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  #193  
Old August 19th, 2016, 01:39 PM
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Re: dok's battle reports

2016 GENCON

REVERSE DRAFT


This was an open play event, which I ran. The Gencon organizers supported the event with prize dice, for which I am very grateful. We ended up with 11 participants, and a lone 3-0 champ after 3 rounds of play.

While “Take 2” and all its variants (Pick Your Poison, First Crack, Cut the Cake, etc) have been my baby for a while, I decided that I wanted to showcase my new pet format this year at Gencon. Reverse Draft is a new variant format that only requires each player to bring 1 army, but balances the armies by allowing players to bid against each other on how many figures they will sit from the army in order to play the army of their choice. The players go back and forth bidding on the army the first player selects until one player passes, and decides to play the other army. It’s a nice format for live play because the paring back of one army is a much quicker process than drafting up two armies. Plus you end up with reasonable coherent armies instead of hodgepodges. (Although it can be fun to play hodgepodges from time to time.)


I was 90% sure I wasn’t playing Tor-Kul-Na in the main event, so rather than practice my main event army I decided to give him a run here. My army (fitting the 600 point/18 figure limits exactly) was Tor-Kul-Na, nagrubs x3, Raelin, Black Wyrmling x4, Red Wyrmling x3.

I had a first round bye (just random chance, but it did make it easier for me to get the event going) so I started in round 2.

ROUND 2
Opponent: Infected Sloth (Raelin, Blade Gruts x2, Ornak, Brunak, Mindflayer, MBS, Nerak, Marcu, Isamu)
Map: Quasatch Playground

(I didn’t do a good job noting glyphs this weekend unless they were relevant to the gameplay. Since I don’t know what the glyphs were for this map, that means that they weren’t move or wound, and probably not unique attack either.)

This ended up being a pretty incredible week of Heroscape for the Ash clan, with three of them picking up event titles, including a main event title. IS was the first, as he was (spoiler alert) the winner of the reverse draft event. Nathan has, by a significant margin, the best win differential against me of anyone, and he added to it in this event.

We bidded on my army, going back and forth sitting wyrmlings a couple times until Nathan let me play it with 2 fewer red wyrms and 1 fewer black wyrms.

Early on things went very well for me, as my black wyrms took out Raelin not too long after Brunak had carried her up to high ground. Tor-Kul-Na was making his way up to bash some heads when my demise came, in the form of the Mindflayer Mastermind.

The illithid was the undisputed MVP of the game, unless you count TKN, since TKN killed more of my army than any figure in IS’s army by far. Enslave hit 4/7 attempts on TKN. Not only did this lead to the death of Raelin, 4-5 nagrubs, and a couple wyrmlings, but it also meant that TKN kept heading back away from the front and preventing me from getting into position.

Because of the way IS had positioned Burnak, MBS, and Nerak to deny TKN a double-spaced landing area, and because of the way I kept getting sent backwards, I was usually reduced to just swinging 6v8 up at Brunak. I did take Brunak out eventually, but it was far too little, too late. Mindflayer OP!

0-1 (1-1 by tournament reckoning but I don’t count forfeits in my personal records)

ROUND 3
Opponent: Mr. Chompie (TKN, SBN, grubs x4, Krav)
Map: Wendigo (Unique attack and wannok)

My second game against Mr. Chompie after beating him in draft last year. We were set for a stompy mirror. The armies were reasonably well-matched. After we bartered two grubs off of my build, I agreed to take his army.

Initially, I led with SBN and grubs. My main goal was to make sure the black wyrms didn’t get to the Krav, who I had crammed in the back of the startzone. I was largely successful with this, taking out most of the wyrms while getting my grubs worked up the hill where Raelin had set up, on the Wannok side of the map.

Mr. Chompie started bringing TKN up the middle, but thanks to the irregular terrain of Wendigo, I was able to limit TKN to a single grub kill each turn while I brought my TKN up to contest the high ground. My TKN got several whacks in at Raelin on her perch, but TKN (as he so often does for me) rolled pretty lousy attack dice, and I couldn’t take down the Kyrie.

I had secured the unique attack glyph on the far end of the map, and it seemed pretty assured that TKN would wear through Raelin soon enough, but Nathan retreated Raelin farther back on the hill to protect her. However, I brought the Krav out, and was able to eliminate the Kyrie.

With a couple Krav, about half of my grubs, and both Hivelords against just a stray wyrm and TKN/grubs on the other side, things looked very safe for me. However, the dice had other ideas. Despite having the high ground, my TKN lost the brawl with the opposing TKN when he died to a 5-wound smash. My krav got chased down too, although they managed to eliminate the last nagrubs in the process. SBN took down the last wyrm, but TKN chased down my last grub on unique attack, leaving a SBN vs. wounded TKN showdown. Again I managed to secure height, but again Mr. Chompie’s Stompy came out on top, and that was the game.

0-2 (1-2 officially) and my first two losses ever in this format. Still, I was really happy to be able to put this event on at Gencon. Good times.
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  #194  
Old August 19th, 2016, 01:51 PM
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Re: dok's battle reports

2016 MAIN EVENT

I spent less time than ever preparing for events this year, and the main event was no exception. I played goblin cutters (with Jotun and Moltenclaw) in the online prep event, but quickly decided that I didn’t want to play them this year. I never managed to find the time to play any additional practice games, so I was going to build my main event army solely using the powers of Theoryscape.

While I always enjoy TKN, and I had a solid TKN build in my back pocket (the one I ran in Reverse draft), I didn’t feel like running stompy in back-to-back years. I had thought about using Mohicans for a long time, and with all the points in play this year it seemed like a reasonable time to give it a go. Because I like to create OM decisions in my armies when possible, I didn’t want to go with more than 3 squads of Mohicans. Three squads of Mohicans, Brave Arrow, and the obligatory Raelin add got me to 340, leaving me with 260 points and 7 figure spots remaining.

My first instinct was to add two squads of Deathchasers and the Ogre Warhulk, but after thinking about it I decided that I didn’t like how that played, and also it made the army a touch stronger than the power level I was going for. I really liked the way two squads of Horned Skull Brutes and Brunak seemed like it would play, but I decided that would also be too strong. I seriously considered two squads of Templar Cavalry and Marcu, but I decided that was actually too weak (plus I would have to borrow a squad since TC are one of the very few commons I don’t own 3+ copies of).

In the end, my theoryscape landed me on two squads of Deathstalkers and Sam Brown. The Deathstalkers are tough enough that two squads can still survive decently long a fair amount of the time, and they are less likely to be extremely good or bad in a given game than their cheaper Marrden Hound brethren. Sam Brown was basically filler, but I also thought he made for decent tech in the case I really needed a special attack. (Ironically, I never used him except as a wound glyph soak, but he nearly cost me a game on day 2.) The army also took exactly 24 spaces, which I kind of liked.

So, I rolled into the event with Mohicans x3, Brave Arrow, Raelin, Deathstalkers x2, Sam Brown.

All references to Daniel Day Lewis movies are unintentional.

