Mattser's Battle Report (including Craig Van Ness battle!)

[MattserTruckRally]

This was first year going to GenCon and I ended up going with jacob_j_p, weesel_99, and ManTrain. It was an absolute blast and the main event was a lot of fun.

Day 1

For the main event I brought this with me:

Major Q9 – 180 points
Krav Maga Agents – 100 points
Laglor – 110 points
Raelin – 80 points
Marcu – 20 points
Isamu – 10 points

This army has so much synergy with itself its crazy. Raelin and Laglor provide tremendous boosts to both Q9 and the Krav. Marcu and Isamu are pretty much filler in this army. The combination of Marcu and Isamu is much better then Guilty since Marcu gives you an option of grabbing a glyph early which is pretty useful since this army has no great glyph holders. I playtested against many armies and ultimately decided on this one since I dominated a lot of games on open maps. I did begin to see some weaknesses in this army in the last week of practicing though. Braxus and Cyprien were absolute wrecking balls against me. Even if they didn’t get their point cost they often crippled my support units and would usually kill off my agents leaving me with Q9 against everything.

The battles:

Round 1 – Bob Lucido (Kaemon Awa, Tagawa Samurai, Kozuke Samurai, Izumi Samurai, Krav Maga Agents)
Map – Klomar’s Training Ground
Glyphs – Defense +1 (on my side), Lucky 20 sider (his side)

Klomar’s Training Ground is a pretty unfair map for my army. Laglor and Raelin can be deployed to the front of your starting zone and will likely not move the entire game.

The game started out with me moving out Q9 early while Bob moved out the Krav and Kaemon Awa. There was a decent amount of crossfire between both units and the giant robot. In the end I ended up wiping out the Krav and Kaemon Awa and the soulburg had taken 3 wounds and Raelin was dead. Q9 randomly took out a Kozuke Samurai and advanced to the Defense+1 glyph. Eventually he was killed by the Tagawa Samuri however my Krav Agents mowed them down pretty quickly. The Krav then dominted the rest of the game killing off the Kozuke Samurai and Izumi Samurai with their 9 range.

Record: 1-0 (+230 points, Krav, Marcu, Laglor – survivors)

Round 2: Neo Skywalker (nwoJedi) (4th Mass x 4, Airborne Elite, Brunak!)
Map: Highways and Dieways
Glyphs – Move +2 (close to him), Attack +1 (closer to me)

This was a rough and close match. Highways and Dieways is a nightmare map for my army. The range enhancement from Laglor is minimal due to all the trees blocking line of sight everywhere. Right from the get go Jedi drops the Airborne Elite turn 1. I start moving out the Krav to try to counter them. I managed to snipe off most of the Airborne Elite and lose a Krav Maga Agent and Raelin in the process. Major Q9 decides to get on the road and is engaged by a charging Brunak. Brunak manages to get elevated while an Airborne Elite is hanging out on the attack+1 glyph. Brunak swings and hits 5 skulls on Major Q9! I get pretty lucky and roll 4 shields and manage to walk away with only one wound. Q9 then fires at Brunak a few times and quickly kills him as he blanks out on defense rolls. From there the 4th Mass start to move out. It’s a battle of attrition from here. The 4th Mass manage to eliminate the remaining Krav Agents and start going toe to toe with Major Q9. I’m in pretty good shape for awhile defending against all of his attacks. Then once he gets down to five 4th Mass one of them manages to find a weak spot on Q9 hitting 3 skulls. I blank out on my defense roll and am in serious trouble. I try to use Laglor/Isamu/Marcu to finish the remaining 4th Mass, however with elevation and the attack+1 glyph they went down without much of a fight.

Record: 0-1 (+90 points, (-140 from Jedi having 2 squads of 4th Mass left)

Round 3: chaoschild (Einar Imperium x 2, Krav Maga Agents, Kiova, Guilty McCreach)
Map: Klomar’s Training Ground
Glyphs: Defense +1 (my side), Lucky 20 sider (his side) – I could be way off on this I can’t really remember though since glyphs were not a factor in this game.

