Pod Draft, 600 point combined pods, 250-350 pods
My Pods:
Pod 1: Granite Guardians x 3
Pod 2: Tul-Bak-Ra, Stingers x 2, Dividers x 1
Round 1 vs. Megasilver (#11, 0-1)
Map: Dry Season
My Army: Granites x3, Raelin, Blastatrons x 2, Krav Maga
Megasilver: TBR, Stingers x2, Dividers x1, Zetacron, Gladiatrons x3 (sit 2 glads)
The game opened up in a disaster for Mega. I won initiative and moved out some rock guardians. He led with Zetacron and rolled 2/2 skulls on Raelin, but she replied with 3/3 shields to only take 1 wound. Then it got worse. The Kravs all took height and finished off Zetacron and Mega's other 2 OMs. The Kravs moved forward and started take out Stingers and Glads in the SZ.
This first round put Megasilver WAY behind. TBR managed to survive some attacks and take out a Krav or two. By the 3rd round though I switched to Guardians who took Valda and backed by Raelin were very hard to take down, especially while holding the high ground. The remaining stingers didn't last too long, and though the gladiatrons made a fine effort, they eventually fell too. Mega's 3 dividers divided 4 freaking times!! but eventually they went down and finally TBR.
I won with Raelin (2), 4 Guardians, 1 Krav, and all the Blasts.
Raelin's survival was key as she survived the 2/2 Zetacron attack, and multiple TBR and glad attacks. The below stats don't show that great defense b/c I did have some 0/8 and 0/7 guardian defenses that bring that stat back down. Thanks for the game Megasilver.
kevindola
Attack rolls: 96 out of 173 (55.49%)
Defense rolls: 42 out of 125 (33.6%)
Total dice rolled: 298
MegaSilver
Attack rolls: 47 out of 82 (57.32%)
Defense rolls: 43 out of 153 (28.1%)
Total dice rolled: 235
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Round 2 vs. Dysole (#2, 4-1)
Map: Bad Moon Rising
My Army: TBR, Stingers x2, Dividersx1, Marro Warriors, Anubians x3 (sit one wolf)
Dysole: Raelin, Granites x3, Warfoged x3
Dysole booted me into the loss column. This was one matchup I thought the diceoff was important, however Dysole won it and took his warforged/raelin pod. I knew I was going to take TBR and the stinger and decided to pair him with the wolves giving Dysole the Granites. I thought the Guardians wouldn't be able to stand much of a chance on my team with losing the high ground every time they were engaged with a Warforged.
Things started off well. I loaded up on the stingers who were on a Raelin hunting mission which they succeeded on. Dysole sent out the Granite Guardians who were able to fend off the stingers and slowly take control of the central area of the map.
I soon brought out Tul-Bak-Ra in an effort to clog down the center. However Tul-Bak show some very sturday defense dice. Dysole was not able to harm him in the early going, which actually was counter to my plans as I had hoped to clog down the middle with summoned dividers.
This led to full control of the center by Granites and some slowly moving in Warforged. I had taken down a couple of Guardians, but I was down to 2 stingers, so I switched to the Anubians.
The Anubians however, rolled pretty fair-poor on their d20. I didn't get the '1', but I was usually rolling only 3 attack, and that just isn't going to cut it against the warforged. Dysole got the better of this exchange although I did start take some more of his figures off of the board.
After I was whittled down to around 4 Anubians, I pulled an attempted crafty move with OM1 on a 4 life TBR and OM2 on dividers, hoping to have them summoned into play. This round was fairly disastrous as Dysole won initiatve and the previously stout TBR as pounded for 4 wounds. Dysole in addition had surrounded TBR and there was no summoning. I lost OM1 and Dividers were badly out of position for OM2.
If the game wasn't already kooky enough, I started Dividing like a madman. I must have hit 6 divides during the course of the game. I didn't have much firepower left, so it was up to the Marro Warriors who actually did a reasonable job picking off (eventually) a couple of warforged and guardians.
Eventually though, my divider screen went down and I would lose another OM hoping for an initiative win with my 2 remaining Wolves. The guardians finished them off, and though it took a long time, Guardians in my startzone and the warforged would finish off my Marro Warriors.
Dysole won with 3 Warforged left, and 3 Granites left.
I really would have liked those high divider d20 rolls to have come with the Anubians, but that isn't how they fell. I have little feel of how the attack dice/defense dice went without doing a long analysis. Warforged resolve skews a lot of these results anyway.
This was a fantastic game to play. There were a lot of tactical decisions to be made on both ends. And yet, in true heroscape fashion, such variance as Anubian rolling, dividing, trying to crack warforged resolve, stinger drain all played huge rolls in determining the flow of the game.
Some interesting Lodin notes (which I held for several turns)
Turned 1 Divider death into a cell divide.
Helped me win an initiative that would have been a draw.
I declined the use of Lodin which would have won me an initiative.
