dok's battle reports

[dok]

2014 CHAMPIONSHIP DAY 1

This year might have been the hardest time I had yet coming up with an army for the main event. I have so many checkboxes I’m trying to fill in this format. I want an army that is roughly equally good in a broad range of matchups. I want an army that requires tricky decisions both on OM management and on figure placement. I want an army that is unlikely to lose on points if I run into a terribly slow player on day 1. On the flip side, I want an army that isn’t drastically better in an untimed format. Finally, I want an army that’s pretty low-variance.

I seriously considered just dropping Marcu from my 2013 build (Raelin, Fen, Black Wyrm x3, Red Wyrm x3, Deathreavers x1). That army was swingier than I liked, though. I looked at similar builds that replaced the Hydra with two squads of Horned Skull Brutes, or that replaced the rats and Hydra with Axegrinders and Darrak or Romans and MBS, and/or that replaced the Wyrmlings with Mezzodemons. I also looked at a couple different TKN builds, as well as several builds based on the Goblin Cutters.

In the end, though, I decided on Glads and Blasts. The problem when I had practiced them in 2013 or early in my 2014 testing was that I kept trying two squads of Glads and 1 squad of Blasts. This army is very swingy and matchup dependent because losing one Blast has a huge impact, and some armies are much better at getting to them than others. Once I realized I could switch that around and go with one squad of Glads, things started to fall into place. In that version, the Blasts have to get involved in boosting one another, which adds complexity too.

After the obligatory Raelin add, I was left with 140, which allowed for Eltahale. She’s a nice piece in general, and I like how she smooths out some of the bad matchups (Phantom Knights, most notably) for the Gladblast. Kaemon could have served a similar purpose, but Kaemon can be kind of easymode at times and I didn’t want to hand him to my opponents on day 2. In general, the plan would be to pod up with the ‘trons and use Eltahale as a heavy if things get close, but in some matchups Elty heads out front to meet a threat.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty weak army, and that I was cutting it tight. But I felt like you have to kind of play matchup roulette in this format and hope that you draw the right opponents and roll the right dice to make day 2. So, off I went.

Round 1
Opponent: Unseenshadowz (Hounds x3 + Q10)
Map: Stygian Rift (d20+Wound?)

It turned out that this was the year of the hounds, more or less. Obviously, ‘trons being plague-proof makes this a decent matchup on paper. However, Q10 is a major (sorry) problem for me as he can easily draw the ‘trons out of Raelin’s aura and then take them out.

I started the matchup by covering the right-hand glyph with Raelin (unfortunately my notes miss which glyph this was and I don’t remember with certainty, but based on my play I suspect that it was wound and the other glyph was d20). I built a pod of trons on that side of the map and moved up Eltahale. Predictably, after a couple probing moves with the hounds, EJ brought up Q10 and took a shot at Raelin herself.

My early attack dice were not doing much to the hounds and certainly weren’t going to help me take out the major, so I responded with an Eltahale gambit, moving her forward and trying to set up an assasination. Q10 put a few wounds on Eltahale, but the position he did it from allowed Elty to thunder step onto height above Q10. 5/7 skulls, 1 shield, and the game was basically decided. Eltahale moved back within Raelin’s aura and basically gummed up the lava ground approach to my pod for most of the game.

The hounds were effective enough and did take out Eltahale and a number of trons. I had to repeatedly use Blastarons to boost my attacks, which left them vulnerable to return attacks. But at the end of the game I still had 2 glads, 2 blasts, and Raelin when the last hound went down.

Round 2
Opponent: Nicktheant (Phantom Knights x3, Braxas)
Map: Song of the Walrus

Ugh. Nick is a very good player who has made day 2 before (I beat him in the quarters back in 2011), and he was piloting a really strong build that made things very tough on me. ‘trons have a really hard time piercing the 7 defense of the PKs, and I only have 4 glads to try to tie down the stealth flying.

I podded raelin and the ‘trons in one corner of my endzone and just blitzed Eltahale from the beginning. This was actually pretty successful, as Eltahale managed to kill two squads of PKs before she died. However, this still left the black queen to deal with. I rolled out the trons and tried to ping her and make it difficult, but she was doing her thing with acid breath and keeping me from really getting my attack boosted (just one squad of glads really hurts here, obviously).

At the end of the round, Nick left Braxas somewhat exposed on the central plateau of the map. I put a couple ‘trons next to her and brought some more into position. If I had won the initiative switch there, I could have gotten 5 ‘trons engaged and probably pulled out the game. However, I lost that initiative, and Nick wisely double-disengaged and went 3/3 on PAB to basically end the game.

It ended up being a more competitive matchup than I gave it credit for, as I would see again the next day. Nick did lose one game later on but managed to qualify with a 4-1 record for day 2.

Round 3
Opponent: Mattsertruckrally (Nilfheim, Greenscales x3, Marro Warriors)
Map: Fossil

When Matt had told me his army before the event started, I said to him “congratulations on your quarterfinals loss on day 2.” I honestly felt like that was optimistic, but Mattser is such a great player that I was willing to give him credit for somehow pulling out his first round game. This turned out to be exactly where he finished, actually. His army was just way too strong for the metagame. The Schaubs are fantastic players but they just don’t spend any time planning out armies for the events; they just grab something and go.

Anyway, there’s not much to report here. Matt just blitzed me with reckless abandon and steamrolled my whole army. His dice were pretty relentless (lots of 3/4 Ice Shard rolls) but honestly I’m not sure it would have mattered. Even if I had managed to get at Nilf and kill him, I wouldn’t have had enough left to take out the Marro Warriors.

Thankfully, MTR won out to go 4-1 and give me some crucial strength of schedule, so there was that at least.

Round 4
Opponent: Capsocrates (Deathreavers x2, Horned Skull Brutes x2, Kaemon Awa, James Murphy)
Map: Highways and Dieways

Caps is another online player, and he had success with this same build in the online warmup event. It was great to finally meet and play him face-to-face.

His notes on this game are better than mine, but I’ll summarize briefly. He led with rats and followed with Johnny Shotgun, while I assembled my army around one of the central 7-hexers. Early on, everything was going caps’s way. I spaced out to avoid shotgun but he was putting rats in spots to create chains. At one point he had a rat between Raelin and two ‘trons, and he blasted it. He went 1/3, but the rat blocked and I whiffed all 11 defense dice to lose two blasts and take a wound on Raelin. Ouch.

Then, in one round, everything turned. Eltahale took Murphy down with a Thunder Ram followed by a Thunder Step, and then proceeded to Thunder Ram away most of the rats while caps ate OMs. The Brutes moved in after that, but the glads prevented most of the Barge into Battle moves (can’t barge away a cyberclawed figure) and pretty much mowed through the Brutes. Kaemon moved up but Eltahale healed, returned to the action, and took out Awa.

---

After the game I counted out all the wins from my opponents up to that point and concluded that if I won and every one of my previous opponents won, I would probably make it in at 3-2 on strength of schedule. That’s a lot of ifs, but I was pretty confident that Nick and Matt (both 3-1) would win their games with those dragon builds. Still, it starts with me taking care of business. So…

Round 5
Opponent: lonewolf (Deathreavers x2, Horned Skull Brutes x3, SotM Raelin; sit two rats)
Map: Fossil

This was basically caps’s build from the round before… but without the scary ranged special attacks. Honestly, going 2-2 with that army was an achievement. Obviously, Mike was playing to get into day 2 by the slimmest margin possible.

Improbably, this was my first tournament game against lonewolf. But obviously we both know matchups and we both know the ‘trons. When we sat down, it was obvious to both of us where it was headed. Unless I made a mistake or the dice were horribly slanted, I was pretty assured of a win.

Early on, Mike sent out some rats. I chewed up a few of them with glads but I was content to form my army into a dense pod on the near high ground, and didn’t advance to engage anything else. I just took 1v3 potshots at bad Raelin while lonewolf slowly worked some brutes around behind the formation. He did get a couple even ground hits on Raelin, but the brutes were quickly engaged and dispatched.