Early on chaos moved out the Einar Imperium and Krav Maga Agents. I moved out my Krav Agents early and started shooting at the Imperium. The Imperium were pretty tough against the damage and with Kiova backing them they were able to hold up pretty well. I was slowly killing them with the Krav though. Chaos knew he had to get rid of Raelin quickly though and sent his Krav after her. Major Q9 intercepted the Agents and fired on them. Raelin was killed in the crossfire and his Krav were downed during the battle. From here the Krav squared off against the Einar Imperium and Kiova. I managed to cripple the Imperium and lost 2 Krav Agents in the process. Major Q9 then finished off the remaining Imperium and Kiova leaving me with one agent left. Guilty came out over the hill and fired a couple of desperation shots at Q9. He managed to inflict 3 wounds on him and bring him to 1 life! However Q9 finished him off rather quickly after that.

2-1 (+510 points (+420 – Krav Agents (1 left), Marcu, Isamu, Laglor, Major Q9)

Round 4: markwars (Romans x 3, Marcus, Ne-Gok-Sa, Me-Baq-Sa, Airborne Elite)
Map: Klomar’s Training Ground
Glyphs: Move +2 (my side), Lucky 20 sider (his side)

Mark and I were absolutely horrible at rolling initiative this game. If you rolled a 7 or an 8 you were probably going to win initiative! This game did not go well at all for him. He started out moving the Legionnaires in a big gigantic pack. I moved out my Krav Maga Agents. The agents picked off the Romans fairly quickly. Mark dropped the Airborne Elite close by. I won the initiative roll though and sniped off a soldier He fired on Raelin hitting her for a couple of wounds. The Krav hit back and killed off another two airborne. His last airborne elite fired on Raelin. From here more Romans quickly fell as they forced my Krav off the hill and back into my starting zone. Major Q9 came out though and quickly wiped out the Romans. Once Mark was left without Romans the decisions became a little more difficult and split up his order markers on his remaining heroes. The Krav quickly fired on Me-Baq-Sa and took him out. Ne-Gok-Sa ran up and attempted to finish Raelin and Mindshackle Laglor. Raelin held up like a tank for several wounds and the Krav finished off Ne-Gok-Sa. Marcus was quickly eliminated by the Krav. It was pretty lopsided and the combination of a bad map and Raelin rolling defense like a champ didn’t make this game any easier for him.

3-1 (+1010 points (flawless victory))

Round 5: spider_poison (4th Mass x 5!, Alistair MacDirk, Eldgrim)
Map: Ashonqurk Fields
Glyphs: Lucky 20 sider (his side), Defense +1 (my side)

This was a pretty long and rough match. I moved out Marcu first to take the Defense+1 glyph and he started moving the 4th Mass around the hill. He fired out Marcu for a while attempting to take him off the glyph. I got my Krav onto the little elevated point on my side and started firing upwards at the Mass looking to get elevated on Marcu. The 4th Mass slowly lost their numbers however they managed to get Marcu off the glyph. A few good shots from Mass downed my Krav Maga Agents and it was up to Major Q9 to fight off the Mass by himself. The 4th Mass closed in on my starting zone and took out Raelin. Q9 was a tank from here and kept gunning them down. Spider, running out of 4th Mass, started moving MacDirk out. With about 4-5 of the 4th Mass remaining Mac Dirk set himself to be in a good position to hit Major Q9 twice if spider won initiative. Spider won the die roll and charged Major Q9. Macdirk’s attacks were a bit weak and only hit 2 skulls each time. Q9 defended each time and took out MacDirk. From here Major Q9 still in full health wiped out the rest of the 4th Mass. Eldgrim tried a last ditch effort and died right when time was called.

4-1 (+1310 (+ 300, Major Q9, Laglor, Isamu)

Wow those were some battles and I had tough opponents over and over again.

