vegie's Gencon/Scapecon reports

[vegietarian18]

This now contains my Gencon/Onlinecon/Scapecon reports from every year I've participated. There's always Championship reports and sometimes reports from other events.

2012 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

I know that I personally tried to find some GenCon reports a couple days before I left, but it seemed like there were only individual people's (usually those who won something) reports in each thread. It was kind of a pain to find individual reports and truly get a feel for what happens (outside of those lucky winners), so here is a thread for everyone to post their tales of success and failure at the Con! If you want to post them in your personal battle reports thread too, go ahead with that. It'd be really cool if you posted them in here as well. It's always fun to get multiple perspectives on the same battle.

I'm going to type up a couple events reports now, and I'll finish the rest later.

Main Event

My army was:
Romans x4
Marcus
Me-Burq-Sa
Marcu
Raelin

I thought that it was a pretty strong build that could get extremely high defense numbers when played effectively, and also had an answer to everything.

Round 1 vs. jdtenor (Romans x3, PKs x2, Marcus, MBS, Isamu) on Ticalla Sunrise

It was sort of a mirror match, but the parts of our army that differed were much more important than the parts that were the same. He led with MBS and Romans, and my MBS was able to get height and take out his first Warlord in two turns. This gave me time to get Raelin on to a good perch and roll up Romans. His PKs came next, going for my kyrie. They were successful in their assassination, but they died shortly after it was completed. Afterwards, it was simply a war of attrition, and the numbers were on my side. My Romans slowly whittled away at Marcus to limit his activations and move, and he fell. The remaining romans were caught in the low ground swamp, and it was easy for me to take height and finish him off. Isamu pulled off some Vanishing magic for quite a while, but I got him with the wound glyph.

1-0

Round 2 vs. ?? (Kato, Harqs x2, Yari x3, Isamu) on Fossil
I've never played against Harqs before, and I was a little bit afraid of how I'd do. My initial scheme was to move Me-Burq-Sa out for an early assassination attempt on Kato, but the 8 activations per turn really threw that off. He always had at least one spearman standing on the path that I planned to take. The battle wasn't all that eventful. I kept almost all my figures huddled together for Shield Wall and Raelin's aura, and he almost never defended with his 1 defense Ashigaru. Isamu vanished around again on me, and I had to Wannok him to death again.

2-0

Round 3 vs. Deroche (Glads x3, Blasts x2, Raelin) on Trailblazer
Unfortunately, both of my opponents dropped after their second game. I knew that I'd have to go 4-1 to make Day 2, because my SOS would be super low. My third matchup didn't make things easier. I put Raelin and MBS on Lava to get height, and only took about 2-3 wounds because of it the whole game. His Raelin just wouldn't fall, and he rarely moved his figures outside of her aura. The game came to time and I lost because I couldn't kill his last Glad, which is frustrating because I was playing much faster than he was, but I guess that's just how these things go sometimes.

2-1

Round 4 vs. Orcelmyfarone (Nilfheim, Raelin, Greenscales x3) on Fossil
Since my game with Deroche went WAYYYY over time, someone came over and wrote down the results while we were picking up. Deroche was saying something about how he didn't play very well, and was confident I would have won had we played it out, and the person who wrote down our scores interpreted that as him saying he lost, so I was entered into the computer as 3-0, giving me a 3-0 opponent. Oops.

This army was the one that I first decided on for my RTW army, so I had a bit of an idea on how to beat it. Raelin was a crucial part of the army, so MBS had a big role in my plan. He stepped onto the highest point on the board (Nilf occupied that spot on the mirror end) and fired down on Raelin every single turn. She went down, and the Greenies fell quickly after that. He did the best he could, but it was a bad matchup for him.The game was a fun and fast-paced one. We finished fifteen-twenty minutes before time was called, which is great.

3-1

Round 5 vs. jacob_p (playing PKs x3, Q10, Raelin, Isamu) on Jotun's Gap

This game was pretty much decided in the first round. I moved MBS one space out of Raelin's aura after I miscounted, and I really didn't want him to die without killing Raelin, so I plopped my own Raelin right in front of him. My Raelin rolled awful shields (dying in around four attacks of three, some from low ground), and MBS didn't do much better. I tried my best to recover from that, but I don't think I killed much at all.

3-2

My strength of schedule put me two points out of Day 2, because three of my opponents made Day 2. A lesson to all: don't drop. You never know what effects it has on others people's SOS, and I really felt that I was playing well enough to make it to the second day and at least try and win my first game. Oh well, there's always next year I guess.

General Wars

I played:
Redcoats x6

I figured that since it fit perfectly in the point total and hex limit, I wouldn't be the only guy playing this trying to win Einar. I didn't really ask for too many people's heroscape names during this event, as I was kinda having more fun than I did at the last one and didn't really care.

Round 1 vs. ?? (Nilfheim, 4th x3, Tarn)

I thought this was one of those "lead with your dragon, make your 4th Valiant when he dies" armies. He played it the opposite way. He led with the 4th, and I got height and they fell quickly. Nilfheim tore through my army when he came out, but he eventually was taken down from his perch on height, and I was able to WTF him down. The Tarn put up a good fight at the end, but my remaining two squads of Redcoats dispatched them. I gave him the idea of making his 4th Valiant by leading with the Tarn and Nilf, and I think he did that later in the day and had more success with it, which is good to hear.

1-0

Round 2 vs. ?? (Romans x4, Marcus, Master of the Hunt) on Elswin Plateau

The guy I played was a good player, but my army was a lot better and I rolled a ton of skulls, and the MOTH was a bit of a waste of points because I had no heroes. I secured the move glyph early, and had 10 move Redcoats charging down the road and using the Bayonet. It was kinda crazy. I targeted Marcus early, and he took five wounds but held out for at least two more rounds before dying. The Romans were slowed down after that, and the 10th were able to hold height and WTF the rest of his army.

2-0

Round 3 vs. Megasilver (Venocs x7, Venoc Warlord, Arkmer) on Trailblazer

I've played against Mega's Venocs before (and lost), but I had a bit better of a strategy against them this time (hint: don't roll your figures up). He got a double frenzy on turn two and blew threw quite a bit of the redcoats, and I had to recover from that huge blast. The tide turned when I killed four vipers on turn 3, and then won initiative and wait then fired and killed four more in his start zone, bringing him down to two vipers. I killed them, and he lost an OM. I killed Arkmer, and he lost an OM. I went for the Warlord, who got one attack in before dying.

3-0

Round 4 vs. orcelmyfarone (Heavies x4, Grimnak, Nerak) on Fulcrum

This was another fun game against orcelmyfarone. He plays fast and just makes the game enjoyable all the time. I went for Nerak first, and I got him early. Grimnak came down next, but he chomped least four guys before dying, and boosted attack and defense for quite awhile. Towards the end I think it was five Redcoats against six gruts, and I just couldn't get through the Heavies defense, even with height. He did roll a lot of shields, but it made up for the ones he didn't get in our game in the main event. I was fine with losing to him, and he went on to win the whole shebang.

Round 5 vs. El Diabolo (6x Redcoats) on Invasion

A mirror matchup to decide the Einar title. It was going to be a looooonng game. I won the first initiative, which probably sealed the game. I got height first, and I was plowing through his Redcoats, and taking minimal casualties. I also secured the wound glyph. Then, late in the 2nd round, the tide turned. He killed my wound glyph guarder, took height, and started blasting down at me. I was the one losing lots of figures now, and I had to make a play. I killed his guy on the wound glyph, and took it back. I reclaimed the height. The game got down to five redcoats vs. two, and I made all the efforts possible to hold the wound glyph to win, and it paid off. It was a really close game throughout, but I had the advantage of getting to watch a Redcoat mirror match earlier in the con, and I got some advice for it. The biggest thing that I did differently than him was I went for height over the Bayonet attack and melee defense, and when I would Bayonet, I would do it with two figures to prevent him from Bayonetting without disengaging.

4-1

My SOS was just high enough to squeeze me out over the two other Einar 4-1s (one lost to the other though), and also the 4-1 from Aquilla who played in the title game. I got 3rd place and a SotM, RoTV, 5$ Auggies gift card, and an awesome plaque with the Einar symbol on it. SOS screwed me over in the Main Event, but helped me in General Wars.

2013 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Well, I'm back at my hotel for the night and had some free time, so I decided write reports of today's games while they are still fresh in my head. Like last year, I'm creating this thread from anyone (hopefully everyone) to use for any reports they write. It's nice to have one spot to find all reports from a year. Now, on to my games...

Heat of the Battle

My army:
Redcoats x3, Raelin, Marcus, Isamu, Marcu

I wanted to go with something strong for HoB, and Redcoats were strong but also good in almost every matchup. I was expecting to see some Warriors of Ashra, which is a great matchup for me, but I think I had pretty favorable matchups throughout. My dad decided to go with the same army as me, which is a first for us.

Game 1 vs. OrcElfArmyOne’s dad (Tagawa Samurai Archers x4, Raelin, Iron Golem, Isamu) on Embattled Fen

Embattled Fen and Qusatch Playground are basically the only boards where you want to place first, and I was very happy when I was able to. I set up a deadly pod of Redcoats and the Marcus on the seven hex rock height and was able to rain death on the Tagawa Samurai Archers who set up on the road beneath me. Afterwards, Orc’s dad thought that he should have set up on the side across from me, which I don’t disagree with, but he had a very tough matchup from the start.

1-0

Game 2 vs. Son of Muhalla (Knights x2, Alastair MacDirk, Sir Denrick, Eldgrim, 4th Mass x1) on Flash Fire

This army isn’t a powerhouse by any means, but SoM played it very well. I set up on the height, but didn’t leave enough space for Raelin and decided to put her on low ground and cover basically the entire board with her aura, but forfeit height with her the entire game. This gamble didn’t pay off, as Alastair stepped next to Raelin and had her dead by the end of round one (along with himself though, as I killed him the next order marker). From there I just had to hope that my dice held out and I was able to kill Knights. Isamu became a huge asset at this point, with Dishonorable Attack killing 2 Knights and one-shotting Eldgrim (5/5 skulls there!!), but the biggest thing that swung this game back in my favor was a gamble I made, putting OM1 on my final 3 Redcoats, despite all four 4th being in Wait Then Fire range. I got the initiative, pounded down with Bayonet and killed half of the minutemen, and Marcu finished the job (after one Eternal Hatred).

2-0

Game 3 vs. vegie’s dad (Redcoats x3, Raelin, Marcus, Marcu, Isamu) on Ticalla Sunrise

We both knew this was going to happen coming into the event, but it kinda sucked having it happen this early. My dad won the placement/initiative roll and I didn’t have much of a chance from there. He deferred, and I got to set the location of the battle (took the 3 hex perch by Wannok) but unfortunately that was not enough of an advantage, especially the way we both rolled on shields. We both consistently rolled 3/5 or 3/4 skulls, and the 2 and 1 skull rolls would be met by whiffs. I was down to less than a squad before the end of the first round.

2-1

Game 4 vs. Schulzy (Braxas, Zombies x4) on Embattled Fen

Schulzy deferred in order to take the first turn, which I was fine with on this map. I had the high ground once more, but he placed Braxas just outside my range. He went with Zombies on turn one, and got a couple wounds on Raelin, then brought in Braxas. He did PAB on Raelin, Marcus, and a Redcoat. He rolled two 16s on the heroes, and a 5 on the Redcoat. Bad luck, but I do think he had to take the risk of taking out Raelin since his Zombies had basically no chance against 5 defense Redcoats. Braxas took 7 wounds, but his next order marker was on the Zombies so Braxas died after only one turn. He went for Raelin with attacks of 2v4 for the rest of the game, but couldn’t finish her off before he ran out of Zombies.

Final Record: 3-1

Assassin’s Creed

My army:
Romans x3, Marcus, Cyprien, Ne-Gok-Sa

kevindola came up with this army, and I thought it was a lot of fun and was decently competitive. I didn’t do much testing with this one but I thought I knew how to play Romans decently enough and I’d force some interesting decisions.

Game 1 vs. ??? (Sgt. Drake SotM, Sonlen, Iron Golem, Aubriens x1) on Ticalla Sunrise

My opponent seemed like he had a grasp on the rules but just wasn’t familiar with any of my figures. He took one look at my heroes and picked Ne-Gok-Sa because he had the lowest life. I rushed Cyprien out and killed his Iron Golem by the first turn of round 2.

1-0

Game 2 vs. MegaSilver (Stingers x3, Airborne Elite, Ne-Gok-Sa, Mindflayer, Marcu)

Mega targeted Marcus, hoping for an early Airborne blast to knock me out of the game. I went for the Mindflayer. He didn’t get this first turn drop, so I loaded up OMs on Cyprien and rushed in, going for the Mastermind. Mega blocked him off with Stingers and Ne-Gok-Sa, so I didn’t get a single Chilling Touch off on my target. However, I did get a 20 on Ne-Gok-Sa, so he was out of the way, along with three Stingers. Eventually, Drain and height was too much for the vampire, and he went down at the end of the round. Mega got the Drop at the start of round two, but I was lucky enough to win initiative and evacuate Marcus to the corner of my startzone. They Airborne threw their grenades, but they did pretty poorly and killed only 2 Romans. The Romans caught them and killed a couple, lowering some activations along the way and buying some time for Ne-Gok-Sa to march along the Wannok side of the board. The next round him and a squad of Romans fought through the last few Stingers, claimed Wannok, and started fighting the Mindflayer. The fight went on for multiples rounds, and neither of us could get many skulls. Mega was very smart and would disengage from NGS to Psionic Blast at Romans trying to get in the fray. He took off probably three Order Markers throughout the game, which could have swung the game, but Ne-Gok-Sa held on to his final life for quite a few turns, and eventually killed the Mindflayer.

2-0

Game 3 vs. Dad_Scaper (Axegrinders x3, Migol, Mogrimm, Tul-Bak-Ra) on Quasatch Playground

Let me preface this by saying I do not own Tul-Bak-Ra and I’ve only played against him a couple times, and those were casual online games. I thought he was just a decent hero to teleport in Marro, and that using him in Assassin’s Creed was a total gimmick.

Well, if it was a gimmick, I totally fell for it. D_S targeted Marcus, and I went for Mogrimm. Tul-Bak-Ra teleported to the center of the board, and I flew Cyprien towards the center of the board. Then, Tul-Bak-Ra popped in and dropped 3 or 4 wounds on Marcus I panicked, flew Cyprien back and tried to kill Tul-Bak-Ra. It didn’t work, and while Marcus had some great defense rolls and Tul-Bak-Ra had bad attack rolls from there out, Marcus couldn’t hold out forever and Cyprien didn’t get the big CT roll I needed to win.

In retrospect, I made some horrible decisions this game. I left a spot open to Marcus. I didn’t fill that spot with Cyprien when I saw Tul-Bak-Ra coming. I didn’t fly in and try to kill Mogrimm when Tul-Bak-Ra got next to Marcus, when I just as good of odds of killing Mogrimm as I did killing Tul-Bak-Ra, and maybe I could have taken some fire off Marcus.

