Matthias' Gen Con 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2018 report

[lonewolf]

Originally Posted by Einar's puppy

I couldn't help but notice that a lot of those matches came down to time during the main event. What's the time limit on it, 30 minutes? I think I've had one game in my life come down to time. I just can;t imagine that time is such a force in gencon.

It is supposed to be 50 minutes. Leaving 10 minutes to set the next round's seedings and have everyone get set again.

[Rÿchean]

Originally Posted by Einar's puppy

I couldn't help but notice that a lot of those matches came down to time during the main event. What's the time limit on it, 30 minutes? I think I've had one game in my life come down to time. I just can;t imagine that time is such a force in gencon.

We were going 45-50 minutes from when we posted the pairings, depending on if we are on time or behind.

[ManTrainChooChoo]

TLDR; You should prob. start playing with Deathreavers in your armies.

[Filthy the Clown]

LOL "After I got home Sun night I took my Arkmer and lit him on fire. "

[MattserTruckRally]

Amazing report MM. I wish I could've gotten one game in against you this year. Maybe that means I'll just have to enter the Unique Hero tournament and challenge your dominant reign next year!

[vertigosmooth]

Great battle report MM! I always enjoy reading your posts and reports, as well as share the love for melee armies. I do play range every now and again but for some reason melee is just more fun for me. Knowing how hard it can be to win with melee verses a really good ranged army/player leads me to believe your probably one of the best HSers out there(obvious I guess). You hit the nail on the head about some armies being easy to win with(Q9, Raelin) and just the fact you stay in the runnings with melee armies says a lot.

I'm not hating on anyone that played Q9, Dok would do well with any army out there, I'm just saying out of the gate there are less difficult matchups with a Q9, Raelin, Rat army. Anyway, good read.

Dustin

[Matthias Maccabeus]

Gen Con 2011!

Once again it was an awesome time! Ry was the man when it came to running events. The heroScapers are always cool people to hang with. I met some new faces and got to hang out with a bunch of the old ones. A big thanks to Lonewolf and Scaper Dude for letting us crash with them. We had 8 Nebraskans make the trip out, first time for 3 of them: twotongues, Raider30, Crazyangel and I think they all had a great time.

I recently got into dragon dice thanks to nyys and lafluerhero and I really, really liked it so much so that I was giving up part of my gen con heroScape experience to do it. I kept going back and forth with how much heroScape events to do vs. how much dragon dice events to do. I ended up demoing for Dragon Dice Thursday afternoon and Friday morning so that helped me pick my events. So this was my schedule for events –

Thursday – CtF (HeroScape) / Multi-Player (Dragon Dice)
Friday – Main Event (HeroScape)
Saturday – Sealed Starter (Dragon Dice) / World Championship (Dragon Dice) / Battlefest (Dragon Dice)
Sunday – Tourney of Champions (HeroScape)

So what that meant was in order for me to play in the Sealed Starter event on Saturday morning I had to either not do the HeroScape Main Event or not make day 2. Well I went with the second option, more details to come.

I play-tested and play-tested and play-tested the crap out of Dragon Dice. 90% of my play-testing was for Dragon Dice. I had done very little for heroScape. I played maybe 5 games total to prep for gen con. I figured I know most match-ups well enough to know what needs to be done to have a chance of winning.

Thursday Morning – Capture the Flag. I had never played a CtF event at least that I could recall but orcs made the most sense because between chomp and disengage the flag could go down quickly. Plus 450 was perfect for Heavies x 4 / Grim / Nerak. I’ve been trying like crazy to remember these matches so I apologize to anybody if I misrepresent the army and or map we played on.

Game 1 – some dude on Convergence by Ry. Dude’s army –
SB x 2 – 100
MDG – 200
Parmenio – 290
Shurak – 450

For the most part I kept my orcs on the road and placed them so Shurak couldn’t get even ground with them. I also minimized clumping so he couldn’t swing at me with his sweeping sword. I grabbed height and the giant fell fairly quickly. After that the SB became a meal for Chompy.

1-0

Game 2 – some dude on Common Ground by Gamebear. Dude’s army –
VW – 120
EoV – 220
Syv – 320
VV x 3 – 440
Isamu? – 450

There was a move glyph on the map so I was very weary of letting Grimnak get out without an entourage. 11 move vipers + a frenzy is ridiculous! Thank goodness that I think he only got 2 frenzies at the most. The vipers went down fairly quickly but then Syv hit Grim for 4 wounds in 2 attacks. So I pulled Grim back a bit and sent in Nerak and the heavies after securing the move glyph. VW put up a bit of a fight but I finally brought Grim in to boost the attacks of the heavies and eventually he went down.

2-0

Game 3 – Stubobj on Crystal Watch. Stubob’s army –
Q10 – 150
Dwarves x4 – 430
Marcu – 500

Man it’s almost like Q10 / Dwarves are a good counter draft to Grimnak, almost like he knew what I was taking… .

