OHS Season 37 - CONGRATS CHRIS PERKINS!

[Chris Perkins]

The chris perkins (3-1) v. cuzmo_of_gilead (3-1) pool of armies is:

* Marcu Esenwein, Theracus, Frost Giant of Morh [4]
* Kozuke Samurai, Sir Denrick
* Major X17, Ne-Gok-Sa
* Iron Golem, Mind Flayer Mastermind
* Capt. John Varan, Marcu Esenwein, 8th Infantry Pathfinderx3
* Drow Chainfighter, Fyorlag Spidersx2, Wyvern [2]
* Gen. Simon Fraser, Me-Burq-Sa, Roman Legionnairesx2 [3]
* Beakface Sneaksx2, Marro Stingersx2 [1]

chris perkins chooses to pick first or second. After armies are picked, cuzmo_of_gilead chooses who places first.

Playing tomorrow (Thursday, 9/17) @ 5 pm EST.
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Edit: I got the win over Cuzmo to advance to semis.

Round 1, I went all spiders & Cuzmo went Theracus/Theracus/Frosty. I rolled spiders up slowly, grabbing valda on OM2 (which I held the rest of the game) while Wyvern met Theracus in the middle for battle. Theracus took low ground to get a treasure glyph (searing intensity), which let my Wyvern get height behind the big glacier in the center for a pair of 5 v 4 attacks on Theracus. Combined with 1 3 attack from a spider down on Theracus, I took out Theracus in round 1 while Theracus missed his only attack up at my Wyvern. Cuzmo's Frosty then moved up on the 2 height to posture for later while I continued rolling spiders up.

Round 2, backed by Valda my Wyvern flew over Frosty and engaged stingers in Cuzmo's SZ, killing one. I brought 2 spiders up to engage other stingers in the SZ (9 move spiders are fast), but both attacks missed. I rolled another spider up, preparing for the next turn. Cuzmo had OM1 on Stingers, decided to drain, and hit it with an 11. The stingers killed my Wyvern in 1 turn. I got 3 attacks with spiders on my next turn, killing another stinger. The stingers then killed only 1 spider on their OM2. My spiders then took out another stinger and one engaged frosty. Cuzmo had OM3 on Frosty, who killed the adjacent spider.

Round 3, I had OM 1 & 2 on spiders with 3 on Romans. I won init (which I did every round but 1, without even needing Fraser's boost) and killed another stinger and put 1 wound on Frosty. Stingers then killed another spider, and my spiders killed a beakface before Cuzmo's last 2 stingers killed all spiders but the one on valda. I advanced Romans into the middle while Frosty moved up to grab the searing intensity T-glyph.

Round 4, I won init and got MBS onto a heighted spot where Frosty couldn't get to MBS. I moved up 3 Romans to engage Frosty and screen for MBS; combined attacks did 3 wounds to Frosty. Frosty missed both searing intensities, but killed one roman. MBS then hit a 4/4 to finish Frosty, who whiffed on dying swipe. I spent the rest of the round rolling my Romans up onto height.

Round 5, I won init, MBS hit a paralyzing stare and killed 1 stinger while 4 romans moved into Cuzmo's SZ, locking everything down and killing a beakface. Cuzmo then tried to drain with the last stinger, hitting a 1 for the self-destruction, and conceded with 2 sneaks and marcu left. I had MBS, 7 Romans, Fraser, Chainfighter, & 1 spider left.

gg Cuzmo

[vegietarian18]

Originally Posted by Knight of Scape

This match is going down tonight. We're playing our playoff match for the playtesting tournament at 7:30 CDT, and we'll play this one after that one finishes.

~KoS, providing you with quality Heroscape entertainment all night long

Starting now.

EDIT: I got the win, riding the Warriors of Ashra 100% of the way. My very first turn was Marutuk, advancing him out to the center of the board, and from there it was straight Ashra. They quickly took Wannok once Nilfheim moved to the opposite end of the board, to threaten to kill 1/14th of KoS's army every round. Heracles came on a 12 space Labors dash in and smashed Marutuk for 5 wounds to end the first round. Heracles turned around the next round and only got 1 wound on Marutuk with a double Labors attack, and failed his throw on the Ashra twice. My Ashra got blocked by stout shields on my first two volleys against Nilfheim and Heracles, but after those first two turns they fell apart. I killed Nilfheim and Heracles on consecutive turns after some pretty bad shield rolls. Marutuk had gone down, but most of the Ashra remained. While Marutuk never swung her sword, she threatened Nilfheim from attacking the Ashra too deeply, and that was huge. Good game KoS.