2-1

Game 4 vs. EternalThanos86 (Deathchasers x3, Nerak, Cyprien, Sonya, Ne-Gok-Sa) on Embattled Fen

We both chose the enemy Cyprien this time. I mentioned at the beginning of the game that I should just fly my Cyprien in and make it a luck game, but that’s what it ended up coming down to. The Deathchasers and Romans basically exchanged casualties, and at the end of the game, two once wounded Cypriens met up on even ground and just rolled it out. After almost two rounds of tense rolling, ET86 came out on top.

Final Record: 2-2

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Main Event Day 1

These were probably some of the closest and most interesting games I have ever played and definitely the most competitive. Looking on the armies that made Day 2, I probably played in the top 50% of builds there, maybe even higher than that, but given the matchups, armies, and quality of players I faced, I don’t think I could have made it with something much weaker.

My build was:
10th x3
Raelin
Nakitas
Otonashi

I wanted to play something complex with difficult choices and strategies that weren’t obvious. I thought Redcoats and Nakitas fit that bill. Wait Then Fire makes podding almost a necessity, but the real difficulty in this army comes in covering the Redcoats’ weakness to range with Smoke Powder, and knowing when to set up Engagement Strike pods at the front of an army. I got pretty good at it in my practice games, but ended up facing only one army where my ability to set up Smoke Powder mattered.

Game 1 vs. sixthflagbearer (Dividers x5, Major Q9) on Stygian Rift

sixth made Day 2 with this army last year, and Redcoats are terrible against Q9, so this was going to be a tough match. Luckily, I won the first initiative and was able to set up 3 Redcoats on height and one on shadow all in Raelin’s aura. Q9 Quiglixed one, but I took two Wait then Fire shots of four and one of three, and got 3 wounds. Q9 moved on to the lava height with his next turn, but failed his shots on my Redcoats. I knew I had to make a big play, so I triple engaged Q9 and forced him to stay on lava. I didn’t get any wounds and he killed the Redcoats, but Q9 died and the match got a ton easier. The Dividers hung on for a long time though, just slowly busting through my limited number of Redcoats. They hit a fair number of divides but I was just getting more attacks than him. There was one big turn where he killed three Redcoats on OM1 and got me down to less than a squad, and things got very tight from there. I finally got him down to a single Divider, killed it with Raelin, but he divided! Besides the Kyrie, all I had left was one Nakita, so things were really close. Luckily, he moved one Divider on to height but into Engagement Strike, and I got my first Engagement Strike roll of the game to kill him. The other got a wound on Raelin, but Raelin took him out (either through forcing him to stay on lava or a normal attack, can’t remember).

1-0

Game 2 vs. Pickle4192 (Braxas, Stingers x3, Marro Warriors) on Burial Marsh

My army has literally no answer for Braxas, and this game showed it. I fell for a Stinger trick, where he put OM1 on Stingers and put them on low ground, and I attacked them instead of Braxas. Even though I had height on those guys, I should have still gone for the dragon for a chance at a few wounds. Once Braxas was on top of me, I had almost no chance. Braxas rolled 11/14 on Poison Acid Breath, and survived a constant Wait Then Fire the whole time she was doing so. I was able to pull the Nakitas out of the fray and they made the game a lot closer than it should have been. They killed Braxas, and the rest of the Stingers, but eventually died. The Marro Warriors were all he had left when he killed the one Redcoat Braxas didn’t get.

1-1

Game 3 vs. Dragonslayer (Heavy Gruts x3, Nerak, Tornak, Raelin) on Ticalla Sunrise

This was a tough, back and forth match that I thought I was going to lose at multiple points. I led with Raelin and Nakitas, and set up a great Engagement Strike pod on Wannok side, but forfeit control of the glyph to the faster moving Heavies. I think it was the right move though, since I got four wounds on Raelin as his screen advanced. Then, the 10th rolled in, and started blasting Heavies, but Raelin made it difficult to kill anything. I got a few kills, but most were from Engagement Strike. The big turn that won me the game was a Wait Then Fire that freed up my one 10th in range of his Raelin just in time for him to take my last shot, which killed her. Nerak fell shortly after, as did the rest of his army. It was a tough matchup for him, but he played it well and made it close. All I had left at the end was a 1-life Raelin and 7 Redcoats.

2-1

Game 4 vs. Filthy the Clown (Frost Giant, Knights x3, Thorgrim, Otonashi) on Flash Fire

The Frost Giant barreled towards me, and I foolishly wasted an OM setting up a Nakita Engagement strike shield on all three routes to Raelin (since I wasn’t planning moving her). He still got to her, and he still had height. Battle Frenzy let him swing down twice with seven dice, and she was gone. A couple turns later, so were two Redcoats and two Nakitas. Filthy made a joke about using Bayonet, and I was really dumb and actually took his advice. I did finish off Frosty, but he killed two of my 10th with Dying Swipe. I had about eight Redcoats and one Nakita to take on the rest of his entire army. I was feeling like I had just blown my shot at making Day 2. The dice gods didn’t want to see that happen. I won a few big initiatives, was able to gun down Knights before they got to me, which allowed me to limit his attacks, and somehow pulled the win from nowhere with just two Redcoats and the last Nakita remaining.

3-1

Game 5 vs. Rollitontop (Mezzodemons x4, Major Q9) on Stygian Rift

I was expecting him to play it the same way sixthflagbearer did (leading with Q9), so my round full of OMs on 10th turned out to be poorly placed when he led out with Mezzos. My Nakitas should have been up there giving me Smoke Powder, but I didn’t react to his figure placement and they weren’t. My quantity of attacks won out though, throughout rounds and rounds and rounds of fighting, and he switched to Q9 with 3 Mezzos remaining, while I had 2 Nakitas, Raelin, and 6 Redcoats. Again, my army has no answer for Q9. I got an early wound from a 4 skull Wait Then Fire blast, but he didn’t take wounds for quite a while after that. He Quiglexed through the Redcoats, one by one, at which point I switched to the 2 Nakitas to mix things up, and a random 2 skull roll met with a 8 defense whiff put Q9 a wound from death. I had some huge blocks, then Raelin flew in, but couldn’t finish him with a couple shots of four. He finished off the Nakitas, but went down to a Wait Then Fire from the final Redcoat. Raelin then was left to finish the Mezzos. She got the first strike and killed one, but the second fell much harder. There was some really crazy die rolling and a tons of shields between us both, but eventually the kyrie came out on top with just two wounds. The multiple lives was a big advantage for me since I was able to risk disengage and lava damage to maintain my height advantage.

4-1, heading on to Day 2!

Main Event Day 2

Game 1 vs. Pickle1492 (Braxas, Stingers x3, Marro Warriors)

Unfortunately for me, Braxas regressed to the mean from the awesome performance Pickle had with her against me Day 1. I flew her in on a death run, trying to just kill one Nakita and get as many Redcoats dead as I possibly could. Luck just wasn’t on my side, as Braxas went 3 for 9 on Poison Acid Breath, failed to kill a single Nakita, and died after just three turns of attacks from low ground. The Marro fought hard, but couldn’t make a game out of it with the majority of the enemy still alive. Five Redcoats and a once wounded Raelin still stood alive when the final Marro Warrior went down.

2014 reports

Spoiler Alert!

I'm starting my reports early since I have over an hour until my next event and would prefer to write it while the games are still fresh in my mind.

War of the Worlds

I was really not sure what to play in this event, even when I submitted my army. I debated between the Redcoat build I played online, 4x Phantoms and the Hydra, and even awesomeunleashed's Mezzo build but eventually I went with 5 squads of Stingers and Ne-Gok-Sa. The only armies I was really worried about facing with that build were 4th Mass and Phantom Knights.

Round 1 vs. Junior (Heavy Gruts x3, Grimnak, Nerak) on Song of the Walrus

Because of the high ground plateau, early game is extremely important on Song of the Walrus. Thanks to Nerak's aura, the Heavies were able to escape my first volley of height dice unscathed, and then hack through the Stingers. Having lost map control already, I was in a tough spot. After Nerak took the move glyph to let the Heavies roll up, I gunned him down with height and drain, and I began to have a better chance. But Chomp was too much in the end, and I just ran out of Stingers. Ne-Gok-Sa went down with a 3-life Grimnak and 3 Heavies still alive.

0-1

Round 2 vs. sixthflagbearer's dad (Braxas, Nilfheim) on Common Ground

This was a really tough matchup for SFBD. Stingers are just so good against heroes. He played the army a lot differently than I expected though; using both dragons at the same time, 2 order markers on each each round. I opened up putting 3 wounds on Nilf but then focusing fire on Braxas when she got near my startzone. Braxas rolled a lot of shields but didn't spit a lot of acid, but she was still alive when Nilfheim also swooped in towards me. Nilfheim got rid of a lot of Stingers but eventually went down, the same turn Braxas did. I had a full life Ne-Gok-Sa and 5 Stingers when the dragons fell.

1-1

Round 3 vs. sixthflagbearer (Redcoats x4, Marcus) on Ticalla Sunrise

This was another tough matchup for my opponent. Redcoats struggle with any kind of range, but mobile range that can roll 2 skulls against them consistently is even worse. Sixth tried to set up a Marcus pod on the sandy side, but he was never able to get enough Redcoats there to force me away from the Wannok side. I won with Ne-Gok-Sa and 3 Stingers.

2-1

Round 4 vs. dok (Phantoms x4, Hydra) on Stygian Rift

So much for my opponent getting bad matchups. When I saw the round sheet posted I was prepared to lose the game. And after a super hot start by the Phantoms and a failed drain, I was in serious trouble. At three different points in the game I drained without Lodin, which I only do if I will lose if I do not kill on my attacks. All three times I hit the drains and cleared out. Even with the luck I had, dok still had a 3 life Hydra staring down my final Stingers and Ne-Gok-Sa. The Stingers got no more heads off as he closed the gap across the board, and they were eaten outside my startzone. It was just Ne-Gok-Sa and the Hydra. Ne-Gok-Sa got a first strike and chopped off a head, but took four wounds from the last two Hydra heads. He swiped again to get another wound, and the Hydra only got one skull on his next attack. Ne-Gok-Sa rolled 1/6 shields for the third time of the game, but I was happy about it this time. The Marro Warlord swung for a third and final time and got a third and final head, winning the game.

3-1, ?th place

Heat of the Battle

My dad and I decided to play in this event the day of, and came up with armies then too. We could not come with a good Redcoat build, so we just ran with my two Take 2 armies that we had for later in the day. I got Deathchasers x4, Raelin, Nerak and Me-Burq-Sa, and my dad got Knights x3, Finn and Gilbert.

Round 1 vs. ??? (Heavy Gruts x1, Grimnak, Blade Gruts x1, Ornak, Arrow Gruts x1, Swog Rider) Arrow on Highways and Dieways

Single common squads are tough to use in Heat of the Battle. They lose order markers so fast and then the rest of the army becomes target practice. Grimnak and the Heavies had a nice start but it wasn’t enough, and the rest of the army didn’t have enough hitting power to crack the ‘chasers defense in both auras.

1-0

Round 2 vs. infectedsloth (Hounds x3, Hydra) on Ticalla Sunrise

We had talked about our matchup beforehand and while I would rather have the Pulverizer here I still thought I had the matchup edge. I tried my best to throw it though, but IS’s dice would not comply. After I did very little with the first initiative (IS gave that to me, so he could place first), the Hounds got a 2 space movement turn and did even less. I was taking out Hounds at an average pace but an initiative switch in Round 2 let them pounce and took me down to critically low numbers of Deathchasers by the end of the round. The next round, I misplayed again and did not react to IS’s switch of OMs on to the Hydra, and missed attacks I could have had on him. Luckily, it did not matter, as the next turn an Orc swung four skulls at the Hydra and the Hydra came back 0 shields. The lost turns and lost damage allowed the Deathchasers to close out the game with 1 Orc and all three heroes remaining.

2-0

Round 3 vs. vegie’s dad (Knights x3, Gilbert, Finn) on Common Ground

I lost the initiative, but first placement allowed me to take a hill nearly uncontested, and that was a huge advantage for my army. Thanks to Me-Burq-Sa, I was able to pull the Knights to me. That alone forced a lot of low ground attacks from the Knights, and the Deathchasers hit back with height and killed Knights consistently. My dad surrendered after the second round ended, but we do that a lot at home since we want to play as many games possible. We both didn’t really care who won; we felt like both of our armies had a good chance to win the event.

3-0

Round 4 vs. nicktheant on Song of the Walrus (Mezzodemons x6, Isamu)

Even though I had no special attackers, I still felt I could win this match and was favored to. I could hit twice as often per turn with the same amount of dice per attack. The Exoskeleton markers just evaporated to sustained Deathchaser attacks, and the Mezzos were only getting one kill per turn with their 4v5 attacks. Deathchasers just have such good offense in Heat of the Battle and this game really showed it. Luckily, my dad was able to beat the other 3-0 firestorm in his final game, so I won the event right there.

4-0, 1st place

Main Event

Arrow Gruts x3
Swog Rider x3
Raelin
Mimring

This year, my dad picked my army out for me. He played it against me once and did really well, but decided he was not going to play it since he had played Arrow Gruts in the Main Event last year and didn’t want to do it again. I liked the army for a variety of reasons: Swog placement and Arrow Grut placement is something that I would be knowledgeable on on Day 1 where my opponent wouldn’t be as knowledgable on Day 2; Mimring counters a lot of the GenCon style podding and Raelin armies; I thought the build was just strong enough to get four wins at GenCon and secure a Day 2 position.

Game 1 vs. Xorlof (Tor-Kul-Na, Nagrubs x4, Raelin) on Fossil

This board is so good for Arrow Gruts. The height tiles right outside the startzone near the hive/big tree can be covered by Raelin’s aura without the kyrie moving, and from those spaces the Arrows can shoot clear across the center of the board. Xorlof took advantage of my central position and came across the other side, tucking Tor-Kul-Na, Raelin and Nagrubs behind trees. Mimring breathed fire on to the advancing Marros but did not do much beside clear out a few Nagrubs here and there. Tor-Kul-Na ran out of Raelin’s aura to try to bash in the dragon that was harassing him, but Mimring held out remarkable well. Raelin advanced up to the hivelord’s side a few turns and a few wounds later. Tor-Kul-Na was again nearly unkillable. I focused down the Nagrubs to try to keep the wounds I had on him, but Tor-Kul-Na just kept hitting things. Eventually, my trample denial fell apart when I was too greedy with attacks on Raelin, and three Arrows went down to the Hivelord’s wrath, but Tor-Kul-Na had trampled out of Raelin’s aura and the whole game was held in initiative. If I win it, Mimring gets to fly in and physically block Tor-Kul-Na from getting back into Raelin’s aura. If Xorlof wins it, Tor-Kul-Na gets to spin around, get back into the aura, get grubs on to the road outside my startzone that the Arrows were previously on, and clean up my army. I won it, and Tor-Kul-Na fell two turns later.

1-0

Game 2 vs. southwest ninja (4th Mass x3, Braxas) on Ticalla Sunrise

Fear of Braxas kept me from putting any order markers on Raelin this game, and when I saw two of his order markers on 4th Mass I deployed Mimring. Non-Valiant Mass can go down to Arrows even without Swogs, and Mimring could absolutely destroy them. I picked off a few 4th early and when Braxas came out on his 3, I made a decision to ignore her and finish the 4th with Mimring. I spread my Arrow Gruts all across the map so Braxas could not gas many each turn, so he also headed for my startzone. He gassed Raelin on his first try, but ran out of targets quickly. Mimring and the Arrows won an initiative that allowed them to kill the final four 4th and deny an order marker, and from there I actually activated Swogs, got some good rolls on Braxas and brought down the queen.

