[BiggaBullfrog]

August Monthly - Teams

True Bigga Battle Report

True’s a great player. He's grown so much this past year since he first started, and has gotten past the point where I ever need to give him advice while we’re playing, and in fact he often uses better tactics than me. However, after he went 0-4 during the NHSD prep tourney, he told me that he really wanted to play a really strong army. Preferably Nilfheim, as that was the main unit of the army he took to his first tournament, and he got second there, so he wanted them good times back. So we came up for a Nilf-centric army for him and something to complement for me.

Team Rainbow:
@TrueMurray
Nilfheim 185
Krav Maga Agents 100
Isamu 10
295 Points/5 Figures

Bigga:
Shieldsmiths of Granite Keep x3 80 (240)
Zetacron 60
300 Points/10 Figures

Our strategy overall was for True to be the firepower, using his range to his advantage and never letting the enemy get close, while I moved 5-Defense Dwarves out to hold the line and deal some damage when the opportunity arose. I also took Zetacron to help snipe opposing heroes if we ever needed to. It was a fun combination and we felt good going in.

Bonus Game

Spoiler Alert!

We had an odd number of teams, so the first round True and I got a bye. I was going to watch some games and play announcer, but then I learned that Ben was without a teammate, so I instead decided to play with him for a round. (Ben ended up getting a teammate from one of the teams who got a bye throughout the tournament, which was cool both for him and them.) So for me, Round 1 consisted of:



Ben
Omnicron Snipers x3 100 (300)

And
Bigga
Krug 120
Zombies of Morindan x3 60 (180)

VS @Saints_Wrath
Marcus Decimus Gallus 100
Roman Legionnaires x2 50 (100)
Agent Carr 100

And
Jeremy
Major Q10 150
10th Regiment of Foot x2 75 (150)

I realized partway through the game that Marcus’s Soldier Attack Enhancement affects friendly soldiers, meaning the 10th could get a bonus from him. Pretty cool army construction on SaintsWrath and Jeremy’s parts.

Ben had set up the armies and assigned me to the Zombies which were on the left flank. Fortunately for me that was where a Move Glyph was, so I started heading off towards that while trying to spread my Zombies across my side and send a couple others to screen for the Snipers. I was especially eager to get at the Romans as there weren’t enough of them to consistently keep their defense at 4 and I wanted to get at the ones with lower defense while I could. The Snipers and 10th started trading shots, doing about equal damage points-wise if I remember correctly.

The main problem, though, was that even when my Zombies got to Romans with 2 or 3 Defense, my attacks weren’t going through. Naturally, the Zombies were also attacked a lot because the last thing our opponent’s wanted were more to deal with. In the end, I think I only got about 3 Zombies to come back from the grave before they were wiped out. By this time, the Snipers were falling quickly too, as Marcus had been able to swing around and get a bunch of them and some 10th were helping him take them out steadily. So it was Krug and a couple Snipers vs Marcus, a couple 10th, and Q10 and Carr. I had hope for Krug, and he did take out a good few figures before falling to Major Q10’s Wrist Rockets, but fall he did in the end, resulting in a loss for Ben and me.

Game 1

Spoiler Alert!

VS
Cameron
Krug 120
Marro Stingers x3 60 (180)

And
Katie
Major Q10 150
Warriors of Ashra x3 50 (150)

There were a lot of threats in the opposing armies that we were wary of. We wanted to take out the ranged units especially as quickly as possible, figuring that if we did, our range could trump the enemy melee units.

Oh, I forgot to mention that True has a saying that he always abides when playing just about any game, but especially Heroscape: “Risk it for the biscuit.” So, abiding by his natural rules, first round he shot off Nilfheim towards the enemy start zone. Turn 2 he was shooting at the Stingers and was able to take 3 out. Then turn 3 he took out 3 Warriors of Ashra that had been climbing the middle ground, allowing my Dwarves to run around freely. It was a strong first move, and we figured all we had to do was hold the hill to win.

So we started trading blows. My dwarves took a Defense glyph while trying to screen for Nilf. They were able to hold of advancing Ashra and Krug well enough, but unfortunately some Stingers and Major Q10 slipped out to shoot Nilfheim and the Dragon fell sooner than we anticipated. So the Krav ran out, shooting some guys, but we lost our presence where Nilfheim had been standing and the enemy forces broke through. Since this was a slow game, time was also being called right about now. In our last round, we found that we were a little behind on points, and that to win we would have to either kill Q10 or Krug. Literally, it came down to the last turn of the game, where True was able to activate his Krav Maga Agents. His choices were either shooting Q10, who had 2 Lives left but 7 Defense due to a Jungle Tree and Shadow Space bonus, or Krug, who had 4 Lives left but was also on the Defense glyph. He went for Krug, shooting three times, inflicting first 1 Wound, then another, and then… 2 Wounds! With that we scraped by with points and took our first win.

1-0

Game 2

Spoiler Alert!

VS
Ben
Omnicron Snipers x3 100 (300)

And
@Scaperedude
Krug 120
Zombies of Morindan x3 60 (180)

Like I said, since Ben didn’t have an official partner, he had been borrowing from those on bye throughout the tourney. This time Scaperedude was on bye, and he was all too excited to join our game.

