Matthias' Gen Con 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2018 report

[Matthias Maccabeus]

Gen Con 2018

It's been a long while since I made a battle report.

This year things got turned a bit sideways with running everything but as always the amazing group of people that play scape stepped up and made things much easier on me than they had to.

A huge thanks to all the GMs and mapmakers. I build maps almost as slow as @dragonruler so I'm so grateful for everyone else, otherwise I would be there all night. The GMs allow me to also go enjoy the con and not be tethered to the scape tables the whole time.

@Retlaw , once again this guy gives up space in his garage for us every year and he transports it all.
@lonewolf , he dealt with Derek for me and made sure we got everything we needed when things went sideways
@Raider30 , he let me vent to him every time things went sideways and he also drove 20+ hours,
@OrcElfArmyOne , he put a lot of work into some behind the scenes. When I needed help he stepped up no questions asked.
@Stay_Golden_Pony_Boy, he always provides prize support

There were many more that stepped up and I greatly appreciate all of their support for this great community.

I hadn't put too much thought into the Main Event (I rarely do anymore) but @Mr Migraine reminded me that @MrWookiee made a bet with me to take Hatamoto to the Main Even some years ago. I truly do not recall the bet but it did sound a bit familiar.

I spent night after night trying to figure out the best Hatamoto army available. I play-tested close to 200 different armies, incorporating weather, morale, durability, and many more things I can't discuss on the public forum before I settled on the best synergistic Hatamoto army possible:
Axegrinders of Burning Forge x 4
Darrak Ambershard
Marcu
Hatamoto (I got your back) Taro.

The only problem with this army was it was 19 figures with an 18 figure limit. Other than that I saw zero weaknesses. I was actually surprised somebody else hadn't run something similar in years past, so I scoured the site to see if anybody else had come upon this genius army but much to my surprise nobody had.

I spent the next 3 decades play-testing and refining my skill as a player with this army. The trickiest part was the Order Marker Management. That alone took me about 12 years to prefect. I then studied the maps and glyphs and play-tested every combination possible from the available pools, until I knew what glyphs and when to go for them.

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It was game day and I hadn't slept all week thinking about every possible move I could make and the counter to every possible army. All I knew was I had Hatamoto (Who's your Daddy) Toro on my team so there was really nothing to worry about.

Game 1
Zeek the Freak on the ice Map. (I wish the guy in charge would have labeled all the maps, what a lazy pile of...)
Zeek's army: Rats x 16,045, Moltenclaw, Q10

Not much to say other than Hatamoto (You looking at me?) Toto was an all-star. In fact he was so good he didn't even need an order marker the entire game.

Takeaways: Dwarves with the move glyph are good. Rats that you don't engage, don't work well. Dwarves are good against large and huge figures.

Game 2
Leftonya on the lava map.
Leftonya's army was Mezzos and PKs?
Reverse the whip? What the crap is this? I had to let somebody else use Hatamoto (Girls Gone Wild) Toro? This seemed super unfair. Next time I should read the event fully before I commit to playing.

Takeaways: Mezzos and Pks can force bad engagements for your opponents. Don't get stuck on the lava

Game 3
InfectedSloth on castle map
Infected Sloth's army - I actually don't recall, it died so fast...
Whew, I got to play with Hatamoto (Bring It!) Toro again. It was weird how much I missed playing with him the last round. I was having withdrawals I think.

Takeaways: Dwarves are good. Random other crap isn't.

Game 4
Orange Mailman on castle map
Orange Mailman's army - Mezzos, Nilf, Ninjas
That's right the stupid organizers put me on the same map 2 games in a row, talk about lamesauce. How do they even get away with that crap? After a long talk with Hatamoto (Don't You Cry Tonight) Toro we said our good byes as he went to the other side of the table.

Takeaways - Mezzos make good choke points. Nilf is good.

Game 5
dok on Ticalla Sunrise (finally a map I recognize)
dok's army was TKN and Raelin
I wanted to show Adam how good Hatamoto (Bring it Back) Toro was so I never bothered to put OMs on anybody else the entire game. HT cleaned up. It was actually beautiful.

Takeaway: I'm better than dok.

5-0 after Day 1, not surprising really. I had Hatamoto (Who needs Raelin) Toro in my army after all.

Day 2
After no sleep because I was up all night metagaming the metagame matching up my army against each and every other top 16 player I nervously strolled into the stadium.

Game 1
Wookie on some random jungle map (don't they name these things?)
Wookie's army was stingers x way more than anybody should ever own
I rolled for Stinger Drain every attempt I had, even when there wasn't a target just to prove a point. I tired not to think about not having Hatamoto (You Sly Dog) Toro in my army. It would have just been a distraction to me the whole time.

Takeaway: Sometimes you can win bad match-ups.

Game 2
ISB-3 on Ticalla Sunrise
ISB-3 army - Cutters, Dund, Carr
Jokes aside this was my closest game of the tourney. Nobody could roll attack or defense. Carr almost came back and won the game but...that's right Hatamoto (Carr what kind of Sissy name is that?) Toro was there to hold onto the win.

Takeaway: Cutters are annoying. Dwarves with the move glyph are fast.

Game 3
dok on Common Ground
dok's army TKN and Rae
Once again I had to give up Hatamoto (Crutch) Toro. Good thing is dok had no idea how to use him so TKN just stomped everyone to death.

Takeaways: Matthias beat dok twice with both sides of the armies.

At this point I had to go play Dragon Dice (spoiler alert I am now the 5 time dragon dice world champion) Evantage was gracious enough to let me go play.

Game 4
Evantage on Ticalla Sunrise
Evantage's army - 4th, Romans, Q10
I have been here several times before, but always the bridesmaid. This Time I had Hatamoto (Clutch) Toro. Evan was a great sport and player. The dwarves just kept coming.

Takeaway: Q10 as a clean-up figure against dwarves doesn't work the best.

MVP - Hatamoto (Bringing the Heat) Toro

I would love to say that it was all luck (except the 2 games against dok) but really I couldn't have done it without the decades of play-testing and agonizing over the armies night after night.

Overall Takeaway: I love this game and I love this community.