2-0

Game 3 vs. Major Q23 (Axegrinders x3, Darrak, Heirloom, Mezzodemons x1) on Song of the Walrus

Axegrinders are tough for Arrows but even more for a Mimring build. On my first order marker, I gave Raelin the first and last order marker I would place on her the whole day. He led with the Dwarves, not bonding, hoping to kill Swogs and Raelin. The Arrows skulls came through that game. I was able to consistently kill the Dwarves I needed to and a lot of the random height potshots I didn’t even need to win went through as well. The move glyph was a big help to him, but the guy who moved on to it almost always died the next turn. Eventually, he didn’t and Darrak swooped in and got three wounds on Mimring without even sneakily attacking, and I was suddenly a bit worried, since I wanted to have Mimring to handle the one squad of Mezzos. Mimring’s dice held out and the turn after, he blocked three Dwarf attacks to stay alive. I cleared out the final Dwarves, scorched the Mezzos, and took Wannok to force him to come to me. Heirloom was quite a chore for the Arrows once Mimring took his last wound. It took two rounds of attacks, but eventually I was able to double engage him with Arrow Gruts on my third turn, put the third one on Wannok, and force him to take the two disengage dice. I got the skull I needed to win the game.

3-0

Game 4 vs. nicktheant’s brother/??? (Knights x3, Gilbert, Krav) on Stygian Rift

Stygian Rift is just a bad board for Arrow Gruts. The lava makes it really difficult to pod effectively on it, so most of the time you are just left wasting activations on making bad attacks. Mimring was the biggest reason I was able to make this a game; he alone picked off over a squad of Knights early with fireline. It was an initiative switch that turned the game out of my favor. The final squad of Knights came in and just pounded through Arrow Grut after Arrow Grut. They went down, but I did not have enough left in my army to finish the Krav and Gilbert. It was an extremely extended and close cleanup, but the Swogs failed the attacks on Krav that I needed to limit the Agents activations for the next turns.

3-1

Game 5 vs. MattserTruckRally (Greenscales x3, Nilfheim, Marro Warriors) on Common Ground

My army just wasn’t at the power level this army was. Nilfheim had an easy time Icy Sharding all three Swogs through Raelin’s aura as I tried to get boosted attacks on him and the Greenscales had an easy time cleaning up the Swogless orcs their dragon weakened for them. My only chance this game was Nilfheim rolling terrible defense dice and dying when he shouldn’t have, and that didn’t happen. I think I got him to four wounds with a last ditch Mimring play, but he did not even have to activate the Marro Warriors to claim the victory.

3-2

I was 3-2 and made Day 2 on strength of schedule. Both games I lost I probably should have, and I won another matchup I probably shouldn’t have (the Dwarves). That’s definitely where I wanted to be for Day 2, but I thought my army was in the middle tier of armies that made it despite those facts.

Take 2

Deathchasers x4
Raelin
Nerak
Me-Burq-Sa

Knights x3
Finn
Gilbert

Game 1 vs. UnseenShadowz on Highways and Dieways

I won the diceoff, and got my Chasers. US took my Knights due to his armies just not being as strong as mine. Me-Burq-Sa let me draw him into my Raelin pod, and Nerak let me weather the storm of attacks once I did. Gilbert got paralyzed for a three wound shot from Me-Burq-Sa midgame, and US’s luck went south from there. I was killing on almost every attack and he was failing on almost every attack.

1-0

Game 2 vs. vegie’s dad on Vestige

This is the third time we played each other at GenCon (the other being in the C3V tournament). Once again, my armies were stronger than my opponent’s. He won the diceoff though, and he knew that my Deathchaser build was slightly stronger since it had already beat that exact Knight build against him earlier that day. He took it with the first pick and I went with my Knights. I came to him, rolling up Knights around the two bushes so Me-Burq-Sa would not have easy shots down on me. My dad made a small positional mistake mid game that cost him the game. He put both bonding heroes adjacent to each other on the road. When I finally broke through on a initiative switch and engaged them, those figures were the only attacks he could get each turn, and only one of them got to go. Meanwhile, I was always getting at least three, sometimes four attacks with my Knights. The game was still close, but Finn and the last squad of Knights sealed the win.

2-0

Game 3 vs. Major Q23 on Vestige

I won the diceoff and got the Orcs again. Q23 didn’t like the Knights’ chances so he took his Mohicans x5, Brave Arrow. Early game, not much happened. I got to choose where the battle took place, but he was a turn ahead of me early since I had to move Raelin. I played for an initiative switch at the end of the round and got it, killing four Mohicans between the two turns. I retreated back into my pod and picked off more Mohicans with Me-Burq-Sa, but he was patient and didn’t rush them straight at me. He hid behind a wall, and massed enough that he had a decent chance to kill on his next charge. He got some Brave Arrow activations as his Mohicans fell, and he got into the fight and started hitting Me-Burq-Sa. The Marro went down, but Nerak just replaced his attacks and finished off the last of the Mohicans.

3-0

Game 4 vs. dok on Stygian Rift

At this point, I knew my Orcs were really strong, so the championship was a coinflip. dok won it. I didn’t like the Knights on Stygian Rift, so I decided to take his Braxas, Greenscales x3, Isamu army in hopes that I would get lucky, gas Raelin and a lot of Chasers, and win where I shouldn’t have. dok placed Raelin very far back, so I probably was overextending when I went for her. My acid failed, but Braxas did get kill two Deathchasers and her Greesncales became physical barrier from a Deathchaser attack and killed another. Still, Braxas took two wounds from two Deathchaser attacks, which was low, so I had to disengage and fly her to the middle of the board height. She got their safely and gassed another two Orcs. She got surrounded though, and her Greenscales were too far behind to help her. She got one more turn and killed two or three more Orcs (I’m sure dok has the exact Acid Breath stats somewhere), but died. I kept playing with my Greenscales for a while, but both of us knew the game was kind of over. I got some crazy kills and crazy blocks with the Greenscales though, dok took a lot of lava damage with Nerak and Me-Burq-Sa, and suddenly I had an Isamu staring down an actually manageable task. Nerak died to another lava hit, and Isamu rolled out. He Phantom Walked to the twice wounded Raelin and killed her in two hits, then went over to the once wounded Me-Burq-Sa on lava. He failed the first attack, but the second got one wound, and at the end of the round, Me-Burq-Sa took the lava hit that ended the game. Isamu Vanished a total of 5 times to steal the tournament win. I 100% made a late game mistake; Isamu could have Phantom Walked through Me-Burq-Sa on to the Unique Attack glyph for 1 more attack die, but I just missed it. I’m interested to read dok’s side of the report and find out why he left MBS on the lava for such a long time instead of retreating to the flat ground startzone.

4-0, 1st place


Main Event Day 2

Game 1 vs. Matthias Maccabeus (Wo-Sa-Ga, Nagrubs x3, Cyprien, Marro Warriors) on Stygian RIft

I led out with the Marro Warriors. I was just trying to make his pod feel pressured so it did not become a deathtrap for Wo-Sa-Ga and Cyprien. One of the Marros feel to an Arrow Grut shot on the second turn, but an Arrow was shot down as well. On the last turn of the round, Matthias deployed one Swog deep into my territory, well out of Raelin’s aura. The Swog killed another Marro, and the Marro failed to take out the Swog. The next round, my first two order markers were on the Nagrubs. Wo-Sa-Ga took out the Swog who moved up as he flew Raelin to the very center of the board. I ended the round with an order marker on Cyprien, who chilled and attacked Raelin for two wounds. She took a lava hit for her third wound, and Wo-Sa-Ga and the Nagrubs needed all of their attacks to get the last hit on the kyrie to open the next round. With Raelin dead, I was looking towards opportunities to go after Mimring, but the Swogs and Arrows were just easier. Cyprien stayed on the high ground lava to force Arrow Gruts into 2 and 3v5 attacks that didn’t do enough damage. The Arrows had to stay on to lava to try and bring the vampire down, but they couldn’t do it and took too much lava damage. Cyprien flew in for the kill on Mimring and rolled a 19 on the first try. Cyprien finished him off two turns later.

on to Quarterfinals

Game 2 vs. Hendal (Hounds x4, Eldgrim, Marcu, Isamu) on Song of the Walrus

Hitting all of the early movement rolls was huge and allowed me to get into control of the game. On the second turn of the game, thanks to Valda, a hound sprinted 10 spaces straight into the grut startzone, next to two Swogs and Raelin. He plagued one Swog, and killed the other with a height attack. There went the hitting power of the Arrow Gruts. Mimring was exclusively used as his bonding option for the rest of the game, and he did a decent amount of damage. The Arrow Gruts without Swogs did not. Wannok control forced a lot of figures out of Raelin’s aura, including Mimring. He took some wounds outside of the aura, then retreated back in. He held for a while longer after that, but not forever. Once he went down I was feeling confident, with three filler heroes and three hounds to take out Raelin, but I didn’t even have to break out the filler.

on to Semifinals

Game 3 vs. Rÿchean (Hounds x4, Arkmer) on Highways and Dieways

A slightly weaker Hound army this time, but I thought I had a decent chance. He won initiative and flew out Mimring. I got a 2 space movement turn on turn 1, and I couldn’t get out of my startzone. Mimring got to fry three hounds completely for free with a huge fireline. I couldn’t even respond when I rolled the 4 space for movement the next three turns of the game. The Road allowed one to get Mimring, finally, on the last turn of Round 1, but the damage was done. He moved up Raelin and I was able to come back bit by bit as my movement rolls did not hurt me majorly again throughout the rest of the game. I hit a huge three skull roll on Raelin to take her down lategame, but the number of hounds dwindled lower and lower. Eventually, I was down to one Hound and had to use Arkmer. He fell to Arrows, and I had to reactivate the final hound, who was sitting in the middle of the map from earlier in the game. Evidently the nap helped him out, as he blocked two or three attacks of four from Mimring, countess arrows from the gruts, and made the game insanely close. Rÿchean fell down to a single Arrow and two Swogs, and I went after the single Arrow to try to kill a figure, force him to come to me and potentially knock off an OM. He smartly had his third turn on the Swogs, and decided to go in for me then rather than let me play for an initiative switch. He got the kill and won.

eliminated

I was happy with how I did in Day 2. A little disappointed, since I think without the poor pack movement rolls early I could have won my last game, but I had a lot of luck throughout the weekend and can’t really complain about anything. I think my army was a lot weaker than I initially believed it was. It had no real answer to heroes, which cost me in my games against Tor-Kul-Na and Nilfheim but allowed me to win my first game on Day 2 since Cyprien and Wo-Sa-Ga just couldn’t take enough wounds fast enough.

Those are all the reports I am going to write for this year. I played in General Wars and the Team Tournament as well but I don't feel like there is as much to say about those events. I had a great time at GenCon this year and I am hoping I am able to come again next year.

2015 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Since the GenCon report idea didn't really take off this year, I'm cannibalizing this thread for my future GenCon reports. It's just for the main event this year.

In the Main Event, I tend to gravitate towards armies that have un(der)used figures. I think it gives an advantage on both days, since the opponent will not know how to play with and against unseen figures. Last year, I used Mimring, and this year I used Taelord.

Taelord
Raelin
Marro Warriors
10th Regiment x2

Along with the obligatory Raelin to add consistency to the army, I played two squads of Redcoats and the Marro Warriors. The general idea of the army was to fish opponents in with the Marro Warriors, and then blast with pumped up Wait Then Fire shots. Using Marro Warriors to fish in figures to Wait Then Fire range was very effective in the Betrayal From Within tournament that @kevindola ran online. Adding Taelord was inspired by the army that @The Orange Mailman won with in 2013, where he used Marcus for his attack boost on two squads of Redcoats. I liked the extra 3 spaces of aura to make the fourth Redcoat attack die all but guaranteed. The army worked for a couple of other reasons: the four different people who practiced against the army lost against it the first time; it can make opponents uncomfortable with the amount of dice it dishes out from a long range; people don’t know how to play against two cheerleaders; it’s fragile enough to tear apart on Day 2.

Game 1 vs. Rollitontop (Warforged x4, Raelin, Deadeye Dan) on Fossil

I opened with the Marro Warriors to try to thin out Warforged and put pressure on the figures he put on Wannok. He responded with a conservative Raelin placement, behind the evergreen tree on level 3. She covered a lot of spaces, but not spaces he could attack me from. I picked at the edges of his army, tanking the Wannok wounds with the twin kyries. Eventually, he was forced to go in to a hoard of bayonets, and attacks of 5 tore apart the Warforged. Deadeye Dan had some good moves, but the Redcoats Wait Then Fired him down. My opponent really suffered from not having any range that he could threaten me with.

1-0

Game 2 vs. Heirloom (Greenscales x3, Charos, Marro Warriors, Marcu) on Remains of Clionesia

He used Charos very aggressively, going straight for my Raelin. A second round full of Wait Then Fire volleys took out the dragon before he managed to bring down the kyrie. After that, the Greenscales struggled to get rid of any Redcoats or Marros with 2v6 attacks. His Marros were difficult, but eventually I managed to run them down. I retreated my army to my startzone, let Marcu pick up all the treasure glyphs, then blew him up with Wait Then Fire when he went in. I think a Marro Warrior opener would have made this matchup a lot closer than it ended up being, but a lot of people prefer them as cleanup.

2-0

Game 3 vs. Cleon (Braxas, Fen Hydra, Marro Warriors, Deathreavers x2) on Fossil

This was one of the stronger armies in the pool, and a good one against my army. Cleon opened with Rats. I had never tested against a Rat army, since I thought most people considered them taboo to play. I don’t think I’ve played against Rats in a few years honestly. They were extremely hard to deal with, shutting down the Marros completely, and the glyphs (Unique Attack and Lodin) were great for his army. Braxas swooped down on my tied down Marro and gassed the remainder, but they managed two wounds on her. A lucky OM3 on the Redcoats after Cleon failed 2/3 acids allowed me to blast Braxas with Taelord boosted Wait Then Fire for 6 wounds, and an exact kill. I was feeling like I had a chance then, but his Marros repeatedly were able to pick at my Reds and successfully switch the initiative and escape to clone. The Hydra never even took a wound before he finished eating through the remaining Redcoats and their cheerleaders.

2-1

Game 4 vs. Dad_Scaper (Deathchasers x4, Ogre Warhulk, Brandis Skyhunter) on Dance of the Dryads

After the Orcs came rushing across the smallest map in the pool, I was pretty worried that I would lose my Marro Warriors before the end of round one. My OM3 on the Redcoats turned out to be poorly placed when he instead led with Brandis Skyhunter. Brandis was able to step up on to height and drop 5/6 skulls to instantly slay Raelin. I tried to stay confident and just Wait Then Fire down the incoming orcs, and for the most part it worked. 5 attack dice on 2 defense dice is a pretty favorable attack. The Warhulk made some noise but I eventually silenced him with Wait Then Fire. I was fortunate that my cheerleaders were able to block the path into the startzone to draw fire away from my Redcoats, as losing activations could have cost me the match.

