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vegietarian18 · #1 August 14th, 2014, 03:26 PM

This now contains my Gencon/Onlinecon/Scapecon reports from every year I've participated. There's always Championship reports and sometimes reports from other events.

2012 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Quote:

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

I know that I personally tried to find some GenCon reports a couple days before I left, but it seemed like there were only individual people's (usually those who won something) reports in each thread. It was kind of a pain to find individual reports and truly get a feel for what happens (outside of those lucky winners), so here is a thread for everyone to post their tales of success and failure at the Con! If you want to post them in your personal battle reports thread too, go ahead with that. It'd be really cool if you posted them in here as well. It's always fun to get multiple perspectives on the same battle.

I'm going to type up a couple events reports now, and I'll finish the rest later.

Main Event

My army was:
Romans x4
Marcus
Me-Burq-Sa
Marcu
Raelin

I thought that it was a pretty strong build that could get extremely high defense numbers when played effectively, and also had an answer to everything.

Round 1 vs. jdtenor (Romans x3, PKs x2, Marcus, MBS, Isamu) on Ticalla Sunrise

It was sort of a mirror match, but the parts of our army that differed were much more important than the parts that were the same. He led with MBS and Romans, and my MBS was able to get height and take out his first Warlord in two turns. This gave me time to get Raelin on to a good perch and roll up Romans. His PKs came next, going for my kyrie. They were successful in their assassination, but they died shortly after it was completed. Afterwards, it was simply a war of attrition, and the numbers were on my side. My Romans slowly whittled away at Marcus to limit his activations and move, and he fell. The remaining romans were caught in the low ground swamp, and it was easy for me to take height and finish him off. Isamu pulled off some Vanishing magic for quite a while, but I got him with the wound glyph.

1-0

Round 2 vs. ?? (Kato, Harqs x2, Yari x3, Isamu) on Fossil
I've never played against Harqs before, and I was a little bit afraid of how I'd do. My initial scheme was to move Me-Burq-Sa out for an early assassination attempt on Kato, but the 8 activations per turn really threw that off. He always had at least one spearman standing on the path that I planned to take. The battle wasn't all that eventful. I kept almost all my figures huddled together for Shield Wall and Raelin's aura, and he almost never defended with his 1 defense Ashigaru. Isamu vanished around again on me, and I had to Wannok him to death again.

2-0

Round 3 vs. Deroche (Glads x3, Blasts x2, Raelin) on Trailblazer
Unfortunately, both of my opponents dropped after their second game. I knew that I'd have to go 4-1 to make Day 2, because my SOS would be super low. My third matchup didn't make things easier. I put Raelin and MBS on Lava to get height, and only took about 2-3 wounds because of it the whole game. His Raelin just wouldn't fall, and he rarely moved his figures outside of her aura. The game came to time and I lost because I couldn't kill his last Glad, which is frustrating because I was playing much faster than he was, but I guess that's just how these things go sometimes.

2-1

Round 4 vs. Orcelmyfarone (Nilfheim, Raelin, Greenscales x3) on Fossil
Since my game with Deroche went WAYYYY over time, someone came over and wrote down the results while we were picking up. Deroche was saying something about how he didn't play very well, and was confident I would have won had we played it out, and the person who wrote down our scores interpreted that as him saying he lost, so I was entered into the computer as 3-0, giving me a 3-0 opponent. Oops.

This army was the one that I first decided on for my RTW army, so I had a bit of an idea on how to beat it. Raelin was a crucial part of the army, so MBS had a big role in my plan. He stepped onto the highest point on the board (Nilf occupied that spot on the mirror end) and fired down on Raelin every single turn. She went down, and the Greenies fell quickly after that. He did the best he could, but it was a bad matchup for him.The game was a fun and fast-paced one. We finished fifteen-twenty minutes before time was called, which is great.

3-1

Round 5 vs. jacob_p (playing PKs x3, Q10, Raelin, Isamu) on Jotun's Gap

This game was pretty much decided in the first round. I moved MBS one space out of Raelin's aura after I miscounted, and I really didn't want him to die without killing Raelin, so I plopped my own Raelin right in front of him. My Raelin rolled awful shields (dying in around four attacks of three, some from low ground), and MBS didn't do much better. I tried my best to recover from that, but I don't think I killed much at all.

3-2

My strength of schedule put me two points out of Day 2, because three of my opponents made Day 2. A lesson to all: don't drop. You never know what effects it has on others people's SOS, and I really felt that I was playing well enough to make it to the second day and at least try and win my first game. Oh well, there's always next year I guess.

General Wars

I played:
Redcoats x6

I figured that since it fit perfectly in the point total and hex limit, I wouldn't be the only guy playing this trying to win Einar. I didn't really ask for too many people's heroscape names during this event, as I was kinda having more fun than I did at the last one and didn't really care.

Round 1 vs. ?? (Nilfheim, 4th x3, Tarn)

I thought this was one of those "lead with your dragon, make your 4th Valiant when he dies" armies. He played it the opposite way. He led with the 4th, and I got height and they fell quickly. Nilfheim tore through my army when he came out, but he eventually was taken down from his perch on height, and I was able to WTF him down. The Tarn put up a good fight at the end, but my remaining two squads of Redcoats dispatched them. I gave him the idea of making his 4th Valiant by leading with the Tarn and Nilf, and I think he did that later in the day and had more success with it, which is good to hear.

1-0

Round 2 vs. ?? (Romans x4, Marcus, Master of the Hunt) on Elswin Plateau

The guy I played was a good player, but my army was a lot better and I rolled a ton of skulls, and the MOTH was a bit of a waste of points because I had no heroes. I secured the move glyph early, and had 10 move Redcoats charging down the road and using the Bayonet. It was kinda crazy. I targeted Marcus early, and he took five wounds but held out for at least two more rounds before dying. The Romans were slowed down after that, and the 10th were able to hold height and WTF the rest of his army.

2-0

Round 3 vs. Megasilver (Venocs x7, Venoc Warlord, Arkmer) on Trailblazer

I've played against Mega's Venocs before (and lost), but I had a bit better of a strategy against them this time (hint: don't roll your figures up). He got a double frenzy on turn two and blew threw quite a bit of the redcoats, and I had to recover from that huge blast. The tide turned when I killed four vipers on turn 3, and then won initiative and wait then fired and killed four more in his start zone, bringing him down to two vipers. I killed them, and he lost an OM. I killed Arkmer, and he lost an OM. I went for the Warlord, who got one attack in before dying.

3-0

Round 4 vs. orcelmyfarone (Heavies x4, Grimnak, Nerak) on Fulcrum

This was another fun game against orcelmyfarone. He plays fast and just makes the game enjoyable all the time. I went for Nerak first, and I got him early. Grimnak came down next, but he chomped least four guys before dying, and boosted attack and defense for quite awhile. Towards the end I think it was five Redcoats against six gruts, and I just couldn't get through the Heavies defense, even with height. He did roll a lot of shields, but it made up for the ones he didn't get in our game in the main event. I was fine with losing to him, and he went on to win the whole shebang.

