Pestered in Westford 2 - 3rd Place Battle Report

[arp12]

My army: 3x Heavy Gruts, Grimnak, Nerak, Tornak, Ornak

In playtesting before the tournament I was 4-0 with this army. I like how all the synergies work together. Grimnak and Heavies are a strong force, Nerak boosts the defense of everyone, and Ornak provides flexibility with Red Flag of Fury Aura as well as improving the Heavies' attack.

On the day of the tournament everything went smoothly. We stayed on schedule and 16 people participated.


Game 1 vs Darkmage7a on Jagged Causeway

Darkmage was playing Kurrok, 5 water elementals and 6 fire elementals. I had never faced elementals before, so this would be a tough match. The glyphs were initiative on the right and lucky D20 on the left. I sent some gruts to the left, thinking Lodin would be valuable; it actually didn't affect the game much at all. Throughout the whole game, I didn't have much of a plan. Grimnak followed Heavies behind the huge glacier and chomped one of the fire elementals that came through the passage. However, the fires burned too many of my gruts. I advanced Ornak to help, but he was also mortally wounded. I sacrificed too much for the few quenched fires. Meanwhile, Darkmage's water elementals were gathering on the puddles and height by his start zone. They killed Nerak, whom I had jeopardized earlier. Grimnak crossed the map via road to assist gruts on the other side, but ended up blocking their path to engagement. A few of my Heavies did manage to kill a couple waters, but at this point it was a lost cause. The game ended with my last two heavies charging into Darkmage's startzone, only too meet their deaths. So I lost, receiving a tough -215 point differential.

Game 2 vs. star_hunter8 on If you can't take the heat...

These enemies were also ones I had never faced before: 2x Red Wyrmling, 2x White Wyrmling, 2x Black Wymling, 3x Blue Wymling, 3x Mezzodemons. Both glyphs were intercept order. Possibly because my opponent was young and didn't say much, I felt sort of detached from this game. Our guys all moved and attacked and stuff, but nothing in this game felt very satisfying. I led with just Grimnak and Nerak, hoping it would counter his reds. This plan didn't work well, though I did claim both intercept orders (one of them worked). Star led with his reds, followed by blues and whites. I eventually brought up my gruts, but it wasn't soon enough. The map also made it difficult to get my adjacency bonuses and stay off lava. On the right side of the map, Grimnak with one life left and some gruts charged his startzone, killing a few wyrmlings. A few of the other wyrmlings were stubborn, but I eventually finished them off. Before I could work through the Mezzodemons' Exoskeleton markers, time was called, and I was down 38 points. I feel like I never really got started in this game, and I should have advanced my gruts along the side of the map from the beginning. [0-2 and -253 so far]

Game 3 vs. Fluffy on Embattled Fen