3-1

Game 5 vs. ManTrainChooChoo (Tagawa Samurai Archers x3, Raelin, Marro Warriors, Torin) on Sidewinder

This game I played much more aggressively than I did the rest. After I won initiative and saw a round full of markers on the Tagawa Samurai Archers, I left my auras behind and decided to aggressively gun for the Samurai, since they would struggle to hit back with only 2 attack. Thanks to some incredible skulls the plan worked incredibly well. I gunned through all but one of the Tagawa only losing a single Marro, and then I retreated back to my startzone. He moved up Torin, but after he moved up Raelin next to him, I just refused to shoot and waited for him to come to me. He brought up his Marros and had a lot of success, but Wait Then Fire brought them down. He had been a little frustrated all game at my refusal to leave my start zone or to shoot at his Torin, so he conceded with Raelin, Torin and a Tagawa still left. It definitely was tough to win from there, but I felt bad that my choices frustrated him to that extent. I think he was just upset since he was so close to Day 2, but luckily his SoS got him in anyway.

Thoughts after Day 1: I think my army was what I intended it to be. It’s a difficult to play against, slow, anti-melee army that can throw a ton of dice. 4-1 actually seemed a little out of reach to me when I was thinking through matchups, but I’m happy I was able to do it. I don’t know how well I am going to do tomorrow, since there are quite a few melee armies in the pool and those are very bad matchups for this army. But no matter how I do I’m happy I was able to get Taelord to Day 2.

Day 2

Game 1 vs. BigBoa (Deathchasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, Brunak) on Fossil

I drew one of the best boards in the pool for my Redcoat army, especially against melee, so I was kind of worried. I opened with Brunak, carrying Raelin to an aggressive perch that covered the middle of the board. Once I saw his order markers split between Redcoats and cheerleaders, I decided to hard engage on the 10th. I had great dice and slammed through two on the first turn of the engage, and then brought Nerak up and killed three more on the following turn. Just like that, his army was running out of steam. Since I was basically on top of him, it was relatively easy to catch the the Marros and shut down his comeback mechanism. I ground out the rest of his army with the orcs, never activating the Brunak and Raelin combo. I think this game showcased the biggest advantage of my army; the awkwardness of picking it up without knowing how to play it. Opening with Marro Warriors would have both thinned my army more effectively and left him with better tools to deal with the weakened orcs.

on to Round of 8

Game 2 vs dok (Tor-Kul-Na, Nagrubs x3, Me-Burq-Sa, Marcu) on Fossil

Well, I drew the worst board in the pool again. This time I was handed a weaker, still melee army, and I was playing against a pretty decent player. It was going to be a tough game to win. I opened with Raelin flying to a more conservative perch than in the previous game, but she could still help the double-spaced TKN where he was planning to go. I rolled the Marros up the hill and waited for a good chance to strike. I couldn’t manage to lose initiative early, so I had to go in and give him the initiative switch. Luckily my defense held out fairly well, and I was able to smash through the Redcoats and keep TKN alive. The game ended up hanging in initiative. If I win, I can trample up to 3 Marros and crush his chances to come back. If he wins, he’s able to mow through grubs, cut TKN’s healing off, and take control of the game. He got it, gunned through Nagrubs and denied the big trample, and TKN fell shortly after. MBS tried to make a game of it, but it was basically impossible with dok’s liberal use of water clone. He did a good job of making sure I had no way back into the game once he killed the Hivelord. I’m not sure if I would have done much differently though. It was a very tough matchup, definitely less than 50% to win on paper, so getting the game to the initiative coin toss was actually an accomplishment I think.

eliminated

I think overall my army was a good choice for the event. The abundance of melee armies in the field this year helped me on day 1, but hurt on day 2. I can’t be too disappointed in my losses, as they were both to good players with favorable matchups. I really like the Reverse the Whip two day format for GenCon and I hope to see it continue in the future.

2016 reports

Spoiler Alert!

These are my 2016 reports. Again just the Main Event. I play in a lot of other events, but I just don’t think they are as interesting to write or read about. The Main Event promotes lots of armies that people think they can play better than others, so the games tend to be unique and I like to have a record of them somewhere.

In past years, I’ve liked to bring single underused figures and put them in strong builds to pull them to Day 2. It works, but often people can just ignore the twist you put on your army and just beat you with Redcoats . So this year, I decided to cut the range common squads, and go a different route.

I went with Elves, after having a lot of success with them in the Classic League: Unsung Heroes event. The build I ended up taking to GenCon was the exact same build I took to that event, with Raelin and Otonashi added to reach the massive point total. I really liked the army and was settled on it for a while. It has a lot going on, it has a decent offense and defense, a lot of range, and a lot of variables. The only thing I really debated was Morsbane. I didn't really consider 2x Ashra, but Acolarh and Emiroon both felt viable for different reasons. The exact build I ran was:

Raelin
Ulginesh
Jorhdawn
Chardris
Arkmer
Kyntela
Morsbane
Otonashi

Game 1 vs. Weesel99 on Fire Isles (Mezzodemons x6, Raelin, Kaemon Awa)

This was a pretty horrible matchup for the Mezzos. No commons, two special attacks, one of which can hit multiple figures. I opened the game with a Raelin negation, just to make things worse. I blew up 10 Mezzos with various flaming Specials, and he got rid of Arkmer and wounded Jorhdawn and Chardris. He left his last two Mezzos hiding, and then sent in Kaemon, who ripped through Jorhdawn and Morsbane before he died. Suddenly we had to play another game. The Mezzos, now with strong Exoskeletons, slowly grinded wounds onto the Wizards. Then, he flew Raelin in, pinned down Ulginesh, and I was looking like I was going to lose. But I realized that his last two Raelin moves had been illegal; she couldn't fly. Weesel conceded inmediately. It did really did change the context of the game massively, since Ulginesh can kite Raelin around for a while but not if she can fly. Still, it was far from an ideal answer and I felt bad taking the win in such a close game. Luckily, Weesel still made Day 2 at 3-2.

Game 2 vs. ??? on Flash Fire (Ulginesh, Jorhdawn, Chardris, Arkmer, Morsbane, Emiroon)

The first Elf Wizard mirror in Main Event history. I liked my chances, since Raelin is good. Still, a lot of it would hinge on what the Morsbanes did. There was a ton of juicy negation targets on both sides, topped off with Ulginesh. With this in mind, I aggressively used my Morsbane to go after his. I failed my first negation, and seeing what I was doing, he tried to do the same thing. He also failed his first, and I responded with a successful second negation. From there, I retreated into my shell and just Rained Flames on his Emiroon summons. He was forced to cluster where I was able to spread my figures and leave gaps to deny the area of effect damage. I won with only Morsbane going down.

2-0

Game 3 vs. MrWookie on Vestige (Capuans x4, Spartacus, Crixus, Guilty)

Vestige is the best board in the pool for my army, since Jorhdawn can very safely Rain of Flame the enemy startzone on turn 1. I did just that this game, and his Guilty opener fared very poorly against that. I flamed four or five Capuans on the first round, and blew up Guilty with Chardris and Arkmer. He then began the Steamrolling, and things progressively got scarier as the match went on. I exclusively targeted the Capuans, just trying to limit his attacks per turn, but that let Crixus pound Morsbane turn after turn. Morsbane did eventually negate him, but not before Crixus went down. I finished off the Capuans, but had lost Chardris and Morsbane and taken a few wounds on Ulginesh. Crixus got rid of Kyntela before his defense went cold, leaving Arkmer and Jorhdawn to finish Spartacus. Jorhdawn screened for Arkmer while he rained down height dice on Spartacus until he went down.

3-0

Game 4 vs. Dysole on Flash Fire (Deathstalkers x4, Raelin, Krav, Marcu)

I talked to Dysole after Game 1, where she shredded an elf pod with the Krav, about the weakness of the Wizards to Stealth Dodge. It’s so hard for them to break formation to chase down the Krav (even more than the average pod army), since they lose dice, auras, and even the ability to take turns. The only real way to win is to negate the Krav, but even that usually requires some risky positioning for Morsbane. I was chalking this matchup up as a loss when I saw we were paired.

I climbed to the hill directly outside my startzone and podded hard after I saw the round of order markers on Deathstalkers. I got off a nice Rain of Flame that killed two Stalkers and got a wound on Raelin. The Stalkers went down relatively fast, since they had to leave Raelin’s aura to attack. Dysole put a lot of focus onto Morsbane, trying to deny the Krav negation possibility, but didn’t manage to bring him down. I cleared out about half the Stalkers before the Krav came out. I had a ton of trouble with them, failing a ton of ranged attacks before eventually giving up and sending in Arkmer on an initiative switch, who also failed to do damage. Then I just sent in Jorhdawn and Chardris all at once, and finally got into them. I had to move up Ulginesh and Raelin after that, but there were still three Stalkers and Raelin left to kill. The last two Stalkers blocked a ton of attacks, and landed two Mauls on Ulginesh and Raelin, but they did not have the damage to finish off either, and when the game ended on time, I got the win, with a 3 wound Ulginesh and 3 wound Raelin left against a full life Raelin and one Stalker. I think that’sabout as close as you can get to a 50/50 endgame, but it probably slightly favored Dysole.

4-0

Game 5 vs. Rÿchean on Flash Fire (Tarn Viking Warriors, Marro Warriors, Krav Maga Agents, Nakita Agents, Kaemon Awa, Sonlen)

This ended my four year streak of playing in the 3-1 game at GenCon. That’s one of my favorite parts of GenCon, since it has interesting armies, players who have gotten familiar with them over the course of the day, and a motivation for everyone to win. It was kind of a weird game, since we were the only two undefeated players playing each other. We actually debated taking the tie/forfeiting, since the change to a seeded Day 2 slightly punishes the top seed with a 3-2 opponent. We ended up deciding to play the game out, since it really didn’t matter with matchup roulette going on anyway.

He led with Tarn, and I was able to blow them up pretty quickly. The Nakitas had the same fate. Kaemon however, hit Chardris for five wounds and Jorhdawn for two. The Krav and the Marros picked off Arkmer and Chardris from safety, and I started to get worried. With how Dysole’s Krav shredded me in mind, I played much more aggressively against these Krav. It worked really poorly. I took way too many wounds with Morsbane and Jorhdawn taking down a single Krav. I just ran out of ways to kill things, and Sonlen is really able to punish that. He never went above two wounds and he healed, swooped, and shot through the remainder of my army.

4-1

Thoughts after Day 1: I think I actually managed to successfully land in the bottom half of armies that made Day 2 this year, which is a lot harder to do than you’d think. I’m hoping people make mistakes with Elves, especially in early deployment, since it’s very difficult to just pick them up and play. I’m not a huge fan of my first round matchup with Cleon’s MacDirks though. Rain of Flame in particular seems like it could be really devastating on a lot of the boards in the pool. I’m also not sure how to play four squads of MacDirks, since losing Alastair is just game over with that many Scots in play. Even if I do lose Round 1, I’m happy to take the Elves to Day 2. They are really fun and a lot more viable than people think, and I think I showed that today.

Day 2 Game 1 vs. Cleon on Vestige (MacDirk Warriors x4, Raelin, Alistair, Thorgrim)

This was one of the matchups that I liked the least in the pool, except on a huge board like Wendigo. It’s way too easy to Rain of Flame a ton of MacDirks and knock out the hitting power of the army. With that in mind, I was very careful to avoid clumping my figures as I slow rolled up MacDirks and wounded Alistair with overextend. Raelin was very far back, and I planned to rush her in on an OM3 when I was ready, and then pile in MacDirks behind her. Unfortunately, Morsbane hit the negation on her, so that plan was dead. I immediately changed gameplan, and ran in MacDirk after MacDirk. I had a lot of trouble actually finishing off the Elves. Morsbane hung on to his final life for four attacks of 6v4, really slowing down my rush. That gave him time for another negation on Thorgrim, which was a big deal later. Jorhdawn took four wounds, but successfully retreated to the startzone. Arkmer hit 3/4 engagement strikes to really limit my activations. Eventually, I was able to hit down Jorhdawn after baiting her into a Rain of Flame out of safe range. Chardris went down to the last MacDirks, leaving Arkmer, Kyntela, Raelin, and Ulginesh, with a wound on all four figures, against my negated Raelin and my Alistair. Raelin got the last wound on Kyntela before I switched over to Alistair, grabbed the healing glyph, and went in for the final try. I overextended towards Ulginesh, hoping to knock off order markers, but only got rid of one. Raelin got him to three wounds at the end of the round, and he did the same to her. The game was hung in initiative, with an Alistair overextend threatening to knock order markers off of either Arkmer or Raelin, or a Raelin hit wounding MacDirk to a point where he couldn’t overextend. Cleon got it, and got two wounds on Alistair, preventing Overextend entirely. Arkmer finished him off on the next turn.

eliminated

I’m sad I didn’t have another chance to prove I could beat the overpowered Elf Wizard army I brought, but it was a really fun, interesting, and close game that I got to play. I think I was pretty close to nailing the power level I wanted to be at, but winning games against your army still has to happen. There was a lot of variety on Day 2 this year. The weakness creep for Reverse the Whip has started.

Other results:

Thursday Night Classic (Deathchasers x4, Raelin, MBS, Nerak, Spartacus)

Game 1 vs William099 (Badru x3, Werewolf Lord x2, Raelin)
Pouncing two defense figures is fun. Win
Game 2 vs. Capsocrates (Warriors of Ashra x5, Raelin, Moltenclaw, Syvarris)
I unlocked the rare achievement, "beat Warriors of Ashra after forgetting to Battle Rush". Win
Game 3 vs. infectedsloth (Blades x2, Nerak, Brunak, Raelin, Ornak, MBS, Marcu, Isamu)
Blades are a lot worse than I thought. Loss

2-1

Heat of Battle (10th x4, Raelin, Marcus, Marcu)

Game 1 vs. MrWookie (10th x4, Raelin, Fen Hydra)
Raelin backed Marcu was able to hold off Hydra from my last two Redcoats. Win
Game 2 vs. ??? (Blades and bonders)
WTF happened. Win
Game 3 vs. Major Q23 (Raelin, Marro Warriors, Rats x1, Kurrok, Fire Elementals x6)
Bunch of burnt british. Loss
Game 4 vs. nicktheant (Mezzodemons x6, Cyprien)
WTF happened. Win

3-1

General Wars (Redcoats x5, Zelrig, Marcus)

Game 1 vs. ??? (Stingers x?, Phantoms x?, Hydra, Feral Troll)
The fact that I don't know how many squads he had shows how good Zelrig was. Win
Game 2 vs. Turkeyclubsammich (Glads x3, Blasts x2, Braxas, Heirloom)
Reams of roasted robots. Win
Game 3 vs. Major Q23 (Mezzodemons x4, Phantoms x3, Fen Hydra)
Could not kill Mezzos fast enough after Phantoms swarmed Zelrig. Loss
Game 4 vs. Rollitontop (Redcoats x5, Zelrig, Marcus)
Someone had to win. Loss
Game 5 vs. KidScaper (Warforged x5, Krav, Black Wyrmling x2)
I got two skulls on Majestic Fires on seven Warforged. Win

3-2

2017 Reports

Spoiler Alert!