I rolled for stinger drain once with Lodin (first time I've ever rolled for that in a tournament game)
Never helped me get to a different tier with the Anubians though :/
Great game Dysole. Good luck the rest of the way, although if we meet again this tournament I'm hoping to win the diceoff and give you a taste of some of that Warforged Resolve [EDIT 10/7: FORESHADOWING!!!!!!]
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Round 3 vs. jcustar07 (#9, 1-2)
Map: Failed Negotiations
My Army: TBR, Stingers x2, Dividersx1, Frost Giant, Hydra
jcustar: Skahen, Kravs, Nakitas, Granites x3
Jcustar deferred and I took his Monster Mash duo of Hydar/Frosty, he took his agent and my granite guardians leaving me with the Marro Team.
However, this game was the Monster Show, which was highlighted really by insane defensive rolls by both the Hydra and the Frost Giant. I won the crucial initiative (a 20v19) and in my first two turns took down 3 granite guardians with the Hydra. Frosty killed a 4th, while JC couldn’t get a scratch on anyone despite 5 attacks (2 of them heighted against the Hydra)
In Round 2, JC won initaitve and got another 3 heighted attacks on the Hydra, but for naught. The Hydra got back up on high ground and killed the 5th GG. Finally a hit on the Hydra on OM2, from low ground no less. JC took the Unique Attack glyph at this point with GG. My OM2 was on Frosty and he promptly slays the 6th GG who was occupying the glyph. Skahen’s two shots on Frosty are both wide and I send Frosty down to get up close and personal with her, but he is smitten and misses.
I win another important initiative in round 3. Frost giant takes 2 wounds disengaging in order to get to even ground against his love Skahen. He puts 2 wounds on her, but his battle frenzy activates and he kills the Agent. JC loses 2 OMs, and Frosty slays a Krav. Kravs put the 3rd wound on Frosty and my Hydras crunches down the 7th Guardian. (at this point I am rolling 52% defense, with a LOT of dice)
Kravs win Round 4 initiative but only manage 1 more wound on the Giant (4). He kills the 2nd Krav in retaliation. Final Krav misses, and the Frost Giant kills him, but not before taking a 5th wound from disengaging. JC loses a Krav OM, and the Hydra kills the 8th Guardian.
That was basically it. The Nakitas would eventually kill the Frost Giant (Dying Swipe killing one of them), but the Hydra would come in and only take one more wound before whittling the team down to a final Nakita, who Tul-Bak-Ra would teleport in and finish off.
Good game jcustar. He was very sporting about my great defensive rolling which really turns this into a landslide victory. It would have been a much closer game, but I still had my entire marro pod left when the game was over, so more than likely the game still would have swung to me. Here are the numbers:
kevindola
Attack rolls: 57 out of 110 (51.82%)
Defense rolls: 55 out of 113 (48.67%)
Total dice rolled: 223
jcustar07
Attack rolls: 47 out of 79 (59.49%)
Defense rolls: 24 out of 87 (27.59%)
Total dice rolled: 166
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Round 4 vs. greygnarl (#4, 2-2)
Map:Violation
My Army: TBR, Stingers x2, Dividersx1, Rats x2, Syvarris, Mind Flayer
greygnarl: TBR, Black Wyrmling x5, Granites x3
I picked first and took the rats mainly because of the powerful glyphs on this map, although I thought heavily about the TBR/Wyrms even at the risk of having to play a TBR light. Greygnarl took the Wyrms and also the Guardians leaving me with Stingers/TBR.
Round 1
Gnarl won initiative and led with Granties-TBR-Granties (teleporting TBR towards Gerda) I did reavers-Stingers-Stingers and in 4 attacks killed one guardian and 1 wound to TBR.
Round 2
2nd Round and Gnarl loaded up on TBR, while I had all Stingers. I won initiative and had a stinger take Astrid, then took height for two attacks of 5, but both were blocked. TBR teleported into my base and slammed the Mind Flayer for 3 wounds. That was the last of TBR though, as I was able to get 3 heightened attacks and this time the Astrid powered stingers did the remaining 5 wounds. Gnarl lost 2 OMs as I hopped off the lava and sniped a 2nd Guardian.
Round 3
3rd round and I again won initiative. This time using rats to tie up granites, and take Astrid. Granites killed 1 rat, then the Astrid powered stingers went to work again killing another couple of Guardians (4 total), while the guardians worked their way through rats. Grey put his final OM on Wyrms and they were hot, killing two stingers.
Round 4
4th I got lucky and the Astrid rat’s lava roll missed. Grey got the initiative switch and killed another Stinger. Stingers kill 1 Wyrm in retaliation. Another Stinger goes down (4th), and then Syvarris comes out to play killing the 2nd Wyrmling. Grey takes Gerda and acids a rat, but Syvarris kills a 3rd wyrmling.
Round 5
Gerda and Astrid lava both miss. But I win initiative and Syvarris continues to put arrows through both wyrmlings and guardians.
