2020 C3V Playtest Tournament - (Congrats vegietarian18)

[Captain Stupendous]

@Knight of Scape and I are going to be playing at 8 PM EST tonight.

[Cuzmo_of_Gilead]

Not too much to report from my quarterfinal game with dok. As he mentioned earlier, Nilfheim completely destroyed me. I moved my Romans and MBS first but could not get any good attacks in on Nilfheim or his greenscales. My romans were picked off easily as Nilfheim dominated a portion of the map. I brought in Axentia to try and salvage the game, and maybe take out Nilfheim, but that was also unsuccessful as Axentia did not have a good showing this game. Dok did not need Motley Max and finished me off with greenscales as I lost a turn with Marcu from eternal hatred at the end.

New Units:
Axentia - immolation was 4/8, taking out two greenscales and taking two wounds onto herself. The new Pheonix Rising hurt me as I had two greenscales in range, one adjacent, but I missed on both. I had one good attack on Nilfheim with three skulls but it was blocked with three shields. I may have not used Axentia to the best of her ability, and by the time I put OMs on her, it was too late anyway. Overall, Axentia is a really fun unit, and as I have seen she can burn your opponent pretty good but also burn you too. The new life seems fine, and I am not sure about the Pheonix Rising power. Originally I thought it was too powerful, but it might be better the original way.

Thanks to the organizers of the tournament. Though I ended on a tough loss, the games were fun overall and it was great trying out new units. I look forward to another opportunity to do the same.

[vegietarian18]

Well, a game of Heroscape was played and won due to the powers on some cards. I advanced to the playtest semifinals with a win over Sir Heroscape. Not the prettiest win but I will take it.

vegietarian18: Children of the Dark Star x5, Agga-Zemir, Marro Warriors
Sir Heroscape: Amberhive Protects x4, Amberhive Queen, Raelin, Kaemon Awa

Sir H opened with Raelin backed Kaemon launching pings at Children which was brutal. I had no response. Marro Warriors shooting up into Kaemon felt futile so I just rolled out Children and took the losses on the ones Kaemon killed hoping to eventually stage a counter-offensive. I overextended Agga with my Spreading Doom turns and he took two wounds from a Kaemon ping. Eventually I made a play for Raelin, and got two attacks on her, but only managed one wound and then the Bees emerged and destroyed the Children. They were heavily relying on the Sting, and killing a ton of Children with, but they were dying in the trade.

Had a couple of rules controversies in the midgame. First the weirdly colored Treasure Glyph looked to my eyes like a Castle Pillar and I completely neglected to take it with Agga, but Sir H graciously let me at least move a Child on to the glyph to block a Bee from stepping on that spot and getting next to Agga. Then Agga died to a Bee sting horde and we had to look up the rules for the Outsider activation bonus; they do NOT get it once the Outsider dies. Not sure I fully agree with that since the OMs are still "on his card" but if it worked that way they could put the X on a dead Agga for 4 activations per turn so it made sense. Anyway, I lost a turn on Agga and the Bees took control of the game, wiping out my horde of advanced Children but also self-wiping. There only about 2 Bees (or not 2 bees) left when I rolled out the Marro Warriors.

And then it was Marro Warrior time and there's not much to say about it besides that. There was a Raelin backed Kaemon with full health, but he just lost the duel to them. I was hot on water clones and Kaemon was cold on shields especially against the big 2/2s. I was mostly shooting up, occasionally even, but around the 8 or 9th Marro Warriors brought down Kaemon and then it was just the Queen and Raelin neither of whom could seriously threaten the Marro Warriors so Sir H conceded.

Agga-Zemir: Went down without doing anything. Failed a Spreading Madness, lost me an OM. The Outsider army is really hard to use right, you really want the 5 attacks per turn but you also don't want to throw away your 3rd OM. I definitely played him too aggressively but there was the Kaemon threat and I was seriously considering having him duel Kaemon. He just died before he could do that.

Amberhive Protectors: Had a solid game this time. They brought down Agga and a ton of Children with their Sting. Ultimately though I think they are still pretty bad. With the way the game went, Sir H should have had a massive lead, but that lead was much smaller since so many of the Bees killed themselves to get it.

Amberhive Queen: She was kind of just there. She got in the way during the Kaemon Marro Warriors duel but other than that I don't think she does much. Playing against her I didn't really worry about her Frenzy aura.