ROUND 1
Opponent: Rollitontop (Anubians x5, Khosument, Q10)
Map: Burial Marsh (Wound, Healer)

I was not very excited to see Burial Marsh, which was probably the worst map in the pool for my army due to the split startzones and irregular terrain. My early OMs had to be dedicated to collecting my army into a coherent force. I ended up abandoning the wound glyph side of the map (Sam Brown soaked the hits for me) so that I could get my stalkers on the high ground on the Raelin side.

After not much action for the first round plus, Tristan rolled a 20 for fury the first time he had an opportunity to get more than 1 attack in a turn. This led to three dead Deathstalkers, and basically reduced me to playing a Mohican army for the rest of the game.

It was a slog, but I was able to manage it. I didn’t dominate the proceedings by any stretch, but the Anibians didn’t roll great defense and I managed to string them out, limit attacks, and pick them off reasonably well. Inevitably, Q10 stepped up to try to take out my last squad+ of Mohicans and RaeRae, but I managed to screen him out from the Healer glyph and tie him down. Q10's defense didn’t hold up, and the last Mohicans were able to clean up the rest of the board.

1-0

ROUND 2
Opponent: Hendal (Phantom Knights x2, Marro Warriors, Hydra, Frost Giant, Heirloom, Arkmer, Isamu)
Map: Flash Fire (d20, Healer?)

For the second straight year, Hendal and I faced off on day 1. I felt a bit more confident than I had last year, when my TKN army had improbably managed to outlast the Marrden Hounds. Still, this was far from an easy matchup - any matchup involving a Hydra and the Marro Warriors can be lost.

I spooled my army out steadily in the early going, while Hendal sent the PKs out and went straight for Raelin. He managed a couple adjacencies and kept pounding away. I nearly took them out before they completed the job, but Raelin went down before I cleared out (all but one of) the PKs. By points the exchange had gone my way, but of course Raelin is worth a lot more than 80.

Speaking of underpriced units, the Marro Warriors stepped up next. The Mohicans actually did a very good job limiting them, though, reducing them to just a couple squaddies. It was too early in the game for Hendal to start playing the clone game, so the big bruisers stepped up next.

I tied the Hydra down with single Mohican each turn, while trying to shoot down on the Hydra and Frost giant with other units. I was able to limit the Hydra to single kills, and did eventually break through with a few wounds on it, but meanwhile the Frosty did make it up to the height and thinned me out quite a bit. However, with the help of Brave Arrow and the 'stalkers I was able to take Frosty down. Heirloom died to a very timely Deathstalker Maul, and despite being pretty decimated I had things mostly under control. I had a few of each squad and Sam Brown left against Isamu and a wounded Arkmer at the end of the game.

2-0

ROUND 3
Opponent: Nicktheant (Microcorp Agents x4, Raelin, Laglor, Isamu)
Map: Burial Marsh (Wannok, d20)

Welp, I was right back to the worst map in the army for my pool, and against a Microcorp army that loves this map a lot.

Raelin took a couple early wounds from long-range sniping, but I moved RaeRae up to high ground, where she could only take 2 dice instead of 4, and she ended up lasting much longer. It was predictably a struggle for me to gather my army on the high ground, leaving me a little short on troops contesting the high ground than early on. On the bright side I did end up having largely uncontested control of the Wannok glyph on the far side. (However, stealth armor ended up blocking multiple wannok hits.)

This ended up being a pretty defensive struggle. We both had Raelins on perches. Mine never died; I did kill Nick’s Raelin but it took a long time. I had finally pretty much claimed the high ground at the end, and I had a wounded Raelin, 2 Deathstalkers, 5 Mohicans, and Sam Brown, while Nick had a wounded Laglor and 7 Microcorp. Thanks to full card scoring, I was a loser by 30 points.

It was my second day 1 loss to Nick, but at least I could take solace in being 2-0 against him on day 2. (For the moment.)

2-1

ROUND 4
Opponent: Mr. Wookie (Capuan Gladiators x4, Spartacus, Crixus, Guilty)
Map: Fire Isles

On fire isles, you really need to be playing from the jump. This is doubly true when you’re going up against a straight-for-the-jugular army like the steamroller. Despite this, I made what was a pretty big blunder by putting Raelin in my front row. This meant that when Crixus crushed my deathstalker on the second turn, capuans were already assaulting Raelin. Raelin didn’t last long. Crixus ended up gathering quite the bloodly tally, dealing killing blows to Raelin, Brave Arrow, and a couple deathstalkers. Gross.

At this point though, Mr. Wookie’s defense dice turned sour, and I was able to take down a bunch of Capuans with my last couple squads of Mohicans. The key sequence came late, when I had about 4 Mohicans and Sam Brown remaining in my army, while Mr. Wookie had a mostly healthy Spartacus, Guilty, and three Capuans. I saw the OMs were on the Caps, and I realized that I could get height on all three capuans. I announced that I was about to kill all three of them, and three 4v4 hits later, I had. I then had a couple uncontested OMs to kill Guilty and get a couple more wounds on Spartacus. The Mohicans finished things in the next round.

I really didn’t deserve to win this game after the early strategic and positioning blunder, but sometimes dice and circumstance can bail you out. Fortunately I didn’t cost Chandler day 2, as he ended up being one of the 3-2 qualifiers.

3-1

ROUND 5
Opponent: The Orange Mailman (Taelord, Omnicron Snipers x3, Hydra)
Map: Vestige

Obviously, a high-variance matchup, as this Taelord build can deal a disgusting amount of damage very quickly. However, I was guardedly optimistic, as I felt that superior squad numbers should carry me through this matchup.

I moved Raelin up early on, but rather than put her on the highest spot where Snipers would have clean shots up at her, I hid Raelin a bit further down the hill where she’d be a bit harder to spot. She took 3 quick wounds, but then I was able to fan out my Mohicans and take out the lead snipers to protect Raelin's position.

The Hydra moved up, but much like I had done against Hendal, I was able to single-engage it to slow its advance, and give it a few wounds after a couple turns of fire. I hit a few key concealments to limit kills, and I was able to thin out the Snipers by targeting those unprotected by jungle trees. Things snowballed pretty badly and I ended up winning in kind of a rout, which boosted my point differential way up and landed me a high day 2 seed.

This was actually my first win against Darrin, who topped me twice before, more notably in the semifinals on the way to his 2013 main event win.

4-1, third seed for day 2.

Last edited by dok; August 22nd, 2017 at 02:25 PM.
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  #195  
Old August 19th, 2016, 02:02 PM
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Re: dok's battle reports

2016 MAIN EVENT DAY 2

ROUND OF 16
Opponent: Capsocrates (Warriors of Ashra x5, Raelin, Moltenclaw, Syvarris)
Map: Fire Isles (Unique Attack)

This was my only game against a roommate outside of the C3V event. I was guardedly optimistic based on the matchup, but Moltenclaw has been very swingy for me in the past so I knew things could go sideways on me.