We both spent a good amount of time slow rolling a bit. I knew eventually he would just turn to Q10 and force me to him so eventually I had to start the fight. I did and it went pretty much as I expected. I kept Grimnak protected best I could, even sacrificing Nerak to keep the dwarves off of him but eventually he fell. I was down to 2 squads of heavies, while Stubob had Q10, a squad of dwarves, and Marcu on the glyph. I noticed that Marcu was the only one on the flag so I bee lined for the flag and got him down to 2 wounds left before Q10 reinforced the flag, though he had to give up high ground. Time was called. Stubob was up on points, though had we gone another round (depending on initiative) I could have had some nice elevated attacks on Q10 and he would have had to decide on whether to fight back or bring back his dwarves in case Q10 fell. Good game though!

2-1

Game 4 – Retlaw on Burial Marsh. Retlaws army was –
Heavies x 3 – 210
Tornak – 310
Grimnak – 430
Isamu? – 440

This game really came down to me getting an initiative switch and taking out his Grimnak early. He kept constant pressure on my flag with Tornak though, so I felt like I was playing catch up the whole game. Once I finally took Tornak out though I felt a lot more comfortable. I felt like I was on the ropes for a bit. I even sent in Nerak to help reinforce with attacking to try and get rid of Tornak. Good game Retlaw!

3-1 (3rd or 4th)


Thursday afternoon I demoed Dragon Dice.

Thursday evening – Dragon Dice Multi-player Event

Having only recently gotten into Dragon Dice I really had no idea what to expect from a tournament stand point. I read up on the forums a bit and have played a few online games, but you never really know what to expect, so I decided to make sure I played in at least one event before the World Championship.

Now for those of you who aren’t familiar with Dragon Dice (It’s a shame really!) here’s the quick version of the game: Your dice are also your minis. Each side of the die has different icons: melee, missle, maneuvers, magic, saves, and SAI (special action icons – think of special abilities in heroScape). Different units do well at different things (just like heroScape). You are fighting over 3 different terrains against your opponent. Each terrain has different faces (melee, missle, magic) that allow you to take that action. The object of the game is to either wipe out your opponent or capture two terrains. You capture a terrain by getting it to its 8th face (8 sided dice represent the terrains). And that’s about it really, fairly simple.

Scoring works like this –
3 points = straight up win (2 8 faces or total annihilation of opponent(s)
2 points = Bye or Win with one 8 face to your opponents 0
1.5 points = tie (both have same number of 8 faces)
1 point = loss to an opponent with only one 8 face
0 points = straight up loss

There are 12 different races in dragon dice I do believe and each race has a special ability (much like heroScape). I decided to play the Coral Elves for the mutli-player event even though they suck at saves unless they are at a Coastland terrain, then they can be nasty. I didn’t have quite enough Coral Elves to make a 36 point army so I threw in a few Feral units as well. They have Gold magic and feralization so they can be pretty amazing at times. The army I settled on was –

Herald x 2 – Rare Coral Elf Light Melee
Eagle Knight – Rare Coral Elf Cavalry
Knight x 2 – Uncommon Coral Elf Cavalry
Buffalo – Rare Feral Cavalry
Antelope x 2 – Common Feral Cavalry
Wolverine – Rare Feral Mage
Badger – Uncommon Feral Mage
Weasel – Common Feral Mage
Enchanter – Rare Coral Elf Mage
Conjurer x 3 – Uncommon Coral Elf Mage
Evoker x 3 – Common Coral Elf Mage

My terrains were – Coastland City and Coastland Grove
I also brought 2 Blue Wyrms. Blue Breath is probably the nastiest in the game plus both my Magicians could cast blue magic.

Game 1
So my very first tournament game of dragon dice was against Cliff and Zero Dynasty. Cliff is partial owner of the company so I was a little intimidated.

Cliff had a Goblin / Swamp Stalker army of all commons, cavalry and mages with 2 swampland terrains. ZD had all Firewalker Monsters: Fireshadows, Phoenixes, and I think he even had a Beholder.

I think I won the Horde Roll and elected to go first. Cliff chose his swampland terrain as the frontier and ZD placed last. I don’t remember quite everything early on but I did my best to stay away from those Firewalker monsters. I ended up grabbing the 8th at the frontier, while Cliff grabbed the 8th at his home. ZD was over trying to bring the pain to Cliff’s home and try to maneuver his home up at the same time. I dropped a few dragons on his home and starting hiding my units with the occasional wind walk on them. Eventually ZD fled to concentrate on taking Cliff out while I eventually moved his home up to a 7. I pathed over a Buffalo and an Eagle Knight, I already had an Antelope there that was hiding and I cast Wind Walk on the army. ZD couldn’t get to me before I grabbed the 8th but Cliff had access to Path so he could. He cast Spirit Furnace on his dead, which basically forces him to bury all his dead but gives him a crap load of magic in the process. Unfortunately (for him) he got a fairly bad roll and couldn’t cast enough Finger of Deaths / Path to stop me from getting the 8th Face. In Hindsight I think that if he would have dropped 2 dragons on me, he would have been better off. So I grabbed the 8th face and won.