Main Event

This year I was pretty settled on an army until the last minute. My dad couldn’t come up with an army he liked, so I let him play my Roman build. It was fine though. I was managing to trick myself into preferring the Phantom build I played online at that time. There’s always the curse of success in the online prep event tricking you into thinking you’ve come up with a good RtW army; the meta for the two events are very different.

Phantoms x2, Greenscales x2, Othkurik, Me-Burq-Sa

Not to get too down on the choices I made though. This Phantom army is very fast and fragile. It requires some planning around all outcomes for your attacks. You can’t play Othkurik too aggressively because he only has five life, but you can’t play too cautiously either because he only has four range. Finding the balance between that, and the balance between Phantom and Greenscale Order Markers is not easy but it’s really important to do well with the army.

Game 1 vs. ?? (Romans x2, Redcoats x2, Ne-Gok-Sa, Marcus)

I opened with Othkurik and Greenscales, who climbed to the top of the hill, and Acid Sprayed down incoming Romans and Redcoats. Othkurik took some small wounds to disengages and Roman attacks, but went down to the last four 10th WTFing next to Marcus on initiative switch. The Phantoms were able to close out the game on the remaining figures.

1-0

Game 2 vs. infectedsloth (Raelin, Horned Skull Brutes x2, Kozuke, Mezzos x1, Tarn)

This game is really hard to put down in words without writing a ton of them. IS’s army has lots of pieces and isn’t a “run one piece at your enemy at a time” army. My army rewards mixing order markers effectively and IS did that well. Some highlights of the game: Othkurik Acid Spray to kill both my Mezzos in one hit; Raelinless Kozuke counter striking two Phantoms; triple Berserker Charge to catch Othkurik. It came down to MBS vs. two Tarn in a melee duel, and MBS won. But the game was about how we got there.

1-1

Game 3 vs. Dragon Ruler (Dwarves x3, Migol, Mogrimm)

I opened with Phantoms, trying to clear out as many Dwarves as possible before they could lay into Othkurik. I only cleared out five or six. I was forced to run the most fragile dragon into Dwarves. It was a bad situation, but it was actually Migol that did him in. Migol threw a 2/2 smash into a 0/4 Othkurik whiff, and Othkurik was gone in a single turn. Six Greenscales weren’t able to beat an entire army.

1-2

Game 4 vs. nicktheant’s dad (Major Q9, Frost Giant, Fen Hydra)

I wish I could come up with a more interesting way to write this report, but it was just a Quiglex show. Q9 handled the Phantom opener, shot down Othkurik during lost OMs, then took down the remaining Greenscales.

2-2

Game 5 vs. nicktheant (Microcorp x3, Major Q10)

Phantoms are very good against Microcorp, but Q10 is very good against Phantoms. Both of us mixed OMs early to get the matchups we wanted, and for the most part it was split. I rolled a lot of skulls, but nick rolled a lot of Stealth Suits. The X factor in the game was Wannok. Phantoms and Greenscales are fast, so they were able to get and hold it, and there was nowhere good to put the wounds. I won through attrition, which is something this army rarely does.

3-2

Half of the 3-2s made it (randomly determined) and I wasn’t in the half. I'd probably be looking at this all really differently had I gotten to take my army to Day 2, but I didn't. Kind of a sad way to lose my Day 2 streak, but I don’t really think I had played well enough to earn a spot anyways. 3-2 isn't that impressive a run, especially if you start 1-2.

2018 Reports

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Main Event 2018

Raelin
Tagawa Samurai Archers x2
Alastair MacDirk
Knights x1
Syvarris

There wasn’t really an exact idea behind the army, I was just sticking pieces together to see what could add up to 490. I wanted to play Raelin because I didn’t for the first time last year and missed Day 2. Syvarris is good for fishing opponents with long range, the Knights and MacDirk are good at killing things that get fished, and the Samurai Archers are a good screen. The army also necessitates order marker mixing at the round level; you aren’t going to win any games playing this army as three waves. I also felt it had an interesting “trick” to it; even though the army has low quantities of common squads, killing and damaging the heroes is much more crippling to its offense than killing the squads.

Game 1 vs. ??? (Zombies x4, Cyprien, Heirloom) on Highways and Dieways

This was a favorable matchup, because Zombies really struggle with Tagawa Samurai Archers. Still, Cyprien is always a tough out. He opened with advancing Cyprien to the center of the board to threaten damage, and then rolled zombies forward across the road for the next five order markers. I plodded the various pieces of my army forward, eventually placing Raelin in a hole I had left to prevent Cyprien from getting adjacent to her at all. He eventually sent Cyprien in to one of the heightened section of the board, and Alastair stepped in and pounded him in over the course of a few turns as his Chilling Touch was cold (only killed one Tagawa Samurai Archer). With Cyprien gone, he didn’t have a choice other than to send Zombies into my pod, and I just counterstruck and hit through them until he ran out.

1-0

Game 2 vs. Dragon Ruler (Sacred Band x2, Kaemon, Raelin, Marcus, Red Wyrmling x3)
This was a reverse game. Our armies were both similar; he didn’t have any 1x commons like I did but the undisciplined Greeks would be fragile. We both opened very slowly, rolling up our melee. I shot through one of the Knights with Kaemon which made him to take turns with them. He started going with mostly Syvarris and Tagawa Samurai, and I was reluctant to put as much focus on range as he did with a single attacking Kaemon. I tried to advance the Red Wyrmlings but Syvarris picked one off. So, fearing death by a thousand pings, I sent my Raelin deep into his territory and rushed in the Greeks and Marcus. I attacked whatever I could that wasn’t Tagawa Archers, so my damage was spread around sub optimally, but my rolls were suboptimal too. Tagawa Archers were repeatedly cracking the 4 defense Greeks with attacks of 2 and 3. I killed Syvarris, but that was about it. Eventually, I got Raelin to only one life left on a round that I had my 3 on Kaemon, and stepped him up to Quick Release her. He did, and killed her, but failed to get the initiative switch I needed and got smashed by Alastair. But from there my luck turned. The Tagawa Samurai’s dice went cold, and a Raelinless Alastair fell very quickly. The last two Sacred Band and Marcus swung into Tagawa and did some serious damage, and then Marcus died. But the game had come down to two Greeks and two Red Wyrmlings vs. three Tagawa Archers and two Knights. My Wyrmlings held out to the Tagawa Attacks, and my Greeks got rid of some Knights. I pulled out the win with two Wyrmlings and two Greeks left.

2-0

Game 3 vs. Clarrismuss (Sailing, Hydra x3, Marro Warriors) on Fulcrum

He opened with double order markers on Saylind, and summoned two Hydras, one to an island in the middle of the board, and the other in my startzone next to Raelin. Luckily, his third order marker was on the Hydra he summoned first, and he was only able to lay into the Tagawa I had moved up earlier. I got some wounds on the start zone Hydra with my OM3 on Knights, and he put is order markers on the island Hydra. I disengaged MacDirk and threw some Knights around him, but wasn’t able to get more than one wound. This Hydra shredded my Knights, some out of Raelin’s aura. He summoned another Hydra to end the second round, and I disengaged MacDirk again and only got one wound on this Hydra. By this point, MacDirk was at four wounds from disengages and overextends, and the Hydra ate him up. At this point, I was out of things to kill Hydras with, and he ate up the rest of my army. This was a pretty bad matchup made worse by good summoning rolls and solid defense rolls, and I wasn’t upset about losing. Clarrismuss went 4-1, but had to drop Day 2 because of a conflict.

2-1

Game 4 vs. ???? (Warriors of Ashra x3, Syvarris, Raelin, Sharwin, Arkmer)

My opponent seemed fairly new to the game but he had a good army and was having a good day with it. I got to play it though. I shot through a couple Knights with Syvarris as he advanced Raelin, and he got MacDirk in the middle of the board. Early on, he pulled his Syvarris out of Raelin’s aura to shoot my Raelin, and my Syvarris killed him in response in two shots of 4. That was mostly the game. He was forced to run MacDirk in for a second chance at killing Raelin that failed. After that, he had to take horrible 2v5 attacks with Tagawa Samurai into Warriors of Ashra as I shot them with Syvarris from range.

3-1

Game 5 vs. Chill (Ulginesh, Emiroon, Arkmer, Kyntela, Chardris, Jorhdawn) on Common Ground

It was good to see someone else doing well with Elves in the Main Event. I strongly considered this army as my own Main Event army, but felt that with only five wizards it’s just way too easy to lose Kyntela and Arkmer and lose the game instantly with permanently neutered Jorhdawn and Chardris as your only offense. With Syvarris, I was mostly able to achieve that outcome. He shot Kyntela down in two turns in Round 1. Once she was dead, I moved my Raelin up to the ruin, the same one that his was on the other side of. He stepped up Arkmer to attack my Raelin, and I stepped up Alastair and overextended to kill his Arkmer. He was already running out of steam, and then his dice went very cold and mine went very hot. Alastair rolled 5/6 or 5/5 skulls once against every remaining hero as I cleaned up the rest of his army with just the one squad of Knights and Alastair.

4-1

Thoughts after Day 1: I’m satisfied with my Day 1 results and my chances for Day 2. I think my path wasn’t as hard as it could have been, but it wasn’t super easy. I feel my army is in the stronger half of armies that made Day 2, but not enough in the stronger half for cause of concern. I think people will struggle with using one squad of Knights and a bonder effectively, even though MacDirk was probably too strong of a figure to bring. There are a few people I don’t want to face in Reverse (mostly the Matthias all melee Dwarf army) and a few people I do not want to face in normal (Hendal, Wookie) but otherwise I feel I have a chance on either side of most matchups.

Day 2

Game 1 vs. ISB3 (Cutters x3, Agent Carr, Dund, Alastair) on Fulcrum

This wasn’t a horrible matchup by any means, but not one of the ones I would have preferred. I knew that I would need for Carr or Alastair to assassinate Raelin to win, so I very slowly rolled out Cutters and advanced both heroes towards the center of the board as he stepped up Archers and Knights. Carr took three wounds from Syvarris pings, so he was a risky call. At the end of one round that I lost initiative, I had my three on MacDirk and ISB3 had Raelin in a spot 10 spaces away from him, so I sent him in. His first 5v3 got zero wounds. I won initiative, and my next 5v3 got zero wounds. But the overextend final 5v3 got 4 wounds all at once. ISB3 had his OM1 on Raelin, and he made the bold but smart play to disengage with her to pull her on to one of the center islands. The kyrie survived, and the game was looking very tough for me. Alastair was shot down, and I desperately climbed cutters up the watery path to the top of Raelin’s island. He denied me mob on Raelin with Tagawa placement, but on my third turn of trying I got the wound on her. I had lost a lot of cutters doing this though. I tried to send in Carr to smash through a Tagawa to free the island for better mob attacks on the squads, but the Tagawa blocked 4/6 skulls with 4/4 shields. Carr died the next turn, and I had no choice but to send my last cutters into the pile remaining. They managed to take down a lot, by the time the last cutter died, ISB3 had 1 Knight and 3 Samurai and Syvarris left. But as they were doing this, Dund was taking potshots from the Tagawa exactly 6 away; he died before I took a turn with him.

eliminated

It’s sad that I can’t seem to make a real run on Day 2 but I had a good game and ISB3’s army was certainly weaker than mine (only won one game all weekend). I think Syvarris and Raelin were probably both incorrect figures to include in this build; Raelin made it too consistent and Syvarris made it too threatening. While before this event I was thinking that I needed to include Raelin in main event armies more, now I’m thinking the answer is that she has to be excluded, because it makes it too hard to punish opponents for deployment mistakes with your army.

2019 Reports

Spoiler Alert!

Time for my 2019 Main Event report.

410 is a really low point total and I wasn't very comfortable coming up with something. I didn't have any creative ideas for a splash build so I somehow ended up pretty quickly settling on:

Deathchasers x3
Me-Burq-Sa
Nerak
Major X17
Theracus

as the build I wanted to run. It performed wildly inconsistently in my test games, sometimes rolling armies and sometimes only killing a few figures. At the end of the day though I liked the Theracus X17 combo and the versatility and in-game creativity it offered, and I liked the idea of running Deathchasers in the Main for the first time. I've had a lot of success with Deathchasers in the past and just never broken them out for the Main before and this build felt appropriate. 9 Deathchasers is a very sketchy amount, and even the bonders can go down early with this sort of build.

Day 1

Game 1 vs. Dragon Ruler (Greeks x2, Marcus, Red Wyrmling x4, Raelin) on The Borogroves

This was the third straight year I had played Dragon Ruler in the Main Event Day 1. I opened with X17 and Theracus locking down the Unique Attack glyph. Dragon Ruler responded with a shadow Raelin placement towards the middle of the board. I tried to pressure Raelin with an Orc and the height Ulvania MBS but only got a couple wounds on her. Dragon Ruler smartly flooded the center of the board with Greeks and I started taking bad trades. Really struggled to keep even with Raelin-backed Greeks with Deathchasers and I should have figured out something else. Eventually though, all but one Greek and one Orc were gone. Me-Burq-Sa tried to make a run for the startzone to snipe but died to Marcus. I switched over to X17 and ran him at the startzone. He killed two Red Wyrmlings, and a Deathchaser sneaked a kill on another. X17 was at two life, but sneaked the healer glyph and took down the final wyrmling, and then time was called and I lost. I was frustrated because I don't think the remaining 1 Greek 2 life Raelin and full life Marcus could easily beat the full health X17 but time rules are random sometimes.

0-1

Game 2 vs. Dad_Scaper (Mohicans x4, Drake, Isamu) on Infected Glade

The last time I played Dad_Scaper in the Main he was playing Raelinless Deathchasers that he had brought. In that game I had 10th Reg that just sat in my startzone and blasted orcs, and this game was quite similar in that regard as well. Infected Glade is a brutal board for pathing and I just piled Mohicans on to the 3-hex tile right outside my startzone and picked at Deathchasers exactly 6 range away that had no route to them with the low glyph in the way. Towards the end he finally mustered enough of a Deathchaser offensive to kill 8 Mohicans but it was so hard to come back from the early deficit of orcs. Once the Deathchasers and bonders were gone, my Mohicans headed up the hill to hold Wannok and shoot X17, but X17 had a pretty good performance and cleared them out with only two wounds. But Drake came in to finish him off.

1-1

Game 3 vs. kid_scaper (Izumi, Nakitas, Skahen, Mika Connor) on Trouble Once Lurked Beneath

The 1-2 father son combo. After the mostly useless early game of Theracus X17 in game 1 I decided to forego the combo and just rush Deathchasers at him to hopefully destroy whatever pod he had planned before he could get it set up. That's basically exactly how the game went. He had some unfortunate order markers on Mika that were a response to my potential glyph grab with Theracus X17, and I was able to get on top of the hill on the same side of the board that his start zone was on. I was raining skulls too. I killed all 3 Izumi with no Counter Strike, landed a paralyze on Skahen for two wounds, and kept Mika engaged so she couldn't use Shadow Ambush or whatever it is. Nakitas didn't land an Engagement Strike or a Smoke Powder. I won very quickly without much casualties at all. It was a tough matchup and the dice were brutal.