The brutes actually held up remarkably well this game, rolling 2+ shields a huge number of times to stave off attacks from the trons. It really was a very funny game, as lonewolf was talking a ton of trash while very slowly losing the war of attrition. We had quite a crowd by the end of the game appreciating the show. I did eventually get worn down to just a few ‘trons, but Eltahale finished things off without incident.

-----

I asked around to my four former opponents after the game and found that they had all won except one. I thought this might leave me just one opponent’s win short of making day 2. However, fate smiled on me and I finished in 16th place exactly (well, a 3-way tie for 14th, anyway) to claim the last spot in day 2!

[dok]

2014 CHAMPIONSHIP DAY 2

Looking at the other armies, I felt my army was probably an underdog (making me the favorite) against most of them. There were a few that worried me. The two Marrden Hound armies that made it (Rÿchean’s and Hendal’s) are fairly strong overall in the limited figure metagame, but ‘trons are good against Hounds so that worked against me. Matthias’s Cyprien/Marro Warrior army is swingy and potentially fairly strong, but again, Cyprien hates the ‘trons. And then there was my fellow T-14th, Mantrainchoochoo, who had made it with a Mohican build (just three squads, plus Raelin).

Round of 16
Opponent: Rollitontop (Mezzodemons x5, Raelin, Marcu)
Map: Song of the Walrus

This was my first game against Rollitontop since my very first Gencon tournament - General Wars 2010, when my TKN and PKs rocked his stingers and hive. Good times. Anyway, his army (i.e. the one I was playing) was quite strong against mine and we both knew it.

I put Raelin up near the middle right away and started moving up Mezzos to support. I didn’t bother with either glyph at first, preferring to use Marcu to absorb wound hits and take shots down at the glyph holders. In early sniping I managed to pick off some ‘trons, which put Tristan in a bind. I wasn’t allowing the ‘trons to engage Raelin, so he decided to fly Raelin straight across for a head to head showdown. This didn’t really work out for him as the Mezzos picked her off fairly quickly, so he turned to Eltahale. However, I surrounded Eltahale and forced her to thunder step onto low ground to get at Raelin. From there I was able to take Elty down with attacks of 4.

When the dust cleared my Raelin was still clinging on with 1 life. ‘trons did eventually pick her off, but the damage was more than done at that point. I won with 7 mezzos, 6 markers, and a 4-life Marcu.

Quarterfinals
Opponent: Nicktheant (Phantom Knights x3, Braxas)
Map: Fossil

Day 1 revenge time! For the fourth time in my last three day 2s, I was facing someone I faced on day 1. Those players had gone 3-1 against me on day 1, but with this game I stretched the day 2 record against my repeat opponents to 4-0. But it wasn’t easy. I had thought this was a slanted matchup, but given the way the two games played out it’s hard to say that for sure.

Rather than lead with PKs and save Braxas for cleanup like Nick did on day 1, I rolled the PKs out in a screen and started gassing with Braxas. The lodin-enhanced breath mowed through the ‘trons, but my screen crumbled under 2v7 and 3v7 attacks. I dealt a few wounds to Eltahale, but she burned healer, settinng up endgame. The PKs put a few more on Eltahale before I was down to just Braxas facing down Raelin and Eltahale in a ladies’ showdown. Braxas managed to lure Elty out of Rae’s aura and finish her, but Raelin whittled Braxas down a single life before Brax finally finished things. I still had the one PK back on Lodin, so it wouldn’t have been over if she had died, but man, that was closer than I expected.

This was the second time I had knocked Nick out in the quarters of the main event; both times the games looked like I had them under control early but turned into white knuckle affairs at the end.

SEMIFINALS
Opponent: Mantrainchoochoo (Mohicans x3, Brave Arrow, Raelin, James Murphy - It adds to 415! Good idea leaving yourself a margin there, Ben.)
Map: Common Ground (Wound main area, move on the island)

This did not look good for me. Mohicans are not terrible against trons (one glad clamping means +1 A for the other guy but +2 D for me) but I really don’t have much of an answer for Eltahale, plus I’m outnumbered.

A powerful glyph on initiative island always generates an odd dynamic in Common Ground. I didn’t put a Mohican on the island, but I did take a shot at the glad that took the move glyph on the first turn. I can’t help thinking that a 3v3 hit there leads to a completely different game and possibly a win, but it was not to be. Instead I never got to that glad, as my mohicans pretty much got shot to pieces. Few blocks, and no conceals all game long (even on Blasties shooting from 7 spaces away). Mantrain’s Raelin moved face-to-face with mine, overlooking the Wannok glyph, and most of the fighting happened in and around there.

With my Mohicans dropping so fast, and with Ben able to reinforce so quickly thanks to holding onto the move glyph, things turned pretty grim for me pretty quickly. However, I did pick off enough trons outside the aura with advancing Mohicans (and got some very lucky kills with 3v6s on Glads) to make endgame interesting. Murphy got a couple kills moving up, while Eltahale killed my Raelin. In a critical late-game turn, Murphy stepped onto the perch where Raelin had been, adjacent to both Ben’s Raelin and Eltahale. I rolled the whip, hit it, went to shotgun both Eltahale and Raelin… and rolled 1 skull. If I roll 3/3 there I think the game might swing my way, but it was not to be. Instead Eltahale finished Murphy off, and Brave Arrow followed soon after.

Thus ended my main event run. I was actually very at peace with the way this one ended; everything pretty much made sense. I won every game I should have won and lost every game I should have lost all tournament long. You can’t really control your fate completely in this format, and I did as well as I could have reasonably expected. If I had played a weaker army that would have given me an edge in semifinals on day 2, I probably don’t make it past caps on day 1.

Ben finally got (legitimate) revenge for his loss to me in the finals in 2010, although unfortunately for him it just led to a second finals defeat.

[dok]

2014 TAKE 2

This format is kind of my thing, and I’m also the defending champ - in fact, I had won the Friday night event two years running, with my TQ title back in 2012. I knew I wasn’t playing gauntlet or General Wars or Team Tournament, so by this point I knew that I was either winning dice here or in the main event, or not at all.

Since I wasn’t repping him anywhere else at Gencon this year, and since he worked so well for me the year before, I decided to run TKN again. At this lower point total, that made for just a pure melee build, but the previous year I never activated the Marro Warriors anyway, so that didn’t worry me. TKN, Raelin, grubs x3, and Otonashi went just fine.

I went back and forth between a lot of builds for the other end of the army. I was considering another melee build, but after my 4x400 game where Infectedsloth’s Mohicans took apart my Heavy Gruts, I decided I wanted more mobility and a little range. In the end I decided to use Braxas like last year, only this time I’d pair her with Greenscales. With 10 points left after Braxas and three squads of Greenscales, I added Isamu. I figured I wanted the build to be strong enough that it would give me some rock-paper-scissors relationships with other stuff, and TKN isn’t afraid of Isamu (one block, squish, done). I mean, what’s the harm in little ol’ Isamu?

Round 1
Opponent: Rosencrantz (Zelrig + PK x3; Zombies x5 + … Syvarris?)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise

My first (and only) game of the weekend against one of my three roommates. Rosencrantz is a Colorado local, too, so this was far from our first game. He had a pretty rough Gencon but he definitely knows how to play.

I don’t remember the exact breakdown of the zombie army, but it was irrelevant since Troy won the diceoff and took the PKs. Zombies can’t beat other undead, so it was between my armies. I am a little leery about TKN vs. Zelrig because Zelrig can bomb adjacnent nagrubs, and this map gives him lots of room to bounce around and ping me while I advance. It was a tough call, but I decided to run Braxas.

Predictably, Zelrig led out, but I spread my Greenscales out quickly and denied multiple kills with Majestic Fires. Zelrig only targeted two figures once all game, and that was a whiff.

