[vegietarian18]

Scapecon 2023 Reports

I’m only writing reports for the three daily championships and the World Championship. I played 39 games this weekend, my most ever, and finished with second most wins on the weekend only behind superchampion Chris Perkins. While it was very fun and the championships weren’t necessarily my best played events I don’t think I have it in me to write about all the games.


Delta Rule of 12: Glads x2, Blasts x2, Major Q10, Isamu

Spoiler Alert!

There was no grand army thesis here. I copied @Sir Heroscape ’s Peoria prep army for this event, thinking it was a high skill army with smooth matchups.


Round 1 vs. infectedsloth (Nakitas, Knights x3, Gilbert) on Origin


Barnburner game here. I opened Q10, hoping to kill a Nakita, but infectedsloth opened straight Knights. Q10 was cold on kills, and Gilbert was cold on dispatch. I switched to straight Gladblast and we fought a relatively traditional matchup from there, but I was on the backfoot because of my Q10 opening slowed my deployment. It was a super tense and tactical game, but it went to time with the Knights holding a narrow lead. 2-life Gilbert, 1 Knight, 1 Nakita vs. 1 Blast and Isamu. I think Nathan played better than me here to get the win in a tough matchup. L, 0-1.


Round 2 vs. Mr Migraine (Stingers x4, Major Q10, Marcu, Otonashi) on Healing Waters


I won opening initiative and stormed the hill of Healing Waters with the eight moves per order marker of the Trons. The Stingers tried to contest it, but they failed some early kills and I got rolling downhill early. Things very quickly fell apart. Stingers struggled even more once they lost the hill and the Trons rolled to a quick victory. W, 1-1


Round 3 vs. KnightOfLight (Romans x3, Marcus, MBS, Swarm Raelin) on Ascension


This matchup should favor Trons, but I didn’t really know how to play it on Ascension, especially with a Me-Burq-Sa in the mix, because he outdamages Trons in a ping war. I didn’t want to cede ground to melee, so I rushed towards the Raelin placed in the middle, and killed MBS and a few Romans who came to defend her. I was feeling good about my chances. Fearing an initiative switch, I did a tactical retreat at the end of Round 3, but when the initiative switch came I ceded a ton of ground to the Romans. They took height and started hitting downhill. The Trons went down fast, taking most of the Romans with them but losing me control of the game. I switched to Q10, who needed a huge initiative vs. Marcus and 3 Romans to clutch out a win with 1-life remaining. W, 2-1


Round 4 vs.GucciBoost (Arrows x4, Mimring, Krug, Swog x2) on April 9th


I opened Q10 again here, wanting to get shots on Mimring. We ended up in a very silly situation where Q10 was repeatedly engaged by Krug, and repeatedly took LEAs from Krug to shoot Arrows with Machine Pistol instead. Q10 never took wounds, but I switched to Trons in Round 2 to evacuate the startzone and kill Arrows. Mimring and Arrows strongly focused two-defense Blasts, and got me under activations, but Arrows were falling fast too. My final three Blasts landed a huge nuke turn on Krug around initiative switch, 4 Glads and Q10 as beacons for three attacks of 6, and that cleaned him up and put me in command. W, 3-1


Round 5 vs. Dragon Ruler (10th x3, Raelin, Tarn) on August 2nd


I opened Q10 again, hoping to outrange 10th and pull them out of Raelin’s aura, but instead he got initiative switched Wait Then Fired inside of Raelin’s aura to start Round 2 and took four quick wounds, totally losing me an order marker and a 170 point investment. I had to totally regroup. Dragon Ruler was content to sit in his start zone with 10th, so I played a very patient game with the Gladblast, staging for a Round 4 initiative switch while launching 7 range pings of 2v4. I lost a lot of Glads through this process, and had just enough in the tank when the initiative switch settled to bring the 10th under activations. Then, it was Isamu magic. Dragon Ruler says 12 vanishes, but I think only nine. Who’s to say. But my favorite ninja killed a 2-life Raelin, 2 Tarn, and a full health Marcu to send me to the top cut. W, 4-1