Round 5 vs. El Diabolo (6x Redcoats) on Invasion

A mirror matchup to decide the Einar title. It was going to be a looooonng game. I won the first initiative, which probably sealed the game. I got height first, and I was plowing through his Redcoats, and taking minimal casualties. I also secured the wound glyph. Then, late in the 2nd round, the tide turned. He killed my wound glyph guarder, took height, and started blasting down at me. I was the one losing lots of figures now, and I had to make a play. I killed his guy on the wound glyph, and took it back. I reclaimed the height. The game got down to five redcoats vs. two, and I made all the efforts possible to hold the wound glyph to win, and it paid off. It was a really close game throughout, but I had the advantage of getting to watch a Redcoat mirror match earlier in the con, and I got some advice for it. The biggest thing that I did differently than him was I went for height over the Bayonet attack and melee defense, and when I would Bayonet, I would do it with two figures to prevent him from Bayonetting without disengaging.

4-1

My SOS was just high enough to squeeze me out over the two other Einar 4-1s (one lost to the other though), and also the 4-1 from Aquilla who played in the title game. I got 3rd place and a SotM, RoTV, 5$ Auggies gift card, and an awesome plaque with the Einar symbol on it. SOS screwed me over in the Main Event, but helped me in General Wars.

2013 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Quote:

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Well, I'm back at my hotel for the night and had some free time, so I decided write reports of today's games while they are still fresh in my head. Like last year, I'm creating this thread from anyone (hopefully everyone) to use for any reports they write. It's nice to have one spot to find all reports from a year. Now, on to my games...

Heat of the Battle

My army:
Redcoats x3, Raelin, Marcus, Isamu, Marcu

I wanted to go with something strong for HoB, and Redcoats were strong but also good in almost every matchup. I was expecting to see some Warriors of Ashra, which is a great matchup for me, but I think I had pretty favorable matchups throughout. My dad decided to go with the same army as me, which is a first for us.

Game 1 vs. OrcElfArmyOne’s dad (Tagawa Samurai Archers x4, Raelin, Iron Golem, Isamu) on Embattled Fen

Embattled Fen and Qusatch Playground are basically the only boards where you want to place first, and I was very happy when I was able to. I set up a deadly pod of Redcoats and the Marcus on the seven hex rock height and was able to rain death on the Tagawa Samurai Archers who set up on the road beneath me. Afterwards, Orc’s dad thought that he should have set up on the side across from me, which I don’t disagree with, but he had a very tough matchup from the start.

1-0

Game 2 vs. Son of Muhalla (Knights x2, Alastair MacDirk, Sir Denrick, Eldgrim, 4th Mass x1) on Flash Fire

This army isn’t a powerhouse by any means, but SoM played it very well. I set up on the height, but didn’t leave enough space for Raelin and decided to put her on low ground and cover basically the entire board with her aura, but forfeit height with her the entire game. This gamble didn’t pay off, as Alastair stepped next to Raelin and had her dead by the end of round one (along with himself though, as I killed him the next order marker). From there I just had to hope that my dice held out and I was able to kill Knights. Isamu became a huge asset at this point, with Dishonorable Attack killing 2 Knights and one-shotting Eldgrim (5/5 skulls there!!), but the biggest thing that swung this game back in my favor was a gamble I made, putting OM1 on my final 3 Redcoats, despite all four 4th being in Wait Then Fire range. I got the initiative, pounded down with Bayonet and killed half of the minutemen, and Marcu finished the job (after one Eternal Hatred).

2-0

Game 3 vs. vegie’s dad (Redcoats x3, Raelin, Marcus, Marcu, Isamu) on Ticalla Sunrise

We both knew this was going to happen coming into the event, but it kinda sucked having it happen this early. My dad won the placement/initiative roll and I didn’t have much of a chance from there. He deferred, and I got to set the location of the battle (took the 3 hex perch by Wannok) but unfortunately that was not enough of an advantage, especially the way we both rolled on shields. We both consistently rolled 3/5 or 3/4 skulls, and the 2 and 1 skull rolls would be met by whiffs. I was down to less than a squad before the end of the first round.

2-1

Game 4 vs. Schulzy (Braxas, Zombies x4) on Embattled Fen

Schulzy deferred in order to take the first turn, which I was fine with on this map. I had the high ground once more, but he placed Braxas just outside my range. He went with Zombies on turn one, and got a couple wounds on Raelin, then brought in Braxas. He did PAB on Raelin, Marcus, and a Redcoat. He rolled two 16s on the heroes, and a 5 on the Redcoat. Bad luck, but I do think he had to take the risk of taking out Raelin since his Zombies had basically no chance against 5 defense Redcoats. Braxas took 7 wounds, but his next order marker was on the Zombies so Braxas died after only one turn. He went for Raelin with attacks of 2v4 for the rest of the game, but couldn’t finish her off before he ran out of Zombies.

Final Record: 3-1

Assassin’s Creed

My army:
Romans x3, Marcus, Cyprien, Ne-Gok-Sa

kevindola came up with this army, and I thought it was a lot of fun and was decently competitive. I didn’t do much testing with this one but I thought I knew how to play Romans decently enough and I’d force some interesting decisions.

Game 1 vs. ??? (Sgt. Drake SotM, Sonlen, Iron Golem, Aubriens x1) on Ticalla Sunrise

My opponent seemed like he had a grasp on the rules but just wasn’t familiar with any of my figures. He took one look at my heroes and picked Ne-Gok-Sa because he had the lowest life. I rushed Cyprien out and killed his Iron Golem by the first turn of round 2.

1-0

Game 2 vs. MegaSilver (Stingers x3, Airborne Elite, Ne-Gok-Sa, Mindflayer, Marcu)

Mega targeted Marcus, hoping for an early Airborne blast to knock me out of the game. I went for the Mindflayer. He didn’t get this first turn drop, so I loaded up OMs on Cyprien and rushed in, going for the Mastermind. Mega blocked him off with Stingers and Ne-Gok-Sa, so I didn’t get a single Chilling Touch off on my target. However, I did get a 20 on Ne-Gok-Sa, so he was out of the way, along with three Stingers. Eventually, Drain and height was too much for the vampire, and he went down at the end of the round. Mega got the Drop at the start of round two, but I was lucky enough to win initiative and evacuate Marcus to the corner of my startzone. They Airborne threw their grenades, but they did pretty poorly and killed only 2 Romans. The Romans caught them and killed a couple, lowering some activations along the way and buying some time for Ne-Gok-Sa to march along the Wannok side of the board. The next round him and a squad of Romans fought through the last few Stingers, claimed Wannok, and started fighting the Mindflayer. The fight went on for multiples rounds, and neither of us could get many skulls. Mega was very smart and would disengage from NGS to Psionic Blast at Romans trying to get in the fray. He took off probably three Order Markers throughout the game, which could have swung the game, but Ne-Gok-Sa held on to his final life for quite a few turns, and eventually killed the Mindflayer.

2-0

Game 3 vs. Dad_Scaper (Axegrinders x3, Migol, Mogrimm, Tul-Bak-Ra) on Quasatch Playground

Let me preface this by saying I do not own Tul-Bak-Ra and I’ve only played against him a couple times, and those were casual online games. I thought he was just a decent hero to teleport in Marro, and that using him in Assassin’s Creed was a total gimmick.

Well, if it was a gimmick, I totally fell for it. D_S targeted Marcus, and I went for Mogrimm. Tul-Bak-Ra teleported to the center of the board, and I flew Cyprien towards the center of the board. Then, Tul-Bak-Ra popped in and dropped 3 or 4 wounds on Marcus I panicked, flew Cyprien back and tried to kill Tul-Bak-Ra. It didn’t work, and while Marcus had some great defense rolls and Tul-Bak-Ra had bad attack rolls from there out, Marcus couldn’t hold out forever and Cyprien didn’t get the big CT roll I needed to win.