[Dysole]

The Semifinals are on Volcarren Paradise.

The kevindola (4-0) v. vegietarian18 (4-1) pool of armies is:

* Bol, Major X17, Blastatrons, Hoplitron
* Gurei-Oni, Marro Gnidsx2
* Sharwin Wildborn, Feral Troll
* Arrow Grutsx3, Ice Troll Berserker
* Bol, Crypt Guardianx2, Drow Chainfighterx3
* Ana Karithon, Haduc
* Arkmer, Warriors of Ashrax3
* Darrak Ambershard, Nottingham Brigandx4

vegietarian18 chooses to pick first or second. After armies are picked, kevindola chooses who places first.

The chris perkins (4-1) v. superfrog (4-1) pool of armies is:

* Marcu Esenwein, Theracus, Frost Giant of Morh
* Kozuke Samurai, Sir Denrick
* Major X17, Ne-Gok-Sa
* Iron Golem, Mind Flayer Mastermind
* Gen. Simon Fraser, Kursus, Marro Gnidsx2
* Josie Whistlestop, Tomb Skeletonsx3
* Clawfoot Interceptorx2, Red Ants of Aunstromx2
* Beakface Sneaksx3, Tombstone Gunslingerx4

superfrog chooses to pick first or second. After armies are picked, chris perkins chooses who places first.

~Dysole, almost wrapped this up

[Chris Perkins]

The chris perkins (4-1) v. superfrog (4-1) pool of armies is:

* Marcu Esenwein, Theracus, Frost Giant of Morh
* Kozuke Samurai, Sir Denrick
* Major X17, Ne-Gok-Sa
* Iron Golem, Mind Flayer Mastermind
* Gen. Simon Fraser, Kursus, Marro Gnidsx2 [2]
* Josie Whistlestop, Tomb Skeletonsx3 [1]
* Clawfoot Interceptorx2, Red Ants of Aunstromx2 [3]
* Beakface Sneaksx3, Tombstone Gunslingerx4 [4]

superfrog chooses to pick first or second. After armies are picked, chris perkins chooses who places first.

Playing Monday @ 6 pm EST.

[vegietarian18]

The kevindola (4-0) v. vegietarian18 (4-1) pool of armies is:

* Bol, Major X17, Blastatrons, Hoplitron
4 Gurei-Oni, Marro Gnidsx2
* Sharwin Wildborn, Feral Troll
3 Arrow Grutsx3, Ice Troll Berserker
1 Bol, Crypt Guardianx2, Drow Chainfighterx3
* Ana Karithon, Haduc
2 Arkmer, Warriors of Ashrax3
* Darrak Ambershard, Nottingham Brigandx4

vegietarian18 chooses to pick first or second. After armies are picked, kevindola chooses who places first.

Two of kevindola's pods will be in play in our all Peoria semifinal game. Working on scheduling now, will probably be a week night in the next five days.

[Chris Perkins]

I got the win over superfrog from a combination of having a ranged threat and superfrog's 5 attack rolls (Kursus + Interceptors) only hitting 2/5 skulls.

Round 1 I developed sneaks as a screen while superfrog rushed Kursus. I was able to get 2 wounds on Kursus with a lucky attack and was able to use sneaks to limit superfrog to only 1 valid spot to use Kursus' SA, which required disengaging to get to. I missed the disengage, and Kursus rolled a 2/5 into 4 figures - 2 skeletons died but 1 skeleton and a gunslinger both blocked 2/2. I then finished Kursus off to end round 1.

Round 2 saw superfrog switch to gnids while I pulled back my sneak screen to my SZ and sent 1 sneak to slow down the gnids. Gnids ended up getting split into 2 groups - 1 squad that hit my SZ and another left in superfrog's SZ because my gunslingers forced the gnids to move faster than they wanted to. The forward deployed gnids killed 1 gunslinger and a few squad figures, but died pretty quickly to a combination of gunslinger and skeleton offense. The 2nd squad of gnids never became relevant and died to random pot shots from gunslingers over the course of the game.