Quarterfinals vs. Samuelfrost4 (Romans x3, MBS, Marcus, Airborne) on Nightfall


Airborne dropped turn 1, which is really bad, but I won first initiative, which was really. Blasts killed an Airborne turn 1, a second turn 2, and Q10 dropped another Airborne on turn 3. Meanwhile all the Airborne could manage was to kill two Blasts. The Romans tried to come in, but they had forfeit so much development to the Airborne opener that it was a brutal uphill battle where I was in control without much risk. W


Semifinals vs. MegaSilver (Deathchasers x4, Nerak, MBS, Krav) on Dark Fulcrum


Really interesting build from Mega. He used the Battle Rush like a self-developing screen for Krav, and then went straight Krav in round 1. Blast pings on Krav did not land, but Gladblast took control of the board. Once they controlled the board they gunned down a lot of Chasers, but still could never quite get to the Krav, now retreated into the startzone. The Chasers landed just enough kills to keep it close. When the Krav were activated again, they still didn’t whiff, and finished off the Glads, leading us into a Q10 vs. Krav endgame. Q10 used the shadows and bushes of Dark Fulcrum to roll a lot of defense, and it didn’t fail him. It took a while, but I finally found a Krav whiff, and once I got that, things were looking good for me. Another Krav fell shortly after, and Q10 got another win with 1 life left. W


Finals vs. Chris Perkins (Phantoms x4, Microcorp x2) on Hydra


Another poorly faring Q10 opener, but this time after a brief Tron feint. I was hoping for Phantoms, but instead Chris went straight Micros who were so dangerous into Q10. Luckily, they were scared of Trons because of the feint, so I was able to climb Q10 up on to the level 3 perch of Hydra, which is sort of what I wanted. The game got a bit silly here. I realized that I had basically no chance to successfully activate the Trons into the developed Microcorp, who were raining terror on my startzone from 7 away. And Microcorp couldn’t realistically stop Q10. So Q10 shot Micros and Phantoms, killing a lot, but not fast enough. Eventually the Trons died and the Phantoms turned their attention to Q10. I had Chris worrying a bit about how exactly he'd kill Q10 with only one attack even, but once he started focusing Q10 the robot went down fast. L, second place.


It was a crazy run from 0-1 to the finals, especially making the top cut on the back of Isamu, but it was really fun.

Reverse the Whip: Heavies x2, Ornak, Nerak, MBS, Warden, Marcu

Spoiler Alert!

I love playing the Ornak Nerak Heavies x2 combo. Last time I ran this in 2021 I did Mindflayer but I tweaked it this time to Warden, who is more consistent and less oppressive.


Round 1 vs. Cleon (Capuans x2, Crixus, Spartacus) on August 2nd


Clean slowrolled out troops, killing for free a Marcu that I was too aggressive with, but I used that time to rotate my army towards one side of the board and launch pings. Round 2 Ornak Red Flag of Fury was a Warden + MBS double ping turn that dropped two Capuans, and that put me in control of the game. Cleon was force to quickly stage an offensive with not enough left in the tank and the Orcs rode superior attacks per turn to a win. 1-0


Round 2 vs. TriviaKnight (Stingers x2, Minions x2, Izumi, Zetacron) on
Nightfall (Reverse)


I opened straight Stingers and quickly killed Nerak and a couple Heavies. Once the Stingers went down the minions rolled out. They landed a 3/3 skull Ulaniva boosted attack to one-shot Ornak and TriviaKnight conceded. Rough matchup here, with how quickly the Stingers and Minions can hit the heroes of this build. 2-0


Round 3 vs. OrangeMailman (Deathstalkers x2, Mezzos x2, Tagawa
Arachers x2) on Hydra


TOM opened with Stalkers and Mezzos, leaving the TSA behind. The Stalkers and Mezzos did some serious work against the Heavies in a super dynamic and fun battle, but I was feeling good with how I was able to keep Warden safe from Mauls throughout the game. He took two Stalker attacks and blocked both. We each traded off pieces until eventually it came down to Warden against the Archers, and I climbed Warden up to the Level 3 height of Hydra near Wannok-side. From there he never took a wound and mowed down the entirety of the Samurai. 3-0