1-0 (3 points)

Game 2
My next game was against John K and Josh. John K had been playing for years, while Josh had only been playing for a few.

Josh was playing Lava Elves and John was playing a little bit of everything (including Coral Elves). He had a Coral Giant who is pretty darn intimidating at a Coastland terrain. We rolled to see who went first. I won and John got 2nd, so I knew he would pick his coastland for the Frontier so I elected to go first. We played back and forth picking on the Lava Elves a bit early, but I eventually had a chance to get John’s home to an 8th face. I had quite a few cavalry there so my maneuvers should be good so I rolled pretty high (I don’t remember the exact number) but John beat me by one. I elected not to attack because the Coral Giant scared the crap out of me. So on John’s turn he tried to take the 8th and rolled. I countered him, but he beat me by one again! Once you capture an 8th face you double your maneuvers and saves so I couldn’t get him off so I retreated to my home and to the frontier. Josh and I decided to team up on John so we dropped 4 dragons on him (2 Blue and 2 Ivory). Unfortunately for us John had a Dragon Crusader who is a saving machine! Our dragons dropped 39 points of damage on his home, byt his time everybody was crowding around, but then it happened. John’s Dragon Crusader rolled Bash! Bash saves against one unit’s total attack and redirects it back at that unit. So he took the Dragon that did 12 damage and redirected it back at him, so then he only had to save against 27, which with double saves he ended up only taking 7 points of damage. Time was called shortly after and Josh and I both had our home up to 7th face (one more turn and we would have all tied), but John got a partial win for having one 8th facer and we had none.

1-1 (4 points)

Game 3
Last game was pretty much whoever won it straight up won the game. There was 5 of us, I don’t remember all who except it was the 2 owners of the company were in it. Cliff got his home to an 8th face early while I was messing around at John’s home (he had a coastland). Chuck got his home to a 7th face when cliff pulled off some fancy spells with Path / Trasmute Rock to Mud and ended up taking 2 8th faces. I believe I only got 2 turns total.

I think like 3 of us tied for third that time.
Friday Morning – I demoed dragon dice.

Friday afternoon – OK so the worlds championship was at 2PM on Saturday for Dragon Dice and if I made Day 2 of heroScape (and did decent) I could easily go past 2 PM which was unacceptable to me, so I could either drop out of the Main Event or Drop Myself out of it…
I love the Knights as you know, but I also love the Chainfighters. I think they have some ridiculously awesome abilities and are a blast to play (just ask fomox)! So my army was Chainfighters x 20! I’m pretty sure that’s the first time ever anybody has played anything x 20 in heroScape. I knew that I would have to get ridiculously lucky and go 3-2 and barely squeeze in for Day 2. However I also knew that beating 20 chainfighters wouldn’t take that long if I did make day 2… (see it’s all about getting done in time for the Dragon Dice World Championship) Also I thought that Tourney of Champions was more “prestigious” than the Main Event anyway.

HeroScape Main Event

Game 1 1red2blue3white? on Ticalla Sunrise. His army was –
Wolves x 3 – 225
Khosumet – 300
DK x 2 – 420
Rats x 2 – 500?

I thought it was a pretty cool army featuring Khosumet. This was just a battle of attrition. The wolves were the same cost at the Chainfighters. He grabbed the Lodin glyph early while I was thinning out rats and grabbing the few 2 hex hills and moving a rat next to me with chain grab so that the wolves couldn’t get even ground. In the end we timed out and I needed to kill one more wolf to go up on points by 15. He had one wolf left, 1 rat, and all his DK and Khosumet. I actually felt I had the upper hand if we were able to play it all out because he wouldn’t be getting 3 attacks per turn (well maybe once until I attacked Khosumet once and he dies… ) Good game though!

0-1

Game 2 – Pickle(some numbers) on Crystal Watch. Pickle’s army was Steamroller –
Caps x 3 – 210
Sparty – 410
Crixus – 500

This match was a blast. I got rocked so hard though. Crixus just cut through everything. I grabbed shadow spaces early and lasted quite a while but the Caps grabbed the wound glyph and of course my chain grab refused to work on the guy on the glyph. I lost 6 or so chains to the wound glyph (not that it really would have mattered) I got steam rolled hard core. I think I killed 4 caps total. Pickle even surrounded my last chain and refused to attack so the wound glyph would kill him. We were just laughing and having a good time though!