Caps moved his Raelin up to start, while I just left mine in my startzone and immediately began shooting his Raelin with Syvarris. With the Deathstalkers screening, I was able to take out Raelin very quickly. However, caps threw a few Mohicans forward, and killed my Raelin shockingly quickly to return the favor. Syvarris died shortly after, but at that point I was focused on advancing with Ashra anyway.

Once the Ashra were in decent position, I stepped up with Moltenclaw, hoping to burning breath some Mohicans and other figures back in the startzone and put things out of reach. However, Moltenclaw killed… two squaddies, I think, before joining Raelin in the shockingly quick death club. Suddenly I was looking at trying to overwhelm a bunch of kiting ranged figures with unsupported Ashra. Not ideal...

I took some high-risk maneuvers, like leaving several Ashra up on hot ground between rounds, but I was able to chase down and thin out all but one Deathstalker and Mohican and a wounded Brave Arrow. However, as I alluded to much earlier in this write-up, Sam Brown suddenly became a huge factor, as his special attack could allow him to circumvent the Ashra special… if he had the chance to get his special off.

Caps got me down to 4 Ashra when, in a key sequence, I blocked Sam Brown’s second attack with fire and rush. The next turn I was able to get three Ashra on him (one via disengage) and take him out. With the last Mohican dropping the next turn, I was in pretty solid shape and cleaned up without incident.

The quick Moltenclaw death made me think I might have my first early day 2 exit, but in the end all my elves did their jobs, and that was enough.

QUARTERFINALS
Opponent: Scaper_Dude (Mimring, Airborne Elite, Raelin, Krav, Agent Carr, Tarn Vikings)
Map: Burial Marsh (Healer, d20)

My fourth Gencon, third main event, and second day 2 game against Brandan. He had brought the Rise of the Valkyrie special - basically all the good stuff except the Marro Warriors.

I honestly felt like a first round drop and initiative win could basically win me the game, but the drop was not in the cards, so I turned to Mimring. Mimring was able to fireline Raelin and the startzone multiple times, but he was rolling 1/4s like it was his job. The Airborne dropped the next round, and I continued to fire away at Raelin as best I could with the Airborne, but Raelin was up high by then and held strong on her perch.

As the Mohicans and Deathstalkers advanced, Mimring and the Airborne lost the OMs in favor of the Krav. I was still trying to pick off anything outside of Raelin’s Aura, and doing my best to keep the Mohicans from activating Brave Arrow, but most of my attacks were directed at Scaper_Dude’s insanely tough Raelin. She finally went down, but with Mimring and the Airborne already dead, I was in a hole.

Needing to move up to the high ground to stand a chance, I advanced my own Raelin to the height, swinging down and taking a Mohican out while I was at it. Of course this meant Raelin became a target, but wouldn’t you know it, my Raelin had the invulnerable gene this game as well. She absorbed way more punishment than she had any business taking, allowing the Krav to thin things out quite a bit.

Eventually Raelin fell and the Krav went down, but Brandan only had a handful of squaddies left to go with Brave Arrow and Sam Brown in the back. The Tarns rolled out and took out a couple squaddies, then Carr stepped up. He was as awesome as advertised, and easily blitzed the remaining squaddies, Brave Arrow, and Sam Brown to take the game down.

SEMIFINALS
Opponent: Nicktheant (Microcorp Agents x4, Raelin, Laglor, Isamu)
Map: Flash Fire (move)

A rematch of my one loss from day 1, although it was an extremely narrow loss on points so it’s not like the army margin is that big. Sadly for me, it was a much better map for the army I was handing Nick than the map I had on day 1. (Nick decidedly did not get map love in the finals, as the Microcorp army loves Fire Isles.)

Nick opened by putting his Raelin on a high perch. Rather than put my Raelin up on the perch alongside his, I put mine on the road nearby, in a spot where only one figure could engage her on level ground from the adjacent road. I then started pouring OMs into the Microcorp. I tried to shoot any figure outside of Raelin’s aura whenever possible, and Raelin if I couldn’t. I did manage to snipe a decent number of figures on the way up with super-long range shots with 4 dice, but (just as Nick had experienced the day before) I had no reliable way to kill Raelin on height, instead resorting to attacks of 2.

I continued to work my Microcorp up the height, shooting down whenever possible. Still, I just couldn’t get through Nick’s Raelin. So I turned to Laglor and his 3-dice attack, hoping to get some momentum. However, despite being in Raelin’s aura, Laglor died to just a few attacks from stalkers and Mohicans. So I sent a few Microcorp over to the far hill, which allowed me to snipe at figures still in the startzone and also gave me shots down on any figures that engaged my Raelin.

Finally, I managed to take down Raelin, but by this point both of us were running short on troops. Still, with only a couple Deathstalkers left and only a squad and change of Mohicans against my Raelin and Microcorp on height, it seemed like I finally had things in good shape. However, the last Mohicans rushed my Microcorp on the far hill, and hit multiple concealment rolls in their advance to enable them to overwhelm the agents. At that point, my likely win quickly snowballed into a hopeless position, as Brave Arrow and the last squad of Mohicans took down Raelin and the rest of the board. Isamu hates me so obviously there was no comeback there.

So, my fourth consecutive trip to semifinals ends with a loss, just like the previous three. On one hand I’m happy to be doing consistently well in the event, and I don’t want to be overly fixated on final results. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it eats at me a bit the way I seem so snakebit in the third game on day 2. So it goes.

Last edited by dok; August 19th, 2016 at 06:08 PM.
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Old August 19th, 2016, 02:08 PM
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Re: dok's battle reports

2016 GENERAL WARS

I have only entered General Wars three times in seven years at Gencon. In part this is because it’s usually Saturday afternoon and I’m usually playing semifinals or finals when it starts. However, I’ve also shied away because it’s it’s basically the most spammy metagamey format of them all, and I don’t usually enjoy that. However, fresh off my semifinals defeat, knowing I had no other events lined up for the weekend, I just didn’t feel like I had gotten my ‘scape fix. So I decided to join the cheese party, and I rolled into General Wars with a kamikaze 4th Mass build: 4th x5, Sgt. Drake (RotV), Nilfheim.

I figured that Nilfheim is basically impossible to ignore if I lead with him, so my 4th would be valiant most of the time. The only likely exception that would ignore Nilf to get at my startzone would be Zelrig, but really, who was going to play Zelrig, 10th x5, and Marcus?

Oh… right. Three people. Three people would play that. Plus another Zelrig army or two.

ROUND 1
Opponent: Nelson O. (Knights of Weston x4, Nilfheim, Gilbert, Eldgrim)
Map: Quasatch Playground

Nelson is Major Q23’s brother and Infectedsloth/ISB2/Unseenshadowz’s cousin. He doesn’t play quite as much as the rest of the clan, but he was bringing a solid knight build, one of the many Jandar knight builds in play.

The game began, unsurprisingly, with a Nilfheim duel. I managed to take height, and got a big chomp down to take the duel. Nilf sharded another 6 knights before going down, which was enough to make me feel pretty comfortable.