Round 4 vs. infectedsloth (Spiders x4, Wyvern, Estivara, Brave Arrow,
Thearcus) on Healing Waters (Reverse)


I deployed Brave Arrow and Theracus up on to the top of the Healing Waters hill, then Estivara behind them, then straight Spiders. Estivara landed five quick wounds on Marcu on her turn, which was nice. I landed some nice Heavy kills in her aura early, and then made too aggressive a play with the Wyvern trying to capitalize on my lead. I dove in into initiative switch and Ornak, and quickly lost both my Wyvern and Brave Arrow when the initiative switch happened. I was hoping either Brave Arrow or Wyvern would survive to give me the firepower I needed to kill just a couple more Heavies and limit activations against my horde of Spiders remaining, but they did not. The last Spiders came up short, and Estivara was cold in cleanup. Sad to make a mistake against IS and lose again, especially because I made an even worse mistake against him later in our Assassin’s Creed HoB finals, but it is what it is. 3-1


Round 5 vs. EarlOfSandwich (Heavies x2, Nerak, Ornak, MBS, Marcu, Ogre
Pulverizer) on Origin


Earl was running a build identical to mine with Warden switched for Pulverizer, so this was a weird game. He rushed Ogre at me which horribly failed, killing almost nothing, then we had a stareoff. He went in with initiative switch and got it and killed a ton, quickly sending me down to three Heavies, but then my last Heavies had insane defense and I killed the final five of his leaving two of my own remaining. Then it was our heroes fighting against each other. While I had a 90 point edge with the Warden, Warden wasn’t that good here. The endgame was sort of silly as we each slung single activations at each other, but Earl came out on top. 3-2


It was sad to not make the Reverse the Whip top cut, but I really like playing this army and had some great games.

VCheese: Havechs x3, Q9

Spoiler Alert!

Because I had already made the World Championship I decided to run my fun build for VCheese. I wanted to experiment with Eradicators + Q9. The thesis is you don’t need a full horde of Eradicators to get assassinations on key targets, and Q9 is often very good at killing the crippled parts of an army once Eradicators assassinate something.


Round 1 vs. Sir Heroscape (Heavies x4, Grimnak, Nerak) on Nightfall


Tough matchup. I opened with Eradicators trying to blitz Grimnak but they were ice cold, getting only one wound on the dino with a 6v6 and 5v6 and then both blowing up. I launched more desperate shots at Grimnak 4v6 but those didn’t pan out either. I very quickly burnt through Eradicators and Q9 didn’t fare much better. 0-1


Round 2 vs. Firewings (10th x5, Raelin) on Healing Waters


Even tougher matchup. I failed Plasma Surge even more this game, and burnt through a ton of Eradicators killing Q9 and a few 10th. Q9 made it a game, but went down with just under two squads of 10th left. 0-2


Round 3 vs. Bishop2003 (Death Knights x5, Skull Demon x2) on Ascension


Not the strongest cheese build here but a cool army. I was able to rack a first win with the Eradicators blasting through Death Knights 5v5 and the cleaning up with Q9. 1-2


Round 4 vs. Ultralord (Deathchasers x5, Raelin, Nerak, MBS)


Probably the best game for the Eradicators as assassins. They killed all three heroes, and a few Chasers too. Q9 was able to use the large size of Origin to kill every remaining Chaser and didn’t face that many attacks. 2-2


Round 5 vs. Vydar_XLII


Vydar only killed two Eradiactors and got two wounds on Q9, but I myself killed a lot of Eradicators. Very strange game. Raelin went down early, but I lost some guys to Plasma doing it. 80% of the time on my D20 rolls I was either hitting the bonus Plasma Surge attack or blowing up. I continued that into the midgame against the Cathar, who I had no reason to engage, so I just kept shooting and kept blowing my own guys up but killing a ton. Eventually most of the Cathar and Eradicators were dead and Q9 used Quiglex attacks of 1 to kill the Krav and then kept pressure on to finish the Marros. 3-2


It was nice to salvage a 3-2 and finally get a few favorable matchups with this army at the end. Maybe it’s too roulette wheel for a real competitive build, but I think it has a nice mix of favorable matchups.