At the end of the day though this game was just Raelin + Kaemon vs. Marro Warriors, and Marro Warriors won.

[Sir Heroscape]

Copying the game recap from Vegi

vegietarian18: Children of the Dark Star x5, Agga-Zemir, Marro Warriors
Sir Heroscape: Amberhive Protects x4, Amberhive Queen, Raelin, Kaemon Awa

Sir H opened with Raelin backed Kaemon launching pings at Children which was brutal. I had no response. Marro Warriors shooting up into Kaemon felt futile so I just rolled out Children and took the losses on the ones Kaemon killed hoping to eventually stage a counter-offensive. I overextended Agga with my Spreading Doom turns and he took two wounds from a Kaemon ping. Eventually I made a play for Raelin, and got two attacks on her, but only managed one wound and then the Bees emerged and destroyed the Children. They were heavily relying on the Sting, and killing a ton of Children with, but they were dying in the trade.

Had a couple of rules controversies in the midgame. First the weirdly colored Treasure Glyph looked to my eyes like a Castle Pillar and I completely neglected to take it with Agga, but Sir H graciously let me at least move a Child on to the glyph to block a Bee from stepping on that spot and getting next to Agga. Then Agga died to a Bee sting horde and we had to look up the rules for the Outsider activation bonus; they do NOT get it once the Outsider dies. Not sure I fully agree with that since the OMs are still "on his card" but if it worked that way they could put the X on a dead Agga for 4 activations per turn so it made sense. Anyway, I lost a turn on Agga and the Bees took control of the game, wiping out my horde of advanced Children but also self-wiping. There only about 2 Bees (or not 2 bees) left when I rolled out the Marro Warriors.

And then it was Marro Warrior time and there's not much to say about it besides that. There was a Raelin backed Kaemon with full health, but he just lost the duel to them. I was hot on water clones and Kaemon was cold on shields especially against the big 2/2s. I was mostly shooting up, occasionally even, but around the 8 or 9th Marro Warriors brought down Kaemon and then it was just the Queen and Raelin neither of whom could seriously threaten the Marro Warriors so Sir H conceded.

Survived: 4 MW's, 2 Child vs 1L Queen, 2L Raelin (conceded)

The Queen only rolled for the Frenzy 1 time and was successful and the additional attack (it was a frenzied SA) DID get a kill. She got 1 kill on a Child during the game and was able to have Surge activated 1 time in which case it actually did win me an important initiative roll. As Vegi mentioned, she was mostly just there to provide the "aura" for the SA to activate, but other than that she wasn't doing much.

Overall, I think the Queen's impact is somewhat minimal. I mean, the presence she provides to activate the SA on the bees is essential, but that's the power on the bees card. The Queen just didn't have a lot to do this game.

[Knight of Scape]

I fell a little behind on these, due to the start of school being busier than expected, but here are my battle reports for rounds 4 and 5.

Round 4:

Spoiler Alert!

Map: Wyrmwalk

KoS army: Goblin Slashers x4, Bugbear Basher x4, Raelin (RotV)
flameslayer army: Teeth of the Makwa x5, Makwa Tribesman x1, Raelin (RotV), Kira Jax

Note, this game was played with not original versions of the units, not the new balance changes.

Which units survived?
flameslayer resigned when I had 12 slashers, 3 unwounded bashers, and a 1 life Raelin against 3 Teeth, Kira, and Tribesman.


General Battle Report/Flow of game (be as detailed or general as you like)

This battle was kind of a slaughter. Flameslayer deployed his Raelin fairly aggressively, and she ended up going down very quickly to goblins. Meanwhile, I put my Raelin further back, on level 4 height, and was able to screen for her fairly well with goblins, particularly since they were killing Teeth almost as fast as they made it out of the start zone.

Goblin strategic retreat meant that I could kind of treat Raelin's aura as extending an extra 4 spaces, because I could repeatedly run goblins out of Raelin's aura to attack stuff, and then retreat them back into the aura to have extra defense on flameslayer's turn.

Flameslayer tried to focus down the bugbears to reduce my goblins attack power, but with 6 defense and sometimes height they did not go down easily at all. He did eventually kill one of them, but by then I had another one ready on the front lines. Eventually I brought up a third bugbear so that the bugbears could boost each other and even potentially give +2 attack to lucky goblins.