The rest of the game was predictable WTFing of the advancing knights. Nelson got the knights on top of me pretty quickly so I only made it up to the first plateau outside of my startzone with the minutemen; never over the middle. I concentrated my fire mostly on the knights to try to limit the number of attacks he could muster on this very long map. I won with Drake and most of two squads remaining.

The coolest thing that happened in this game, and one of the coolest things that happened all weekend, was my conversation with Rob Daviau; see the story here.

1-0

ROUND 2
Opponent: Hendal (10th x5, Marcus, Zelrig)
Map: Flash Fire

Welp, I figured I was going to have to beat at least one of the Z-Bomb/10th piles in order to win, so here we go. This was my second game against Hendal at Gencon this year, and our second game on Flash Fire. I was looking to stretch my lifetime record against him to 4-0.

Because of the Zelrig factor, I couldn’t lead with Nilf as usual. I put my first few markers on the 4th so I could scatter my units. Fortunately I won opening init, which allowed me to spread enough to limit the opening OM majestic fires losses to 3. I kept spreading, and pinging Zelrig as I could. I lost another 3 minutemen on the next OM before Zelrig whiffed on the third shot. Luckily for me, Zelrig whiffed again on his next shot in round 2, and then Nilf brought him down.

With Zelrig’s tally limited to only 6 minutemen and a wound on Nilf, I felt very good about my chances. Nilf didn’t roll great defense but nearly matched Zelrig, taking out 5 of the 10th before getting WTFed to death. After that, it played out like Jexik says. It was down to Marcus against a couple squads of 4th and Drake when time was called.

2-0

ROUND 3
Opponent: FilmCriticFrog (Knights of Weston x5, Gilbert, Denrick, Eldgrim, Sam Brown)
Map: Vestige (Wannok, Healer)

My second opposing knight army, and I saw at least one other that had been doing well. I think I might have been running the only minuteman army, actually - they normally dominate Jandar but I think most people shied away from the non-valiant build in favor of the knights..

I went back to my usual Nilf Kamikaze. I had wanted to bounce around and burn healer but due to the way things played out I didn’t end up out in that direction. Nilf didn’t earn his points back, but he took out about two squads worth, which I figured should be enough.

Brendan played things pretty conservatively, keeping Gilbert back and slow-rolling for a bit, before pushing up the wannok side of the map. I got out of my startzone, but only far enough to manage mostly level shots. It was usual WTF funtimes for most of the match, but I won out in the war of attrition, in no small part because Drake absorbed four Wannok hits for me. Eventually I did take Wannok and the two hills for myself, and finished off the heroes to end the match.

3-0

ROUND 4
Opponent: Cleon (Deathreavers x3, Ornak, Hydra x3, Marro Warriors, Marcu, Isamu)
Map: Flash Fire (move and d20)

With all the commons and Zelrigs in play, it was no surprise to see a Deathreaver army doing well. I figured it would be up to the WTF squads to take down some hydras after Nilf thinned the rats out.

As it happened, things went very sideways in the early going. Nilf missed his first six Ice Shard attempts as Cleon slow-rolled a combination of Hydras and rats. I was pretty worried I was going to get overwhelmed by Hydras and lose Nilf with nothing to show for it, but then Nilf got very hot. My next shard attempt, on a Hydra, was a 4/4, with a 0/6 defense roll taking down the Hydra in short order. One round later Nilf was dead, but somehow he took down two Hydras, put a wound on a third... and killed just 1 rat. Not at all what I expected, but I’ll take it!

The rats predictably restricted me quite a bit, but I did manage to take down the third Hydra while only losing about a squad of minutemen. The Marro Warriors stepped up and made life difficult for me, but I was able to get just enough minutemen clear of the rat infestation to pare back their numbers.

My free minutemen were trying to chase down the last Marro Warrior when time was called. I won with 10 minutemen and Drake against 9 rats, Ornak/Marcu/Isamu, and the last Marro Warrior. By points it was actually still a very close game, but barring some extreme Marro Warrior luck I felt like I had things in hand.

4-0

ROUND 5
Opponent: Major Q23 (PK x4, Mezzodemons x4, Hydra)
Map: Quasatch Playground (Wannok, Valda)

There were actually three 4-0 players left when the round started, but the two of us were far ahead of William099 in point differential, so for all practical purposes this was the championship game. (William099 is Mike, Major Q23 is William. It’s confusing.)

Major Q23’s army was a really smart “meta the meta” army, so I wasn’t surprised to see it do well. I knew I would need Nilfheim to do some really good work on the squads, particularly the Phantom Knights, in order for me to pull things out.

Sadly, it was not to be. Nilfheim missed most of his early shards, and William grabbed the move glyph and advanced his Hydra into (Valda-enabled) threat range of Nilfheim.

William won the key second round initiative, so instead of getting my Nilf away from the Hydra and sharding three PKs, I got tied down by three PKs. I couldn’t really justify a triple disengage from there, so I just sharded in place. Nilf managed to kill all of 3 PKs, total, before the Hydra brought him down.

At that point I needed a severely misplayed game from MQ23 to have any chance, and I got anything but. He wouldn’t even get baited into a mosh pit with his PKs, instead just sending in a couple while grabbing Wannok and transitioning to Mezzos, content to pick my units off and daring me to advance with the 4th (which would have allowed PKs to attack them with height). I tried to steal Wannok at some point but it was really pretty hopeless. I was reduced to basically grubbing for points to try to limit the margin of my inevitable defeat, which meant attacking Mezzodemons was literally pointless. I took out the Hydra and another squad of PKs while keeping Drake and a good number of 4th intact, so the margin wasn’t too bad.

I was 2-0 lifetime against Major Q23 going into the game, and man, did he ever earn his one. This was probably the best game anyone played against me all weekend. I didn’t have great luck, and the map/glyph/matchup combo was pretty brutal, but William was on point with each OM decision and figure positioning, just not giving me anything to work with all game long. He even made a couple moves which surprised me but made sense after I gamed them out in my head. It’s rare, and impressive, for my opponents to surprise me like that. Just a really great game.

4-1, 3rd overall, Jandar champ

Last edited by dok; August 19th, 2016 at 06:08 PM.
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Old August 19th, 2016, 09:35 PM
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Re: dok's battle reports

I love reading these battle reports. There's so much to learn about how battles play out with so many different aspects factored in. I enjoyed playing you and can't wait to see you next year!
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Old November 29th, 2016, 11:28 AM
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Re: dok's battle reports

Quote:
Originally Posted by FilmCriticFrog View Post
I love reading these battle reports. There's so much to learn about how battles play out with so many different aspects factored in. I enjoyed playing you and can't wait to see you next year!
Reading dok's reports is like drinking Old Milwaukee - it doesn't get any better than this.
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Old November 29th, 2016, 11:56 AM
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Oh, I thought you were setting up a joke about urine. Good to see you around, Filthy.

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Old August 28th, 2017, 10:01 PM
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GENCON 2017

FLEX

I hadn’t planned to play in the flex event in the weeks leading into Gencon, but I had no other plans for Thursday morning, so I packed an army in case I decided I wanted to play it. When I saw the absurd crowds waiting to get into the dealer hall, I decided that spending a few hours playing ‘scape before hitting the hall was a decent plan.