0-2

Game 3 – Peterparkerh on Burial Marsh. His army –
Q10 – 150
PK x 5 – 500

I thought to myself I had a decent chance if I could take out Q10 and lo and behold I scored 3 wounds early on him and a trap finished himself off. After that it was just me trying to climb out of my start zone and grab shadow spaces and use the occasional chain grab to pull PKs down. At the end it was 2 PKS against 2 Chains and I had a shadow space with one, so I thought I was I good shape. I lost imitative and PPH finished me off that turn. Close game but it was great to meet PPH. He was a class act and a great opponent.

0-3

At this time I knew I couldn’t make day 2 (which I was a bit relieved about).

Game 4 – some kid on Ticalla Sunrise. His army –
DW9K – 140
DW8K – 130
ZG – 70
DW7K – 100
Zeta – 60

I was sitting by ET86 and we could both tell this kid wasn’t having a good time and the losses were bugging him, and I really hate to see that in kids, so I whispered to Eric that I was going to lose this game, just to give the kid a smile, which he did eventually after me trying to get him to laugh for like 20 minutes! Unfortunately even with my clumping on purpose for both DW7K and DW8K I still won. All 3 DW died to 1 skull attacks. Oddly enough Zetacron lasted the longest.

1-3

Game 5 – some kid’s dad on Common Ground. His army was –
Q9 – 180
Mezzos x 4 – 260
Izumi – 60

So I had to face 8 exoskeleton markers and my chainfighters were common so he got the extra attack and I had to kill Q9….GeeZ I though losing 3 games got you easy games… This battle was a lot of fun though. I was explaining pointers to him about grabbing height and not shooting with the guy who is engaged first, etc. He said he only plays with his kid (who I think is the one I played first game, but I may be mistaken). The Mezzos lasted for FREAKIN ever! With only 1 attack per OM, he had the high ground, the WHOLE time. In the end though I got him down to only 2 Mezzos, no markers. So I thought I did decent. It was a fun game though and the guy was truly a great sport!

1-4

Though I got smoked one game, the other 3 losses actually with a roll or 2 different could have gone either way. So next year watch out for Chainfighters x 16 / Krav!!! (I’m totally serious, unless of course the Dragon Dice championship is on the same day again)

Sat –
Well since I didn’t make day 2, I could get into the Sealed Starter Event for Dragon Dice.
So you get one of 4 different starter packs – Feral / Undead (yes please!), Goblins / Dwarves (I’ll take it), Amazons, Swamp Stalkers (Not bad), Coral Elves / Lava elves (Yuck anything but that). Well guess what I got, yep the Elves. The Elves in this game have very little saves and lots of range, it’s what you would call giry in heroScape. They aren’t too bad when they are at their respective terrains (Coral Elves – Coastland, Lava Elves – Highland), but when they aren’t they pretty much just die… So in order for me to do anything I had to pray that the terrains didn’t turn up all melee.

Game 1 against some chick – She had a Feral / Undead starter which by t he way are great at melee and saves.

So we roll and I elect to go first, because if any of the terrains turned up melee I had to get the heck out of there, so we roll our terrains, My home – 6 melee, frontier, 6- melee, her home, 6-melee…. So I offered to shake her had right there and tell her good game, but she passed. Basically I retreated from my terrains and went to the frontier where she didn’t have anybody. I did manage to get her home down to 5, which is still melee, but it bought me some time. I grabbed an 8th face at the frontier, while she grabbed one at my home. Her home was at 7. So I rolled for magic and summoned a Dragon to her home. She only had 8 points worth of units there, so I had a chance. I rolled for the Dragon, hoping for Jaws, or a series of tails, I got wings, which does 5 damage and then flies away, so she captured the 2nd 8 face easily.

0 points.

Game 2 against the chick’s boyfriend – He had an amazon / swampstaker starter. Amazons are also good at missles so this could be tricky. He won the roll and elected to choose the frontier instead of going first. I got at least one missle face (I don’t remember which one), but I basically just pelted him with missles over and over again until I wiped out his army.

3 points.

Game 3 against John again. His starter was dwarves / goblins. I just saw the reigning champ beat john with his elves in MELEE!! He had an Infiltrator and Herald that were absolute beasts. Of course I pulled to rare archers…(Yeah…). Once again I got a missle face and just missled the bajeezus out of John until I wiped him out. Nothing too exciting here.

6 points

Game 4 against Jason the reigning champ who was undefeated so I had to win straight up to win. He also had the same starter I did, but he had a little more melee and I had a bit more magic with my Rakshasa and Sprite Swarm monsters. We both missled each other back and forth and each grabbed an 8th face. I grabbed my home while he grabbed the frontier. Then it was just a magic fest. I had more magic than him so I was winning the battle of attrition by summoning dragons and casting ash storms on him. He had quite a bit dead when time was called and I didn’t have any, so it was looking good for me to win (eventually) but we ended up tied.