I think a little history lesson on my (friendly) rivalry is in order here. Scaperedude and I have played several times this past year. (Man, it hasn’t even been a whole year since I met the dude and we started up this whole thing with The Dewk. Weird to think about.) I have never beaten him. I’ve been close, and one game that went to time could have gone either way (though I honestly think he would have pulled out on top in the end), but he’s always beaten me fair and square. To the point that I considered making him my teammate for this tourney so that I wouldn’t have to face him and I wouldn’t have to worry about losing. So, when he came to play against True and me, my high from winning the last game left. I could take a loss, personally, but I wanted to win for True. Which brings an interesting side note: True has played Scaperedude several times as well, and I think that True said he has won the majority of them, but I’m not sure. Point is, True has won against Scaperedude and I never have. So maybe there was hope?

Anyway, lesson’s over. This game we went with plan beta, which meant that instead of Nilfheim, True would lead with the Krav. I kept doing Dwarf stuff. So True started for the high ground, shooting a couple Snipers and Zombies while I came up to support, but then a lucky shot from a Sniper killed one of the Krav. With their firepower significantly lowered (#uniquesquadproblems), we brought out Nilf. We had been reluctant to send out the Dragon too early because the Snipers love heroes to pick on, but the Krav wouldn’t have been effective enough. Luckily, Nilf was able to really wreck the Zombies (like the game I played, I think the Zombies only got 2 or 3 kills before getting annihilated), and my Dwarves were in a good enough position to engage Snipers and keep them off of the Dragon. Although there was that one time, when that one Sniper ran up, and instead of shooting the nearby Dwarf like he was supposed to, ignored it and shot Zetacron. And missed. But then he shot again and killed Zeta. Poor Zetacron, two games in a row without doing anything.

So anyway, Zombies were dying and Krug was coming up in their place. Snipers were still present but we were getting them off of their peaks. So True and I discussed tactics. I was doing Dwarf stuff as I now had no other option, but True wanted to know if he should switch to Krav since Krug was coming up. I said maybe, but do your first couple turns on Nilf so he can do some damage first and maybe get out of the area. So True revealed turn 1 on the Krav. Turns out we had a miscommunication. But I think that was what sealed the game for us, as it turned out that the Krav were in a slightly better position to take out a couple Snipers that we probably wouldn’t have gotten with Nilf, and then my next turn I killed the last one, meaning that all we had to worry about was Krug, and that we were getting 2 turns for every one of the opponents’. Krug is still scary though, and my Dwarves moved to tie him up while True shot him with Agents and Dragon. Of course, that meant that Krug was getting higher attack, and my Dwarves were falling. We were getting there, and finally had Krug at 1 Life while we still had the 2 Krav and Nilfheim with a couple lives left. Scaperedude with his almost dead Krug was considering his options, and looked like he was going to make a run for Nilf, when he realized that I only had the one Dwarf left, and said, “You know what, I’m taking out Bigga.” Pretty sure that’s verbatim. Over that big dragon, he chose the one Dwarf (and maybe an Agent too, I forget), just so that he could still beat me. And that he did, crushing the dwarf (and maybe an Agent), right before Nilf flew in to finish the Troll off.

2-0

But still
Me 0
Scaperedude 5 (I think? I might be missing one or two, but my point remains.)

Someday, Scaperedude. Someday I will rise to the lofty ‘Scape peaks where you reside with all your skill. Someday this grasshopper shall surpass you.

Game 3

Spoiler Alert!

VS
@antmarchingroves
Death Chasers of Thesk x3 55 (165)
Me-Burq-Sa 50
Kelda 80

And
@Flash_19
Eltahale 140
Rhogar Dragonspine 110
Marro Warriors 50

This was my first time seeing the Death Chasers of Thesk in person! So happy note there. I’ve proxied them plenty of times cause I like what they do, but it was neat to see them for reals.

True and I were pretty wary of this match, as antmarchingroves and flash_19 had been stomping the competition all day. At the same time, we felt that if we played defensively, we could take out the Death Chasers before they did too much damage and then attrition out there rest of the figures, although respawning Marro and Eltahale with her offensive potential were scary. Still, we thought we had this.

Then we got curb stomped, and antmarchingroves and flash_19 won with only 6 dead Death Chasers and maybe 2 wounds on Eltahale.

True and I definitely made some mistakes, one of which was underestimating the offensive prowess of Death Chasers backed by Me-Burq-Sa and Marro Warriors. While fighting for map control my Dwarves died before they touched anything and Nilfheim got caught due to the Orcs getting the Movement Glyph and then got executed by Eltahale. To make things worse, the dice were completely against us this game (as even our opponent’s acknowledged), with Me-Burq-Sa succeeding with Paralyzing Stares more often than not and our best attacks being blocked by perfect defense rolls. But our loss can’t be completely blamed on the dice. Like I said, we made mistakes, and that lost us the game. The dice just made it the landslide loss that it was.

True and I thought about it a lot afterwards (not that we were bitter towards ant and flash - they played super well - but we were frustrated at ourselves and thought we could have done better), wondering what we could have done to have stood a better chance, and ultimately decided that our best bet was to do the ultimate camping strategy, using Krav and Zetacron instead of Nilf and Shieldsmiths, picking off key figures like the glyph holder and Me-Burq-Sa as well as Marro Warriors without getting tied down by Death Chasers and picking off Orcs as they advanced as well. Definitely not the first thing either of us would have thought of as neither of us like to camp that much, but it would have made the game closer. As it was, though, ant and flash played an excellent game and took a well-deserved win of the tournament, and True and I took second which was more than good enough for us.

2-1