The format is extremely informal; just find players and play them with your 600 point army. The “goal” is to get to 8 points, where each win is worth 2 points and each loss is worth 1. At the end of the event there’s a drawing for prizes, where each point (up to 8) gets you one chance at prizes.

I was back and forth between elementals and zombies for this format, but I decided on Raelin, Kurrok, Fire Elemental x10, Marro Warriors. I was planning on playing Kurrok and Fire Elementals in the team event with Deroche (although I begged off after coming down with a cold late on Saturday), so I figured a little practice with the elementals couldn’t hurt.

ROUND 1

Opponent: I.S.B.3 (Granite Guardians x5, Warden 816)
Map: Common Ground (Initiative + Move)

My only game against the 2016 main event champ on the weekend, although I had 3 more games against his family (a 2-2 final record against the Ash/Oliver clan).

I put Raelin on height in a spot right next to the ruin where the GGs could not take height, then moved Fire Elementals up around him. I tried as best I could to avoid giving height to the GGs, although I did give it up on occasion. I lost half my elementals early on, but once I had even ground on the height I was able to overwhelm from there.

ROUND 2

Opponent: Mr. Chompie (Romans x3, MDG, Airborne, Captain America)
Map: Highways & Dieways (Initiative + Healer)

I was not very excited to see the Airborne - a first round drop and Kurrok assassination pretty much ruins me. However, the drop waited until round 3, and by then I had Kurrok and Raelin on height, directing the advancing elemental horde.

Captain America was dealing damage, but I managed to burn him to death one OM before he fled to Kelda. Raelin was killed by a combination of Airborne, Cap, and Romans, but Kurrok managed to burn Kelda before dying, and the elementals cleaned up from there.

ROUND 3

Opponent: Jerimiah (Airborne Elite, Romans x1, 4th x1, Marcus, Carr)
Map: Remains of Clionesia (d20 + Unique Attack)

Another Airborne army, and this one did get the R1 drop. However, Jerimiah elected to grenade my startzone, and I was able to engage the airborne on the next OM and squelch the threat. After they were dealt with, the elementals were able to thin out all future threats before they became a problem.

ROUND 4

Opponent: Sawyer aka Son of Chompie (Grimnak, Tornak, Ornak, Heavies x4, sit one heavy)
Map: Zephyr (Valda)

A classic melee vs. Firestorm matchup. Matthias Maccabeus walked by our table, eyed it up, and said to Sawyer “I hope you read the guide.” Of course, I knew what he meant immediately, but Sawyer had never heard of that thread.

Still, Sawyer understood the threat. He tried to limit engagements, and get around towards Kurrok. However, I used the terrain to block things up, and he never really got a chance to cut off the head of the army. I lost some elementals, but the math of the matchup tilted inevitably in my favor.

---

I never revealed a numbered OM on the Marro Warriors the entire event.

Last edited by dok; September 5th, 2017 at 06:02 PM.
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  #201  
Old August 28th, 2017, 10:02 PM
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BRING 2

I had a conflict with the Ashes qualifier events (there were two events where you could qualify for top 16) and two Heroscape events: Bring 2 and Cluster Draft. I was always leaning towards Bring 2. In the end, I didn’t like the particulars of the cluster draft, and Bring 2 is my baby so I had to go that way.

As I often do in Bring 2 events I decided to build one army around TKN. I went with the classic (for me) TKN, grubsx3, Raelin, Marro Warriors. For the second army, I went with a strong Heavies army that I thought could compete with it: Heavies x3, Grimnak, Nerak, and Sam Brown.

I received a first round bye.

ROUND 2

Opponent: Vegie’s Dad (Deathchasers x4, Nerak, Warhulk, Marcu/Knights x3, Gilbert, Templars)
Map: Remains of Clionesia (Unique Attack + d20)

I won the dice-off and took my TKN army. Jason took his Deathchasers.

The fight centered on the area of the map overlooking the unique attack glyph. Nerak quickly claimed the height, while I placed Raelin on low ground but close enough to support the fight. TKN dropped Nerak almost immediately, and the Warhulk was stuck on the far end of the map, so the Deathchasers had to take on TKN without a hero for the next few turns.

TKN’s stomp rolls were extremely poor (a common theme for me) but the nagrubs made up for it by picking up many kills of their own (also a common theme for me). TKN took a lot of wounds on 4v7s, but nagrub healing kept him alive long enough to take down the Warhulk and most of the ‘chasers.

Despite having the Marro Warriors in my army for the entire Flex event, this game was the first time I actually revealed an OM on the Marro Warriors; I used them for the last few turns to clean up.

ROUND 3
Opponent: Sir Heroscape (Warforged x4, Kaemon Awa / Hydra, Raelin (RotV), Black Wyrm x6, Red Wyrm x2)
Map: Wyrmwalk (Unique Attack + Healer)

Once again I won the dice-off and took my TKN army. Sir Heroscape took his Hydra/Wyrm build.

I thought I might struggle if I led with TKN in this fight, so I decided to switch up and lead with the Marro Warriors while the rest of the army waited in the startzone. What followed was a Marro Warrior reign of terror. I quickly claimed the Unique Attack glyph and picked off a number of wyrms outside of Raelin’s aura. When I lacked targets outside of the aura, I turned to Raelin herself. I cloned once (1 of 2, bringing me back to 3 total) and continued to snipe.

When I finally gave up on the Marro Warriors and shifted to the rest of my army, they had killed 6 wyrms and Raelin, and had put two wounds on the Hydra. In case you don’t want to do the math, that’s roughly 320 points of damage from a 50-point unique squad. Wow.

A Raelin-backed TKN easily dispatched the wounded Hydra to finish things and give me the event win.
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Old August 28th, 2017, 10:03 PM
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Re: dok's battle reports

REVERSE DRAFT

As I did last year, I ran a reverse draft event on Thursday night that used the same army limits as the main event format, so that people could test-drive their main event armies if they wanted to. At this point I was already leaning towards a Roman build for the main event, but I decided to give a tron/wyrmling combo a whirl in this event to see how it did. I went with Gladiatrons x1, Blastatrons x2, Raelin (RotV), Red Wyrmling x2, Black Wyrmling x3.

The verdict… not so good.

Once again I ended up with the first round bye.

ROUND 2
Opponent: Major Q23 (Mezzos x1, Drones x3, Raelin (RotV), Alastair, Deathreavers x1)
Map: Remains of Clionesia (Kelda + Lodin)

In the bidding, I dropped Marcu, one Red, and one Blast.

Both of us threw our Raelins up on height, and I locked down the first run of drones with my Glads. However, the Drones just killed my 6 defense glads without issue, while my attacks of 3 against Q23’s Raelin couldn’t dent her. William continued to ignore my Raelin and killed my blasts, while I continued to not kill things. It kind of spiralled out from there; I did get Raelin to 4 wounds with the wyrms but of course she burned Kelda on the next order marker. I managed to take out most of the Drones, but Alistair easily cleaned up a wounded Raelin and my wyrms to take the game.