In retrospect, I made some horrible decisions this game. I left a spot open to Marcus. I didn’t fill that spot with Cyprien when I saw Tul-Bak-Ra coming. I didn’t fly in and try to kill Mogrimm when Tul-Bak-Ra got next to Marcus, when I just as good of odds of killing Mogrimm as I did killing Tul-Bak-Ra, and maybe I could have taken some fire off Marcus.

2-1

Game 4 vs. EternalThanos86 (Deathchasers x3, Nerak, Cyprien, Sonya, Ne-Gok-Sa) on Embattled Fen

We both chose the enemy Cyprien this time. I mentioned at the beginning of the game that I should just fly my Cyprien in and make it a luck game, but that’s what it ended up coming down to. The Deathchasers and Romans basically exchanged casualties, and at the end of the game, two once wounded Cypriens met up on even ground and just rolled it out. After almost two rounds of tense rolling, ET86 came out on top.

Final Record: 2-2

Quote:

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Main Event Day 1

These were probably some of the closest and most interesting games I have ever played and definitely the most competitive. Looking on the armies that made Day 2, I probably played in the top 50% of builds there, maybe even higher than that, but given the matchups, armies, and quality of players I faced, I don’t think I could have made it with something much weaker.

My build was:
10th x3
Raelin
Nakitas
Otonashi

I wanted to play something complex with difficult choices and strategies that weren’t obvious. I thought Redcoats and Nakitas fit that bill. Wait Then Fire makes podding almost a necessity, but the real difficulty in this army comes in covering the Redcoats’ weakness to range with Smoke Powder, and knowing when to set up Engagement Strike pods at the front of an army. I got pretty good at it in my practice games, but ended up facing only one army where my ability to set up Smoke Powder mattered.

Game 1 vs. sixthflagbearer (Dividers x5, Major Q9) on Stygian Rift

sixth made Day 2 with this army last year, and Redcoats are terrible against Q9, so this was going to be a tough match. Luckily, I won the first initiative and was able to set up 3 Redcoats on height and one on shadow all in Raelin’s aura. Q9 Quiglixed one, but I took two Wait then Fire shots of four and one of three, and got 3 wounds. Q9 moved on to the lava height with his next turn, but failed his shots on my Redcoats. I knew I had to make a big play, so I triple engaged Q9 and forced him to stay on lava. I didn’t get any wounds and he killed the Redcoats, but Q9 died and the match got a ton easier. The Dividers hung on for a long time though, just slowly busting through my limited number of Redcoats. They hit a fair number of divides but I was just getting more attacks than him. There was one big turn where he killed three Redcoats on OM1 and got me down to less than a squad, and things got very tight from there. I finally got him down to a single Divider, killed it with Raelin, but he divided! Besides the Kyrie, all I had left was one Nakita, so things were really close. Luckily, he moved one Divider on to height but into Engagement Strike, and I got my first Engagement Strike roll of the game to kill him. The other got a wound on Raelin, but Raelin took him out (either through forcing him to stay on lava or a normal attack, can’t remember).

1-0

Game 2 vs. Pickle4192 (Braxas, Stingers x3, Marro Warriors) on Burial Marsh

My army has literally no answer for Braxas, and this game showed it. I fell for a Stinger trick, where he put OM1 on Stingers and put them on low ground, and I attacked them instead of Braxas. Even though I had height on those guys, I should have still gone for the dragon for a chance at a few wounds. Once Braxas was on top of me, I had almost no chance. Braxas rolled 11/14 on Poison Acid Breath, and survived a constant Wait Then Fire the whole time she was doing so. I was able to pull the Nakitas out of the fray and they made the game a lot closer than it should have been. They killed Braxas, and the rest of the Stingers, but eventually died. The Marro Warriors were all he had left when he killed the one Redcoat Braxas didn’t get.

1-1

Game 3 vs. Dragonslayer (Heavy Gruts x3, Nerak, Tornak, Raelin) on Ticalla Sunrise

This was a tough, back and forth match that I thought I was going to lose at multiple points. I led with Raelin and Nakitas, and set up a great Engagement Strike pod on Wannok side, but forfeit control of the glyph to the faster moving Heavies. I think it was the right move though, since I got four wounds on Raelin as his screen advanced. Then, the 10th rolled in, and started blasting Heavies, but Raelin made it difficult to kill anything. I got a few kills, but most were from Engagement Strike. The big turn that won me the game was a Wait Then Fire that freed up my one 10th in range of his Raelin just in time for him to take my last shot, which killed her. Nerak fell shortly after, as did the rest of his army. It was a tough matchup for him, but he played it well and made it close. All I had left at the end was a 1-life Raelin and 7 Redcoats.

2-1

Game 4 vs. Filthy the Clown (Frost Giant, Knights x3, Thorgrim, Otonashi) on Flash Fire

The Frost Giant barreled towards me, and I foolishly wasted an OM setting up a Nakita Engagement strike shield on all three routes to Raelin (since I wasn’t planning moving her). He still got to her, and he still had height. Battle Frenzy let him swing down twice with seven dice, and she was gone. A couple turns later, so were two Redcoats and two Nakitas. Filthy made a joke about using Bayonet, and I was really dumb and actually took his advice. I did finish off Frosty, but he killed two of my 10th with Dying Swipe. I had about eight Redcoats and one Nakita to take on the rest of his entire army. I was feeling like I had just blown my shot at making Day 2. The dice gods didn’t want to see that happen. I won a few big initiatives, was able to gun down Knights before they got to me, which allowed me to limit his attacks, and somehow pulled the win from nowhere with just two Redcoats and the last Nakita remaining.

3-1

Game 5 vs. Rollitontop (Mezzodemons x4, Major Q9) on Stygian Rift

I was expecting him to play it the same way sixthflagbearer did (leading with Q9), so my round full of OMs on 10th turned out to be poorly placed when he led out with Mezzos. My Nakitas should have been up there giving me Smoke Powder, but I didn’t react to his figure placement and they weren’t. My quantity of attacks won out though, throughout rounds and rounds and rounds of fighting, and he switched to Q9 with 3 Mezzos remaining, while I had 2 Nakitas, Raelin, and 6 Redcoats. Again, my army has no answer for Q9. I got an early wound from a 4 skull Wait Then Fire blast, but he didn’t take wounds for quite a while after that. He Quiglexed through the Redcoats, one by one, at which point I switched to the 2 Nakitas to mix things up, and a random 2 skull roll met with a 8 defense whiff put Q9 a wound from death. I had some huge blocks, then Raelin flew in, but couldn’t finish him with a couple shots of four. He finished off the Nakitas, but went down to a Wait Then Fire from the final Redcoat. Raelin then was left to finish the Mezzos. She got the first strike and killed one, but the second fell much harder. There was some really crazy die rolling and a tons of shields between us both, but eventually the kyrie came out on top with just two wounds. The multiple lives was a big advantage for me since I was able to risk disengage and lava damage to maintain my height advantage.

4-1, heading on to Day 2!

Main Event Day 2

Game 1 vs. Pickle1492 (Braxas, Stingers x3, Marro Warriors)

Unfortunately for me, Braxas regressed to the mean from the awesome performance Pickle had with her against me Day 1. I flew her in on a death run, trying to just kill one Nakita and get as many Redcoats dead as I possibly could. Luck just wasn’t on my side, as Braxas went 3 for 9 on Poison Acid Breath, failed to kill a single Nakita, and died after just three turns of attacks from low ground. The Marro fought hard, but couldn’t make a game out of it with the majority of the enemy still alive. Five Redcoats and a once wounded Raelin still stood alive when the final Marro Warrior went down.