7.5 points – I got 2nd place, but Dragon Dice only gives out prizes to 1st place (Ry you spoil us!)

Dragon Dice World Championship!!

So I play-tested quite a bit for this, though I really wasn’t sure what to expect going to the 2 previous tournaments did help quite a bit. I had the core of my army done, but I did waiver on the last 8 points quite a bit and even know after playing it there’s at least one tweak I would do, but here is the World Championship Dragon Dice winning army -

Troll x 3 (12)
Gold Medallion (4)
Bronze Medallion (4)
Dragonne Knight x 4 (12)
Dragonne Rider (2)
Dragonne Tender x 2 (2)
Swampland Temple / Swampland Standing Stones

Summoning Pool –
Ivory Wyrm x 2
Dragon Kin (I just grabbed what I had)
Minor terrains (I just grabbed what I had)

Most people play with Cavalry and magic. Leopard Riders are very famous. They are very fast and have 2 rend faces. Rend is like battle frenzy, but on the Leopard riders you have a 1/3 chance of getting it. (ouch!) I only own about 700 dice so I don’t have the massive collections like a lot of these guys (I’m talking 15,000!) so I had to make do with what I had. I also only had 4 points of magic in the whole army (First time I guess it’s ever been won with that little of magic) The Trolls and Gold Medallion have a regenerate ability much like the Feral Troll and Ice Troll in heroScape, whenever you roll it during a non-maneuver roll you can bring back up to 4 health worth of units. The troll has it on 2/10 sides and the Gold Medallion has it on 1 / 4. The Gold Medallion can also unbury units, so it’s possible to unbury and regenerate in the same turn (which is really nasty). The Bronze medallion has a cantrip so I can cast whatever 4 point spell I wanted. I got it mostly for Path (move units from terrain to terrain without having to go to reserves first) and Windwalk (adds 4 maneuvers to my army). Both of the medallions also had Flurry, which is basically rend, which is basically battle frenzy, so they had 1 / 4 chance for that. The Dragonnes are FREAKING fast. They have more maneuvers per health than any other unit. They also have intangible (auto saves against missle damage) and scorching shields (basically counterstrike), so really the only way people would mess with them is with magic and they are fast enough to get mages off any terrain that would show up magic. The biggest problem with this army is it can get an 8th face pretty easily, but holding it and getting another is usually pretty tricky.

Game 1 – Jim R. Jim is a very solid player he has quite a few tourneys under his belt and has even won Worlds a few times if I remember correctly. Jim was playing a mostly undead army with a few black Eldarim and Black items for added maneuvers which the undead lack highly. He also had a Troll and a Dragonlord. I won the roll and chose to go first. We rolled the terrains and it came up 6 melee straight across the board. So my Dragonnes went to work maneuvering up a face and my Trolls starting laying the smack down on Jim’s mages. The rest of the game is a bit of blur, because I think we were done I less then 20 minutes. My Dragonnes were too fast for Jim and my trolls were saving machines. Trolls have a 50% save rate. I captured to 8th faces very quickly.

3 points

Game 2 was against john M. John was sporting an Eldarim Champion heavy army with frostwings. Once again this game is a bit of a blur, but I know at one point he outmaneuvered me for an 8th face. He rolled ridiculously high and grabbed one from me. I did have another one and we were both pretty decent melee power houses but my trolls / Gold Medallion kept bringing me back and john wasn’t coming back fast enough. Eventually with a Wind Walk and my Dragonne’s I got a 2nd 8th face.

6 points

Game 3 was against Zero Dynasty. He had an undead army with a few Leopard Riders and even a Troll I think. I grabbed an 8th face early. ZD pulled his mages back to reserves and kept throwing open grave (send units to reserves instead f the dead) and attacking me. My trolls held steady. I was able to Path over a Dragonne to a 7th face to try and grab a 2nd 8 but ZD outmaneuvered me by 1. He then grabbed the 8 on his turn. So it was my Trolls that went knocking on his 8th While My Dragonnes were keeping my secure. We eventually timed out with a tie, but ZD was starting to gain the upper and I think if the game continued he would have surely won.

7.5 points

Game 4 against Josh. Josh was sporting his Lava Elves again. I know he had a few Infiltrators (those guys are nasty), some Scorpion Knights and quite a few mages. I grabbed an 8th face early again (those Dragonne Knights are fast!!) and basically “talked” Josh into attacking my Dragonnes and Trolls. Between Scorching Shields (counterstrike) and the Trolls counter attack with smite ( think of it as an 8 or higher with Braxas) he lost a good portion of his army, so while he was trying to resurrect his army, I was pushing for a 2nd 8th face, and without Josh having access to path my 8th face was pretty safe. I just always had a Dragonne Knight in reserves just in case he came out of reserves to my 8th face. I eventually grabbed a 2nd 8th.