ROUND 3
Opponent: Infectedsloth (Brutes x2, Mezzos x1, Raelin (RotV), Kozuke, Tarns)
Map: Wyrmwalk (Kelda + Unique Attack)

I dropped Marcu in the bidding. IS immediately regretted letting me off so easy, but it turned out fine for him.

I was a bit more conservative in my Raelin placement this game, but Nathan threw his Raelin up as far as he could so that his figures could still get the Raelin boost while attacking me. There’s not a ton to say here, really - He brought the Tarns and the Brutes into play, and once again my Gladiatrons didn’t hold up nearly as well as the opposing squaddies. I kind of lost focus in the second half of this one, but it was not really going to go my way anyway.

So… yeah. My lifetime record at Gencon in the reverse draft events is 0-4.
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Old August 28th, 2017, 10:05 PM
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Re: dok's battle reports

CHAMPIONSHIP

DAY 1

The new alternating RTW format for this year presented me with a new challenge of guessing where the metagame would go. My suspicion, after mulling over the format a bit, was that the overall level of armies would be stronger. My thinking was:
  1. You really want to win that first game, because that ensures that your first reverse game is against an army that also won its first game. Seems easy to get hit with a double whammy by losing that first game and then getting stuck playing a bad army.
  2. A similar, albeit less dramatic, situation exists for round 3, where a win probably gets you an easier reverse game in round 4.
  3. Finals is play your own army, and in my experience finals is a tough game.

Given that, I trashed some earlier plans I had that were on the weaker side, and ended up going with Romans x2, Me-Burq-Sa, Red Wyrmling x3, Black Wyrmling x3, White Wyrmling, Raelin, Otonashi. My goal was to be just a bit stronger than the average army.

Well… funny story. It turns out that the average army was just as janky as in years past, and my build ended up being pretty far up the power curve for the event. So, metagame fail for me. Still, let’s see how things turned out…

ROUND 1
Opponent: Hendal (Snipers x1, Repulsors x3, Cyprien, Sonya, Marcu, Isamu)
Map: Highways & Dieways (Wannok, Unique Attack)

For the third straight year, Hendal and I met on day 1 of the main event. As we were setting up I realized that my Raelin had gone missing sometime the day before. Tom offered me a Raelin from his collection to borrow, but said I would have to give him one of my prize dice if I won the event. I agreed; I mean, it seemed like a longshot at the time.

Hendal opened with the Snipers, while after a couple positioning moves I responded with wyrmlings. It was a pretty brutal mismatch; I was rolling 5 or 6 defense dice at a time except when he managed a few pot-shot attempts at Raelin, while my Red Wyrmlings were rolling 3v1s all over the place.

Inevitably, Hendal turned to Cyprien, and I knew that there was a legitimate chance the vampire could go on one of those horrible runs. However, I rallied the Romans against him pretty quickly, and he didn’t last long. Clean-up after that was without incident.

ROUND 2 (Reverse)
Opponent: Kid Scaper (Phantom Knights x3, Concan, Sir Dupuis, Isamu)
Map: Elswin Plateau (d20, Wound)

Eh. So much for winning round 1 giving me a stronger army in round. This was just a devastatingly bad matchup. Raelin-backed Wyrms and Romans both love facing PKs, and the rest of Brad’s army is really... not very good. I was going to have to pull out a lot of tricks to make this one even close.

At the opening of the game, KidScaper moved Raelin up along the main height of the map, and began collecting a shell of Romans around her, presumably anticipating a PK assault of that position. Instead, I swept across the low side of the map, dropping one PK on the Wannok glyph while the other two began attacking Wyrms on the far side of the startzone, away from Raelin and the Romans. Kid_Scaper fled inside Raelin’s aura with the survivors rather than taking the fight to me there, so after picking off a few wyrmlings and Otonashi, I withdrew to fortify my position around Wannok.

I positioned my PKs such that the wyrmlings could not attack them without leaving Raelin’s aura, which Brad did not want to do. He patiently built up his position on height, clearly expecting me to inevitably crack and attack him. At the same time I built up my PKs behind the ruin on my side of the height and around Wannok. The only attacks I faced in this period were from MBS, but luckily for me his Paralyzing Stare rolls were ice cold and 8 defense (thanks to jungle bush) held up.

After a few rounds of slow development, the Wannok wounds were starting to add up; KidScaper put the first couple on Raelin but then started dropping them elsewhere. Realizing that I was perfectly content to Wannok him to death rather than fight inside the aura, he moved Raelin up to the middle of the height and started pushing forward with his army. I responded by getting a PK next to Raelin on height to attack directly, and picking off some Romans and wyrms that had been left behind outside the aura by Raelin’s movement. I also managed to push Concan up near the action. When Dupuis faced some attacks from MBS, I ran him across the map towards Wannok to avoid losing those 150 points. A timed game end was definitely looming.

Things had gone very well for me to this point, but the fact remained that I was badly outnumbered, and things going well wasn’t quite enough. I did manage to take Raelin out at last, along with the Wyrmlings, but by this time I was down to only a squad and change of PKs, and despite quite a few chances I had failed to get the last wound on MBS.

At the end of the penultimate round of the game, I was down to 2 PKs and my heroes (Dupuis with a wound) against a 1-life MBS and about a squad of Romans. I rolled Wannok, and a 1 took out my PK. The other PK died on the next OM. I was attacking the Romans, taking them down below a squad, while they tried to take down Dupuis. On Kid_Scaper’s last OM of the game, with time called, he managed to kill Dupuis. This gave him 100 points of full-card goodness (a 1-life MBS and a couple Romans) against my 90 points of unwounded Concan and Isamu. Hence, a loss on points.

I had been pretty fortunate to weather the MBS shots in the early going that had allowed me to get to that point, but the Wannok hit in the last round was really a gut punch that was hard to recover from. I felt good about taking such a lopsided matchup down to the wire like that, but sadly Gencon does not give any credit for moral victories.

ROUND 3
Opponent: Deroche (Romans x3, NGS, Valguard, MDG)
Map: Elsewin Plateau (Unique Attack, Initiative)

At this point I realized that my path to day 2 was going to rest, at least, on winning with my army. Fortunately for me I drew a pretty favorable matchup here. We both knew the moment we sat down that this match would come down to a battle inside Raelin’s aura, and that my Romans would have a decided advantage. I was a bit concerned about mindshackle, but when that’s your biggest concern you’re in a good place.

The early rounds of this game were almost hilariously inactive. Gordon went straight for the high ground, while for the second straight game I avoided it, instead advancing my army towards the glyph side. There were, without exaggeration, about five rounds in a row without an attack of any sort. I steadily moved my army over, moving Raelin a second time and setting up a shell around the unique attack glyph with MBS on the level 2 ground next to the glyph.

Even after all that time, I was still not fully set up, with a handful of units outside the aura. Gordon realized that I was not going to attack until my setup was completely perfect, so he figured he may as well push forward and tried to pick off a couple of the stragglers. He did manage a couple kills, but predictably I rained fire with a 5 attack MBS and was able to dispose of both NGS and Valguard quickly.