2014 reports

Spoiler Alert!

2015 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Quote:

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Since the GenCon report idea didn't really take off this year, I'm cannibalizing this thread for my future GenCon reports. It's just for the main event this year.

In the Main Event, I tend to gravitate towards armies that have un(der)used figures. I think it gives an advantage on both days, since the opponent will not know how to play with and against unseen figures. Last year, I used Mimring, and this year I used Taelord.

Taelord
Raelin
Marro Warriors
10th Regiment x2

Along with the obligatory Raelin to add consistency to the army, I played two squads of Redcoats and the Marro Warriors. The general idea of the army was to fish opponents in with the Marro Warriors, and then blast with pumped up Wait Then Fire shots. Using Marro Warriors to fish in figures to Wait Then Fire range was very effective in the Betrayal From Within tournament that @kevindola ran online. Adding Taelord was inspired by the army that @The Orange Mailman won with in 2013, where he used Marcus for his attack boost on two squads of Redcoats. I liked the extra 3 spaces of aura to make the fourth Redcoat attack die all but guaranteed. The army worked for a couple of other reasons: the four different people who practiced against the army lost against it the first time; it can make opponents uncomfortable with the amount of dice it dishes out from a long range; people don’t know how to play against two cheerleaders; it’s fragile enough to tear apart on Day 2.

Game 1 vs. Rollitontop (Warforged x4, Raelin, Deadeye Dan) on Fossil

I opened with the Marro Warriors to try to thin out Warforged and put pressure on the figures he put on Wannok. He responded with a conservative Raelin placement, behind the evergreen tree on level 3. She covered a lot of spaces, but not spaces he could attack me from. I picked at the edges of his army, tanking the Wannok wounds with the twin kyries. Eventually, he was forced to go in to a hoard of bayonets, and attacks of 5 tore apart the Warforged. Deadeye Dan had some good moves, but the Redcoats Wait Then Fired him down. My opponent really suffered from not having any range that he could threaten me with.

1-0

Game 2 vs. Heirloom (Greenscales x3, Charos, Marro Warriors, Marcu) on Remains of Clionesia

He used Charos very aggressively, going straight for my Raelin. A second round full of Wait Then Fire volleys took out the dragon before he managed to bring down the kyrie. After that, the Greenscales struggled to get rid of any Redcoats or Marros with 2v6 attacks. His Marros were difficult, but eventually I managed to run them down. I retreated my army to my startzone, let Marcu pick up all the treasure glyphs, then blew him up with Wait Then Fire when he went in. I think a Marro Warrior opener would have made this matchup a lot closer than it ended up being, but a lot of people prefer them as cleanup.

2-0

Game 3 vs. Cleon (Braxas, Fen Hydra, Marro Warriors, Deathreavers x2) on Fossil

This was one of the stronger armies in the pool, and a good one against my army. Cleon opened with Rats. I had never tested against a Rat army, since I thought most people considered them taboo to play. I don’t think I’ve played against Rats in a few years honestly. They were extremely hard to deal with, shutting down the Marros completely, and the glyphs (Unique Attack and Lodin) were great for his army. Braxas swooped down on my tied down Marro and gassed the remainder, but they managed two wounds on her. A lucky OM3 on the Redcoats after Cleon failed 2/3 acids allowed me to blast Braxas with Taelord boosted Wait Then Fire for 6 wounds, and an exact kill. I was feeling like I had a chance then, but his Marros repeatedly were able to pick at my Reds and successfully switch the initiative and escape to clone. The Hydra never even took a wound before he finished eating through the remaining Redcoats and their cheerleaders.

2-1

Game 4 vs. Dad_Scaper (Deathchasers x4, Ogre Warhulk, Brandis Skyhunter) on Dance of the Dryads

After the Orcs came rushing across the smallest map in the pool, I was pretty worried that I would lose my Marro Warriors before the end of round one. My OM3 on the Redcoats turned out to be poorly placed when he instead led with Brandis Skyhunter. Brandis was able to step up on to height and drop 5/6 skulls to instantly slay Raelin. I tried to stay confident and just Wait Then Fire down the incoming orcs, and for the most part it worked. 5 attack dice on 2 defense dice is a pretty favorable attack. The Warhulk made some noise but I eventually silenced him with Wait Then Fire. I was fortunate that my cheerleaders were able to block the path into the startzone to draw fire away from my Redcoats, as losing activations could have cost me the match.

3-1

Game 5 vs. ManTrainChooChoo (Tagawa Samurai Archers x3, Raelin, Marro Warriors, Torin) on Sidewinder

This game I played much more aggressively than I did the rest. After I won initiative and saw a round full of markers on the Tagawa Samurai Archers, I left my auras behind and decided to aggressively gun for the Samurai, since they would struggle to hit back with only 2 attack. Thanks to some incredible skulls the plan worked incredibly well. I gunned through all but one of the Tagawa only losing a single Marro, and then I retreated back to my startzone. He moved up Torin, but after he moved up Raelin next to him, I just refused to shoot and waited for him to come to me. He brought up his Marros and had a lot of success, but Wait Then Fire brought them down. He had been a little frustrated all game at my refusal to leave my start zone or to shoot at his Torin, so he conceded with Raelin, Torin and a Tagawa still left. It definitely was tough to win from there, but I felt bad that my choices frustrated him to that extent. I think he was just upset since he was so close to Day 2, but luckily his SoS got him in anyway.

Thoughts after Day 1: I think my army was what I intended it to be. It’s a difficult to play against, slow, anti-melee army that can throw a ton of dice. 4-1 actually seemed a little out of reach to me when I was thinking through matchups, but I’m happy I was able to do it. I don’t know how well I am going to do tomorrow, since there are quite a few melee armies in the pool and those are very bad matchups for this army. But no matter how I do I’m happy I was able to get Taelord to Day 2.

Day 2

Game 1 vs. BigBoa (Deathchasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, Brunak) on Fossil

I drew one of the best boards in the pool for my Redcoat army, especially against melee, so I was kind of worried. I opened with Brunak, carrying Raelin to an aggressive perch that covered the middle of the board. Once I saw his order markers split between Redcoats and cheerleaders, I decided to hard engage on the 10th. I had great dice and slammed through two on the first turn of the engage, and then brought Nerak up and killed three more on the following turn. Just like that, his army was running out of steam. Since I was basically on top of him, it was relatively easy to catch the the Marros and shut down his comeback mechanism. I ground out the rest of his army with the orcs, never activating the Brunak and Raelin combo. I think this game showcased the biggest advantage of my army; the awkwardness of picking it up without knowing how to play it. Opening with Marro Warriors would have both thinned my army more effectively and left him with better tools to deal with the weakened orcs.

on to Round of 8

Game 2 vs dok (Tor-Kul-Na, Nagrubs x3, Me-Burq-Sa, Marcu) on Fossil

Well, I drew the worst board in the pool again. This time I was handed a weaker, still melee army, and I was playing against a pretty decent player. It was going to be a tough game to win. I opened with Raelin flying to a more conservative perch than in the previous game, but she could still help the double-spaced TKN where he was planning to go. I rolled the Marros up the hill and waited for a good chance to strike. I couldn’t manage to lose initiative early, so I had to go in and give him the initiative switch. Luckily my defense held out fairly well, and I was able to smash through the Redcoats and keep TKN alive. The game ended up hanging in initiative. If I win, I can trample up to 3 Marros and crush his chances to come back. If he wins, he’s able to mow through grubs, cut TKN’s healing off, and take control of the game. He got it, gunned through Nagrubs and denied the big trample, and TKN fell shortly after. MBS tried to make a game of it, but it was basically impossible with dok’s liberal use of water clone. He did a good job of making sure I had no way back into the game once he killed the Hivelord. I’m not sure if I would have done much differently though. It was a very tough matchup, definitely less than 50% to win on paper, so getting the game to the initiative coin toss was actually an accomplishment I think.

eliminated

I think overall my army was a good choice for the event. The abundance of melee armies in the field this year helped me on day 1, but hurt on day 2. I can’t be too disappointed in my losses, as they were both to good players with favorable matchups. I really like the Reverse the Whip two day format for GenCon and I hope to see it continue in the future.