How useful were playtesting units' powers and how often did they come into play?
The Makwa tribesman took three turns and only got to make a second attack on one of them (there was one point where if flameslayer won initiative he would have been able to get two attacks on Raelin with the Tribesman, but since I won I killed all his nearby Teeth and retreated to a position where the Tribesman could only get one attack). I believe that he only ever got to roll for shield of the great bear once, and it did not succeed.

Goblin strategic retreat was incredibly useful. I used it almost every turn, often retreating the full four units. As I mentioned above, it let me keep Raelin back in a defensible position while still controlling pretty much the whole map with my goblins.

The bugbear's goblin attack aura was pretty useful, since it forced the Teeth to either awkwardly limit their movements or face goblins with boosted attack. Expendable rabble never seemed worth it, since I had so many bugbears, and bash only came into play once for killing Raelin, since it was generally more worthwhile to develop a bugbear.

Final Thoughts:

Overall the goblins and the bugbears seemed brokenly good, so I'm glad they were nerfed (and honestly they might need an even bigger nerf).

Round 5:

Spoiler Alert!

Map: Drider

KoS army: Teeth of the Makwa x5, Makwa Tribesman x1, Raelin (RotV), Kira Jax
Captain Stupendous army: 12th Cacusus Rifles x3, Cathar Spearmen x2, Motley Max, Guilty McCreech

This game was played incorporating the new balance changes to the Tribesman and Motley Max.


Which units survived?
Tribesman, Kira Jax, and 10 Teeth


General Battle Report/Flow of game (be as detailed or general as you like)

With the nerf to the Tribesman, I led out with Kira Jax instead, since she now has more offensive power until a screen of Teeth is established. As usual with this army, the first round was spent developing Teeth via Hunt and moving Raelin into position. After that it was almost every OM on Teeth, although I eventually activated the Tribesman when my Teeth numbers were starting to wear thin and I needed to develop some more.

Captain Stupendous led out with a screen of Cathar and followed it up with the 12th. He was able to get several gas grenades hitting three figures, but thanks to Raelin's aura, not too much damage was done, and the Teeth were fairly effective at killing the 12th as they developed, while also sniping some of the Cathar.

When the supply of 12th was drying up, Max came out, and pulled Raelin off of the height three perch she had been sitting on all game, and into engagement with himself and a Cathar. This led to Raelin being taken out a couple turns later. Unfortunately, Max had to put himself on low ground to get the Raelin grab, so he fairly quickly fell to height boosted attacks from Teeth. The remaining Cathar and 12th tried to do what they could, but even without Raelin, the consistent 3 attacks of 3 from the Teeth was able to overcome the squads diminished numbers.

How useful were playtesting units' powers and how often did they come into play?

The Tribesman's powers were almost completely irrelevant. He was only activated once, and this was primarily to activate Hunting Party. He never got attacked so he never used Shield of the Great Bear.

I'm not really a fan of the change from 3 attack to 2. This makes his offense really weak, and prevents him from having an interesting niche over the cheap scouts in a Teeth army. Kira is generally going to give you better offense for less points, especially in the early game, and for 40 points, I'd rather have Theracus who can carry an extra Tooth up with him and has about the same survivability with more mobility.

The 3 attack version also gives a bit more OM tension, since the offense of the Tribesman becomes not too much worse than that of the Teeth, particularly if he has height, so it can be worthwhile to consider putting an OM on him, even when you don't desperately need to activate Hunting Party.

Personally, I'd rather see a cost increase than an attack nerf. At 45 or 50 points, you have an interesting trade-off between the Tribesman's better offense and Brave Arrow's better survivability and mobility. If he can be balanced at 60 (which might require another slight buff like tweaking the Great Bear roll), it would give the Teeth more army building flexibility, since they would have Scout/Tribesmen at everywhere from 30-60 points.

Motley Max had one failed chain grab on a Tooth as he was coming out, and then two successful chain grabs, pulling Raelin and Kira next to him. After that he was completely surrounded, so there weren't more opportunities to pull. Engagement strike is less useful against a ranged army, so Motley only got to use it against the two heroes he pulled, and he failed both times. Max was still very key for being the only one in Captain Stupendous' army who could effectively get at Raelin past the screen of Makwa, and I think that if Max had deployed earlier, the tide of the battle could have been quite different.

[kevindola]

Congratulations to the final four. They all love them some Ranjit Singh


Optional Figure Modifications for Playoffs

If you and your opponent BOTH agree to play with these change, please do so to maximize output. Completely at both players discretion.