Superfrog then switched to interceptors, who flew in over my forward screen to take shots on Josie. 2 attacks of 5 only did 2 total wounds to Josie though, and my gunslingers and skeletons killed one interceptor and got the other to 2 life. Superfrog then took a 3 dice disengage on the last interceptor to try and get a 5 attack on Josie, but I hit 2/3 to kill it first.

Superfrog then switched to ants as the last wave, but gunslingers were able to kill 2 of them before they reach me and the last 6 ants were only able to kill 1 gunslinger and another squad of skeletons.

That left Frasier against 2 Gunslingers, a 3 life Josie, and 1 squad each of skeletons and sneaks. The gunslingers were able to bring down Frasier before he could kill anything, ending the game.

As superfrog mentioned in the chat after the game, the central water on this map really hurt his all mele army and let me get a lot of value out of the gunslingers taking free shots while the low defense mele squads developed. That combined with poor attacks on Josie made the difference.

gg superfrog, lots of good in-game adjustments and decision points in that one.

[vegietarian18]

kevindola defeated me tonight. I got to reunite kevin's Gurei-Oni with her bonding Crypt Guardians that I had brought. But really I picked that pod for the Gnids, who I felt matched up great with kevin's Arrow Gruts who were likely his opening play. I didn't want to let the Arrow Gruts get out of control running around the water middle and lava sides launching attacks of 2, and fast Gnids could catch them. In addition Cling can absolutely destroy an Ice Troll. The Gnids surrounded the Ice Troll early in the game. The first circle did no damage but the second brought him down. That focus on the Ice Troll gave the Arrow Gruts time to pop off though, and they managed to bring down two of my three Chainfighters. Chainfighters were really the only thing they could shoot; Gurei Oni has Evil Eye defense and Crypt Guardians are virtually immune to their attacks.

After the Arrow Gruts were sufficiently thinned out, kevin switched over to Ashra. My only way around One Shield Defense was lava pulls from my mostly dead Chainfighters and Gurei-Oni's Tetsubo Special. The molten lava pulls were tough to come by since I'd have to leave the Chainfighter on lava field, but I did manage to pull one Ashra on to lava field and that killed it, but then the Chainfighter died. Then it was Gurei Oni time. She had great rolls on Tetsubo, killing on maybe 3/4 or 4/5 tries? She did fail a crucial 4v1 on a Arrow Grut that had been left around that left her engaged, but I simply disengaged 0/2 to pull the cyclops to safety. I was a bit too greedy and stepped her into a horde of Ashra on even ground though. Probably should have pulled back and played towards height since I didn't really have to worry about the Arkmer ping due to Evil Eye Defense, but I was a little too reckless. She went down with 4 Ashra remaining. My Crypt Guardians charged in one a time, also probably ill-advised but they are so slow and one was already coming up to support Gurei. The first one went down fast. He got 2 wounds on Arkmer but took an Engagement Strike to do it, and then died shortly after. The other Crypt Guardian took down two Ashra while grinding it out with them on flat ground, but then he fell. Bol and the Gnids faced a very narrowly manageable task with 2 Ashra, 1 life Arkmer, and 1 Arrow as their enemies. With a lot of dancing Bol took out one Ashra, and the Gnid took out the Arrow, but Arkmer struck true to kill both. Good game.

I have to say that I really liked the Quad Pod format. In normal Pod Draft you really only have a choice of which of your own two pods you like better, or which of your opponents two pods you like better. Here with the much deeper pod pool the drafts were so interesting. There were picks and counterpicks, and always clever ways to get out of rough spots. In all but one of my games I played an army that was half my own and half my opponents even though that's by no means required; that's just how it often turned out as I was trying to pick things that could win these matchups.

After my first few games I thought picking first and last was clearly the advantageous spot, since you get to take the best available pod and then a counterpick, but being able to pick second was a big advantage to me in my last game against KoS and kevin in this game, and I used it in my early game against Heroscaper Guy as well. Second pick has more subtle advantages being able to grab all of what you want all at once and define what your opponent can take with his last pick.

[Dysole]

The Finals are on Ruins at Fort McAda.