Greygnarl conceded at this point. He had 1 Wyrmling left, and 4 Granites vs. 2 Rats, full health TBR, 1 life MFM, full health Syvarris, 2 stingers, 3 dividers and it was my turn. It was a good game and a fun map, but Astrid and rat protected stingers allowed me to throw up too many attack dice for greygnarl’s troops to handle. Then Syvarris was able to pick up where the stingers left off. Good game!
kevindola
Attack rolls: 59 out of 123 (47.97%)
Defense rolls: 5 out of 27 (18.52%)
Total dice rolled: 150
greygnarl
Attack rolls: 16 out of 28 (57.14%)
Defense rolls: 46 out of 130 (35.38%)
Total dice rolled: 158
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Semi Finals vs. Vegietarian18 (#3, 3-2)
Map:Failed Negotiations
My Army: Granites x3, Armocs x3, Venoc Warlord
Dysole: TBR, Stingers x2, Dividers x1, Mohicans x3, Brave Arrow
Quote:
Originally Posted by vegietarian18
kevindola and I played the semifinal today. I took Mohicans, he took Vipers and Granites, leaving me with marro. I put TBR and 3 Dividers out for negotiations, and kevin put 4 granites. I gambled on winning the opening initiative and killing a couple Granites, but I lost it. Miraculously though, I blocked all three attacks. The Dividers killed one Granite, but they quickly died after that. My next order markers were on TBR, which turned out to be a huge mistake. I bounced him around, trying to get height shots on granites, but I ended up just not killing much at all and not drawing much fire either. When I finally stopped wasting turns with the Overlord, I put him in a horrible spot, one space away from a critical chokepoint I could have blocked. After that, the Granites were able to pound my Mohicans and Stingers with rocks, and I was in some big trouble. I got an initiative switch and was able to finish off all but one Granite with the Mohicans, but the Armocs were easily able to mop up the rest. kevin gets to try again against Dysole in the championship.
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I would add that the granite guardians were able to make their way through the water way on this map with GHG. That, in conjunction with Vegie’s comment about the misplacement of TBR from a crucial chokepoint through the road, allowed me to ignore TBR and get guardians quickly above his SZ. I also had some strong rolling which allowed me to pound stingers and mohicans in his base. As he mentioned, the Guardians did too much damage before being eliminated. Vipers cleaned up stragglers.
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Championship vs. Dysole (#2, 4-1)
Map:Bad Moon Rising
My Army: Raelin, Warforged x3, Marro Warriors, Anubians x3 (sit one wolf)
Dysole: TBR, Stingers x2, Dividers x1, Granites x3
I played another fun, intense game with Dysole in the Finals of the Pod Draft tournament.
The matchups with Dysole and my round 1 game against Megasilver were the games I considered getting the first pick of utmost importance in the matchup. Not coincidentally, both sets of pods were using Raelin and I think she sways any matchup to the team that has her. (Unless it the pod creator is very careful and clever in making the opposing pod, and depending on who they match up with her). I lost the diceoff against Megasilver, but he deferred so I took his Raelin/Krav/Blastatron pod. In my first matchup with Dysole won the diceoff and took Raelin (although that is not why he won, b/c Raelin was dead in round 1 in that game). I did win the diceoff for the Championship game though, and I don’t feel the anubian wolves are better than the warforged, nor the prescence of the Marro Warriors enough to offset Raelin with the WF, so I took Rae and her tin can buddies. Dysole took both of my pods leaving me with his other one (I get Wolves/MW anyway!) First time we played, the granite guardians were stellar on this map, however they played with the WF in that game, and playing against them and their tactical switch is a huge difference in the matchup.
On to the game. I put an order marker on Raelin to move her up, but after that the next 4-5 rounds were all warforged soldier. Dysole rolled up some granite guardians and positioned Tul-Bak-Ra. The warforged though slowly ground down the majority of Dysole’s army and the 4-5 defense of the warforged on this map made it very tough to get a kill.
Dysole played Tul-Bak-Ra expertly, using him to teleport dividers in expertly. That was my intent when creating that particular pod, to use teleport to clog down the opposition with Divider summoning. He was able to get TBR and a divider into the central area engaged with Raelin (who TBR put 3 wounds on) and some warforged, using them to protect the granites and stingers he was bringing up. However, I did manage to find my way around his screen to kill a few Stingers and Guardians. Raelin went down following a successful +1 drain, however Dysole would drain a total of 4 times, and twice it would utterly backfire.
The Warforged were still difficult to bring down with the shadow and constant height on this map after Raelin went down. By the time the last warforged would go down, TBR-5 Stingers-1Dividers-5Granite Guardians had been killed.
The Anubians cleaned up the rest of the guardians after claiming Lodin.
I avenged my earlier loss to Dysole to get the tournament win. I had 6 Anubian Wolves, and the unused Marro Warriors still remaining.
Thanks for setting up the tournament Vegie. It was one that I really enjoyed. Balancing the pods is a very thought provoking task and I enjoyed seeing what everyone came up with. (just no more Raelins next time :P )