10.5 points

Game 5 – Man for the life of me I can’t remember this game other than the fact it was over fast. The terrains came up a Devil’s game again 6, 6, 6 and my Cavalry just grabbed 2 8th faces really quick.

13.5 points

ZD was playing against John (I think) and we had the same exact points and if ZD did anything but straight out win the worst I could do is tie for first for the championship so I was pretty pumped. John ended up playing ZD to a tie (both having one 8th face) so that made me the DRAGON DICE WORLD CHAMPION!!

You know winning the HeroScape Main Event is OK and all, but being a World Champion is definitely more legit.

Looking back at it with all the Leopard Riders I saw in the field, I would drop my 2 swamplands (Goblins double their maneuvers at swampland) and grab 2 Feylunds. Other than that I was quite happy with the way the army played out. That odd thing is the guy that’s won it like the past 5 years lost his first game so I didn’t have a chance to play him.
So I was pretty excited after winning the DD World Championship (did I mention hat yet), so next up is Battlefest, where pretty much anything goes and It’s 60 points. Usually in DD you can only have ½ your army as mages but in battlefest you can bring as many as you want. I had a pretty sweet army lined up but since I won Worlds (did I say that yet) I was cool with playing a fun army. My army was a bunch of Rare Mages: Necromancers (Lava Elves), Death Mages (Goblins), and Lichs (Undead). Then I threw in Some Melee Rare Frostwings: Bear Masters and Vindicators and a few Dragonlords / Dragonmasters to round out my army.

Game 1 against John K. John had all mages and I would say at least 75% were frostwings (who can negate your mages). The terrain turned up all magic so I knew it would be a long game. John was blasting away at me with his magic and he would just cast a crap load of wind walks so that I had no chance to maneuver anything. This one ended in a tie with nobody having an 8th face, though John was definitely winning the battle of attrition.

1.5 points

Game 2 was against Cliff. He Had a melee power house with almost all the units that could reroll (Lepard Riders, Wolf Pack, Crocosaur, etc). The face came up all melee so this was going to be fast and ugly. It started with Cliff doing 41 points of damage with 7 rends in a row!! I survived with one unit left. I somehow managed to grab an 8th face because he had very little maneuvers and manage to bring my army back up to almost full health. In the meantime Cliff captured an 8th face as well. We were both fighting over the frontier to get an 8th when he dropped 2 dragons on my captured 8th face. I survived the attack and even managed to kill a dragon. But I started Pathing more units over to the highly contested frontier. He then dropped more dragons on me, so I sent my Dragonslayer over to help out. Of course he didn’t slay anything but I somehow survived the dragon attack with just him and a Goblin Death Mage. I then casted Transmute Rock to Mud on his army at the frontier (which slows down his maneuvers) and I was able to capture the 8th face. That was a bloody and fast melee battle. The best kind there is!!

4.5 points

Game 3 was against Alex? I think Alex was sporting mostly Fireshadows (nasty, nasty) This game was actually over fast because I chose me terrain for the frontier. Alex couldn’t then sky walk with his firewalkers (they can move to and from any blue terrain without having to go to reserves first). So I kept him hopping around in Reserves and my magic was keeping him at bay. I was also getting a good number of smites to keep making him have to resurrect guys. I capture to 8th faces.

7.5 points

Then I had a bye (not sure how their bye system works?)

9.5 points

Game 5 So I’m in the championship game Dan. He’s the guy that won worlds like 5 times in a row so I was a bit intimidated. He has a mixture of Goblins with Trolls, Leopard Riders, a unicorn, and a few medallions. He won the roll and decided to go first. And that is where I lost the game I think. He had mostly goblins and I had swamp terrains so all his maneuvers were doubled. He hit my magicians hard at first. So I had to retreat and bring them back while he captured an 8th face. I tried quite a few times to get him off the 8th face but with quadruple maneuvers and that many cantrips he was casting open grave like crazy so I couldn’t get him off of it, so I went to go capture a different face. But in the mean time he was casting a crap load of magic, dropping hybrid dragons on me and casting Finger of Death. I was losing the battle fast. We eventually timed out with him with one 8th face and me with 0. If the game had continued he would have more than likely won. He was a cool guy though and I had a lot of fun playing him.

10.5 points. I got 3rd I believe.

I got back to the hotel and we made tons of your mama jokes and played Rune Age which I had bought at some point, no idea when. I told Sterling and Mike to figure this game out for when I got back.