At that point my Roman shell was more or less in perfect position, with wyrms filling in most other spots in the aura. Deroche gamely threw another squad of Romans into the meat grinder, but in the end he resigned with MDG and about half the soldiers still alive. I don’t really blame him; we both knew where it was going.

ROUND 4 (Reverse)
Opponent: Xorlof (TKN, nagrubs x3, Eldgrim, Airborne Elite)
Map: Highways & Dieways

I was pretty happy with the draw; I mean, I do love me some TKN, and this is a solid TKN map. However, my games with Ken often seem to have some odd twists, and this one was no exception.

I missed the opening drop, so of course I led with the grubs and TKN. On my second OM, I saw an opportunity to take a shot at MBS outside of Raelin’s aura. I was pretty sure Ken’s OM3 was on Raelin, so it seemed like a reasonably safe risk to move up and take a shot. Unfortunately for me, not only did I fail to wound MBS, but the next OM was actually Romans, and I found my TKN a bit pinned down.

In the next round, Raelin did move up, so I decided to try to make lemons out of lemonade by double disengaging and going on a stomp-fest in Xorlof’s startzone. Unfortunately for me, not only were the leaving engagement strikes effective, but I missed on stomp roll #1 and ended up tied up just outside Xorlof’s startzone. Wounds piled up on TKN with alarming speed and I was unable to break through to get my nagrubs into the terrible position I had created. TKN was dead at the end of the round, with only not even a squad of dead Romans to show for it, and things looked awfully bleak for me.

However, at the outset of the third round, the Airborne dropped. This should really have been too little, too late, however Xorlof made some OM mistakes and allowed me to snuff out his black wyrms in the startzone to steal some OMs and get some free kills with the Airborne. I killed what I could, then retreated back and shot at Raelin and the advanced Romans. The surviving nagrubs offered a low-rent screen that prevented easy potshotting.

By the time the nagrub screen had fully evaporated, I had things down to a pretty manageable battle of Airborne against a wounded MBS and the last few Romans. However, I lost initiative and failed to block the 3v3 attacks of the Romans against elevated Airborne, and the dream of a dramatic comeback died.

So, 4 rounds in, and my army remained undefeated. I, however, was going to need a win in round 5 just to have a chance of keeping my day 2 streak alive.

ROUND 5
Opponent: The Orange Mailman (TKN, nagrubs x2, 10th x2, Marcu)
Map: Highways & Dieways

For the second straight year, I faced the 2013 champ in the last round of day 1, with our day 2 fates hanging in the balance.

The beginning of this game was eerily similar to the beginning of my game against Xolof in the previous round. I did move Raelin sooner than Ken had, but TKN rushed across the map looking for early stomps. I had left some stomping bait, to be sure, and lost a couple to those stomps, but I managed to deny healing and pin Stompy down with a bunch of Romans. Again the big guy died quickly.

At that point, I recollected my troops, and it turned into 10th vs. Wyrms. While this was not as lopsided as Snipers vs. Wyrms was against Hendal, the same basic principle applied - The 10th were shooting at 5-6 defense when not attacking Raelin, and the Red Wyrms were practically an auto-kill. I cleaned up without incident.

---

With a 3-2 record, my fate rested on a random drawing (for a variety of good reasons, the organizers had set aside strength of schedule and point differential this year). I watched as Retlaw casually dealt the stack of 3-2 player cards into an advancing pile and an eliminated pile, and with relief I saw mine make the cut. Now just had to figure out how to beat those darn overpowered wyrms and Romans.

Last edited by dok; September 23rd, 2018 at 12:18 AM.
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Old August 28th, 2017, 10:07 PM
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Re: dok's battle reports

CHAMPIONSHIP DAY 2

ROUND OF 16 (Reverse)
Opponent: Lord Trask (Dividers x4, NGS, SBN)
Map: Highways & Dieways (Healer + d20)

My fourth game on H&D, and another game without any range to help pry the Roman pod apart. That said, I liked the glyph set, which allowed me Divide 15 and Mindshackle 18 rolls. I also felt that if I could eliminate most of the Romans, SBN gave be a significant comeback chance against wyrms.

I rolled out both NGS and dividers, looking to set NGS up in a spot where there was a Mindshackle threat factor. Some wryms ranged forward to pick off dividers on Lodin, and after hitting a few 15s for “half divides” I was able to pick off some wyms outside the aura.

Larry wisely played it pretty conservatively from there forward, keeping everything in Raelin’s aura and relying mostly on black wyrms to try to get kills (thus avoiding divide possibilities). I brought NGS to bear on the far side, taking a couple mindshackle attempts on MBS and trying to kill a Roman screened out from Raelin by a tree. After a particularly poor turn of defense dice I was forced to take a disengage with a 1-life NGS. Fortunately it missed, and I cashed Kelda to return NGS to full life.

After circling back to the middle with NGS I assaulted on the Lodin side again with Dividers. It was a losing battle but I had to see what I could thin out. NGS found an opening and disengaged through to get next to Raelin. I got another few mindshackle attempts, this time on Raelin, but NGS continued his futility and was brought down.

About a round later my Dividers were mostly spent, but I had taken out the bulk of the Romans by this point, along with a few wyrmlings, leaving a manageable task for SBN. After moving the last dividers up to tie things down, SBN flew up, and quickly showed that 7 attack don’t care about no Raelin Aura by killing MBS and a couple Romans. Rather than go straight for Raelin, SBN leapfrogged her aura and killed the stragglers in the startzone. With no reds or whites left, and the black wyrms having no range against SBN, Larry didn’t have any ability to pot-shot me.

It came down to a 3-life SBN against a 3-life Raelin and one Roman. I settled SBN on a 2-space high spot, finally having earned the right to make him come to me. The Roman was blocked and killed, so Raelin flew up and attacked up, rolling 3 skulls. I managed to block 2 of the skulls, taking me down to 2 life. I dropped an 8-die attack in return, but managed only 1 wound with it.

In the final round, Lord Trask won initiative and attacked up for another 3/3 skulls. I needed at least 2 shields on 4 dice or my main event was over. In the instant before I peeked under my dice cup, I had about a 60% chance of being dead. But I had 2 shields waiting for me down there. SBN rolled a pile of skulls on my turn, and I had finally defeated my army in a reverse game to advance to the next round.

QUARTERFINALS
Opponent: Xorlof (TKN, nagrubs x3, Eldgrim, Airborne Elite)
Map: Wyrmwalk (Unique Attack + Initiative)

Ugh, this guy again. If I lost both games against my Gencon roomie I’d never hear the end of it.

The early game was another replay of the “overextended TKN” show. Much like I had done the day before, Ken assumed my “X” was on the Romans, and when the 3 was revealed on them I was able to put a bunch of height attacks on TKN and pick off the nearby nagrubs. My attacks of 4 were for naught, though, as his defense held firm.