By the second round it turned to Zelrig on one of the 3-spacers on the Unique attack side attacking down on Braxas with a 5v3, and me attacking back each turn with a glyph-enhanced 6v5, a level ground 3v4, and some 3v5s in the later turns as I got more greenscales in place. (I tempted him to bomb Braxas and a Greenscale, but Troy wisely recognized that his only path to victory was killing Braxas, and stuck with normal attacks.) Troy’s attack dice were pretty weak and I managed to take down big red with only a few wounds. From there it was just a matter of gassing the PKs while the greenscales limited Braxas’s engagements and killed PKs that the breath missed.

The final result was a bit of a rout, but could have easily swung the other way had the dragon showdown gone differently.

Round 2
Opponent: Megasilver (Venoc Vipers x5, Mittens, James Murphy; Tagawa Samurai Archers x3, Eltahale, Johnny)
Map: Fossil

Our first live game since 2012, but we’ve played several times online. Tommy has beaten me in supers, but I’ve beaten him in every classic game.

I lost the dice-off, and Tommy was basically deciding between my two builds. The lure of Braxas/GSW/Isamu was too strong to pass up for him. Of course, I responded with TKN.

Early on, I moved onto the nearer high ground with Raelin and TKN and ferried up grubs as quckly as I could. Mega started with Braxas set back on the level 2 sand, pinging on grubs as best he could with PAB while the greenscales attacked up on TKN. I was content to move my grubs out of range and pound the nearby greenscales, so Tommy moved Braxas up next to the healer glyph to put more of my army in her reach. My stomping rolls were atrocious early, but I did manage to get to Braxas and make her burn the glyph. Then I jumped over he and kept pounding with TKN’s big attack. I grabbed lodin, which never made a difference in reality (no “7” was rolled) but seemed to break me out of my stomp funk.

Braxas flew onto my high ground to try to do more damage with gas, but TKN followed her and kept hitting. As seems to happen often for me for some reason, Braxas did a good job blocking TKN but took a beating from the grubs, and went down. I managed to heal TKN most of the way back, although a couple late 2v7 whiffs on my end actually brought TKN near death. Still, I got it down to Isamu, who managed just one measly attack before TKN put him under his heel.

Mega says that Isamu didn’t enter into his thinking here… which does not make me feel better about things.

Round 3
Opponent: Necroblade (Death Chasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, MBS; Deathreavers x3, Q9, Krav)
Map: Song of the Walrus

Necro is the top player in Louisville and is generally regarded* as the top active Gencon player with no Gencon prize dice. He was also 2-0 lifetime against me, including crushing me in the main event in 2012 to give me my only day 1 flameout.

Necro won the dice-off and deferred to me. The choice is not obvious. That deathchaser army is simply phenomenal; it’s one of the very best 400 builds possible in the format. It puts out a crazy amount of attack dice. And this map is melee friendly, denying ranged armies a chance to attack down on an advancing foe. I’m sure Jacob had beaten the rats/Q9/krav army with the ‘chasers in early rounds. But… still, he’s gonna have to prove he can do it to me. Q9/reavers/krav? Yeah, I’ll take that.

Predictably, Jacob responded with his Deathchasers. After the game we debated whether TKN would have been a resonable option. I think it would have been (trample denial is exceptionally hard on this map) and Jacob does know how to play that build, but I understand his reticence.

Anyway, the game pretty much played out as I had planned it. Necro took the wound glyph but I had range leering over the move glyph. I managed to set up a tight screen of rats just far enough up that a couple krav could shoot from level 3 while remaining protected. I took a couple shots at Raelin early but mostly tried to pick off anything that moved out of the aura.

Early on, MBS took a shot at a krav. I whiffed on 3 dice and was ready to remove him before Necro pointed out that I had height, and I promptly rolled a shield. In the “no good deed goes unpunished” category, the Krav killed MBS in one turn after he strayed out of Raelin’s aura to grab the move glyph.

At that point Jacob got Raelin and Nerak in close, and started pounding on my screen in earnest. The rats were dropping quickly, as expected, but Raelin and Nerak died before the last ones were gone. At that point I started slinging 2-2-2-3 or 2-2-2-2-1s on the Deathchasers with Q9 (depending on the number of available targets) and the ‘chasers just couldn’t hold up. While all the krav and nearly all the rats went down, Q9 only had to weather about 3 attacks (no wounds) before the game was mine.

* “generally regarded” = that’s what Rÿchean says

Round 4 (Retrospective Finals)
Opponent: Vegietarian18 (Death Chasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, MBS; Kinghts x3, Gilbert, Finn)
Map: Stygian Rift (Unique Attack and… +d20?)

Megasilver beat Hendal, the only other 3-0 player, in this round, so this ended up being the finals, effectively.

For the first time all tournament, I won the dice-off. There was that same ridiculous Deathchaser build again. So... much... dice. I picked it, and Vegie already looked crestfallen. He pointed out that he had beaten the DCs with the knights earlier in the event. But still, I’m sure he knew that I wouldn’t give him many openings to work with if he went that way in this match. I’d just ping him until he came to me, and then I’d just roll more dice until he died. So he went for high variance and took my Braxas build.

(Incidentally, this meant that I had played all four permutations of Take 2 in my four games. In Round 1 I played one of my armies against one of my opponent’s armies. In round 2 I played one of my armies against the other. In round 3 I played one of my opponent’s armies against the other. And in round 4, we played my favorite: the reverse, where each player had an army of his opponent.)

After the rush, I moved Raelin up to the edge of the level 2 ground on the right side of the map, just far enough up to cover the unique attack glyph. I moved Nerak up near her and then started with MBS. Braxas came up quickly, trying to gas Raelin, but i think Tanner realized how precarious that spot was, so she disengaged (0/2 on that roll) to take the central height. Given that there were only a couple Greenscales up with her and she ignores defense anyway, I was comfortable leaving Raelin’s aura to take her down. My rolls weren’t great by any stretch, but you can only take so many turns of repeated attacks of 4 before you go down. When Braxas dropped, I still had ~5 Deathchasers and all my heroes, against 6 or 7 Greenscales, and some ninja who clearly couldn’t possibly make a difference.

At that point, things started to get a little weird. Vegie had few options but to run the greenscales into the meatgrinder and hope for the best. I don’t know how many times he rolled 2 of 3 shields in the next few rounds, but it was a lot. Despite rarely having three attacks in a turn, while I could frequently get all four, and despite rolling 4v3s while vegie was rolling 2v4s and 2v5s, I was only very slightly outpacing him in kill rate. I did eventually grind through all the GSWs, but not before they had killed Nerak and a few more Deathchasers.

At that point, it was Isamu against Raelin, MBS, and a couple ‘chasers. vegie said it was 5 vanishes. I thought it was six, but that could be the PTSD talking. Anyway… it happened, and there went my 4-year dice streak and my 12-game Friday night streak. I drowned my sorrows by winning a game of King of Tokyo with caps, Xorlof, and the Ash clan (I used the “don’t even try to get victory points, just kill everyone” strategy) and got ready for day 2. I’m not sure whether I should be happy or not about the end of the third place game, as it would have been another clash with vegie. It would have been a good match though.

[NecroBlade]

Originally Posted by dok

Round 3
Opponent: Necroblade (Death Chasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, MBS; Deathreavers x3, Q9, Krav)
Map: Song of the Walrus

Necro is the top player in Louisville and is generally regarded* as the top active Gencon player with no Gencon prize dice. He was also 2-0 lifetime against me, including crushing me in the main event in 2012 to give me my only day 1 flameout.

Necro won the dice-off and deferred to me. The choice is not obvious. That deathchaser army is simply phenomenal; it’s one of the very best 400 builds possible in the format. It puts out a crazy amount of attack dice. And this map is melee friendly, denying ranged armies a chance to attack down on an advancing foe. I’m sure Jacob had beaten the rats/Q9/krav army with the ‘chasers in early rounds. But… still, he’s gonna have to prove he can do it to me. Q9/reavers/krav? Yeah, I’ll take that.