2-1

Game 4 vs. nicktheant's dad (Rats x2, Charos, Kaemon Awa) on Platypus

Ant dad is a very interesting opponent to go against since he's played Heroscape at Gencon for three years now and knows a lot about how tournament Heroscape is played but I think that's all the Heroscape experience he has. He makes some very unorthodox moves but always seems to be doing okay in tournaments still. Until this year he only played heroes: this year he learned the Rats to add to them. He wasn't especially familiar with the Deathchasers but ran them at me. I ran out Rats. I tied up an aggressive MBS with Charos early and finished him off with a Counter Strike later. It was entirely a Kaemon show for me though. I played Kaemon cautiously but always launched at least one Quick Release a turn. He couldn't get through the Rats fast enough to even throw attacks at Kaemon.

3-1

Game 5 vs. Dysole (Raelin, Dividers x2, Nakitas, Roman Archers x2) on Trouble Once Lurked Beneath

I tried the same strategy of no Theracus X17 to pressure the pod that I had done on this same board in Game 3 against Kid_Scaper but Dysole had smartly gone to the opposite side hill of me and I didn't have much to shoot at with MBS after blasting a few Roman Archers. I killed some Dividers and 1 Nakita with Chasers, but then Dysole retreated to the hill opposite me with the remaining forces of the army. She picked off MBS with 6 range and then outranged me for the rest of the game. Still, I was content to wait on the hill with the remaining Chasers and Nerak and X17 and Theracus, since I had Wannok. But then I rolled 1 for Wannok twice. I was still taking occasional ping from Nakitas and both ones had slain Deathchasers, and I had no choice but to run back in to Dysole's hill with my remaining forces and narrowly lose. I made some mistakes with X17 allowing him to get Volleyed by the remaining 3 Roman Archers but it was another frustrating close loss with my army. I do think I fairly easily win if I don't get double 1 for wannok and really am curious to read Dysole's report to see what her plan was going to the hill that didn't have Wannok and sitting on it.

3-2

Game 6 vs. Evantage (Heavies x3, Grimnak, Nerak, Marcu, Isamu) on Platypus

Evan is a good player who had just overshot the meta this time. I don't think this is that unwinnable of a matchup for the Deathchasers though, as they can put the hurt on Grimnak fast. He played the Deathchasers straight up no Theracus X17 early game. He was on top of me fast, right outside my start zone, and Chomps were hard to come by without risking giving Deathchasers height on Grimnak and I really needed Grimnak alive. The thin corridors of Platypus really plays to the Deathchasers advantage as they throw fewer attacks per turn and are less affected by the huge pileups that can happen there. I was taking slightly suboptimal trades just to preserve the longevity of Grimnak, but eventually I had to send him in. He did pretty well and his defense held up, and suddenly all the Deathchasers were gone. X17 finished off Grimnak but the remaining Heavies were able to swing through the X17 7 defense to win the game and secure a Day 2 spot. Evan secured a Day 2 spot as well, making it as one of the 3-3s.

4-2

Thoughts after Day 1: It wasn't the prettiest way to get to Day 2, but I got there. I was not expecting my army to be bad enough to go 1-5. I think it's deceptively a lot weaker than it looks, similar to my Arrow Grut army in 2014 really. It's low quantities of Deathchasers and their heroes don't have Raelin. The X17 Theracus combo hasn't been successful at all. I deployed it game 1 against Dragon Ruler to lock down the unique attack glyph for a slight tempo loss. Aside from that, it's just been bad cleanup. The game that I won with the army I didn't use X17 at all. I think there's low potential to catch people off guard with it.

In terms of matchups I like most armies against mine. 9 Raelinless Deathchasers really struggle against the melee bonding that dominates the Day 2 pool. Deathchasers already aren't that good against other bonders with only three activations a turn and they get worse when they don't have a numbers advantage. The splash and toolbox armies feel winnable to me too, although those are always about how the individual game goes. I am not thinking about the play your own army games yet but I think that's where I'll be in trouble if I get there.

Day 2:

Semiquarterfinals vs. Evantage (Heavies x3, Grimnak, Nerak, Marcu, Isamu) on Dance of the Dryads

After our match Day 1, Evan and I had talked about Theracus X17 since I really didn't think it was all that likely that he'd both make Day 2 and be my opponent. But here we were. I liked my odds a whole lot better on this board than the Platypus we had played on last time. He dispatched X17 and Theracus deep into my territory on lava at the end of the first round and ended up taking all 5 lava wounds that he had, on MBS Nerak Theracus X17 and a Deathchaser. The Deathchaser was especially brutal as he'd already lost one or two and they fell fast from there. Nerak never moved this game, just shielded Grimnak from the startzone, but that was enough. X17 and Theracus were holding the height spaces on Grimnak so I was protected from Deathchaser attacks that way. He focused Heavies and killed almost all of them, but I chomped X17 and smashed in his heroes and that was it.

on to Quarterfinals

Quarterfinals vs. Major Q23 (Axegrinders x2, Tandros, Heirloom, Tarn Viking Warriors) on Platypus

This was my board and my glyph combo. I got X17 Theracus on to Valda on turn 1. Deathchasers were then all over the place, including the initiative glyph. Q23 dispatched Tandros and Heirloom with his first round. The force orb on Theracus X17 failed but Tandros got into a good spot that protected the Dwarves well. I tried to slam him with Deathchaser dice before the Dwarves got there but it didn't happen. I snuck a Deathchaser around X17 Theracus to get Heirloom for two wounds. Me-Burq-Sa landed some nice stares and attacks early against Dwarves that gave me a lead in our trades. A Deathchaser killed one early too. Tandros or an Axegrinder got two wounds on Nerak and he had to flee. The trades in the middle of the game around Tandros in a clogged section of the board were not in my favor, but I didn't have that many Dwarves to kill so I was fine with making them. Eventually the Dwarves ran out, and MBS had been firing at sleeping startzone Tarn to limit their activations. Heirloom went down to Deathchasers, Tandros went down to Deathchasers, and I was able to pull out the win.

On to semifinals

Semifinals vs. Sir Dendrick (Venocs x4, Venoc Warlord, Krug) on Invasion

He opened with X17 Theracus to Wannok, which I just dropped on to Krug. I opened with straight Vipers and planned to use them until they were gone. I didn't bother slow rolling and just threw them all into the Deathchaser grinder. He placed Nerak a bit aggressively but I got lucky to kill him with two 3v3s. After that the Deathchasers really struggled to block. I kept rolling 2/3 and it's tough to find two shields on two defense dice. I only had two frenzies in the game but they were both on the same turn and that cleared out all the Deathchasers to knock off his OM3. The Vipers pounded in MBS and then Theracus and X17 to win. We finished in about thirty minutes while the other semifinal went on for over two hours.

on to Finals

Finals vs. Infectedsloth (Raelin, Heavies x2, Nerak, Mezzos x1, HSB x1) on Dance of the Dryads

The glyphs were unique attack and Valda, the two best for my army. I planned for Theracus X17 to unique attack, to pressure his pod with attacks of five from MBS. That turned out not to be the move when his entire first round of OMs was on the Mezzos. His mezzos were on the Valda side hill after his first turn, so I dropped X17 on to the lava space between the two pine trees towards the edge of the board to deny Mezzo attacks on to the Deathchasers. Theracus died to 1 Mezzo 4v3, and X17 took 3 wounds from 2 Mezzo attacks. The Mezzos retreated to end the round, fearing the Cyberclaw. Simultaneous to all this happening, I was advancing Orcs. I was kind of tripping over myself, worried about stepping up two far towards the Valda hill to give Mezzos 5v3s on Deathchasers. I deployed Nerak out, but he was sitting on lava with one base. I got two wounds on Raelin from MBS to end the round and took Ulvania with my Chasers, then won initiative to pop Raelin there. He had all Heavies. Nerak came in to lava height to kill a Chaser, and I responded by killing Nerak, but he had bought himself enough time to fully send in the Heavies. The last 5 Heavies ended the round with 3 Deathchaser kills and I only had 3 Deathchasers left now. I won initiative, and thought I was back in it, but my 3 Deathchaser height attacks and MBS attack all only killed 1 Heavy and he still had full activations. He cleared out three Deathchasers again and I lost my second turn. I tried to make a game of it with Me-Burq-Sa on my three, blasting off a Heavy he was engaged with then running away. X17 came back in, with four wounds thanks to lava, and smashed a Heavy too. Me-Burq-Sa cleared out both Exos and a Mezzo, but died to the final Mezzo attack. He still had the Brutes and a couple Heavies left which would have been hard to beat.

Infectedsloth played the finals really well. He had no figures in his startzone next to the road to deny early Deathchaser rushes. The first round of Mezzos was such a brutal counter to Deathchasers as I just could not safely go into them. Infectedsloth and I both had the same first tournament, Peoria National Heroscape Day 2011, so it was cool to be his opponent for his Main Event win. He hasn't lost a game at Gencon 2019 yet, but we'll see if that holds. (Infectedsloth and I have second championship to play, a Heat of the Battle Uniques final that was delayed and delayed again because of the Main Event delayed finals; it will be played online at some point soon)

Final Thoughts:

My army was definitely weaker than it's theoryscaped out to be. It went 2-8 through the ten games, the absolute minimum number of games an army can win to reach the finals. Although I would say all three of my losses with it were close. 9 Deathchasers is such a fragile number and there's really nothing else in the army that's good. Isloth probably knows more about the strength of his army, but I know I was rooting for Matthias during the 2 hour semifinals since I felt my matchup with his Spiders was substantially easier with X17's Cyberclaw available on Wyverns and the low attack on Spiders making it easy for Deathchasers to shrug off their attacks.

The matchup roulette was mostly way in my favor Day 2 so I can't be too upset. I landed the Grimnak Heavies build that everyone wanted in the first round, and the strongest army left in the semis. My top 8 game with Major Q23 was about as close to a 50/50 matchup as you can get in RtW but the board glyph combo tilted things in my favor and Q23 didn't have any big comeback mechanisms to tilt things back his way. So it may not be the most impressive run to the Finals on paper, but I'm happy to get there after three straight years of disappointing early exits from the Main Event. Hope to make it back there next year!

2020 Reports

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Online Con Championship Report

My army:
Arrow Gruts x2
Deathchasers x2
Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider
Swog Rider x4
Raelin
Otonashi (sat)

I tried to treat this like I was building a Gencon Main Event army even though it was a little bit different. I try to do something fresh every year in the Gencon Main Event, and I'm really happy with the concepts I've done over the years (AG Mimring Pod, Elf Wizards without Emiroon, X17 + Theracus, among other things). Even if that may not be the best thing to do strategically in terms of winning the event I like putting new army concepts on the map and Reverse the Whip is the best place to do that.

This build, the hybrid Deathchasers and Arrows, is something I've had in mind for a while but never actually tested until this year. Deathchasers bond with Nerak and the Swogs, and Arrows and Swogs massively benefit from Deathchasers moving up Nerak for them. From an army role perspective, you have Arrow Gruts as the ping and Deathchasers as the "engine". Raelin glues the army together. My initial build had Ice Troll instead of Raelin but after maybe two order markers of my first test game I immediately realized that I did not have the bonding turns needed to get the Ice Troll all the way across the board, and I desperately needed these guys to stay alive better. The key to the army I think is playing the two parts of the army together, and having well-timed OMs on each particular squad when you need their specialized tools (Range from AGs, big attacks from Deathchasers). The build is quite on the stronger side though. It has a massive amount of defense. I liked that because I thought online it was more likely that people brought stronger builds, since Online hasn't had the years of weakness creep that Gencon has.

Round 1 vs. Crystalman (Spiders x5, Wyvern, Estivara, Brave Arrow) on Raknar's Rift

I was a little worried about the Wyvern, but there was only one of them. I played Raelin very cautiously, not moving her at all, just building a huge wall of Orcs outside my startzone in the first round. Crystalman deployed the Wyvern a little too close to that wall and I pounced on it. I had OM1 and OM2 on Deathchasers, and ran them out of Raelin's aura to pick off the Wyvern. Most of my Deathchasers died, but the Wyvern died too. From there the game was not that interesting. The Spiders were just 2/2. They had very little chance of cracking the 5 defense Arrows and 6 defense Swogs, and I refused to move to any positions that gave the Spiders height. For maybe four consecutive rounds Crystal was unable to do any damage to my figures, until I moved up Raelin late in the game to push forward and close the game out and he managed a couple wounds on her.

1-0

Round 2 vs. Coachmuskie (Hounds x3, Krug, Eldgrim, Isamu) on Bad Moon Rising

Muskie handed me Hounds in the Reverse the Whip game which was a throwback to GC 2014 when I was handed Hounds twice in a row on Day 2 when I was playing Arrow Gruts. Muskie played my build as two waves, first Deathchasers, then Arrows, which I disagree with but it didn't work out horrible for him. Maybe against Hounds that's the right call since Hounds love the big piles of figures that this army normally ends up with when I play it. I got into the Deathchasers with the Hounds early and had some nice plagues, but then my pack movement rolls went south just when I wanted to start pushing into muskie's startzone to hit sleeping Arrows. I never got the chance to do that. The last few Deathchasers died, along with Raelin, and I had about 4 Hounds left to use or lose against the Arrows. Luckily the Arrows really struggle against the Hounds, so they did a lot of work. Krug, wounded by plagues early in the game, came out against one Swog and 3 Arrows and was able to clean up.

2-0

Round 3 vs. XTHORSAVAGEX (Tagawa, Izumi, Kozuke, Hatamato Taro, Marcu) on Drudgery

When we got matched up I was thinking this was an easy win, Hato is quite bad and it's all unique squads, I just need to pick them off before they get to me. I did not pick them off before they got to me. Thor deployed Marcu to Valda on OM1, then rushed 8 move Tagawa Samurai around the bottom side of the board straight into the heart of my pod right on to Raelin. On his OM3, he sliced one Deathchaser 3v5 to charge up the Tagawa, and then hit Raelin for four wounds with the other two. Round 2 the Tagawa are continuing to wreak havoc, now fully Bloodlusted, and I think to myself, if I don't kill them here I will lose, so I run a Swog and 3 Deathchasers all with height into the Tagawa and they counterstrike me on every single attack. I'm basically considering it a lost game at this point, but I do my best to keep the game going with AG pings. I have about 2 Swogs and 5 Arrows left at this point, but I have some space to work with since they were all sitting in my startzone. I land some ridiculous 2 and 3v6s that thin out the Tagawa, then do the exact same thing to the Izumi, as I'm climbing to the sandy center of the board. I win a crucial initiative where Thor had his OM1 on his final Izumi, OM2 and 3 on the sleeping Kozuke. I ignore the Izumi and sprint my AGs to his side of the hill and rain 3v3s down on the Kozuke. First volley kills one Kozuke, Izumi can't catch the Arrows, second volley kills the other two Kozuke. 2 OMs lost and now the game is basically over in my favor. I eat the sleeping Hato then kite the Izumi around a bit and finish him off too. Maybe the scrappiest win I've ever gotten, I thought I was done for after the Tagawa absolutely destroyed me.

3-0

Round 4 vs. dok (Axegrinders x2, Darrak, Raelin, Black Wyrmling x2, Red Wyrmling x2, White Wyrmling) on Draugur

We were both locked in for Day 2 so this game was basically playing towards a first round bye. I don't have a lot of familiarity with Dwarves since I just got my first physical squad of them recently. I tried to view this game as a learning experience in case dok and I rematched on Day 2. I got the attacks I wanted, Axegrinders on to Swogs, but I just could not find kills. dok sniped Raelin who I placed in a bad long term position because I feared the Deathchaser rush. I got a little back into the game towards the end, with my last Dwarf and Darrak doing serious work and holding good positions, but my Wyrmlings died a little easy. Time was called and dok was up on points since he still had an unwounded Raelin. I was still down for sure but I had a chance at winning with how weak the Orc offense was getting.