Spoiler Alert!

• Amberhive Queen’s Frenzied Swarm may be used for both normal and special attacks
  
  Spoiler Alert!

  After a Common Insect you control within 4 spaces of the Amberhive Queen attacks with a normal attack, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 14 or higher, you may attack again with a normal attack with that Common Insect.
• Amberhive Queen is now a double spaced figure
• Change Makwa Tribesman Attack =2
• Change Axentia to Life = 6
• Axentia new Phoenix Rising Power
  
  Spoiler Alert!

  
  When Axentia would be destroyed, do not destroy Axentia. If it is Axentia's turn, her turn ends immediately. Before the next Order Marker is revealed by any player, remove all wound markers from this Army Card and roll the 20-sided die for all figures within 2 clear sight spaces of Axentia, one at a time. If you roll a 7 or higher, the figure receives a wound. After using Phoenix Rising, negate all powers on this card except Flying for the rest of the game.

The Semifinals are on Battlefield 23 (Holdir, Dagmar, TG x2).

The Knight of Scape (5-0) v. vegietarian18 (4-1) pool of armies is:

* Rainbow Alliance: Ranjit Singh, Syvarris, Krav Maga Agents, Zetacron, Marro Warriors, Siiv, Isamu
* Makwa Hunting Party: Teeth of the Makwa x5, Makwa Tribesman x1, Raelin (RotV), Kira Jax
* Two Rs Make A Unique Squad Based Army: Ranjit Singh, Rygarn, B-11 Resistance Fighters, Izumi Samurai, Marro Warriors, Tarn Viking Warriors
* Kaemon Raelin Bugs: Amberhive Protectors x4, Amberhive Queen, Kaemon Awa, Raelin (RotV)

vegietarian18 chooses which army to play first or may defer. After armies are picked, Knight of Scape chooses who places first.

The AgentWard (4-1) v. dok (4-1) pool of armies is:

* The Outsiders Strike Back: Children of the Dark Star x3, Z'Thoth Mouth of the Abyss, Agga-Zemir, Eldgrim
* Agressive Negotiation: deathknights of Valkrill x2, Ranjit Singh, Boreos, Krav Maga Agents, Marcu Esenwein
* Majaratpodge: deathreavers x3, Ranjit Singh, Syvarris, Rygarn, Marro Warriors
* A Burning Sensation: Xualtiaca Fire Ants x5, Axentia, Siiv

dok chooses which army to play first or may defer. After armies are picked, AgentWard chooses who places first.

[AgentWard]

Got the win against Infectedsloth in Quaterfinal

Map: Drider(Lodin, Dagmar, Treasure x1)

Infectedsloth's army:Red Ants of Aunstrom x5, Amberhive Queen, Axentia
My army: Knights of Weston x3, Sir Gilbert, Z'Thoth Mouth of the Abyss, Makwa Tribesman x1

This game was played incorporating the new balance changes to the Tribesman, Axentia and the Queen.


Which units survived?
Tribesman, 5 KoW, Z'Thoth and Sir Gilbert.


General Battle Report/Flow of game (be as detailed or general as you like)

Infectesdsloth start the game with Axentia, I go for KoW to stop her before she's able to reach to much of my unit. With the help of Sir Gilbert I'm able to attack her 4 times the first turn.
With Immolation she killed 3 KoW and the last one with normal attack. The 2nd wave of KoW let her to 1 live. She immolates herself, dying and losing her turn and dealing 0 wounds on Phenix Rising.
My last turn consist to take Dagmar and dealing more wounds on Axentia.

The second round I start by killing Axentia.
Infectedsloth start with the Queen who is quickly encerled by KoW. She die in 2 or 3 turns whithout real impact on the game. 2 or perhaps 3 ants were able to use frenzy 14.

We play then more turns ants vs KoW but ants had no luck to do anything vs them

How useful were playtesting units' powers and how often did they come into play?

It's hard to speak about Amberhative Queen or Tribesman but I really appreciate the change of double space for the Queen.

Now let's talk a bit about Axentia:
I love the figure, the first version was okay I found for me, not too strong, not too weak, in some match-up really stronger than in some other but rarely useless for her points.

The new version makes me feel her more like an all-or-nothing figure. Against some armies (ranged) she will rarely be worth her points. Against good match-up like KoW there is still these gambble powers which could make her one more time useless. In this game she had a good turn of immolation cause I put 4 men adjacents. But with PR she did nothing while the previous version would have killed one more wave of KoW.
I wasn't affraid to put more figurine adjaent in this version.

