
M3:L
M4:W

M1: was versus Brownsfan82 on Hot Heights with 4 x Weston, Sir Gilbert and Alastair McDirk. I seem to have forgotten 55 points worth of his army. Regardless, the match started with the middle getting clogged pretty quickly with knights and reavers. I moved Braxas into the center high strip to start taking out the rapidly advancing knights. The acid breath was hit or miss maybe taking out 2 or 3 in a couple of rounds. Due to marker mismanagement and rapid knight advancement, I hung Braxas out to dry and the knights quickly dispatched her by the third turn. I was unable to drop the AE until about the 5th turn, by then the knights were gobbling up the reavers and quickly took care of Sgt. Drake. I eventually got the AE down and was able to knock out 7 knights in 2 rounds but the dice ran cold. I eventually succumbed to an advancing Gilbert and everything was wiped off the board.

M2: I cannot remember the name of the gentleman that I played just that he lined up an Ogre Warhulk, 4 x Mezzodemons, 2 x reavers, and 1 x death chasers. We battled on Flash Fire. Even with a good amount of road, this match moved very slowly with both side having reavers. My AE dropped right off the bat so I alternated turns with them and the reavers getting position and taking potshots at the Mezzodemons that were in range. I failed to make much head way as all my hits went to erasing the annoying exoskeletons. Noting the AE futility and with time running nigh, I moved Braxas out to start snacking on the reavers and mezzos on my side of the board. Braxas quickly gobbled up 2 and 3 reavers at a time and a demon or two. The match was called on time with me winning comfortably on points.

M3: I was pretty excited because I got to battle the legendary Rÿchean on Hot Heights. Rÿchean brought in 5 x Marro Dividers, Major Q10 and Krav. The AE dropped right away and Rÿchean ended up picking off my AE quickly with his Krav. I got a couple of shots in with the AE, but the Kravs stealth dodge proved pretty formidable. I used Braxas to clean them up all the while moving my rats into the center of the board. Rÿchean moved Q10 into the middle to start picking off rats. I was fortunate to get height on Q10 with some rats and put 3 wounds on a series of unfortunate defense whiffs for Q10. I used Braxas to finish off Q10 with a straight bite attack and then parked her on the plateau next to his start zone. Seemed like I had this in the bag, but it is perfect example of why you should never give up until your last figure is gone. Rÿchean was able to get some dividers by my rats guarding Braxas’s position. He kept killing rats and getting shots on Braxas in addition to Braxas taking lava damage at the end of the turns. I was running out of rats and Braxas life (note Rÿchean did an excellent job of keeping his dividers out of acid range so I was only removing 1 or 2 per round) so I decided to retreat her before she died. Long story short, he burned through the last of my rats and slaughtered Drake to finally catch Braxas back in her start zone with one life left. Easy pickings.

M4: I battled lefton4ya on Jagged Causeway. He brought 5 x 4th Mass, Eldgrim and SoTM Sgt. Drake. My AE dropped right away in this match as well. We ended up trading shots with AE and 4th mass until I was whittled down to 2. He started moving 4th into my half and I countered with reavers to engage every soldier he put in my zone. It was a text book engage with rats and spit with Braxas. On the way to his start zone I got a lucky spit on SoTM Drake with a 19. It allowed me to run the rest of my rats into his start zone to start the task of dissolving the rest of his 4th mass. However, my rat shield seemed to disappear quicker than I thought and Braxas started to take damage. She got to with 3 life left and only 2 rats for cover so I retreated her to clean up the last squad and ½ with Sgt Drake. Time was called shortly thereafter.

There you have it. 2-2. I learned a lot about order marker management involving units that do not have movement bonding. Shoulda listened to my Crew mentors and added Raelin instead of old Drake.

[lefton4ya]

I feel bad for just thinking about this now, but I do not think anyone registered Heroscape for any events this year at Origins (someone can correct me if I am wrong). Last year, we only had 6-10 people in most of our events, and I am not sure I can go this year, but still it would have been nice to have known there would be heroscape at Origins just to show the game is still active. This image is still on their homepage:

[WarriorOfEberron]

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

I feel bad for just thinking about this now, but I do not think anyone registered Heroscape for any events this year at Origins (someone can correct me if I am wrong). Last year, we only had 6-10 people in most of our events, and I am not sure I can go this year, but still it would have been nice to have known there would be heroscape at Origins just to show the game is still active. This image is still on their homepage:

yeah, Heroscape is not on the newly released event list. I guess it isn't there. Just the year I was hoping to go...

[lefton4ya]

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

I feel bad for just thinking about this now, but I do not think anyone registered Heroscape for any events this year at Origins (someone can correct me if I am wrong). [In 2011], we only had 6-10 people in most of our events, and [I may be able to go this year, but no time to organize], but still it would have been nice to have known there would be heroscape at Origins just to show the game is still active. This image is still on their homepage:

Ditto for 2013. I may be able to go this year, but no time to organize. Since event submission is closed, unless someone submitted events outside of heroscapers, I guess it is a no.