3-1

Round 5 vs. heroscaper2010 (Mohicans x4, Q10) on Fire Isles

I was really tired after the game vs. dok and the three games before that and running things so I don't think I played my finest game here. No particular mistakes, but I was tripping over myself double-space denying my own Swogs and had OMs on the wrong card a couple crucial times which made me leave a lot of figures on lava. I got lucky to slam Q10 for three wounds with just Arrow pings so he wasn't a factor, but the Mohicans were quite tough for me, especially as hser2010 targeted my Swogs. Once the Swogs were dead, the little guys had a lot of trouble with the Mohicans. The final two Mohicans killed five or six Orc squads and edged out a narrow win.

3-2

Day 2

Round 1 vs. Rama (Blade Gruts x4, Nerak, Grimnak, Ornak) on Caldera

Orc battle. This was a close matchup. Blade Gruts have the horde advantage but my army had the defense and range advantage. It was a very interesting early game. I was trying to very slowly roll up my horde of Blades, but a couple of Deathchasers were alone out of Raelin and Nerak's aura so I deployed a few Blades and Ornak deep into Rama's territory to pick them off. That cost me Ornak, but the Deathchasers were substantially weakened. From there Rama set up a great Arrow pod right outside his startzone. He used the water and the thin path up to the Caldera as defense. I didn't really have any great shots on to his Arrow Gruts so I rolled Grimnak on to the high middle ground and started hitting the remaining Deathchasers. It was mostly successful, but then Arrows hit Grimnak for a quick four wounds out of nowhere. I retreated Grimnak back, to where he could get Kelda next turn, and then I sent in two Blades deep to take height 3v6 shots on Swogs to hopefully slow Rama down. I hit on both shots and that was basically the game. Rama was left with one Swog, and that just was not enough to punch through the Blades.

advance

Round 2 vs. Cleon (Capuans x2, Crixus, Spartacus) on Highways and Dieways Swarm

Cleon was playing the out of steamroller. On any other board in the pool I think my army is a pretty big favorite, but on Highways and Dieways it's a game. And Cleon played the Highway to his advantage very well. The Capuans with road threatened so many places and I couldn't safely develop Arrows or Swogs. He massed his 6 Gladiators on one of the corner hills and sent in Crixus and a few Gladiators to smack a Swog. The Swogs death freed up room for my next OM, which was Raelin, to replace his spot, and she started to pin the Gladiators from getting to the rest of my very fragile army. I took sent Deathchasers into holes in the road to attack up 4v5 on the Capuans, but those attacks failed. The Deathchasers died and I was forced on my next Deathchaser OM to make a very aggressive play, sending Nerak deep around the board on to the Wannok glyph to take a low ground attack up at a Capuan, sent another Deathchaser around along with him to take an even attack at a Capuan, sent two more down into the hole to get some damage. I got a couple kills with the aggressive play and then switched over to Arrows. The Arrows really struggled as well until one crucial pair of turns. On OM3, I climbed my final Swog up on to height, bit a Capuan, and then sent an Arrow Grut to Dagmar. Dagmar won me the initiative, and the Arrow Gruts all climbed up on to height to kill the final two Capuans to knock off two of Cleon's OMs. I used the free turns to kill Spartacus, but Crixus disengaged taking the wound to up smash the last Swog. It was 3 life Crixus vs. 3 life Raelin and 3 Arrows. I sent Raelin up to height to replace the Swogs spot with my Dagmar OM1, and hit Crixus for one wound. The Arrows were fortunate enough to find 1 wound on to Crixus with their pings on my second turn, so my third turn was locking Crixus with 3 engagements and sending the last Arrow to Wannok. 1 life Crixus was forced to take the 3 unblockable hits and it killed him. It was a great game; I think my army was pretty favored but Cleon just outplayed me with the exception of leaning too heavily on the Capuans for OMs that round. I didn't have nearly as good a handle on the board and I was really tripping over myself at the start and I paid for it.

advance

Round 3 vs. Dysole (Yari x4, Raelin, James Murphy, Laglor)

Dysole always does these traditionally horde of really bad squad + Raelin + something that covers their weaknesses builds. I thought I had an okay chance since James Murphy is A+ tier against Swog Riders, but it was going to be an uphill battle since my army had so much more defense than Dysole's. Dysole played my army as two waves, Deathchasers first then Arrow Gruts. I opened with a pretty heavy Yari play, thinking they were solid enough against Chasers and bad against Arrows. They scored two kills in my first two turns with them but after that they really struggled to find anything, which was really bad for me since I just needed one or two more Deathchasers dead to cripple their offense. Meanwhile Dysole sent Raelin extremely deep to protect Deathchasers, which left the Arrows exposed. I switched to Murphy and hit a big kill on two Deathchasers and one of my own Yari. Then Murphy killed another Deathchaser and got two wounds on Nerak, forcing him to Kelda. Then Murphy went even deeper, out of my Raelin's aura, to blast a Swog and two Arrows out of the game. He got one more blast that killed two more Arrows but then the Cowboy rampage was brought down. That left two Arrows 3 Swogs and Raelin, which I thought was managable for Laglor, but it was not. Laglor engaged Raelin and never could finish her off. Raelin had some great blocks, Dysole set up a good double Swog pod and finished off Laglor with the attacks of 4 from height.

eliminated

Overall I'm happy with how I did, I won two day 2 games against good players playing well and made my third very difficult game close. I liked my build and wouldn't change it, I don't think I played it perfectly in any of my games really and I like that, it's a very challenging army.

2021 Reports

Spoiler Alert!

VC Delta

Spoiler Alert!

Army: Death Knights x3, Air Elemental x2, Khousmet, Vulcanmech Incendiborgs. I thought the Khousmet Incendiborg combo had a lot of potential and wanted to give it a try with a Delta-repriced Khousmet using the DKs as a bonding screen.

Round 1 vs. SamuelFrost4 (Einar Imperium x3, Kiova, Marro Warriors)
Imperium are tough in Delta. Barely eked out a win with my last Death Knight taking down Kiova. W

Round 2 vs. vegie dad (Capuans x3, Spartacus, Gladiatrix x3)
Gladiatrix with a 25% discount is a good deal. Got rolled, just didn't have the firepower to compete. L

Round 3 vs. Phantom (Grok Riders x3, NGS, MBS, Bahadur)
Grok Riders on fire sale are a fine melee squad. Got rolled, just didn't have the firepower to compete. L

Round 4 vs. Deroche (Drudge x7, Re-Tak-Shi, Raelin)
The best game for the Incendiborgs, blowing up Re-Tak-Shi to cripple the Drudge offense thanks to Ulaniva. Barely eked out a win with my last Death Knight taking down Raelin. W

I was happy to go 2-2 here since I don't think it was as good of a build as I hoped it would be. I honestly think I would have been better off going with a pure Death Knight build. The Incendiborgs were just a little too pricy for the firepower they were giving me, and they're a little too slow to get next to Khousmet on height.

Good Old Days

Spoiler Alert!

Army: Deathchasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, MBS, Swog

For me the Good Old Days are all about rolling 12 Raelin and Nerak backed Chasers across the board and smashing things.

Round 1 vs. Chris Perkins (Rats x2, Q9, Marro Warriors, Raelin, Marcu, Isamu)
Chris had a fantastic mini-Rat pod with only one Rat OM that made it almost impossible to crack Q9 and Raelin, putting him between the two trees of Turmoil. That gave him a great place to blast Chasers, and my Chasers didn't have a great showing on defense. L

Round 2 vs. Son of Chompy (Zombies x5, Deathwalker 8000)
Zombies were a little outclassed here, and Deathwalker died to the first attack it faced. W

Round 3 vs. ISB3 (Zelrig, Stingers x4)
Battle Rush made Majestic Fires a nonfactor, and the Stingers didn't have the activations per turn to deal with the Orcs running them down. W

Round 4 vs. NecroBlade (Raelin, Greenscales x2, Guilty, Isamu) Necro played a very cautious game to protect Nilfheim, but the move glyph still allowed me to find openings and pound the dragon in. W

I was a little sad with this 3-1, since I really wanted the Chasers to take it home at such a perfect point total for them, but I think I played well and got some good wins.

Anything Goes

Spoiler Alert!

Army: Redcoats x2, Raelin, Captain America, Eltahale, Isamu. I wanted to play Captain America backed Redcoats, since with a low figure limit I felt like activations per turn would be low too, and Reds can really punish that. Having never played in a mixed Marvel tournament before, I wasn't anticipating the Surfer-fest that this format would be.

Round 1 vs. Vminer (Captain America, Frost Giant, Omnicron Snipers x1, Fen Hydra, Isamu, Otonashi) Frost Giant had a good game taking out my Raelin, but once I got the pod set up I was in a good spot. W

Round 2 vs. MegaSilver (Taelord, Stingers x3, Iron Man) Mega's more mobile ranged offense pod matched up well into my slower ranged defense pod. His Stingers didn't do great because I had some fantastic defense rolls with my Redcoats. But his second wave of Iron Man held out and swept my army. L

Round 3 vs. Retlaw (Q9, Q10, Hounds x3) I really struggled to kill the hounds, but they really struggled to kill me more. Q9 managed to make it to the top double-hex perch of the Jabberwock and was a nuisance, but I took him down. W

Round 4 vs Garenex (Silver Surfer, 4th Mass x2, Sgt. Drake RotV, Eldgrim) I was really worried about playing against Surfer, but it didn't go that badly. Surfer only had one attack per turn, so I sprinted Redcoats across the board to threaten the sleeping Blues in the startzone and took unusually successful potshots on Surfer when available. W

Glad to have gotten to try Marvel for the first time in a competitive setting since the games were so different, thought this was a really cool format to try.

Sideboards

Spoiler Alert!

I thought this was a really exciting format. There was actually a format in Chicago in 2012 that ran this exact thing, but I was still learning the game and just had a variety of Knight builds. Have never seen it since then.

Army: Raelin, Rats x3, Kaemon, Krav, Hydra, Q9, Marcu. Not the most underground figures anyone has ever played, but my goal was to have things that added up to 420 really nicely. 420 points is a multiple of 60, and everything in here is a multiple of 60, with the exception of Raelin and Krav, who together are 180, which is a multiple of 60, so it really works out well for a variety of things I can tech behind the Rat screen for particular matchups. Basically, 120 + 120 + 180 = 420, and I used that math a lot of times.

Round 1 vs. Major Q23 (My army: Major Q9, Rats x3, Raelin, Marcu | Q23's army: 4th Mass x3, Alastair, Sam Brown, Kyntela)
I broke my 120 + 120 + 180 rule and went 20 points under this game because I really want Raelin-backed Q9 against 4th. The actual game wasn't that exciting. Q23 went aggressive with 4th early, so I had to sacrifice a lot of Rats to protect my Raelin, but once Q9 climbed the Jabberwock hill it was over. W

Round 2 vs. Dysole (My army: Krav, Raelin, Kaemon, Rats x3 | Dysole's army: Deathchasers x4, Raelin, MBS, Nerak, Isamu)
This was basically a Reverse the Whip of my loss to Chris Perkins's Rats the day prior, on the same board. I followed Chris's lead and built a very thick wall of Rats and fired over with mostly Kaemon sometimes Krav. My Rats had great defense rolls and Dysole's Chasers never could crack in. W

Round 3 vs. JohnnyFrisbee (My army: Krav, Raelin, Hydra, Rats x3 | Johnny's army: Knights x3, Sir Gilbert, Raelin)
Thinking that Raelin backed Knights are slow but hit hard, I went Hydra this time. I also put OM1 on Raelin, which was a major mistake. Knights won initiative, hit two big dispatch rolls, and caught a Krav that I had set up on the thin 1 hex part of the Forest Fire startzone before I even took a Rat turn. I was in a terrible spot and had to put all my faith in the Hydra. Somehow that worked out. I threw a lot of Rat OMs, tried to play Hydra very cautiously. Once I ran out of Rats I had to play Hydra aggressive, and I started to just have absolutely insane Hydra defense rolls, shrugging off every Gilbert boosted attack the Knights threw without ever losing a head. I won the game on points due to lava wounds at the end of the last round. Probably the game I was most outplayed over the convention, can't really give enough compliments to JohnnyFrisbee and Earl of Sandwich for their play this weekend. Sometimes you just get lucky and win these. W

Round 4 vs. ISB3 (My army: Q9, Rats x3, Hydra | ISB3's army: Q9, Rats x2, Marro Warriors, Raelin)
I didn't really want to take the near mirror matchup of picking the Q9 build of my first game, but I also couldn't really ride Krav. I decided to go with Hydra, for hitting power against Q9, but that meant no Raelin since I needed a Q9 of my own for Rats. Unfortunately, my Q9 never got to shoot at Rats. My Q9 unloaded 9 Queglix shots into Raelin, killing her, but ISB3's Q9 took Ulaniva and dropped Q9 in two shots of 5 and 6. I maybe should have seen it coming and used Rats more heavily, but it was brutal rolls. I tried to flood Q9 with Rats the following round, and one of the Rats actually got 2 wounds on Q9 with a single potshot. My Hydra was never able to get Q9 though as ISB3 played his Rats very well. L

Again, really liked this format. Thought it was really fun that I had a different army in all four games. More people went the "build two good armies both of which have Raelin" route, which is fair, but I had fun trying to construct something good for every game.

Championship Battle Report

Spoiler Alert!

My army: Heavy Gruts x2, Nerak, Ornak, Mindflayer Mastermind, Me-Burq-Sa, Iskra, Marcu

The original idea of this build was to go double Mindflayer, without Me-Burq-Sa and Iskra. I believe Kolakoski was a big advocate for this build back in the day, although he went for Blades x3 over Heavies x2. With Ornak and double Mindflayer, you can play for a double order marker knock off Red Flag of Fury turn to open a round, and then Heavies to bond with Ornak and use his surprisingly lethal attack boost aura. I quickly found that the Mindflayers were way too good when going into low defense figures and oppressing them out of a game, and really bad at getting the wounds needed to knock off OMs on high defense figures. However, I was having a ton of fun playing the Ornak + Nerak + Heavies x2 combo, and abusing no Eternal Hatred Marcu via Red Flag of Fury, so I decided to stick with the build and smooth it out by subbing one Mindflayer for Iskra and MBS. MBS is a cheap option to give the build some range, and Iskra is a cheap second Marcu or cleanup option. With four very different Utgar heroes that will mostly only take turns via Ornak's Red Flag of Fury twice per round, and the option to go with Nerak available too, it almost felt like playing Ulginesh on those Red Flag of Fury turns. On the Grut half, after doing 4x Swog Rider last year I was having a lot of fun making plays with disengage melee. While Heavies x2 is pretty solid, going in I felt with very limited range options and no Raelin my build was potentially a little weak for the meta. I also had a 7 card army, which I thought was going to be rare but turned out to be a fairly standard feature of the meta.