[flameslayer93]

From my game with KoS in round 4, I can agree that the goblins/bugbear combo is just too good for the points. A cheap spammable here's is just something the other bonding melee factions don't get, and even with low stats, the boosts from the Bugbear and retreating into cheerleader auras is just too potent.

The Makwa Archer was pretty much useless, although I did try some fun tricks by moving large hordes of Makwas with it. Double Attack with a twist doesn't feel right here, though I'm not sure what will.

GG Knight of Scape.

Also, sorry about the late remarks about the game, a lot happening in RL.

[vegietarian18]

Knight of Scape and I will be playing our playtest playoff semifinal match, first of our playoff doubleheader at 7:30 Central tomorrow. I have the Teeth of the Makwa and he has his Ranjit build.

[vegietarian18]

I got the win and advanced to the Playtest Playoff Finals. Like my other games with Ranjit this event, Ranjit did not win. KoS made some good plays to threaten me early with his long range and high damage, but once my Teeth got into the fight it was over. Ranjit telegraphs the order markers so much by taking away the X and not allowing you to put them on the same figure, so you can just blow Ranjit armies out of the water if you start to get a lead on them. Round 2 I won initiative and the Teeth ran in. They killed Zetacron and 2 Marro Warriors, KoS lost turn on Zetacron, killed two Marro Warriors, KoS lost turn on Marro Warriors, killed two Krav, and KoS finally got to take a turn with his last Krav, who was already engaged. It was brutal. The game was basically over at that point.

Makwa Tribesman- Never used him and had no plans to use him. I used Kira Jax to carry out the Makwa, and she was great at it. Unfortunately with the direction this guy has taken I can't see any reason he'd merit a spot in Makwa armies over Kira Jax or Zetacron or any other Scout you can play. Why would you ever take a turn with a solo hero that can attack twice if your Makwa are close? I'd rather just go with those close Makwa and take three attacks. This is a maybe too negative of a review of him, the design is fine. My point is he will not be worth the points in a Makwa build. He seems nice with Mohicans though, having a ranged Tribesman is good.

Ranjit- The more I play against him the more I think he needs to be reworked. I have never had this fast of a 180 on a Heroscape figure from thinking he could be potentially broken to thinking he's terrible but that's how I feel about Ranjit. The OMs are so telegraphed and your figures are sitting ducks. You basically run out all these uniques at your opponent and then they all fall asleep and die. At first I was thinking he could just be released and not be great, but I think there's something cool here if it's worked for.

[kevindola]

Congrats to our two finalsist. This is a rematch from last year's semifinals:

The Finals are on Belly of the Beast (Wannok, Dagmar).

The vegietarian18 (5-1) v. dok (5-1) pool of armies is:

* Two Rs Make A Unique Squad Based Army: Ranjit Singh, Rygarn, B-11 Resistance Fighters, Izumi Samurai, Marro Warriors, Tarn Viking Warriors
* Kaemon Raelin Bugs: Amberhive Protectors x4, Amberhive Queen, Kaemon Awa, Raelin (RotV)
* Majaratpodge: deathreavers x3, Ranjit Singh, Syvarris, Rygarn, Marro Warriors
* A Burning Sensation: Xualtiaca Fire Ants x5, Axentia, Siiv

dok chooses which army to play first or may defer. After armies are picked, vegietarian18 chooses who places first.

[Sir Heroscape]

Originally Posted by kevindola

Congrats to our two finalsist. This is a rematch from last year's semifinals:

The Finals are on Belly of the Beast (Wannok, Dagmar).

The vegietarian18 (5-1) v. dok (5-1) pool of armies is:

* Two Rs Make A Unique Squad Based Army: Ranjit Singh, Rygarn, B-11 Resistance Fighters, Izumi Samurai, Marro Warriors, Tarn Viking Warriors
* Kaemon Raelin Bugs: Amberhive Protectors x4, Amberhive Queen, Kaemon Awa, Raelin (RotV)
* Majaratpodge: deathreavers x3, Ranjit Singh, Syvarris, Rygarn, Marro Warriors
* A Burning Sensation: Xualtiaca Fire Ants x5, Axentia, Siiv

dok chooses which army to play first or may defer. After armies are picked, vegietarian18 chooses who places first.

Do we know when this is happening? I'd like to watch.