2016 reports

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2017 Reports

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2018 Reports

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Quote:

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Main Event 2018

Raelin
Tagawa Samurai Archers x2
Alastair MacDirk
Knights x1
Syvarris

There wasn’t really an exact idea behind the army, I was just sticking pieces together to see what could add up to 490. I wanted to play Raelin because I didn’t for the first time last year and missed Day 2. Syvarris is good for fishing opponents with long range, the Knights and MacDirk are good at killing things that get fished, and the Samurai Archers are a good screen. The army also necessitates order marker mixing at the round level; you aren’t going to win any games playing this army as three waves. I also felt it had an interesting “trick” to it; even though the army has low quantities of common squads, killing and damaging the heroes is much more crippling to its offense than killing the squads.

Game 1 vs. ??? (Zombies x4, Cyprien, Heirloom) on Highways and Dieways

This was a favorable matchup, because Zombies really struggle with Tagawa Samurai Archers. Still, Cyprien is always a tough out. He opened with advancing Cyprien to the center of the board to threaten damage, and then rolled zombies forward across the road for the next five order markers. I plodded the various pieces of my army forward, eventually placing Raelin in a hole I had left to prevent Cyprien from getting adjacent to her at all. He eventually sent Cyprien in to one of the heightened section of the board, and Alastair stepped in and pounded him in over the course of a few turns as his Chilling Touch was cold (only killed one Tagawa Samurai Archer). With Cyprien gone, he didn’t have a choice other than to send Zombies into my pod, and I just counterstruck and hit through them until he ran out.

1-0

Game 2 vs. Dragon Ruler (Sacred Band x2, Kaemon, Raelin, Marcus, Red Wyrmling x3)
This was a reverse game. Our armies were both similar; he didn’t have any 1x commons like I did but the undisciplined Greeks would be fragile. We both opened very slowly, rolling up our melee. I shot through one of the Knights with Kaemon which made him to take turns with them. He started going with mostly Syvarris and Tagawa Samurai, and I was reluctant to put as much focus on range as he did with a single attacking Kaemon. I tried to advance the Red Wyrmlings but Syvarris picked one off. So, fearing death by a thousand pings, I sent my Raelin deep into his territory and rushed in the Greeks and Marcus. I attacked whatever I could that wasn’t Tagawa Archers, so my damage was spread around sub optimally, but my rolls were suboptimal too. Tagawa Archers were repeatedly cracking the 4 defense Greeks with attacks of 2 and 3. I killed Syvarris, but that was about it. Eventually, I got Raelin to only one life left on a round that I had my 3 on Kaemon, and stepped him up to Quick Release her. He did, and killed her, but failed to get the initiative switch I needed and got smashed by Alastair. But from there my luck turned. The Tagawa Samurai’s dice went cold, and a Raelinless Alastair fell very quickly. The last two Sacred Band and Marcus swung into Tagawa and did some serious damage, and then Marcus died. But the game had come down to two Greeks and two Red Wyrmlings vs. three Tagawa Archers and two Knights. My Wyrmlings held out to the Tagawa Attacks, and my Greeks got rid of some Knights. I pulled out the win with two Wyrmlings and two Greeks left.

2-0

Game 3 vs. Clarrismuss (Sailing, Hydra x3, Marro Warriors) on Fulcrum

He opened with double order markers on Saylind, and summoned two Hydras, one to an island in the middle of the board, and the other in my startzone next to Raelin. Luckily, his third order marker was on the Hydra he summoned first, and he was only able to lay into the Tagawa I had moved up earlier. I got some wounds on the start zone Hydra with my OM3 on Knights, and he put is order markers on the island Hydra. I disengaged MacDirk and threw some Knights around him, but wasn’t able to get more than one wound. This Hydra shredded my Knights, some out of Raelin’s aura. He summoned another Hydra to end the second round, and I disengaged MacDirk again and only got one wound on this Hydra. By this point, MacDirk was at four wounds from disengages and overextends, and the Hydra ate him up. At this point, I was out of things to kill Hydras with, and he ate up the rest of my army. This was a pretty bad matchup made worse by good summoning rolls and solid defense rolls, and I wasn’t upset about losing. Clarrismuss went 4-1, but had to drop Day 2 because of a conflict.

2-1

Game 4 vs. ???? (Warriors of Ashra x3, Syvarris, Raelin, Sharwin, Arkmer)

My opponent seemed fairly new to the game but he had a good army and was having a good day with it. I got to play it though. I shot through a couple Knights with Syvarris as he advanced Raelin, and he got MacDirk in the middle of the board. Early on, he pulled his Syvarris out of Raelin’s aura to shoot my Raelin, and my Syvarris killed him in response in two shots of 4. That was mostly the game. He was forced to run MacDirk in for a second chance at killing Raelin that failed. After that, he had to take horrible 2v5 attacks with Tagawa Samurai into Warriors of Ashra as I shot them with Syvarris from range.

3-1

Game 5 vs. Chill (Ulginesh, Emiroon, Arkmer, Kyntela, Chardris, Jorhdawn) on Common Ground

It was good to see someone else doing well with Elves in the Main Event. I strongly considered this army as my own Main Event army, but felt that with only five wizards it’s just way too easy to lose Kyntela and Arkmer and lose the game instantly with permanently neutered Jorhdawn and Chardris as your only offense. With Syvarris, I was mostly able to achieve that outcome. He shot Kyntela down in two turns in Round 1. Once she was dead, I moved my Raelin up to the ruin, the same one that his was on the other side of. He stepped up Arkmer to attack my Raelin, and I stepped up Alastair and overextended to kill his Arkmer. He was already running out of steam, and then his dice went very cold and mine went very hot. Alastair rolled 5/6 or 5/5 skulls once against every remaining hero as I cleaned up the rest of his army with just the one squad of Knights and Alastair.

4-1

Thoughts after Day 1: I’m satisfied with my Day 1 results and my chances for Day 2. I think my path wasn’t as hard as it could have been, but it wasn’t super easy. I feel my army is in the stronger half of armies that made Day 2, but not enough in the stronger half for cause of concern. I think people will struggle with using one squad of Knights and a bonder effectively, even though MacDirk was probably too strong of a figure to bring. There are a few people I don’t want to face in Reverse (mostly the Matthias all melee Dwarf army) and a few people I do not want to face in normal (Hendal, Wookie) but otherwise I feel I have a chance on either side of most matchups.