Sun – Tournament of Champions
So I couldn’t decide on my army. I got out a pretty sweet DC army. DC x 5 / Swog / Nerak / MBS / Krav and I was like, did anybody bring dividers? Twotongues said I did, I was like sweet! So I had Dividers x 7 with 150 points left. Q10 is for girls, and for some reason I brought Eltahale so I was like this chick is sweet and I added Isamu to make it 500 even. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to play. I was talking with SWninja and he had an orc army and a 10th army and he couldn’t decide either. I said if you play the orc army, I’ll run my orc army and he was like, cool. He decided on the 10th army so I ran with my dividers and then fomox ended up playing with the DC army instead.

I knew that every person I played would be really good, so I was like eh, Dividers I’ll probably lose first game.

Game 1 – Spider Poison on Ticalla Sunrise (CtF). Now Joe and I go way back with a rivalry. We were currently tied 3-3 in head to head games. He was (and I’d argue is) the best heroScape player, period. He won tournaments left and right and has like a ridiculous 80% win percentage. He won 3 TTO’s in a row until some guy from Nebraska won the 4th (Oh right that was me). So this was a battle of the titans so to speak, Matthias Maccabeus against Spider Poison. This is the type of game you can sell tickets to. Spider’s army was –
Romans x 5 – 250
MDG – 350
MBS – 400
NGS – 490
Isamu – 500

Spider was playing a mostly melee army which in general he doesn’t usually do, but in the Gen Con Mindshackle tourneys years ago he did quite well with it. We reveal the glyphs – Move on the hill and Lodin on the other side. I go for Lodin, he goes for the Move. MBS grabs the attack plus 1 t-glyph. Joe starts pushing up the hill. I start vying for position up there as well. We go back and forth until I push him off. He then goes for the Lodin glyph. We fight, and fight, and fight over that glyph. I minimize the number of figures he can attack with his romans best I could. MBS was still prancing around threatening my flag so I threw a divider on it. Eventually time is running out and Joe has 1 Roman left and I have 2 squads of dividers left. Joe apologizes and says he has to protect his flag (he was up by 50 points at this time). (Only girls retreat in battle!). So I quickly switch my OMs to Eltahale. Joe puts his last Roman in the corner of his start zone and puts MS and Isamu guarding him. I thunderstep next to MBS but only manage 1 wound on him. MDG comes up, Eltahale blows him off. I thunder Ram Isamu and target MBS and the Roman as well. Isamu and the Roman fall but MBS lives (that dude was tough) Joe brings NGS over and the realizes that his flag is wide open (and I am now up by 10 points anyway). So all I have to do is triple disengage (with full health) and stand on the flag to win. Joe says I get to roll the D20 for mindshackle first. He rolls…. I see a 0 (CRAP!)…no wait it’s a 1 and a 0. 10. Whew. So we call it game since time was basically over anyway. As always it’s a pleasure playing Spider. Though I do own him now (4-3 head to head!)

1-0

Game 2 was against K-boom on Burial Marsh (TQ). Kboom and I have played a few times as well at various mid-west events. He’s almost always in the top 5 (when he plays Mass). And of course he was playing Mass on a ridiculously long map. His army was – 4th x 6 / Sam Brown

I thought about just sending Isamu of Eltahale after all the glyphs since it was TQ but I figured that would take too long and I would give up nasty amounts of board control. He grabbed height early and I thought it was pretty much over and almost was ready to write off the game, but I grabbed what shadow tiles I could and what road tiles I could and got a few divide rolls that were pretty key. Dividing is really amazing because not only do you get to bring a guy back, but he basically teleports and doesn’t have to march across the field. I also moved Eltahale up at some point. K-boom was a bit nervous of her I believe but I had pretty good OM management with her and she got off 3 Thunder rams that killed all 3 Mass all 3 times. So K-boom switched over to shooting her, which gave me the opportunity to get my Dividers moving again. I was pushing him back to his start zone. Eventually Eltahale fell but soon it was Sam Brown against 4 squads of Dividers, which is too much to ask of any 60 point hero. Kyle is a very solid player and I always enjoy my games with him.

2-0

Game 3 was against SWninja on Burial Marsh (HotB). Ninja and I have never played so I thought this was pretty cool. His amry was Redcoats x 5 / Hyrda / Isamu. We rolled to see who would choose to place or go first. Ninja won and placed first. He took the 4 high spots and I thought it was pretty much over. I did try to put my guys on shdows spaces and block him off from reinforcing. He ended up with lots of redcoats and the hydra in the actual start zone. I knew I would go first so I set up Eltahale for a nice Thunder Ram to knock off the redcoats on height on one side. It worked out quite well. I was attacking up for the first half of the game, but my defense / divide rolls were holding strong. Eventually I pushed ninja off the high ground and he was using his 10th in his start zone who were often time shooting up so my defense / divide rolls were doing OK. Eventually he turned to the hydra who I think I managed to knock off one head and he mowed through my dividers on that side of the board while grabbing the disengage glyph (and btw the glyph in the middle was healing). So I switched to Eltahale and thunder step nest to the Hydra knocking off 2 more heads. I thought to myself I got this, ninja then disengages (what that glyph is so broken!) and grabs the heal glyph (what that glyph is broken too!). I manage to get 1 more wounds on the hydra before Eltahale falls. Crap, I have like 2 full squads left of dividers and Isamu. He’s got the 3 health hydra, 1 redcoat, and I can’t remember if I had killed Isamu or not. I move a divider over thinking I’ve lost and roll 3 skulls, ninja whiffs…. (ouch). We call it game since it was getting close on time and he lost all his OMs. Whew! Close one ninja! Thanks for the awesome game!