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Top 8

Quarter-Finals
Truth (Krug, Mimring, Swogs x 4, Arrow Gruts x 3, Isamu)
Map: Spring Thaw
Glyphs: Defense +1 (my side), Lucky 20 sider (his side)

This was a pretty tough match and I think that the map made a huge difference in this match up. With the hilly elevated middle it was difficult for Krug to cross quickly against me.

Truth moved out Mimring early while I used Marcu to grab the Defense+1 glyph and walk Q9 up to the first hill. Mimring took a few fire line shots at Q9, Raelin and Marcu and managed to inflict a couple of wounds on Raelin and Marcu. Mimring didn’t last to long though after I used Q9 for a few rounds. Truth followed up with Krug and moved him towards the Major. Q9 managed to inflict some heavy wounds on Krug before becoming engaged. At this point Krug was pretty angry and started hitting my Q9 with 11 defense (height, Raelin, Defense Glyph). Down to only 2 wounds left on Krug we rolled off for initiative. I won the die roll it looked like Krug was in serious danger of being killed off. I had some pretty good attack rules and Truth had great defense rolls to counter. Krug with 7 wounds finished off Q9. Then giant troll attempted to move into my start zone. He didn’t last long though against the Krav.

From here it was a battle of the Krav Maga and Raelin versus the Swogs and Arrow Gruts. It was pretty tough though for the orcs to get close enough to me. He did manage to get one agent with the arrow gruts. The other two agents combined with Laglor’s range enhancement though dominated the end of the battle. Isamu attempted to do some damage and fell flat on his first vanishing roll.

Semi-Finals
Jormi (Marro Hive!, Marro Stingers x5, Guilty McCreach, Isamu)
Map: Artic Divide
Glyphs: Initiative+8 (his side), Attack+1 (my side)

The d20 was not on Jormi’s side at all this match. Early on he started moving his stingers out. While I moved Raelin up a little bit and moved out my Krav Maga Agents. I started firing at Stingers killing a couple. I was able to hold the attack glyph for a little bit and some stingers came out and managed to kill off the agent holding it. From there they quickly finished Raelin with some huge rolls and a juicing. Major Q9 slowly moved up and starting taking out the Stingers. That’s when things started to go horribly wrong for Jormi. He managed to get a couple stingers elevated with the attack glyph. He goes to juice and rolls low on the d20 and loses a Stinger and his attack. Major Q9 gets the even ground and takes out some more Stingers. The Stingers attempt to get to the Major and fail the juice again! Q9 fires back killing more. From here Q9 just dominated the rest of this anticlimactic game.

Finals
Rÿchean (Deathreavers x 3, Kaemon Awa, Krav Maga Agents, Marro Warriors, Airborne Elite)
Map: Molten Ground
Glyphs: Move +2 (left side), Lucky 20 sider (right side)

Rÿchean was basically sporting every single unit that rocks with Deathreavers. Rÿchean spent his early turns sending out the rats while I moved Raelin up a little bit to cover Q9 and Q9 moved up to a little hill on my side of the map where he would remain the entire game. From there I started using the Quiglix gun when the rats started to get closer to me. The airborne elite dropped and were in a tough spot. Rÿchean tried to figure out ways to get them close enough to fire on Raelin. He found a couple decent shots against Raelin and started hitting her. Q9 fired back though and the AEs numbers were cut in half. The Krav advanced and finished off Raelin and tried to fire out Q9. His defense held up pretty well and eventually two of them were killed. The lone Krav agent managed to get two wounds on Q9! Kaemon moved out and Q9 took some long range shots at him and inflicted a little bit of damage. Kaemon came close and hit Q9 for another wound and then Q9 finished him off. From here the Marros were the only remaining. Looking a little bleak he moved them out and attempted a couple of elevated shots on Q9. Q9 took a couple of them out. His last Marro Warrior elevated on a lava field tried to take a couple more shots at Q9, however they were blocked. At the end of the round the lava damage killed the last Marro Warrior. Down to only a handful of rats he conceded.[/b]


I was pretty happy to do as well as I did and there were so many good players there. Thanks to Grungebob and everyone else who helped out at Gencon.




