Online Heroscape Season 38 - Multi Draft CONGRATS DYSOLE!

[Dysole]

I streamed the game on twitch so it'll be visible for a bit. (Although it does look like maybe I can transfer it over to youtube) I'm still working out all of my glitches and my setup so I do apologize for that. Hopefully it'll be better for future videos since I think I'm going to do this as long as I get my opponent's permission beforehand.

Going into this draft when I got the opening pick, I knew Raelin was the right opening choice as everything in our pools liked to work with her. I wasn't sure what Chris would respond with since there felt like a lot of draft and counter draft options. Given that it was control points, I felt Cal would allow someone to have a real good shot at an easy first round point. But also there was so little range in the pool. This made Warriors of Ashra a really tempting option. Mobility was also going to be key which meant PKs and rats were also potentially very valuable options.

Chris took dwarves x2 which was a solid pick since 4 figures at 6 move is nothing to scoff at. At this point I felt rats took up fewer points and allowed me more spaces plus Rats + Raelin is always nasty. But I definitely kept an eye on those Ashra. Part of me hoped Chris would take Repulsors as they very much felt like a trap here. Because then I would have just taken PKs and gone to town. But he instead went with Brunak and X17. His setup very much made it look like he was going to go for the center spot with those two.

The big Brunak counter was taken previously with dwarves. Chris had 150 left which looked perfect for 2 squads of PKs and filler. I thought there was a chance he grabbed Ashra since I wouldn't have any good ways to take out all of them. All told I figured this was my chance to claim the squad I wanted. And I wanted Ashra. Brunak having to be the best tech against both Ashra and rats would mean he would probably struggle to do so since he could only be in one place and Blood Hungry would need to be especially hot. So I went with Cal (who also allowed me to hit X17 if need be) and a squad of Ashra. He went PKs x2 as expected.

At this point I was debating between Hoplitrons and Executioner (which I discarded somewhat because of dwarves being such a good counter that it probably wouldn't be worth it) and Ashra and good heroes. Unfortunately I could only take 2 heroes if I took Ashra. I contemplated NGS and Crixus but their tool set wasn't really that great for this matchup. Avernus had a really good chance of screwing up my defensive pod plus he had dwarves. Everything else meant I would have to drop a hero or play short. So I decided to hate draft Isamu and sit him and a squad of Ashra. It probably wouldn't mean much to force him to take Bol but I'd rather not lose the game to Isamu shenanigans.

After he took Bol I figured TheraShuttle © + Kreeloy Jenkins/Mogrimm was my best bet allowing me to use Theracus to shuttle Raelin, my hero or one of the squaddies as the game needs dictated. I then shuffled back and forth on Kreeloy or Mogrimm. Kreeloy had Cleave and a ranged attack which could be super helpful plus could be an absolute tank no matter where he sat. I ran some math though and found that Mogrimm would last through more attacks as long as Brunak never attacked him. Being able to get +3 to initiative as needed would be super useful here. Given that Ashra and rats were likely to be clogging down people Commander's Strike while being less likely was likely to give me a lot more of my needed flexibility so I went with him to finish off the draft.

Early game he led PKs and I led Raelin (parking her on the hill) and rats. I was able to claim a control point at the end of the first round due to having more board flexibility with rats than he did with PKS. 1-0

I then brought up some Ashra after that (killing a PK) while Brunak and X17 set up a roadblock. Brunak killed two rats and X17 stopped a third in its tracks. I moved rats to protect the control points (I should have placed one on the control point so Chris didn't move onto it and kill the rat; he didn't do either so this worked out). He was still able to get one. 1-1

Cal was able to teleport onto the hill and I left him up there as a distraction and it worked with Chris coming up to try and kill him and Raelin with PKs. They then went to the far end of the board to attack the rat on the other control point allowing me to reclaim this one with rats on my 3rd OM (I placed OM 3 on rats a lot more than I ever have in my life this game). 2-1

The next round the PKs moved to attack some Ashra and then the TheraShuttle and Mogrimm in my start zone allowing me to fortify one of my control points and set up my Ashra so that no matter what Brunak did he would have to give me a second control point. Had the Ashra survived his attack I would've YOLO disengaged and gone for the win right there. 4-1

At this point he needed everything to go right for him. I moved Raelin to fortify the my one control point which now meant to get height on the rat you had to either go through all of Raelin's life or get through a 5 defense Ashra. To get adjacent required you to go through water. I had my rats flitting around the board to cover all the needed spots and I actually almost gave it back to him by moving a rat to block off the water spot. I should have waited until the dwarf moved there on OM 2 and then moved the rat in front on my 3rd OM rather than my 2nd. If I do that he can't engage my rat on the control point except by hacking through the Raelin Ashra set up. As it was though, the rat defended with 7 dice and Chris conceded since he had no way to get that control point with his last OM.

~Dysole, who enjoyed this game a lot