In round 2, the Airborne dropped, and when Ken won initiative I was sort of caught with my pants down, as MBS was outside the aura (ironically, caused by the awkward Raelin placement I used to cover my startzone against a potential round 1 Airborne drop). I did chase the Airborne down and kill 3 of them, but not before losing MBS and enough commons that I didn’t like my chances any more.

I continued to pound on TKN, but after 4 leaving engagement attacks and about 6 attacks of 4, and no nagrub healing, I had managed only 2 wounds. When TKN whirled around to kill most of the Romans, it looked really bad for me.

However, the wyrms did work, holding up against the nagrubs and finally cracking TKN’s defense. (My notes say “finally crack Q9”, a Freudian slip that makes it clear how I felt about TKN by that point in the game.) TKN had chased down Raelin in the startzone and killed him by this point, but lava damage finally killed the last Airborne and my last couple wyrms managed to finish out Eldgrim for the win.

This ended up being my only game of the five where I played my army that was really at all close. The army I brought is extremely well-equipped at winning any game where it could get established, but the raw aggression of Xorlof’s army, plus TKN’s ability to basically ignore Raelin’s aura, made it a good potential counter army (albeit a swingy one).

SEMIFINALS (Reverse)
Opponent: Fomox (Armoc Vipers x2, Venoc Warlord, Sudema, Marro Warriors, Isamu)
Map: Wyrmwalk (Wannok + Kelda)

(Note: my semifinals, finals, and CVN game were all recorded on Xorlof’s top-down recording rig; they can be viewed HERE. The audio in that live stream is from the phones, not the drop mikes. Ken’s long-term plan is to split those games into individual videos, properly rotated and synced to the better audio. But you can watch the games from the stream video for now.)

Of the four armies left in the semifinals, fomox definitely had the weakest on paper. His was the army the other three of us (SonOfChompie, Infectedsloth, and myself) did not want to be handed. But alas. it fell to me. The one thing I had going for me, in my mind, was those Marro Warriors. I knew that if I thinned things out enough, they can do magic. Of course, Sudema or Isamu could also catch fire with a d20, but I put my faith in the fearsome four.

Early on, I led with an Armoc Rush. (Mike joked when he saw my OMs that “oh you’re doing the right thing; you’re not supposed to do that.” Like many good RTW armies, his build offers you lots of opportunities to play the wrong way.) I managed to sneak Mittens around the Roman screen and start pounding on Raelin, while the Armocs themselves picked off figures outside Raelin’s aura on the far side of the startzone.

Predictably, the Armocs dropped fairly quickly, but on their last OM (on a timely initiative win) Mittens killed Raelin, and then Mittens tied down several Romans for another full turn after that. All in all, the viper rush killed Raelin, Otonashi, the white wyrm, one red, one black, and two Romans, in addition to pinning down the remaining Romans finishing off Mittens while the Marro Warriors developed their position. Not quite “killing their points”, but more than I had hoped for, really.

The Marro Warriors, on the other hand, had no difficulty killing their points. The rest of the game was their show. They killed two Romans and a Black Wyrm, then took two hits, then cloned back both of those hits (one in water and one on land - this turn was when I thought “holy cow I think I’m winning now”). MBS picked off one of them, but that was the last Warrior to fall, as the remaining three took out everything else. Fomox only managed one attack (with MBS) for the rest of the game, as the Marro Warriors kited the Romans, then took out the three wyrmlings before OMs could shift when MBS died.

Nobody including myself had really expected it, but somehow my above-the-meta army had pulled off two reverse wins on day 2, and I was back to playing it for the finals.

FINALS
Opponent: Infectedsloth (Brutes x2, Mezzos x1, Raelin (RotV), Kozuke, Tarns)
Maps: Zephyr (Valda)

I had just lost, rather badly, to this army two days earlier in the reverse draft event. However, the Romans with MBS are a much more effective front-line force than a single squad of Gladiatrons, and I had more wyrms backing them up. Also, the map was less favorable for IS’s end of the matchup than Remains of Clionesia had been the day before.

On the other hand, Nathan is the closest thing to a Heroscape nemesis I have. Coming into this game, my record against him was 2-7, including 1-5 at Gencon. There are very few people who are more than 1 game above .500 against me, and nobody else at +5.

Still, I was able to leverage my advantage in the matchup to maximum effect. After Raelin moved into a well-protected spot 4 spaces back from the center, MBS quickly claimed the move glyph and paralyzing stared a Kozuke, then backed out as the Romans formed a solid block in the center of the map on the glyph side. Infectedsloth placed his Raelin aggressively, even closer to the center, and engaged with Brutes and unique squads.

While Infectedsloth was able to grind through some Romans with 4v6 attacks, I was able to kill faster on the flip side, plus I had the option to snipe with black wyrms and bypass defense (and exoskeletons, and counterstrike). Even once my Romans were reduced enough to allow a window around to the wyrms, I was able to interpose a white wyrm to block the advance. I had MBS leave the aura to snipe from height, but aside from that I was fighting in the aura the entire time, with Raelin safe from assassination.

I gradually whittled each squad down to a single figure, then finished off the last Tarn, then Raelin, then the last Kozuke and Mezzo, to claim the win.

After 4 straight semifinal losses from 2013 through 2016, it felt good to reclaim the title. This makes seven final four appearances and three titles in eight total appearances in the main event for me. It felt funny to get the win in a year where I had done a poorer job estimating the meta than I had in almost any of the previous years, but this year, I won some key coin flips in key moments, which just hadn’t really happened for me in recent day 2s after the first round or so.

BONUS - CVN game

I had not gotten a chance to play CVN after my 2010 and 2011 wins; he wasn’t available either year. He played the champion a couple times in more recent years, and I had heard from Xorlof that there was a chance he would be around to play this time. He appeared shortly after the championship game was over. I had the second day of the Ashes championship coming up in a bit over an hour, so I very nearly begged off, but I decided that I would squeeze it in.

I didn’t want to play my army, though, as it forces a more defensive style and I wanted to just go all out against Craig. So I borrowed Xorlof’s army and played it instead.

Opponent: Craig Van Ness! (Raelin (RotV), Drake (RotV), Stingers x4)
My Army: TKN, nagrubs x3, Airborne Elite, Eldgrim
Maps: Zephyr (Valda)

The opening drop failed. I overextended Eldgrim onto Valda, then sent TKN streaming across the map at Raelin, who had moved onto a perch near the center of the map on the high side. The stingers started to move up near Raelin as TKN engaged.

At the start of the second round, the Airborne dropped. CVN stacked OMs on Drake and sent him forward. I had the Airborne simply ignore Drake and gun the stingers outside Raelin’s aura in the startzone. My dice were hot and in one round I had wiped out seven stingers with 4v3s. TKN healed, disengaged from Drake, took level ground on Raelin, and killed her.

In the next round, TKN out-slugged Drake, and I was chasing down the last couple stingers when CVN resigned. The game took about 15 minutes, so I had plenty of time to get ready for my next event

Last edited by dok; October 2nd, 2017 at 05:00 PM.
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