Bonus Battle!

So I also got to play Craig Van Ness. This was something else. He let me pick his random army.

He ended up with:

1 x Kaemon Awa
1 x Sgt. Drake
3 x 4th Mass

I decided to use weesel99s melee army with an addition:

1 x Tor-Kul-Na
3 x Nagrubbs
1 x Krav Maga
1 x Raelin
1 x Isamu

We battled it out on Klomars Training Ground.

The Battle

Craig moved out Kaemon Awa early and I moved out Raelin to the first hill by my starting area. Kaemon started to take shots at Raelin while Nagrrubs and Tor-Kul-Na moved around the hills attempting to get into his starting zone. One of the Nagrubbs found the lucky 20 sider on the other side of the map and I believe the other glyph was probably initiative +8.

On round 2 Tor-Kul-Na was starting to get dangerously close to Craig's start zone. Tor-Kul-Na marchs towards the Mass while Kaemon finishs off Raelin. On my turn I trampled stomp through 4 of the Mass. On Craigs turn he tries to retaliate and inflicts some damage on the hivelord. I trampled stomp through about 3 more Mass and end the turn. The Mass fire back and I'm down to about 3 life.

Round 3 begins and Tor-Kul-Na wipes out the remaing Mass and does a little bit of damage to Drake. I got hit back and sent down to 1 wound. Tor-Kul-Na hits on Drake a little and Drake hits back rolling only 2 skulls. Like a champ I defense and hit back for 4 skulls on Drake. He blanks out on defense and this game is looking really bad now.

Round 4 beings and the Narubbs remove a few wounds from Tor-Kul-Na and he marchs toward Kaemon Awa. The Nagrubbs hit him for a couple wounds and Tor-Kul-Na marchs over stomps him then quickly ends his life with another big attack.

This was a pretty quick game and pretty entertaining I'd have to say. Probably not for Craig though. Also probably the fastest 500 on 500 pt game I have ever played.

[edridtc123]

Will you be posting a battle report about your battle with Craig Van Ness?

BTW: Nice battles! I want to go to GenCon sooo bad! Even if I don't win a tourney, there are cool exclusives and you can buy sets months in advance. Thank you for posting these reports!

[Jexik]

Cool. I like how almost the exact same army (just replacing Guilty with Marcu and Isamu) has been in the competitive army thread for months. People should have expected this army from you!

(Minor quibble- after your second game, the record should be 1-1, right?)

[MattserTruckRally]

Originally Posted by Jexik

Cool. I like how almost the exact same army (just replacing Guilty with Marcu and Isamu) has been in the competitive army thread for months. People should have expected this army from you!

(Minor quibble- after your second game, the record should be 1-1, right?)

(I fixed it)

And yeah I'll put the one with Craig Van Ness in to. I'll post day 2 tomorrow

[Jexik]

The one thing I'm not sure of is putting Marcu in the same army as Krav Maga Agents. Do you make sure that he's always far enough away from your Krav before taking a turn with him? I'd feel really stupid if my Marcu killed an agent.

Obviously, it all worked out pretty well for you. Those bad juices would have haunted me. 3 attacks at 5 or 6 dice would have been killer, even on Q9.

[ThrasherDarkrai]

These were some nice battles! Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, if only the Stingers didn't do horrible with the 20-sided die...

[Hendal]

Great post - can't believe it took me this long to find it.

Yea Q-9 + Raelin is tough, add Loglor and we found out the results - winner.

Thanks for sharing, just another reason to go to GenCon next year, so I can write about all my battles.

[johne1000]

great opening team but the final battle agaist you and the creators outcome was predictable