Predictably, Jacob responded with his Deathchasers. After the game we debated whether TKN would have been a resonable option. I think it would have been (trample denial is exceptionally hard on this map) and Jacob does know how to play that build, but I understand his reticence.

Anyway, the game pretty much played out as I had planned it. Necro took the wound glyph but I had range leering over the move glyph. I managed to set up a tight screen of rats just far enough up that a couple krav could shoot from level 3 while remaining protected. I took a couple shots at Raelin early but mostly tried to pick off anything that moved out of the aura.

Early on, MBS took a shot at a krav. I whiffed on 3 dice and was ready to remove him before Necro pointed out that I had height, and I promptly rolled a shield. In the “no good deed goes unpunished” category, the Krav killed MBS in one turn after he strayed out of Raelin’s aura to grab the move glyph.

At that point Jacob got Raelin and Nerak in close, and started pounding on my screen in earnest. The rats were dropping quickly, as expected, but Raelin and Nerak died before the last ones were gone. At that point I started slinging 2-2-2-3 or 2-2-2-2-1s on the Deathchasers with Q9 (depending on the number of available targets) and the ‘chasers just couldn’t hold up. While all the krav and nearly all the rats went down, Q9 only had to weather about 3 attacks (no wounds) before the game was mine.

* “generally regarded” = that’s what Rÿchean says

Great write-up on our game. Too bad I couldn't continue to remain undefeated against you. As you said, you probably still would've been fine just switching to Q9 had that Krav died so early. Either way it was an excellent game, and I think the key point was actually that one damn Rat sitting in the middle of the board for so many rounds. I do know how to play TKN, but I don't have a lot of experience (which you do), which I think would've hurt me sorely had I gone that route.

Also, good to know I'm so highly regarded.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

Also, good to know I'm so highly regarded.

I thought you played very well, for someone who just learned the game.

Is that high regard?

[The Orange Mailman]

T.O.M. was a total gentleman as always, which took a touch of the sting out of watching him methodically dispatch my army.

Awww.... Sniff.

[dok]

Just had a fun game online and I feel like sharing.

It was a 4-way free-for-all on Dignan's "Six Points". Win condition was most points for damage done, including fractional points for wounds on heroes. Self-damaging powers (hivelord life bonding, blocked pounces, etc) don't count negative, but attacking (or wounding via special power) one of your figures with another of your figures does count negative.

We drafted 390 point, 14-space armies snake-style, with the restriction that each player could have only one card that is A- or better, and a freeze-out rule (i.e. nobody gets the same card).

Draft went:

dok		kevindola	Dysole		awesomeunleashed
Raelin
		Eilan Sidhe
				Black Wyrmling
						Morgoloth
						Wolves of Badru
				Black Wyrmling
		Eilan Sidhe
Tor-Kul-Na
nagrubs
		Eilan Sidhe
				Black Wyrmling
						Isamu
						Wolves of Badru
				Black Wyrmling
		Eilan Sidhe
nagrubs
nagrubs
		Eilan Sidhe
				Black Wyrmling
						Wolves of Badru
				Black Wyrmling
		Eilan Sidhe
		Cyprien
				Major J15
				Hoplitron
				Hoplitron
				Hoplitron
				Otonashi

I was in the SW corner of the map; kd was in the NW, Dysole in the NE, and AU in the SE. The west glyph was Wannok and the east glyph was Dagmar.

Things started out with kevindola divebombing Dysole's startzone and killing multiple Black Wyrms to take an early lead. I set up around Wannok with my army while Dysole defended the Vampire with his Hoplitrons and Morgoloth and wolves moved to the center. Cyprien made a move to flee behind a ruin at the end of the round, but Morgoloth moved over to engage him. (This pretty much ruined kevindola's strategy for the game, as he had to keep feeding the exposed Cyprien order markers, which led to the Sidhe never really getting going.)

In the second round, the big heroes mostly avoided each other - TKN stomped all the sidhe, Cyprien fled Morgoloth and tried to pick off wolves, Morgoloth went for some Hoplitrons after Cyprien left, and J15 sniped wolves.

By the third round, the startzones were empty (save for a couple 10 point ninjas) and action shifted towards the center of the map. With Cyprien down to 2 life, kevindola had to make a play, and went for a chill and kill on Morgoloth. He came up short, though, and Morgoloth finished him. KD started very strong, but the early attention Cyprien drew, and then some poor dice to prevent much healing, sunk his army.

At the end of the round it was a 3-life Morgoloth, 2 wolves, and Isamu for AU, a 1-wound J15 and a Hop for Dysole, and a 1-wound TKN, unwounded Raelin, and 8 nagrubs for me. This sounds like a rout for me, but the damage score was 310 (AU) to 244 (Dysole) to 215.4 (me). So I had some catching up to do.

In the final round the 3 big heroes were all in a mosh pit in the middle. Morgoloth took height on J15, but couldn't crack the tin can, only doing 2 wounds, and J15 and a Hoplitron managed to take down the demon darklord. Still trailing AU in points, Dysole got his big break when J15 once again survived (taking only 1 wound from TKN), then put 2 wounds on TKN in Raelin's aura. This put Dysole in a strong lead in damage points. J15 went down on the next turn, and my army managed to clean up the rest of the map (2 wolves, a Hoplitron, and Isamu), with an unwounded Raelin, unwounded TKN, and 3 grubs remaining. But this was only enough to claim second place.

Final:

1. Dysole 386.67
2. dok 361.25
3. awesomeunleashed 353.75
4. kevindola 226.67

stats:

Spoiler Alert!

dok
Attack rolls: 28 out of 61 (45.9%)
Defense rolls: 6 out of 25 (24%)
Total dice rolled: 86
Time used: 0h, 29m, 57s

awesomeunleashed
Attack rolls: 59 out of 118 (50%)
Defense rolls: 28 out of 76 (36.84%)
Total dice rolled: 194
Time used: 0h, 23m, 33s

kevindola
Attack rolls: 12 out of 20 (60%)
Defense rolls: 19 out of 52 (36.54%)
Total dice rolled: 72
Time used: 0h, 5m, 26s

Dysole
Attack rolls: 30 out of 68 (44.12%)
Defense rolls: 22 out of 71 (30.99%)
Total dice rolled: 139
Time used: 0h, 21m, 18s

[dok]

GENCON 2015

TREASURE QUEST

Every year I say I am going to play fewer events and spend more time demoing and learning new games. The last couple years I’d played four Heroscape events, and this year I was only signed up for three: take 2, draft, and championship (i.e all three events that you couldn’t win just by bringing the best cheese). However, when I stepped into the dealer hall Thursday morning, I was immediately reminded why I try to stay away at that time. It’s a complete madhouse with a huge initial rush of people trying to get the Next Big Thing and/or the shiny new promo. So I wandered back to the Heroscape area. When I heard that there was almost nobody registered for Treasure Quest, I figured that a couple games could be fun, so I grabbed some generics, borrowed some figures, and signed up.

IMO Nilfheim and Greenscales x2 is the clear best army core for treasure quest, so I grabbed that. That left me 95 points, so I plugged in Heirloom, who isn’t bad in TQ either (although it would be better if he could grab glyphs that figures are standing on), and I was set.

Round 1
Opponent: Fomox (Nilfheim, Cyprien, Sonya, Isamu, Otonashi)
Map: Fossil (U. Attack, d20 +1)

So… there were only four of us in this event. But it was quite a foursome, with Hendal and Rÿchean comprising the other two. Fomox had a very strong build, as Nilf and Cyprien are both excellent in TQ.