Day 2

Game 1 vs. ISB3 (Cutters x3, Agent Carr, Dund, Alastair) on Fulcrum

This wasn’t a horrible matchup by any means, but not one of the ones I would have preferred. I knew that I would need for Carr or Alastair to assassinate Raelin to win, so I very slowly rolled out Cutters and advanced both heroes towards the center of the board as he stepped up Archers and Knights. Carr took three wounds from Syvarris pings, so he was a risky call. At the end of one round that I lost initiative, I had my three on MacDirk and ISB3 had Raelin in a spot 10 spaces away from him, so I sent him in. His first 5v3 got zero wounds. I won initiative, and my next 5v3 got zero wounds. But the overextend final 5v3 got 4 wounds all at once. ISB3 had his OM1 on Raelin, and he made the bold but smart play to disengage with her to pull her on to one of the center islands. The kyrie survived, and the game was looking very tough for me. Alastair was shot down, and I desperately climbed cutters up the watery path to the top of Raelin’s island. He denied me mob on Raelin with Tagawa placement, but on my third turn of trying I got the wound on her. I had lost a lot of cutters doing this though. I tried to send in Carr to smash through a Tagawa to free the island for better mob attacks on the squads, but the Tagawa blocked 4/6 skulls with 4/4 shields. Carr died the next turn, and I had no choice but to send my last cutters into the pile remaining. They managed to take down a lot, by the time the last cutter died, ISB3 had 1 Knight and 3 Samurai and Syvarris left. But as they were doing this, Dund was taking potshots from the Tagawa exactly 6 away; he died before I took a turn with him.

eliminated

It’s sad that I can’t seem to make a real run on Day 2 but I had a good game and ISB3’s army was certainly weaker than mine (only won one game all weekend). I think Syvarris and Raelin were probably both incorrect figures to include in this build; Raelin made it too consistent and Syvarris made it too threatening. While before this event I was thinking that I needed to include Raelin in main event armies more, now I’m thinking the answer is that she has to be excluded, because it makes it too hard to punish opponents for deployment mistakes with your army.

2019 Reports

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2020 Reports

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Quote:

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Online Con Championship Report

My army:
Arrow Gruts x2
Deathchasers x2
Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider
Swog Rider x4
Raelin
Otonashi (sat)

I tried to treat this like I was building a Gencon Main Event army even though it was a little bit different. I try to do something fresh every year in the Gencon Main Event, and I'm really happy with the concepts I've done over the years (AG Mimring Pod, Elf Wizards without Emiroon, X17 + Theracus, among other things). Even if that may not be the best thing to do strategically in terms of winning the event I like putting new army concepts on the map and Reverse the Whip is the best place to do that.

This build, the hybrid Deathchasers and Arrows, is something I've had in mind for a while but never actually tested until this year. Deathchasers bond with Nerak and the Swogs, and Arrows and Swogs massively benefit from Deathchasers moving up Nerak for them. From an army role perspective, you have Arrow Gruts as the ping and Deathchasers as the "engine". Raelin glues the army together. My initial build had Ice Troll instead of Raelin but after maybe two order markers of my first test game I immediately realized that I did not have the bonding turns needed to get the Ice Troll all the way across the board, and I desperately needed these guys to stay alive better. The key to the army I think is playing the two parts of the army together, and having well-timed OMs on each particular squad when you need their specialized tools (Range from AGs, big attacks from Deathchasers). The build is quite on the stronger side though. It has a massive amount of defense. I liked that because I thought online it was more likely that people brought stronger builds, since Online hasn't had the years of weakness creep that Gencon has.

Round 1 vs. Crystalman (Spiders x5, Wyvern, Estivara, Brave Arrow) on Raknar's Rift

I was a little worried about the Wyvern, but there was only one of them. I played Raelin very cautiously, not moving her at all, just building a huge wall of Orcs outside my startzone in the first round. Crystalman deployed the Wyvern a little too close to that wall and I pounced on it. I had OM1 and OM2 on Deathchasers, and ran them out of Raelin's aura to pick off the Wyvern. Most of my Deathchasers died, but the Wyvern died too. From there the game was not that interesting. The Spiders were just 2/2. They had very little chance of cracking the 5 defense Arrows and 6 defense Swogs, and I refused to move to any positions that gave the Spiders height. For maybe four consecutive rounds Crystal was unable to do any damage to my figures, until I moved up Raelin late in the game to push forward and close the game out and he managed a couple wounds on her.

1-0

Round 2 vs. Coachmuskie (Hounds x3, Krug, Eldgrim, Isamu) on Bad Moon Rising

Muskie handed me Hounds in the Reverse the Whip game which was a throwback to GC 2014 when I was handed Hounds twice in a row on Day 2 when I was playing Arrow Gruts. Muskie played my build as two waves, first Deathchasers, then Arrows, which I disagree with but it didn't work out horrible for him. Maybe against Hounds that's the right call since Hounds love the big piles of figures that this army normally ends up with when I play it. I got into the Deathchasers with the Hounds early and had some nice plagues, but then my pack movement rolls went south just when I wanted to start pushing into muskie's startzone to hit sleeping Arrows. I never got the chance to do that. The last few Deathchasers died, along with Raelin, and I had about 4 Hounds left to use or lose against the Arrows. Luckily the Arrows really struggle against the Hounds, so they did a lot of work. Krug, wounded by plagues early in the game, came out against one Swog and 3 Arrows and was able to clean up.

2-0

Round 3 vs. XTHORSAVAGEX (Tagawa, Izumi, Kozuke, Hatamato Taro, Marcu) on Drudgery

When we got matched up I was thinking this was an easy win, Hato is quite bad and it's all unique squads, I just need to pick them off before they get to me. I did not pick them off before they got to me. Thor deployed Marcu to Valda on OM1, then rushed 8 move Tagawa Samurai around the bottom side of the board straight into the heart of my pod right on to Raelin. On his OM3, he sliced one Deathchaser 3v5 to charge up the Tagawa, and then hit Raelin for four wounds with the other two. Round 2 the Tagawa are continuing to wreak havoc, now fully Bloodlusted, and I think to myself, if I don't kill them here I will lose, so I run a Swog and 3 Deathchasers all with height into the Tagawa and they counterstrike me on every single attack. I'm basically considering it a lost game at this point, but I do my best to keep the game going with AG pings. I have about 2 Swogs and 5 Arrows left at this point, but I have some space to work with since they were all sitting in my startzone. I land some ridiculous 2 and 3v6s that thin out the Tagawa, then do the exact same thing to the Izumi, as I'm climbing to the sandy center of the board. I win a crucial initiative where Thor had his OM1 on his final Izumi, OM2 and 3 on the sleeping Kozuke. I ignore the Izumi and sprint my AGs to his side of the hill and rain 3v3s down on the Kozuke. First volley kills one Kozuke, Izumi can't catch the Arrows, second volley kills the other two Kozuke. 2 OMs lost and now the game is basically over in my favor. I eat the sleeping Hato then kite the Izumi around a bit and finish him off too. Maybe the scrappiest win I've ever gotten, I thought I was done for after the Tagawa absolutely destroyed me.

3-0

Round 4 vs. dok (Axegrinders x2, Darrak, Raelin, Black Wyrmling x2, Red Wyrmling x2, White Wyrmling) on Draugur

We were both locked in for Day 2 so this game was basically playing towards a first round bye. I don't have a lot of familiarity with Dwarves since I just got my first physical squad of them recently. I tried to view this game as a learning experience in case dok and I rematched on Day 2. I got the attacks I wanted, Axegrinders on to Swogs, but I just could not find kills. dok sniped Raelin who I placed in a bad long term position because I feared the Deathchaser rush. I got a little back into the game towards the end, with my last Dwarf and Darrak doing serious work and holding good positions, but my Wyrmlings died a little easy. Time was called and dok was up on points since he still had an unwounded Raelin. I was still down for sure but I had a chance at winning with how weak the Orc offense was getting.