3-0

Game 4 was against dok on Guardian (RtW). His army was basically everything girly in the world + a hydra. (Rats x 800 / Q9 / Raelin / hydra) and I had to play with this crap!! He offered a D20 roll off and I thought about it quite a while, but I was like nah, I’d like to beat dok. So I moved some rats around (had no idea what I was doing), put Raelin up on height, and shot with Q9 and what do you know, I won… Almost like range + rats + Raelin is easy to win with. Man, who has been saying that for years?? I had to look at Q9 and the rats card a few times to remember their stats. Eltahale did come over with the heal treasure glyph with 2 thundersteps and got 4 wounds on Raelin, but the hydra (YES A MELEE UNIT…well kind of) beat the crap out of her. We timed out with 2 squads left of dividers for dok (does it surprise you that dok timed out? Me neither.) and a full life Q9, Hydra, a few rats, and an almost dead Raelin for me. Plus there was a heal glyph on the board. That game was just dumb. I was even trying to think of strategic stud to do, but I was like, why, I have rats, Raelin, and Q9.

4-0

Game 5 against Girltrainchoochoo on Breach (no offense Dignan but this map sucked when were playing Dividers against – 10th x 4 / Raelin / Kaemon). Yeah what do you know, Girltrain was playing 10th and Kaemon, almost like he knew that I always lose to them…

Long story short – My dividers died from elevated attacks into my start zone. There was only one (good) way to go to get to him and it was walking along a narrow bridge into a shooting gallery. I had Eltahale set up for a sweet thunder ram and then I freaking divided into that space like an idiot. Isamu actally made a game of it at the end when he killed Kaemon and 3 10th. Girl train just had 1 redcoat and Raelin left when Isamu forgot how to vanish. So Girl train beats me when he plays womencoats and girly rats.

4-1(2nd place)
I did a lot better than I had ever thought I would with the Dividers in the ToC. I really thought I would get smoked, but then again I am a pretty amazing player… (Did I mention that I won the Dragon Dice World Championship?)

A big thanks to everybody(from my room, to the NE scapers, to my opponents, to my friends, to the Dragon Dice guys, and to Ry and his crew) that made this Gen Con trip the best one yet. I can’t wait until next year.

So I’m pretty much a beast at heroScape and Dragon Dice so next year I’ll have some 8x10s of me signed so that you guys can pick them up.

[Codeman]

Originally Posted by Matthias Maccabeus

...................snip.....................so next year I’ll have some 8x10s of me signed so that you guys can pick them up.

No need to get more sighned photos, you had a very large stack of those left over after last years Tree Town... you could not have gone thru that many yet .

They did come in handy .... we took about 50 of those 8x10 and put them under that one table leg .... it took the wobble right out of that table

[dok]

Good reports, and that was an impressive showing by the dividers, for sure.

Originally Posted by Matthias Maccabeus

does it surprise you that dok timed out? Me neither.

I've played 30 34 Gencon games not counting day 2 of the main event, and I've had a game called on time 6 times. All six were games involving the ratsx3/Raelin/Q9/Hydra army, and four of the six were (all four) ToC games. Two of those ToC games would have been over within 5 minutes, though, and our game wouldn't have taken much more than that. Only my game against Hendal was really nowhere close to over.

[Tornado]

Great report MM. Second place in ToC with Dividers is pretty impressive but I am more amazed with your Chain-Fighter performance. It just does not seem possible to play that competitively with that army. Your trash talk and gloating are warranted. Respect.
Wow, you are really good at Heroscape! Have you ever considered branching out and trying another game?!?

[Raider30]

Originally Posted by Tornado

Wow, you are really good at Heroscape! Have you ever considered branching out and trying another game?!?

Blech, don't encourage him...

Who do you think had to play test that dragon dice army with him?

- Raider30

[Matthias Maccabeus]

Originally Posted by Raider30

Blech, don't encourage him...

Who do you think had to play test that dragon dice army with him?

- Raider30

@ Tornado - You really think so? I try to be humble and stuff in my posts I'm glad you thought that.

@ Raider30 - Whatever dude, you know you liked it. And now I'm going to have to play MonPoc with you now anyway so quit whining!