I naturally bonded with greenscales, while Fomox bounced back and forth between Cyprien and Nilfheim. Two glyphs on this map were in spots where Nilf could not pick them up, but I blocked the one in range of Cyprien. My Nilf grabbed the defense treasure, while Fomox’s nilf got the attack rune. However, it quickly shifted to a kill ‘em all game, with my Nilf and greenscales trying to kill Fomox’s two big heroes. Cyprien only managed two wounds from chilling touch, and thanks to the unique attack permanent glyph and the ability to sling more dice per OM, I managed to take both of the two heroes out with one Nilfheim life remaining. My nemesis Isamu failed his first vanish, and I was through.

Round 2
Opponent: Rÿchean (Warforged Soldiers x3, Heirloom, Arkmer, Marcu)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (Healer and d20 +1)

We had initially planned to play a round robin plus a finals game as needed, however, Fomox and Hendal decided to beg off and just let the 2-0 player take it. So it was down to me and the defending world champion for the title.

Unfortunately, there’s not much to report here. Not only did I have a much better army on paper for the format, but this was just about the hottest dice I had in any game at the convention. I pretty much rolled through the warforged, picking up the last glyph to win it after I had reduced Rÿchean to just a couple warforged and Marcu.

So… that was the whole event. A bit of a cheap event win, but hey, I just play who they put in front of me. I skipped the afternoon events, so this meant I ended up with a nice solid block of time in the dealer hall after lunch. (I got to demo Ashes, which I definitely recommend.)

2-0, first place.

[dok]

DRAFT

The nice thing about a draft event is that it’s very hard to pick a bad pool. I guess if you make a draft pool with one obvious first pick that beats everything else, that’s bad. But aside from that, just about anything goes as long as you understand it and know what plays well against what.

So, I didn’t really put much thought into this one, and basically put my draft pool together the night before I left for Gencon. The one thing I knew was that I wanted some good counters for Silver Surfer, since Marvel was legal in the event. So, I went with:

Black Wyrmling x6
Krug
Marro Warriors
Krav Maga Agents
Phantom Knights x2
Warriors of Ashra x3
Deathreavers x1
Marcu

I felt like this draft offered a good selection of picks and counter-picks, along with a few traps to fall into. I arguably failed my own standard of avoiding a dominant first pick, but it wasn’t super obvious or impossible to beat.

So… this was, hands down, the craziest event win I have ever had. I have a tendency to be slightly pessimistic about my chances during games (this probably helps me stay focussed), but that said, I was pretty sure I was hopelessly lost in every game I played in this event. Somehow, I managed a comeback win in all of them. It was surreal.

Round 1
Opponent: Mr. Chompie (Frost Giant, Wyvern, Greater Ice Elemental, Feral Troll, Torin, Evar Scarcarver, RotV Drake)
Map: Blackroot (Talisman of Defense, Healing Potion)

As happened in 3 of 4 games, I lost the diceoff but was handed first pick. As happened in all three of those games, I opened with Marro Warriors. The draft went as follows:

dok		Mr. Chompie
MW
		Krav
		Frost Giant
Krug
PK x1
		PK x1
		Black Wyrm
Black Wyrm x2
		Black Wyrm x2
Wyvern

Mr Chompie wisely counterdrafted the second squad of PKs. For my last 100, I did debate a few options, but I figured that the only hero I could lead off with with the reasonable expectation of getting at Krav and Black Wyrms before they were shooting into my startzone was the Wyvern.

Mr. Chompie opened with Black Wyrms, while I opened with the Wyvern. On my first turn, I tried to place the Wyvern where it was exactly 6 spaces away from engaging two wyrms, so that they couldn’t get any closer without risking a Wyvern attack, but would not be able to attack the Wyvern due to their slower movement. However, those blasted Wyvern wings got in the way, so I was forced to slide the Wyvern up one spot. This meant the wyrms could get to him, but I figured with height on one of them, I could probably do fine with this. Well… those two wyrms did 3 wounds on the Wyvern that turn. The wyvern did kill those wyrms, but the Krav were already rolling out into position.

I gambled that I could get initiative on the switch, tying down two krav and possibly killing one of them with a 4v3. But, of course, I lost init, and down went the Wyvern. The Krav killed all my black wyrms, two Marro Warriors and one PK before being reduced to one figure by my PKs.

At that point, Mr Chompie’s PKs swept across to finish the job. However, they only managed to kill one PK and anger Krug before Krug smashed them with attacks of five. I cloned my Marro Warriors back while Frosty moved up. Frosty did manage to drop a 3 wound hit on Krug, but no battle frenzy, and Krug finished him off the next turn.

Round 2
Opponent: Deroche (Spider-Man, Black Wyrm x8, Marro Warriors, Zetacron, Romans x2, MDG)
Map: Sidewinder (Lodin + Kelda)

Deroche ended up being my only two-time opponent on the weekend. Our games are enjoyable and intense, and this was no exception.

I won the diceoff and, despite the 14 black wyrmlings in play, went for Spider-Man. We drafted out all the wyrms, with Gordon taking eight to my six. I finished out with the Marro Warriors, while Gordon took Krav and Marro Warriors.

I opened the game by having Spidey swing line up behind the ruin, four spaces away from the healer glyph. Gordon grabbed the d20 +1 on the other side of the map and started spooling his black wyrms out. I moved up my Marro Warriors to get them in play, but Gordon rushed around an intiative switch, and killed all four Marro in two turns to cost me an OM, along with taking out a couple of my lead Black Wyrms.

At this point it looked extremely bleak. I desperately tried to snuff out the wyrms that had gotten into Spidey’s view, while Deroche potshotted a few wyrms with the Marro Warriors and then settled in to take out Spidey with wyrms. However, his hot dice got cold, and Spidey held out a bit longer than expected. I managed to time things just right, popping an OM on Spidey just in time to heal from 1 life to full.

At that point Deroche’s Black wyrms were mostly spent, so it came down to spidey and my last few wyrms against the RotV ranged squads. My wyrms took out the last Marro Warriors, but went cold against the Krav. Spidey was up to the challenge, though, and finished things out.

Round 3
Opponent: Major Q23 (Eltahale, Mohicans x2, Brave Arrow, Theracus, Skahen, Heirloom, Zombies x3, Deathreavers x1)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (stock glyphs in reversed position)

Draft went:

dok			Q23
Marro Warriors
			Krav
			WoA
PK x2
			WoA x2
Eltahale
Black Wyrm
			Krug
			Marcu
Black Wyrm

I led with the PKs, while Q23 had a more balanced opening. Despite getting many attacks, I only managed to kill two Krav before the PKs were done. However, I held the wound plateau, and the Marro Warriors managed to take out most of the Ashra on their approach. However, Krug came out to play, pushing forward with that last unkillable Krav behind, and I had to try to take him down before he got across the map. Angry Krug got to the startzone and eliminated the wyrms, but had an OM on the Krav at a key moment, allowing the Marro Warriors to finish the job before Eltahale could be taken out. Eltahale chased down the last Krav and the final Ashrans for the win.

Round 4 (Finals)
Opponent: Micah (not on Heroscapers) (Knights x3, Gilbert, Tarn Vikings, Axegrinders x3, Krav, Laglor, Marcu)
Map: Dance of the Dryads (Move, initiative)

Micah is a member of the Louisville crew, but is not on Heroscapers. The draft went:

dok			Micah
Marro Warriors
			Krav
			Laglor
PK x2
			Axegrinders x2
Krav
Black Wyrm
			Tarn Vikings
Black Wyrm

At this point it was quite late (after midnight) and we were the only ones playing. Just after my PK picks, the lights in the convention hall went out. We thought they might not come back on, but drafted the rest of the draft under the lights of a half-dozen flashlight apps from other scaper’s phones. It was pretty surreal. It was, apparently, too surreal for either of us to handle at that late hour, as we both screwed up our next picks pretty badly (I miscounted my available figure spots and he miscounted his points) so we ended up calling a mulligan, rewinding, and redrafting from there.