3-1

Round 5 vs. heroscaper2010 (Mohicans x4, Q10) on Fire Isles

I was really tired after the game vs. dok and the three games before that and running things so I don't think I played my finest game here. No particular mistakes, but I was tripping over myself double-space denying my own Swogs and had OMs on the wrong card a couple crucial times which made me leave a lot of figures on lava. I got lucky to slam Q10 for three wounds with just Arrow pings so he wasn't a factor, but the Mohicans were quite tough for me, especially as hser2010 targeted my Swogs. Once the Swogs were dead, the little guys had a lot of trouble with the Mohicans. The final two Mohicans killed five or six Orc squads and edged out a narrow win.

3-2

Day 2

Round 1 vs. Rama (Blade Gruts x4, Nerak, Grimnak, Ornak) on Caldera

Orc battle. This was a close matchup. Blade Gruts have the horde advantage but my army had the defense and range advantage. It was a very interesting early game. I was trying to very slowly roll up my horde of Blades, but a couple of Deathchasers were alone out of Raelin and Nerak's aura so I deployed a few Blades and Ornak deep into Rama's territory to pick them off. That cost me Ornak, but the Deathchasers were substantially weakened. From there Rama set up a great Arrow pod right outside his startzone. He used the water and the thin path up to the Caldera as defense. I didn't really have any great shots on to his Arrow Gruts so I rolled Grimnak on to the high middle ground and started hitting the remaining Deathchasers. It was mostly successful, but then Arrows hit Grimnak for a quick four wounds out of nowhere. I retreated Grimnak back, to where he could get Kelda next turn, and then I sent in two Blades deep to take height 3v6 shots on Swogs to hopefully slow Rama down. I hit on both shots and that was basically the game. Rama was left with one Swog, and that just was not enough to punch through the Blades.

advance

Round 2 vs. Cleon (Capuans x2, Crixus, Spartacus) on Highways and Dieways Swarm

Cleon was playing the out of steamroller. On any other board in the pool I think my army is a pretty big favorite, but on Highways and Dieways it's a game. And Cleon played the Highway to his advantage very well. The Capuans with road threatened so many places and I couldn't safely develop Arrows or Swogs. He massed his 6 Gladiators on one of the corner hills and sent in Crixus and a few Gladiators to smack a Swog. The Swogs death freed up room for my next OM, which was Raelin, to replace his spot, and she started to pin the Gladiators from getting to the rest of my very fragile army. I took sent Deathchasers into holes in the road to attack up 4v5 on the Capuans, but those attacks failed. The Deathchasers died and I was forced on my next Deathchaser OM to make a very aggressive play, sending Nerak deep around the board on to the Wannok glyph to take a low ground attack up at a Capuan, sent another Deathchaser around along with him to take an even attack at a Capuan, sent two more down into the hole to get some damage. I got a couple kills with the aggressive play and then switched over to Arrows. The Arrows really struggled as well until one crucial pair of turns. On OM3, I climbed my final Swog up on to height, bit a Capuan, and then sent an Arrow Grut to Dagmar. Dagmar won me the initiative, and the Arrow Gruts all climbed up on to height to kill the final two Capuans to knock off two of Cleon's OMs. I used the free turns to kill Spartacus, but Crixus disengaged taking the wound to up smash the last Swog. It was 3 life Crixus vs. 3 life Raelin and 3 Arrows. I sent Raelin up to height to replace the Swogs spot with my Dagmar OM1, and hit Crixus for one wound. The Arrows were fortunate enough to find 1 wound on to Crixus with their pings on my second turn, so my third turn was locking Crixus with 3 engagements and sending the last Arrow to Wannok. 1 life Crixus was forced to take the 3 unblockable hits and it killed him. It was a great game; I think my army was pretty favored but Cleon just outplayed me with the exception of leaning too heavily on the Capuans for OMs that round. I didn't have nearly as good a handle on the board and I was really tripping over myself at the start and I paid for it.

advance

Round 3 vs. Dysole (Yari x4, Raelin, James Murphy, Laglor)

Dysole always does these traditionally horde of really bad squad + Raelin + something that covers their weaknesses builds. I thought I had an okay chance since James Murphy is A+ tier against Swog Riders, but it was going to be an uphill battle since my army had so much more defense than Dysole's. Dysole played my army as two waves, Deathchasers first then Arrow Gruts. I opened with a pretty heavy Yari play, thinking they were solid enough against Chasers and bad against Arrows. They scored two kills in my first two turns with them but after that they really struggled to find anything, which was really bad for me since I just needed one or two more Deathchasers dead to cripple their offense. Meanwhile Dysole sent Raelin extremely deep to protect Deathchasers, which left the Arrows exposed. I switched to Murphy and hit a big kill on two Deathchasers and one of my own Yari. Then Murphy killed another Deathchaser and got two wounds on Nerak, forcing him to Kelda. Then Murphy went even deeper, out of my Raelin's aura, to blast a Swog and two Arrows out of the game. He got one more blast that killed two more Arrows but then the Cowboy rampage was brought down. That left two Arrows 3 Swogs and Raelin, which I thought was managable for Laglor, but it was not. Laglor engaged Raelin and never could finish her off. Raelin had some great blocks, Dysole set up a good double Swog pod and finished off Laglor with the attacks of 4 from height.

eliminated

Overall I'm happy with how I did, I won two day 2 games against good players playing well and made my third very difficult game close. I liked my build and wouldn't change it, I don't think I played it perfectly in any of my games really and I like that, it's a very challenging army.

2021 Reports

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VC Delta

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Good Old Days

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Anything Goes

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Sideboards

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I thought this was a really exciting format. There was actually a format in Chicago in 2012 that ran this exact thing, but I was still learning the game and just had a variety of Knight builds. Have never seen it since then.

Army: Raelin, Rats x3, Kaemon, Krav, Hydra, Q9, Marcu. Not the most underground figures anyone has ever played, but my goal was to have things that added up to 420 really nicely. 420 points is a multiple of 60, and everything in here is a multiple of 60, with the exception of Raelin and Krav, who together are 180, which is a multiple of 60, so it really works out well for a variety of things I can tech behind the Rat screen for particular matchups. Basically, 120 + 120 + 180 = 420, and I used that math a lot of times.