The kevindola (5-0) v. chris perkins (5-1) pool of armies is:

* Bol, Major X17, Blastatrons, Hoplitron
* Gurei-Oni, Marro Gnidsx2
* Sharwin Wildborn, Feral Troll
* Arrow Grutsx3, Ice Troll Berserker
* Marcu Esenwein, Theracus, Frost Giant of Morh
* Kozuke Samurai, Sir Denrick
* Major X17, Ne-Gok-Sa
* Iron Golem, Mind Flayer Mastermind

chris perkins chooses to pick first or second. After armies are picked, kevindola chooses who places first.

~Dysole, wrapping it up

[Chris Perkins]

The Finals are on Ruins at Fort McAda.

The kevindola (5-0) v. chris perkins (5-1) pool of armies is:

* Bol, Major X17, Blastatrons, Hoplitron [3]
* Gurei-Oni, Marro Gnidsx2 [2]
* Sharwin Wildborn, Feral Troll
* Arrow Grutsx3, Ice Troll Berserker [1]
* Marcu Esenwein, Theracus, Frost Giant of Morh
* Kozuke Samurai, Sir Denrick [4]
* Major X17, Ne-Gok-Sa
* Iron Golem, Mind Flayer Mastermind

chris perkins chooses to pick first or second. After armies are picked, kevindola chooses who places first.

Planning for Tuesday (10/6) @ 1 pm EST.

Re-match of round 4; same 4 pods in play but we switched who has the gnids & arrow gruts pods this time.

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Edit: I got the win behind matching up the waves of the battle well and amazing early dice.

Kevin opened with a whole round of Gnids, which I was expecting because of how good they play into AGs. I had OM1 on AGs, who moved onto the sand triangle 2 hex spots and OM2 & 3 on Kozuke. Kevin hung back, slow rolling the Gnids to get them all across the center of the map but didn't engage me. I had lost init, which was crucial, so on OM3 I moved one Kozuke adjacent to a Gnid (attack went through) and moved the other 2 to height.

I won init in round 2 (also huge) and got 3 attacks in with Kozuke, all of which went through, leaving Kevin with just one squad of Gnids. Kevin had all OMs on Gnids and I had OM2 & 3 on AGs. Kevin tried to punch back at the Kozuke, as they were blocking 2 of the Gnids from reach my AGs, but one attack was blocked and the other hit on counterstrike. I then slow rolled my AGs up onto Valda and the right side high ground, slowly killing the remaining Gnids. Another Kozuke blocked, and a 2nd counterstrike went through (at this point my defense was 9/13 shields) before a Kozuke finally fell to a Gnid, leaving 2 Kozuke that I never activated again. But the Kozuke had cleared the field of Gnids, and I had all 9 AGs left to control the whole center of the map.

Kevin then used GO, X17, & Hop to block my troll from accessing the Blasts, but AGs exchanged fire with Blasts from height, and Kevin lost 2 blasts to my 1 AG the next round. Down to 2 blasts, Kevin then switched to mostly Hop/X17 OMs, but both were too slow to engage many AGs and I was able to keep a constant stream of heighted attacks on them, combined with grabbing Dagmar each round. My Ice Troll was busy grabbing a t-glyph (disengage) and killing GO during this time as I didn't want him locked down by X17 and GO is a terrible end game for AGs alone. X17 was able to kill 2 AGs over the next round+, but eventually GO fell and my troll came back to engage the Hop, although the Hop blocked the 1st 2 attacks from the troll. Eventually the Hop & X17 fell from too many ranged attacks of 2 coming from the AGs.

Bol tried to take out the Troll as a last effort, but fell to AGs before he could finish the job. I won with 6 AGs, a 3-life troll, 2 Kozuke, and a never activated Sir Denrick (his moral support was invaluable, I'm sure).

gg Kevin, that arrow grut pod was quite strong in both of our games. The Gnids definitely need init to work in their favor to get 1st strike on the AGs in order to give that army much of a chance, and both round 1 & 2 inits favored me, which left quite the uphill battle (literally and figuratively) from that point.

Stats:

Spoiler Alert!

Chris
Attack rolls: 64 out of 117 (54.7%)
Defense rolls: 11 out of 26 (42.31%)
Total dice rolled: 143
Time used: 0h, 35m, 34s


kevindola
Attack rolls: 16 out of 39 (41.03%)
Defense rolls: 38 out of 102 (37.25%)
Total dice rolled: 141
Time used: 0h, 26m, 36s