I gambled that he would lead with his melee, anticipating my PKs, so I led with Krav. I guessed right, and was able to thin out the Axegrinders. However, my Krav got caught on the switch. I moved over to PKs, but as seemed to be the pattern this event, they underperformed pretty badly, failing to finish off the Krav. Laglor was really hot, putting out lots of 2 skull, one symbol rolls with autoload. I tried to bring the Black Wyrms in to finish things, but they did exactly nothing before getting killed.

It looked pretty bleak as I turned to the Marro Warriors, looking to take out a 4-life Laglor, a Krav, and the Tarns. However, as had been the pattern all event long, my dice turned just when I needed them to, as I snuffed out Laglor with some Marro Warrior shots from height. The Tarns held up for a while, and could have chased the Marro Warriors down with a well-timed berzerker charge, but I managed to finish them for the win.

4-0, first place. This also runs my night-time Gencon record to 16-1. I think it's just that I manage to fight through the fatigue better than most.

[dok]

TAKE 2

Take 2 is my baby, and I have a 8-1 record in the event since it joined the schedule in 2013, so of course I had to give it another shot this year. This was the only event I planned to play in where 24 figures were allowed, instead of a 16 figure cap. Because of that, I was pretty much settled on playing 5 squads of cutters in this event. Cutters are one of my favorite things to play, but they are really hamstrung by the 16 figure restriction. I just had to figure out the other 150 points in that build, and the right build to pair it with.

I considered a bunch of different builds, but in the end I decided that beating a fully cheesed out 4th Mass build with a bunch of goblin cutters sounded like the most fun option. So I made the counter build 5 squads of 4th Mass with filler (Eldgrim and Kyntela). I tossed a Hydra, Marcu, and Ontonashi* to fill out the last 150 for the cutter build. (I used Generalrolando’s sweet red repainted Hydra, which he was nice enough to loan me for Gencon again this year. It once again got a lot of compliments.)

* no, not Isamu. Why would you even ask?

Round 1
Opponent: Ethan (HSB x2, Cutters x1, Raelin, Krug, ???)
Map: Dance of the Dryads

Ethan was a young player playing in his first tournament. Unfortunately he had chosen Take 2; aside from the kids tournament, the heroes only event that was happening at the same time would probably have been the easiest event at the entire convention for a first-time player. Fortunately, everyone was very welcoming to him and he seemed to have a good time in the event.

I chose my cutters first, then he chose the build above. I don’t remember his other build. I won using only the cutters. After the game, I chatted with him, giving him some pointers on army selection and strategy, as well as directing him to heroscapers.

Round 2
Opponent: Vegie’s Dad (Phantom Knights x4, Kaemon Awa / Stingers x4, TBR)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (Kelda in the Wannok spot)

VD and I have faced each other many times in online play to go with our semi-regular meetings at Gencon. He had chosen a somewhat similar army set to mine: a conventionally strong ranged army, and a counter-range army. I chose the cutters first. After some consideration, VD chose the Phantom Knight build.

I moved the Hydra up with my first move, towards the Kelda glyph, but after that shifted to the cutters. This was, in my opinion, one of the two or three biggest mistakes I made in all my games at Gencon. I should have realized that VD was going to lead out with Kaemon Awa, and the Hydra is, by far, the better option against Awa.

Anyway, this mistake cost me several cutters, but in round 2 I turned to the Hydra and tried to chase the Samurai down. I took two wounds from Kaemon while trying to close the gap, but a miscount on spaces put VD’s Kaemon in my range, and the last two heads were sufficent to take him out.

At that point I retreated the Hydra back across the map towards Kelda, and massed my cutters around him to protect him. The PKs tried to put pressure on the Hydra, but in typical cutter fashion, I was getting about 1 kill a turn to my opponent’s 1 kill a turn, allowing me to turn a small profit. I did have some pretty poor dice in spots, and between that and the early losses to Kaemon I ended up losing my lead in squaddies. However, when time was called, I had 4 cutters, both filler heroes, and a 1 life Hydra next to Kelda, against 4 PKs. It was my first Gencon game going to time since 2013, and it wasn’t completely wrapped up, but I did definitely have the lead.

Round 3
Opponent: OrcElfArmyOne (Heavy Gruts x3, Grimnak, Nerak, Marcu / Knights x3, Gilbert, Raelin)
Map: Sidewinder

OEA1 is a melee specialist who had his favored Orcs along with a strong knight build. He won the dice-off, and chose the Orcs. I chose the 4th Mass for the only time in the event. OEA1 immediately wished he had deferred the pick, as Orcs actually do quite well against cutters.

Anyway, at first things were going to plan, as my early wave of 4th Mass took out Nerak using four elevanted shots before they could get tied down. I was on height, shooting at Grimnak and the squad and change he had with him. However, the dice went kind of crazy at this point, and for about a round and a half I just couldn’t kill a thing. Grimnak and his lead squad took out all my fourth mass that were into the map, swept around, and started tearing through my startzone. I was reduced to WTFing on level ground and hoping that the gambler’s fallacy would come true and the luck would even out.

Thankfully for me, it did, as Grimnak went down and the rest of the figures with him swiftly followed. At this point, OEA1 was kind of a victim of his own success, as the remaining orcs had fallen behind the lead squad that had pushed forward. I was able to snipe most of these stragglers before they even reached me. I had a five left when OEA1 was left with just Marcu.

At that point, we had yet another crazy swing in a game with no shortage of them, as Marcu went on a miracle run, surviving a couple rounds of Wait then Fire and taking out the entire squad before jumping across to take on my two filler heroes. Eldgrim failed to kill Marcu with an overextend, and it looked like Marcu was going to win the battle of the filler. However, he finally hit his Eternal Hatred for the first time since entering the fray, allowing Eldgrim to gain the crucial height advantage and finish Marcu off.

Round 4 (Finals)
Opponent: Bengi (cutters x4 + Rhogar + Heirloom, Greenscales x2 + Moltenclaw + Agent Carr + Otonashi)
Map: Dance of the Dryads (d20?, Kelda)

Finals turned out to be a matchup of one bed in one hotel room. Bengi and I have been playing each other since the dawn of online play; he took our first few games but lately I’ve had his number. He is pretty much the president of the dok-heckling club, so the trash talk was pretty free-flowing in this one.

Unlike most of my opponents, not only does Bengi know the Take 2 format very well, but he’s also very familiar with how to play cutters. My cutter build was stronger than his, so when he won the dice-off I was pretty sure he would snag mine and I would be scrambling for the right reaction. However, whether it was because of the bright lights of Xorlof’s topdown recording kit, or my offer to accept his early surrender, Bengi decided to defer. I took almost a second to consider before taking my cutter build, and then began heckling him for deferring.

Bengi thought for a while before taking my 4th Mass build. In an interesting little tactical twist, the first two OMs of the game were on Marcu and Eldgrim - Bengi intended to overextend to burn Kelda and deny it to the Hydra, while Marcu was going to get in the way in order to block Eldgrim from reaching the glyph on his overextend turn. Bengi won the opening initiative and got the Kelda burn.

In the early play, Bengi methodically set up his 4th on the plateau overlooking Wannok, attempting to arrange the figure where no mob attacks would be possible. He would also attempt to engage 3 cutters, then shoot at an unengaged fourth one so that he could get two kills even after scurry. This was working to some extent, as he was managing slightly better than 1 for 1 kills. I was able to infiltrate from the other side of the map, though, getting around the minutemen on the other side of his startzone that had not made it up to the plateau yet, and bringing it back to a 1-for-1 exchange rate towards the end of the game.

Unfortunately, this ended up being my second game (of three) that went to time at Gencon. When time was called, it was Kyntela and eight or ten 4th Mass against about six cutters and the Hydra. Bengi had to make a silly desperation play to kill the Hydra because last round had been called, but it didn’t work out.

4-0, first place.