World Championship (Draft)

Spoiler Alert!

Top 16 vs. DigityDingus on Dark Fulcrum (Utgar Pool)


I won the diceoff and opened the draft with Krug. After that Diggity took Moltenclaw and 1x Greenscales, and I grabbed my next favorite figures in the field Mimring and Frost Giant. I was feeling pretty good about my chances with those three guys on my side. The final builds were:


vegie: Arrow x3, Swog x2, Mimring, Krug, Frost Giant, Marcu (drop 1)
Diggity: Greenscales x2, Moltenclaw, Ornak, Ogre Warhulk, MBS, Isamu


I went OM1 Frost Giant, OM2 Arrows, OM3 Frost Giant, and lost initiative. OM1, Frosty stepped up. OM2, Mimring landed a 3/4 skull into 0/4 shields whiff on Moltenclaw to put 3 wounds on him. Diggity stepped up Moltenclaw and some Greenscales next, but that turned out really badly when Frosty stepped next to Moltenclaw for a huge 7 die bomb that finished him off. The game was basically over there, but Warhulk and MBS did manage to kill Mimring in the aftermath. W


Top 8 vs. JohnnyFrisbee on Hydra


I played this pool once online against Chris Perkins and the draft went identical to that game. I think this is the most standard Jandar pool draft, but it favors the player who picks second. It’s not a major favorite though, and it’s a very low risk and obvious draft path to get a game that won't blow up in your face.


Johnny: Alistar
Vegie: Knights x2
Johnny: 4th x2
vegie: Phantoms x2
Johnny: Sentinels x2
vegie: Finn, Drake


I opened straight Phantoms to assassinate 4th but they fared pretty badly. I was losing more Phantoms than Johnny was losing 4th. A really great Alastair OM cleared out two Phantoms in Round 2, and I was sent under a squad. 5 4th were left against the Knights, which is pretty bad. They hit my startzone on round 3 init, and did work into the Knights. They backed up rather than hit me with Wait Then Fire, which prolonged their life but did give the Knights a chance to do work. My last 3 Knights and Finn were insane. They cleared out the 4th, finished off a wounded Alastair, and killed three Sentinels. We were left with Drake vs. 3 Sentinels, a perfect 110 point final duel. My Drake charged in and his 7 dice never failed as he dropped all three on initiative switch. W


Game 3 vs. Chris Perkins on Dark Fulcrum


Chris opened Red Wyrmling x1 which really threw me for a loop. I hadn’t prepped this pool extensively but I felt like Warlord was the best first pick. I drafted Venoc Warlord and Mohicans x1, not realizing that there were 3x Mohicans in the pool and Chris could just take the other two squads. From there I filled out with Zetacron and Armocs x3, while Chris filled out with Brutes x2, Brave Arrow, and a White Wyrmling to pair with his Red. Despite the way the draft went so awkwardly for me I think that having superior numbers in the Armocs actually put me in an okay spot.


I was aggressive with Armocs early, which was good until it wasn’t. I killed four Mohicans, and took control of Chris’s Fulcrum startzone perch, but when I lost Round 2 initiative the Horned Skull Brutes dropped the Warlord in two attacks, and that really hurt. I killed a couple Brutes with the remaining Armocs but not much else. I tried to claw back my ranged tools of Zeta and 1x Mohicans. Zeta dropped two Brutes and pulled two more into engagement, which allowed my final two Mohicans to run and gun. They had some chances, but couldn’t get the kills they need to keep tempoing the game out. They fell to the final two Brutes with a few other wounded pieces of Chris’s still on the board. L


I’m happy with how I drafted every game here, just played the Armocs a bit too aggressively and lost the Warlord too fast I think. These drafts were really tense and interesting.