Round 1 vs. Major Q23 (My army: Major Q9, Rats x3, Raelin, Marcu | Q23's army: 4th Mass x3, Alastair, Sam Brown, Kyntela)
I broke my 120 + 120 + 180 rule and went 20 points under this game because I really want Raelin-backed Q9 against 4th. The actual game wasn't that exciting. Q23 went aggressive with 4th early, so I had to sacrifice a lot of Rats to protect my Raelin, but once Q9 climbed the Jabberwock hill it was over. W

Round 2 vs. Dysole (My army: Krav, Raelin, Kaemon, Rats x3 | Dysole's army: Deathchasers x4, Raelin, MBS, Nerak, Isamu)
This was basically a Reverse the Whip of my loss to Chris Perkins's Rats the day prior, on the same board. I followed Chris's lead and built a very thick wall of Rats and fired over with mostly Kaemon sometimes Krav. My Rats had great defense rolls and Dysole's Chasers never could crack in. W

Round 3 vs. JohnnyFrisbee (My army: Krav, Raelin, Hydra, Rats x3 | Johnny's army: Knights x3, Sir Gilbert, Raelin)
Thinking that Raelin backed Knights are slow but hit hard, I went Hydra this time. I also put OM1 on Raelin, which was a major mistake. Knights won initiative, hit two big dispatch rolls, and caught a Krav that I had set up on the thin 1 hex part of the Forest Fire startzone before I even took a Rat turn. I was in a terrible spot and had to put all my faith in the Hydra. Somehow that worked out. I threw a lot of Rat OMs, tried to play Hydra very cautiously. Once I ran out of Rats I had to play Hydra aggressive, and I started to just have absolutely insane Hydra defense rolls, shrugging off every Gilbert boosted attack the Knights threw without ever losing a head. I won the game on points due to lava wounds at the end of the last round. Probably the game I was most outplayed over the convention, can't really give enough compliments to JohnnyFrisbee and Earl of Sandwich for their play this weekend. Sometimes you just get lucky and win these. W

Round 4 vs. ISB3 (My army: Q9, Rats x3, Hydra | ISB3's army: Q9, Rats x2, Marro Warriors, Raelin)
I didn't really want to take the near mirror matchup of picking the Q9 build of my first game, but I also couldn't really ride Krav. I decided to go with Hydra, for hitting power against Q9, but that meant no Raelin since I needed a Q9 of my own for Rats. Unfortunately, my Q9 never got to shoot at Rats. My Q9 unloaded 9 Queglix shots into Raelin, killing her, but ISB3's Q9 took Ulaniva and dropped Q9 in two shots of 5 and 6. I maybe should have seen it coming and used Rats more heavily, but it was brutal rolls. I tried to flood Q9 with Rats the following round, and one of the Rats actually got 2 wounds on Q9 with a single potshot. My Hydra was never able to get Q9 though as ISB3 played his Rats very well. L

Again, really liked this format. Thought it was really fun that I had a different army in all four games. More people went the "build two good armies both of which have Raelin" route, which is fair, but I had fun trying to construct something good for every game.

Championship Battle Report

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General Wars

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Army: Sacred Band x3, Redcoats x2, Parmenio, Marcus. This General Wars was really similar to the one we did at Online Con last summer, but the figure limit bumped from 18 to 24 which really enables builds like this. I love playing the Marcus + Redcoats pod, and thought it was fun to bring Sacred Band sincerely to a cheese tournament.

Round 1 vs. Major Q23 (Cutters x3, Brutes x2, Mezzos x1, Fen Hydra)
This game I did not even activate Redcoats or Marcus. In the first round I lost four Greeks to a strike force of Valda-backed Cutters. Over the next two rounds I did not lose any more. Parmenio and the Greeks claimed Valda from the Cutters after the initial losses and then rolled over the board with its aid, and some great defense rolls. Q23 was coming directly off his tough Championship win to this game so I'll cut him slack for this one. W

Round 2 vs. UnseenShadowz (Charos, Greenscales x3, Syvarris)
This was the build I won the prior Online Con General Wars with. It's good, but there's more tools to kill Charos without a strict figure limit, and I think I had the best one available in 10th x2 and Marcus. I built a screen with the Greeks and then launched 4x4v6 attacks on Charos from low ground to slowly bring him down. W

Round 3 vs. MrWookie (Heavies x2, Blades x2, Nerak, Grimnak, Tornak)
This game I had a magnificent Greek screen. I stumbled into a perfect double space denial on the Aeon road with Parmenio and a Greek that blocked Grimnak from getting any Chomps without extreme aggression into Redcoat range. After Round 1, I never put an order marker on the Greeks again and went straight Redcoats to blast through the entire army. W

Round 4 vs. Garenex (Blades x4, Grimnak, Nerak, Tornak, Marro Warriors, Isamu)
This mega 27-hex powerhouse build was what Chris Perkins was running in the other semifinals match. It was going to be tough, but I had done an online test game of this matchup Chris Perkins before the Con, and the key to it was focusing down the Blades' heroes first, to destroy Chomp and their attack boost, and leave them as 2/2 peons. That's how this game went, and I was helped by Garenex's poor Grimnak defense rolls. The Blades and Tornak themselves did a lot of work, but not enough for the Marros to clean up. I pushed aggressively on the Marros with 6 move Redcoats, breaking Marcus pod formation, to close out the game. W

Chris Perkins won the other semifinal, and since we were in different Generals we became General Wars cochampions, as the event was out of time. Chris Perkins had two other unplayed side event championship games to play that night, and since the two of us had already played the match once, it felt like a fine ending to me. I had a lot of fun playing the Greeks and taking them to some big wins.

Three-Headed Hydra

Spoiler Alert!

My team was me, my dad, and Chris Perkins. Our builds were:

Chris: Cutters x4, Charos, Guilty
Vegie Dad: Mohicans x5, Brave Arrow, Theracus
vegietarian18: Nagrubs x5, Tor-Kul-Na, Zetacron

I thought our builds were solid with smooth matchups, which is important when the other team sets matchups, but Chris and I pretty significantly overlooked how good Zombies were going to be, and all three of our builds were quite bad into Zombies.

Round 1 vs. UnseenShadowz (Charos, Drones x4, Guilty)
This game was bound to come down to a Charos vs. Tor-Kul-Na duel and it did. Tor-Kul-Na had fantastic shields, and got Charos down to 1 life, wbut died. Zeta was able to clean Charos up, and then rolled clutch shields to take down Guilty. On the other games of the series, Chris Perkins was soundly defeated by Earl of Sandwich's Zombies, but my dad pulled out the win over johnnyfrisbee's Cutters, but Johnny had maybe gone too hard for the multiplayer championship the night before and forgot to put a squad of his Cutters on the board until about halfway through their game. W

Round 2 vs. Deroche (Zombies x5, Syvarris, Theracus)
I had to take the Zombies since my teammates' armies were even worse into them. Many Nagrubs were turned into Zombies, but Tor-Kul-Na killed many many Zombies. Syvarris came out when Zombies got low, and I had a fun play where I ate one of my own engaged Nagrubs that was in my way to catch the elf archer before he ran away. On the other games, my dad was pretty soundly defeated by Tagawa Samurai Archers, while Chris Perkins got a crucial narrow win over NecroBlade's Blades. W

Round 3 vs. Dragon Ruler (Sacred Band x4, Parmenio, Valguard)
We were about 70% through a pretty tight game that I was narrowly losing when I realized that Dragon Ruler had been moving the Band five spaces all game when he didn't have Marcus in his army. We chose to play it out, hoping that either our teammates would decide the series, but that didn't happen, with my dad defeating HoundsRule's Hounds and Chris Perkins losing the Cutter mirror to OEAO. I lost the match in the startzone when TKN couldn't find the tramples he needed on the Greeks; there were about 5 Greeks and a 3-life Parmenio remaining. Dragon Ruler thought/thinks that the match wasn't impacted by the mistake, but I pretty strongly disagree; 50+ move points of extra development over the five rounds before I noticed the mistake gave the Greeks sizable advantages. I don't disagree that I had chances to win even with the mistake, but I don't think the mistake didn't impact the game. I feel bad about it because it was certainly an honest mistake, but it was a very impactful one, and he had played it that way in his prior games too. The end solution was to throw this game out, leave the series tied 1-1, neither of our teams advancing to the next round, and the undefeated IS/ISB3/Q23 team taking the title.