As always it was a fun game with Bengi. It was a bit of a bummer to get the finals called on time but I was happy to have time for lunch before the main event. Over lunch, Bengi actually talked me into changing the last 70 points of my main event army.

[dok]

CHAMPIONSHIP

I waffled like heck over my main event armies this year. In the online event, I actually tried a variant on the Mohican x3/Brave Arrow/Raelin build that Mantrainchoochoo had played the year before, with Tandros as the hero instead of Murphy. That was too weak, so I toyed with Krug as the last hero. That was still too weak, so I tried plugging in the Hydra. That worked, but it felt too swingy.

I also strongly considered a Axegrinder/Raelin/Darrak/Wyrmling build, which Dysole also considered strongly. I did toy with a variant on my Glad x1/Blast x2/Raelin buld from the year before, with Shurrak and Marcu replacing Eltahale, but I ruled it out pretty fast.

For most of the prep time, my strong inclination was to return to the only army I had ever failed to qualify for day 2 with: Arrow Gruts. I was leaning towards just slapping Otonashi on that 2012 build, for AG x3, Swog x3, Raelin, Nerak, Krug, Otonashi*. No army forces you to plan ahead and understand positioning more than the Arrow Grut army, and a relatively small fraction of the current players have any experience playing with it. So I thought it was a pretty strong day 2 option if I could make it. It was one of two armies I packed to play, and as late as the morning of the championship, I thought that was what I would use.

However, I kept feeling the pull to probably my favorite army, Tor-Kul-Na and the nagrubs. While maybe not quite as tricky as the Arrow Gruts, TKN/grubs does force you to think about positioning in unusual and subtle ways. I still find that many players seem to struggle to find the right strategy when playing either with or against TKN.

However, unlike the Arrow Gruts, I couldn’t quite hammer this build down. Three squads of nagrubs and Raelin brings that build to 390 points, leaving 70 points for whatever filler I’d like in a main event build. Marro Warriors would be the obvious choice, but I will pretty much never play Marro Warriors given the current championship format (i.e. timed games when I have the Marro Warriors, untimed games when I play against them). I toyed with numerous other options. My first thought was Zetacron and Otonashi*, but Zetacron is another of those figures who can either be amazing or terrible based on one stray dice roll. I also considered Shotgun Sullivan, and as gencon approached I was actually leaning towards a single squad of 4th Mass. kevindola even tried to talk me into Zettian Guards (and almost did).

However, at the last minute, Bengi managed to convince me that Me-Burq-Sa and Marcu would be a good option. I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of that before, but I liked the sound of it. I borrowed MBS from Deroche, and rolled with Tor-Kul-Na, nagrubs x3, Raelin, Me-Burq-Sa, and Marcu.

* no, not Isamu. Don’t be ridiculous.

Game 1
Opponent: Fomox (Microcorp Agents, x2, Q10, Zetacron, Theracus, Isamu)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (Lodin in Wannok spot, Wannok in Ulaniva spot)

I knew the battle would center around the plateau overlooking Wannok. I spooled out TKN and the grubs in that direction, putting Raelin on the back edge of the plateau where he would be difficult to snipe at. fomox opened by flying an agent up to a high ground perch, then shooting down with that one while others moved up. fomox ended up bringing a number of the agents up onto the plateau. TKN’s stomp rolls were abysmal (I only hit one, and it was blocked by stealth armor), and Theracus pretty much refused to die, but MBS and the grubs did eventually manage to squelch the agent threat. TKN took some wounds along the way, but healed most of them back. Wannok was devastating to fomox’s low-life army, costing him Isamu, some Microcorp, and a wound on Q10.

I managed to snipe Zetacron using MBS, but Q10 just kept backing up and trying to pull me off of height/Raelin. Inevitably I gave in and threw Raelin forward so that TKN could close the gap while protected. Q10 ended up on height on the other side of the map when TKN caught up, but his attack of 6 was enough to bring down the big soulborg.

Game 2
Opponent: Dad_Scaper (Deathchasers x4, Ogre Warhulk, Brandis Skyhunter)
Map: Fossil (Healer + d20)

Oh, how I had waited for this moment. D_S and I are in regular contact thanks to our collaboration on the C3V customs project, but we never had a game last year. This event was my only chance to cross paths with him, but fortune smiled on me and paired us up.

I set up on the hill nearer to the healer glyph, and did some sniping with MBS while he sniped with Brandis. Brandis put a few wounds on Raelin, but MBS took him down before he could finish the job. At that point I was able to pretty much play in the aura and define the location of the battle. TKN actually rolled pretty terrible defense and took a bunch of wounds, but I burned Kelda around an initiative switch, then got a ridiculous 6-wound hit with TKN to finish the Warhulk. With the big guy down it was basically cleanup. After missing every stomp attempt for the first two games, I successfully stomped the final ‘chaser to take the game.

Game 3
Opponent: Hendal (Marrden Hounds x4, Iron Golem)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (Lodin in Wannok spot, Wannok in Ulaniva spot)

This is a pretty terrible matchup for my army; not only are his figures stomp-proof, but plague ignores my high defense. Also, he had lodin on the far side of the map making his hounds much stronger. However, I did have the advantage of a wannok glyph available to help kill his expensive wounds, and Tor-Kul-Na’s steady attack of 6 can allow me to win a war of attrition if I can set things up correctly. That’s a big ask on this relatively open map, though.

Just as in the first round game against Fomox on the same map, I spooled out the grubs and TKN, then placed Raelin on the edge of the plateau. I chose a space one spot further over since, in this matchup, covering the wannok spot was a priority. Unlike the previous game where MBS was an important piece, In this game MBS sat in the startzone all game long.

The majority of the game was one long desperate defense of the attack on Raelin. The Hounds would sweep in, TKN would try to get in their way and whack them, I would use grubs to tie hounds down so they couldn’t engage Raelin. Hendal started fairly hot, but then his plagues went quite cold, and when he did get hounds to Raelin, as he did on occasion, Raelin held up quite well. Overall, I’d say this was my second-luckiest game of my 18 games at Gencon, only trailing the treasure quest game against Rÿchean.

Because I was using my grubs as a screen (and to heal of course), they ran down and finally ran out. However, not too long after the last grub was eaten by TKN, TKN stepped on the wound glyph to kill the last hound. It came down to a mostly-healthy TKN. a 2-life Raelin, and a full life MBS and Marcu in the startzone, against a charging Iron Golem. However, Iggy put a hurting on TKN, dropping him to 1 life. I tossed an OM on Marcu at the end of the round in case TKN had died, but Marcu decided to hate me and kill Raelin instead. I thought I was going to have to turn to MBS running and gunning to finish Iggy, but one TKN block later, he took out Iggy on OM 1.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was actually the pair-down, and I had given Hendal his second loss. However his strength of schedule ended up being quite good and he managed to qualify for day 2.

Game 4
Opponent: Wookie (Stingers x5, Raelin, Concan, sit 1)
Map: Sirocco (Move and Unique Attack)

Welp, if hounds wasn’t bad enough, this sure seemed worse. I really had no idea how I could pull this one off. Early on, Wookie moved Raelin up towards the move glyph hill. I did as well, but put Raelin in a spot where she couldn’t be targeted unless the opposing stingers pushed out of Raelin’s aura and next to TKN and the grubs. MBS got a couple shots down at Raelin, and wookie decided to protect the girl by having her fly off to the other hill. However, the stingers kept coming at TKN, often rolling for drain (wookie hit it way more than half the time, but did have two backfires as well). Wookie denied me stomp opportunities, but this came by way of engaging TKN from low ground. I was able to basically wear the army down by killing one stinger a turn with TKN and healing up from the attacks of 4v8 or 3v8. Eventually, I did run out of grubs, but TKN still managed to finish off the stingers, Raelin, and Concan.

This was actually my second straight pair-down, so my strength of schedule was complete junk. Fortunately I was already in day 2.

