Random Thoughts

Apparently I have a blog now. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but for now I'll just stick to whatever Heroscape nonsense pops into my head.

So I went ahead and played a mock tournament today (In reality, we just play a smaller point value, skip the glyphs, and get really puffed up about our armies, but it's all harmless fun really). I, for one, was rather excited about my army. Earlier this week I had randomly played a scout-based army and it dominated, so I figured it would be a great chance to take a fun army and show people how competitive it could be, so I went ahead and played today with:

Spiders x5 -- 200
Wyvern x2 -- 400
Mohican River Tribe x4 -- 680
Venoc Warlord -- 800
Brave Arrow -- 850
Zetacron -- 910
Estivara -- 990

(Yes, 1000 points is a smaller game for us)

I was really determined to take this army and make a good run with it, so I played it a few times this week and refined and got familiar with it's capabilities. It steamrolled everything it came up against. The spiders swept forward and ruined order markers and screens alike, with Estivara providing that attack boost and a little ranged support. The Wyverns wreaked havoc with supporting figures and the occasional hero. By the time they petered out, a few rounds of Mohicans were usually enough to clean the field, with Zetacron and the Venoc Warlord supporting when needed.

Well, though we started late, we finally got it going today and I found out the awful truth, my army set me up. I fell flat on my face with a 1-3 record. The only win I had came down to the Venoc Warlord and a daring squad of Mohicans going all out against superior forces and coming out with some lucky concealment rolls (rolled a 20 against a figure standing right next to a Mohican, only he was high enough to not be engaged). It was a truly horrid afternoon. Not only did I lose badly, but nobody had any fun whatsoever playing against my army; it was too easy.

My personal inability to deal with scouts aside, I noticed a few things. In my most embarrassing match, my opponent played both Dr. Doom and Iron Man. It very quickly became apparent that Zetacron was the only figure I had that could deal with these two. The combination of high defense and maneuverability made them near impossible for my small squads. The Wyverns were a significant threat for them, but failed right out of the gate, going down to Iron Man's first 2 attacks. I finally managed to bring Iron Man down (Axed by a sneaky Mohican with height), but that was all I got. Zetacron followed the Wyverns before he could fire a shot, and the Venoc Warlord seems to have forgotten what a skull looks like. What captured my attention, though, was a short skirmish between Dr. Doom and the Spiders. I stole a whole round with their webbing, so I took 9 straight attacks against Doom with my Spiders. Nothing. Not a stinking wound.

What occurred to me then, though I would really like to be wrong, is that there are some figures that stand only the smallest chance of causing damage to a certain class of figures. I've played Heroscape since the beginning, but I've always sort of held out hope than there was no squad too small. Today, that hope was destroyed utterly, and then subjected to Mind Exchange that turned Q10 into an exterminator. Thus, I write my first nonsense blog to commemorate all the small squads out there with their two attack and hopes of winning someday. Then I tell them they suck and pull out my Knights of Weston and move on.