NHSD Indianapolis 2011

In addition to our own local Louisville NHSD, a few of our group managed to get up to Indianapolis for another NHSD celebration. They were playing 420 point General Wars, and I went with my favorite general, .

200 Roman Legionnaires x4
120 Kaemon Awa
100 Marcus Decimus Gallus


For Game 1 I was paired against brownsfan82...a regular at the Louisville tournaments, and someone I've never beaten. Great!

He played
240 Fen Hydra x2
140 Phantom Knights x2
040 Deathreavers

Our map was basically a giant hill in the middle with lava on top. After we placed in starting zones, I noticed the Move glyph was on his side of the hill. 7 Move Hydrae. Awesome. Though I was fighting an uphill battle most of the way, the sheer number of Romans I had eventually punched through one Hydra, losing a few plus Marcus (who took the Healing glyph on low ground after 3 wounds mostly to keep the Hydra from getting heads back). Kaemon Awasome stepped up and managed to mow down all the PKs (whose defense rolls were poor despite height nearly the whole time). The second Hydra lost a couple heads to Counter Strike, and managed to hold out for a victory with just a single squad of Romans and Kaemon Awa at 1 Life.

Win, 1-0


Game 2 was against MechaFrog on a low swampy map with some road. He played

210 Axegrinders x3
110 Migol Ironwill
100 Wyvern

The two glyphs for this map were d20 and Defense. Needless to say one of them was ignored and all the fighting took place on one side of the map. I led with Romans/Marcus for a straight-up melee battle. I managed to get the Defense glyph early and keep it nearly every turn for the rest of the game. The Wyvern flew off with Marcus at one point, but whiffed his attack and Marcus simply rejoined his Romans on the front while more came in to slay the beast. Dwarves, fighting uphill against extra Defense and Attack most of the way, didn't have the dice on their side either, and I won without Kaemon loosing an arrow.

Win, 2-0


Game 3 vs wdgrant on another lava hill. He had

200 Sacred Band x4
120 Kaemon Awa
100 Marcus Decimus Gallus

Hmm. Almost a mirror match. If I could keep my squads together, I'd have better Defense, while he enjoyed more freedom of movement. The most interesting thing, though, was that we started off with opposite strategies: his Greeks swarmed in while Awasome mounted the hill alone for my team. Kaemon fought the Greeks off the Attack glyph, then claimed it for himself. He killed Marcus in the process, then when wdgrant's Kaemon came close, loosed 4 skulls out of 6. A whiffed defense roll later and there was only one samurai on the field. The Greeks finished my Kaemon shortly thereafter (the final offender burning up on lava field immediately - ha!). That left a handful of slow, scattered Greeks against the entire Roman Legion. Romans emerged victorious.

Win, 3-0


Game 4 vs Craig on a long map with Attack +1 and Range +4 glyphs. Craig (who always beats me with armies on loan from Deroche) played

360 Marro Stingers x6
050 Marro Warriors
010 Isamu

Long story short this was a slaughter. If the Range glyph hadn't been there, it might have been different, but as it was most of the Romans barely breached the tree-line on my side of the field before getting zapped. Kaemon Awa did OK, but couldn't last forever.

Loss, 3-1


Finally, Game 5 pitted me against Slippery Slope, another Louisville regular. He had

140 4th Mass. x2
140 Knights of Weston x2
105 Sir Gilbert
030 Eldgrim

SS played the opening to our battle beautifully, while I stupidly charged right in with Romans. I was fighting a literal uphill battle while he held the Defense glyph, screened with Knights, and set up 4th behind. After Round 1, I had traded 2 Romans for 1 Knight. Not great. Looking at the casualties at the end of Round 2, however, I noticed I still only had 2 dead Romans to a lot more dead stuff on his side. Huh?! By some fluke of the dice, my Romans not only fought their way onto the hill, but started killing everything on it. And that's really how the rest of the match went. Eventually, SS killed Marcus and all but 6 Romans, but Kaemon Awasome only had to face 3 4th and Eldgrim. He went the distance.

Win, 4-1


In the end I took top spot for and brought home the dice tower! I was second overall only to Craig (my sole loss). As we consider Craig pretty much one of our Louisville group (he's from Indiana), we took 1st (Craig; victor), 2nd (me; victor), and 3rd (Deroche; victor). Additionally, MegaSilver took 's top spot in 7th place! Indianapolis has a great gaming group and worldsenemy ran one heck of a tournament!