Game 5
Opponent: Deroche (Glad x2, Blast x2, Raelin, Heirloom, Isamu, sit 3)
Map: Dance of the Dryads (Heal and unique attack)

My second game against Deroche on the weekend. We were both 4-0, so this was the bragging rights round, more or less.

Early on I brought Raelin up to a spot overlooking the wound glyph on my left hand plateau, carefully shielded behind the trees. I then pulled the rest of my army up next to her. It was a highly defensive, conservative affair for a while, as Deroche’s Raelin was on the plateau in the opposite corner, and Gordon was not committing Glads to the center.

I ran MBS up to do some sniping, and did take out some Glads. Deroche responded by bringing some glads up to finish him, and then I took care of them. At that point I had the lead in our staring contest, and Deroche pulled Raelin up to the middle to try to get a push against me.

At that point I made probably my biggest mistake of the convention, miscounting spaces to end up with TKN one spot outside of Raelin’s aura when attacking Gordon’s Raelin. Gordon dropped 3 Glads on him the next turn and tried for the kill, but luck was on my side as I escaped with only 4 wounds. I healed one wound, then disengaged from the glads and Raelin (took just 1 wound), and retreated. I took another wound from blasts that were boosted by a disengaging glad the next turn, but I managed to survive with 1 life left, and then healed, disengaged, and burned Kelda.

After that, I was able to return back to Raelin in a safer spot and kill her. At that point the Gladblast momentum was broken. I finished off all but one Gladiatron and was set to push Raelin forward for the final Blastatron kills when time was called.

5-0, second seed going into day 2. (Cleon and his cheesetastic build was the other 5-0.)

At this point I was 15-0 for the convention. I think “out of body experience” is the best description for how I felt about that. Obviously I consider myself a very strong player, but there’s really no way I should have managed to pull out every game. (Spoiler alert: my luck did eventually run out.)

Funny note on day 1: I hit two stomps, total (the one to end the D_S game and one against a glad in the last game) out of 8 or 9 attempts, and I was about 0/10 on paralyzing stare. The d20 was not my friend.

[dok]

DAY 2 - REVERSE THE WHIP

At the end of day 1, Infectedsloth and Q23 were looking at the slate of armies and putting them in a rough order of their perceived strength against the metagame of the other 15. My army ended up slotting pretty much dead center. For my part, I felt pretty good about most of my matchups. There were only a few armies where I felt like I would need to induce a questionable play from my opponent to have a good chance. Of course, a couple of those were the weakest armies overall, so there was a distressing possibility I would be facing them at the end of the event, but so it goes.

Round of 16
Opponent: Unseenshadowz (Charos, Greenscales x2, Skahen, Otonashi)
Map: Remains of Clionesia (Initiative and Wannok)

Unseenshadowz is part of the Ash clan, along with Infectedsloth and Major Q23 and ISB3. This felt like a tricky matchup, but I felt that if he sat back in Raelin’s aura, Skahen could give me an advantage. It turned out that Skahen was a spectator, though, as this one turned into a slugfest quickly.

Initially EJ moved Raelin up to the level 3 turret near his startzone. Charos grabbed the Heroic Rune while TKN got onto the road in front of Raelin. As I massed the greenscales up (avoiding the trampable spots) I put Charos in a spot where TKN could reach him and get first strike, but would have to leave Raelin's aura to do so. EJ couldn’t resist the shot, and sent TKN out to engage. Charos disengaged, flew over TKN’s head, and attacked down on TKN while two more greenscales engaged TKN from height on the other side. Unseenshadowz moved Raelin up the next round to protect TKN, but it was too late, and Charos’s 7 die attacks brought him down. With TKN down, there was little drama as Charos and the scales took down Raelin, then MBS.

Quarterfinals
Opponent: Vegietarian18 (10th x2, Raelin, Taelord, Marro Warriors)
Map: Fossil (Unique Attack and d20 +1)

As we were setting up, Vegie cracked the plastic wrap on the dice Isamu won for him in the 2014 Take 2 finals against me. I normally don’t play with prize dice at Gencon because it’s so easy to lose dice at Gencon, but I couldn’t resist pulling out the 2015 Take 2 prize dice I had won the previous morning.

This was an extremely favorable matchup for my army; I thought it was one of the two or three most reliable wins for me among the 15 possible day 2 opponents. Really all I needed to do was kill the nagrubs before TKN stomped the Marro Warriors and the game was mine, and I would need to be pretty unlucky to fail at that.

As fate would have it, I was nearly that unlucky. After some initial sniping as I set up the 10th on the near hill overlooking unique attack and vegie put his Raelin on the other hill, vegie took a shot with MBS and then charged TKN and the grubs into the fray. I was frequently failing to kill the nagrubs with 10th on height, mostly in Taelord’s aura, killing only 5 over the course of repeated 4-attack turns. But Vegie was 4/4 on his first four attacks against 10th on height in Raelin’s aura, which was what he needed to get TKN onto the hill, and once he was there the 10th’s position collapsed, leaving only one Redcoat at the end of that round.

While this run of solid fortune had given vegie an angle, I still had the Marro Warriors. I snagged the unique attack glyph and mowed down the remaining nagrubs in the first two turns of the next round. Vegie lost an OM, and I was able to spread out and hit TKN from multiple angles. With no healing and no Raelin, it was only a matter of time before the boosted Marro Warrior attacks brought the big hivelord down. Once TKN was gone, I remained patient, cloning the Marro Warriors to make sure a bad run of dice couldn’t hurt me, and moving Taelord up so that I could snipe at Raelin from within his aura. My double boosted cloning MW finished things off without incident.

Semifinals
Opponent: Weesel99 (Venoc Vipers x3, EOVs, Venoc Warlord, Kaemon Awa)
Map: Sirocco (Move and Unique Attack)

Somewhat incredibly, this was my first ever game against Lucas. It’s possible that he had the most Gencon games played of anyone I hadn’t faced yet (other contenders for that title: Jexik, jacob_jp, SWNinja). I said before the game that this was probably where my luck runs out. It turned out to be a closer matchup on paper than I had appreciated, though - Weesel99 ended up needing a few things to go his way to pull it out.

I opened the game with two full rounds of Venoc Vipers, while Lucas moved Raelin up near the move glyph and then got to work with the grubs. By the second turn I was putting dice on Raelin, including one even ground hit, however, I wasn’t hitting my frenzies, and Raelin was holding up to the onslaught quite well. The pattern continued into the second round; even as I lost control of the move glyph, I was still able to keep slinging dice at Raelin as well as at any nagrubs I found outside Raelin’s aura. I even managed to sneak a couple vipers around the backside into the startzone, and was taking shots at MBS along with some nagrubs. However, by the end of the round I was out of vipers, and I hadn’t managed to take down Raelin.

In the third round I moved Kaemon off towards the other hill to hunt some nagrubs that had gone after a couple vipers there the round before. He shot them up and took position on the hill. I also activated the EOVs and had them take a last couple shots at Raelin, but she continued to hold firm at 2 life, and I finished the game 0/7 for frenzy. Then, in a critical sequence, MBS moved out towards Kaemon, hit paralyzing stare, and went 2/3 shooting up at Kaemon. Kaemon killed MBS the next turn, but the damage was done.

I continued to bounce around with Kaemon and pick off nagrubs as I could, but with the move glyph on his side, there was no way I could run away from TKN forever. I did take out all but two nagrubs (one on the move glyph, and the other disconnected from TKN), but TKN came barging up my end of the map to take out the samurai. I only managed a couple wounds with an elevated shot and a quick release before TKN engaged and one-shot-killed Kaemon. Mittens managed to put two more wounds on TKN, but that was the end of it.

Weesel99 managed to defeat his army one more time with Matthias’s Sacred Band to take the title, and for the first time since 2009 CVN was on hand to play the champion’s game. We should have video of both of those games, along with my semifinal.

2-1, T-3rd place for the third year in a row.

Overall 2015 Gencon record: 17-1. So... that happened.