Round 1 vs. Cleon (MacDirks x2, Knights of Weston x1, Sir Gilbert, Finn, Thorgrim) on Frostmire

Cleon is probably my most played player throughout all my RtW history, with us playing in 2015, 2016, 2020, and now 2021, and all of our games have been super close. This build was really strange; he had me beat on squad figures but it was tougher for him to unleash his potential offense than it was for me even though he had substantially more. I had him beat on hero utility. I opened up with Marcu and Mindflayer, planning to use Marcu to tie up melee squaddies and Mindflayer to blast MacDirks. Cleon played a slow early game, trying to work up all 12 of his squad figures and smack his own Gilbert for a few wounds with the Knights. Unfortunately, Gilbert was a champ and tanked the 4v4 hits from his own Knights without any problem. It was a very strange game for Gilbert on defense. Because Cleon couldn't self-inflict any wounds on him, he banzaied Gilbert deep into my territory, but I declined attacks on him to throw dice at the single squad of Knights that came up with him. Cleon double disengaged Gilbert to retreat, and seeing that I could pounce on him with an Ornak + Heavy volley I decided to take those two LEAs, both of which hit. Then, on my huge volley of two Ornak-boosted 3v3s and 1 Ornak-boosted 4v4, Gilbert blocked all attacks. Gilbert then disengaged with all of those guys, and I declined the three LEAs not wanting to send MacDirks to 5+ attack, leaving a two wound Gilbert to hide in the startzone. After that, the game was just the 4 attack MacDirks vs. my squaddies, and my squaddies came out on top, with some big help from the Mindflayer, who stole three OMs and two turns. The end result wasn't super close, but the midgame really felt like trying to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time and it easily could have gone the other way if the dice had been slightly different.

1-0

Round 2 vs. Sir Heroscape (MacDirks x4, Alastair, Finn) on Forest Fire (Reverse)

I was coming hot off a game where I had heavily used the Mindflayer to put MacDirks to sleep so I was a bit worried that would happen again. Sir H set up a pod over on his ruin side of the board, so I overextended my Alastair and hid him behind my side's ruin, not wanting to worry about losing him and having 2 attack MacDirks. MacDirks seized Valda and were all over the board. On his R2OM1, Sir H went out with Mindflayer, and stole an OM, but I had done a sort of mean trick where I lined up my OMs X 3 2 1 instead of 1 2 3 X, so Sir H trying to steal my 1 stole my X. The Mindflayer with his short range had stepped into a vulnerable spot to take the Mind Blast, so my 7 move Finn and MacDirks were able to respond and kill him in a single turn, which stole Sir H's OM2. I started laying into the Gruts with Finn and MacDirks, self-wounding Alastair again to get MacDirks to base 4 attack, but they were falling fast and not getting the kills they needed. At the end of Round 3, I aggressively overextended Alastair a full 14 spaces to catch MBS and drop an attack of 6 on him to one shot the horselord. But that move gave Sir H an opening. He won the Round 4 initiative to catch Alastair with two Gruts for a 4v3 and a 3v3 attack and a chance at 3 wounds to flip the game around, but Alastair took it like a champ and emerged unscathed. He overextended one more time, killed both Gruts, and I cleaned up for the win.

2-0

Round 3 vs. Dysole (Moltenclaw, Greenscales x1, Monks x2, Raelin, Rats x1) on Aeon

Dysole is my other most played Championship opponent, with us playing in 2016, 2019, 2020, and now 2021. This was another move-glyph defined game for me. I sent Marcu to Valda turn 1, and Dysole's army had basically no way to contest that, so for 20 points and half a turn I had an army with +2 move. Round 1 Dysole had gone OM1 Raelin OM2 Rats OM3 Rats, so I just started sprinting figures into her startzone to attack things out of Raelin's aura. Iskra flew over the Rats with 8 move to tie a monk down, Heavies were doing 7 move disengages to find Greenscales out of Raelin and Moltenclaw range, a very gross early game. Because of all that pressure on the startzone, I was able to find a big Ornak-boosted Heavy volley to take out Raelin. Unfortunately, applying all this pressure cost me a lot. I lost all my Heavies and Nerak pretty quickly to Monk and Moltenclaw attacks. Luckily, basically all Dysole had left was Moltenclaw, and MBS and Mindflayer were able to take him out.

3-0

Round 4 vs. Son of Chompy (Romans x2, Roman Archers x2, NGS, Valguard, Marcus) on Battlefield 23 (Reverse)

Didn't play my finest game here but my dice were hot so it didn't matter. I won this game with just Valguard NGS and the two squads of Romans. There was a unique attack glyph that made the Roman bonding heroes much more lethal, and my Heavy army lacks the hitting power to get through two guys as big as NGS and Valguard. Chompy Son had a solid game plan and focused the Romans, but I got a lot of good blocks to stay alive with them long enough to smash through the Heavies. With this win I clinched my spot on Day 2, and was now playing for a chance at a first round bye.

4-0

Round 5 vs. Earl of Sandwich (Syvarris, Kyntela, Theracus, Tarn, Phantoms x2, Capuans x1, Crixus) on Battlefield 23

Earl was playing a huge 7 card toolbox of figures without much synergy or Raelin, but clearly knew what he was doing with them. The game is hard to describe because so much happened. Phantoms were his biggest offensive piece, and they went in first to try to deal with my big offense. He used Syvarris early as well, and I believe between he and the Phantoms MBS died early. I switched to full Heavies instead of Utgar Hero turns very quickly, which was maybe a bad call. Because I couldn't tie up the Stealth Flying Phantoms, Earl could just ignore my heroes, but the end result was my heroes were pretty underdeveloped, and my Heavies were almost gone, with the Phantoms gone with them. The Heavies had also managed to get a couple kills on Capuans and a couple wounds on Syv, but there was still Crixus who was a beast for my army to deal with, with only single heroes. We entered a very protracted and awkward end game, where both of us had to place order markers strangely due to the Mindflayer. Mindflayer was so vulnerable to dying to Crixus, but Crixus was so vulnerable to losing turns to Mindflayer. Mindflayer and Marcu managed to get three wounds on Crixus, but his one shield defense never failed him and I couldn't ever get the big hit I needed to get back in the game. It was all up to Iskra, who had been sleeping in my startzone all game. She had to kill 2 Tarn, 2 life Crixus, 2 life Syvarris, and Kyntela which honestly is somewhat doable for her. She got one Tarn, and then made a play Earl didn't expect to try to bash sleeping Crixus in, but came up just short and only got him to four wounds. She disengaged away when he woke up, but got one shot by him later when he caught her later. Earl went on to be the only 6-0 on Day 1, which is super impressive.

4-1

Round 6 vs. Viideosayg (Raelin, Mezzos x1, Horned Skull Brutes x1, Goblin Cutters x2, Phantoms x1, Syvarris, Marcu) on Aeon

Viideosayg had another 7 card army, this time a huge pile of the utility-based DnD squads and Raelin. I don't either of us played this early game very well at all. Viideosayg sent Nerak and very deep to try to assassinate my Raelin, while I sent Phantoms deep to try to get height attacks on MBS and Gruts. Both of those were wastes of crucial tools for later in the game. I used Cutters to finish off Nerak, then barged in the Brutes to mash with the Heavies, who did okay, but I totally forgot about using Expendable Rabble to make them substantially more durable. I killed off Ornak with Mezzos, leaving Viideosayg with Iskra Mindflayer Marcu and myself with 2 life Syvarris, Marcu and Mezzos in a pretty tight endgame. I let Mindflayer take special attack shots on the Mezzos while I ran Syvarris across the board, to taking shots at the Mindflayer and working towards Wannok to try to control endgame. Managed two wounds on Mindflayer over my Syvarris shots, but couldn't bring him down. I made a fairly aggressive call to take Wannok early which did not pay off; Syv shot Marcu from Wannok but only managed two wounds, his Marcu won the following initiative, dodged Hatred and caught Syvarris the following turn. Syv lived with one life and took Marcu to 4 wounds, but I had to switch to my own Marcu. My Marcu took one Hatred, but never lost any Order Markers which was huge. Fearing death of the now 1-life Mindflayer, Viideosayg put all his OMs on 3-life Iskra hiding in the back, so I made aggressive play and disengaged Marcu, rolled 3/4 skulls and Iskra whiffed, to lose the entire round. Then my Marcu made the rounds to kill Mindflayer and the enemy Marcu in one shot each. Very lucky turnaround at the end for me. By the end of it, I think I had figured out how Viideo's army worked, but I played the early game really badly. When builds get this weak it can be hard to assess the fundamentals of what the army is even doing, especially in the few minutes you get to set up your startzone in a tournament game.

5-1

Because I was 5-1, I secured a first round bye. I think that was a huge advantage going into the second day. My army was definitely in the stronger half of builds, so getting a bye to the top 8 meant I would have to win two games with my army and only one game against to win the event. I was most worried about the against game, since to my eyes it looked like infectedsloth had a solid path there, and his Scout build that he would have been handing me would be very vulnerable to Mindflayer, but I liked my chances in my first round game, and thought if I could get to finals I'd have an okay shot at whatever emerged from the other half of the bracket.

Top 8 vs. Necroblade (Arrow Gruts x3, Mimring, Krug, Swarm Raelin) on Battlefield 23

This was another game where the Mindflayer could go to town on low defense figures, but Necro was very aware of that. He barely used Arrows at all, hiding them in the startzone, opting to try to win the match with just Mimring and Krug, which I think was a smart call. He went straight Mimring in the early game, hit a huge 4 skull fireline that killed MBS and two Heavies. I caught Mimring after that and he never had another great fireline, but the damage was done and I was down three Heavies and my best Krug-kiting tool as a result. Necro had a perfectly timed OM on Swarm Raelin to take Mimring's place when he died and whirlwind three Orcs. She got one of them, I hit her back on my OM3 with every Orc I had and Ornak boost, but she lived with one life. Game hung in initiative; if NB wins it he can probably kill enough Heavies to make it really difficult for me to have the firepower needed to kill Krug, but if he doesn't then I easily do. I got it. Krug was then the center of attention, and he tried his best, but he lost an OM to Mindflayer and was bashed in with Ornak-boosted attacks.

advance

Top 4 vs. Hounds Rule (Gladiatrons x2, Hounds x1, Sam Brown, Moltenclaw, Eldgrim) (Reverse) on Honor

I'm truly impressed at the play of Hounds Rule with this army to get it this far. I think his win over infectedsloth with it the prior round was the most impressive of any in the tournament. Knowing that my build was substantially stronger, I tried to play aggressively and get lucky for a win, but I think to play that aggressively I should have been more cautious. Round 1 deployed Gladiatrons and Hounds to try to build a wall for Moltenclaw, and I was pretty happy with where the Gladiatrons were able to get to. Round 2 I took a second turn on the Hounds and failed a huge pack movement roll, only moving 2 spaces and basically losing the turn. That set me on a very bad path. I had my 3 on Moltenclaw, planning to take advantage of the Hounds that I was running in, but he just didn't have any place to safely go, especially since my Glads were melting. I set him for a Fireline on MBS but barely did any damage. Even that Fireline was a little too aggressive, and he was easily caught by Iskra. I disengaged from Iskra to try to make a Fireline play on two Gruts and Ornak, but the attack entirely failed. Moltenclaw lost initiative the following round and died, and Sam Brown failed to do much either, it was pretty resounding defeat. I definitely should have leaned on the solo Gladiatrons more as an offensive piece instead of trying to use them as a screen, but it feels so bad going with attacks of 2. Again, props to Hounds Rule for how well he plays this build; he made the Championship against Q23's very solid build very close.

eliminated

Third Place Game vs. Chris Perkins (Raelin, Guilty, Johnny Shotgun Sullivan, Warriors of Ashra x1, Mezzos x1, Rhogar Dragonspine, Kozuke Samurai, Otonashi) on Turmoil

There was a dice tower for third place, so Chris Perkins and I played a third place game for it. Was a little less intense than competing for the championship, and it was fun to give my army one last ride in an untimed game with a bit lower stakes, and I kind of wanted to see Chris Perkins's 8 card abomination in action piloted by the mastermind of it. Chris tried to open with straight Guilty OMs, but I won initiative and was able to deploy MBS with Valda forward, on to shadow and height, and paralyze Guilty for exactly two wounds. Chris lost his entire first round. I was feeling okay after that, but I couldn't take massive advantage of it since my next two OMs were on Heavies and they had nothing they could do besides surge to the middle of the board with Valda. I did that, but Johnny Shotgun Sullivan was up next and hit a three skull blast on Nerak and four Heavies that I somehow managed to block twice. He had to step out of Raelin's aura to do that, so he died. After killing Johnny I backed up a little to draw the Mezzos out of CP's startzone without unleashing the Kozuke quite so fast, and then went in all at once all over the place. I tried to get to Raelin by running around the back of his startzone formation with disengage, but she hung on pretty well. Kozuke did okay but were bogged down engaged to Heavies. It was a huge fight, but when the dust settled it was 1 Heavy, Mindflayer, MBS and Marcu, left against Rhogar and 1 Ashra. Rhogar killed the Heavy, the Mindflayer was tied up with the last Ashra for a while but eventually brought her down. MBS couldn't really kite Rhogar because of Rhogar's range, so I just tried to draw Rhogar over near Marcu so I could get my whole team in the mix and get some height shots in. Eventually, between all of the heroes, I narrowly brought down Rhogar with just a couple lives remaining on each.

Third Place Baby!!

Overall I can't be too disappointed in my performance. Between Gencon 2019, Online Con 2020, and ScapeCon 2021 this is my third consecutive year making it to the Top 4, which is an accomplishment even if I haven't been able to win any of the events outright. It helps that all three of my Day 2 losses have been successively harder matchups: championship 2019 against IS was a 50/50 game, semifinal 2020 against Dysole was a 65/35 game, and then this one was probably like a 75/25 game. Already excited to play some Summer Heroscape next year wherever it takes place. Honestly I just love competing in these games against other players trying hard to win, so I'm really happy I've been able to go so far and play lots of games every year.

General Wars

Spoiler Alert!

Army: Sacred Band x3, Redcoats x2, Parmenio, Marcus. This General Wars was really similar to the one we did at Online Con last summer, but the figure limit bumped from 18 to 24 which really enables builds like this. I love playing the Marcus + Redcoats pod, and thought it was fun to bring Sacred Band sincerely to a cheese tournament.

Round 1 vs. Major Q23 (Cutters x3, Brutes x2, Mezzos x1, Fen Hydra)
This game I did not even activate Redcoats or Marcus. In the first round I lost four Greeks to a strike force of Valda-backed Cutters. Over the next two rounds I did not lose any more. Parmenio and the Greeks claimed Valda from the Cutters after the initial losses and then rolled over the board with its aid, and some great defense rolls. Q23 was coming directly off his tough Championship win to this game so I'll cut him slack for this one. W

Round 2 vs. UnseenShadowz (Charos, Greenscales x3, Syvarris)
This was the build I won the prior Online Con General Wars with. It's good, but there's more tools to kill Charos without a strict figure limit, and I think I had the best one available in 10th x2 and Marcus. I built a screen with the Greeks and then launched 4x4v6 attacks on Charos from low ground to slowly bring him down. W

Round 3 vs. MrWookie (Heavies x2, Blades x2, Nerak, Grimnak, Tornak)
This game I had a magnificent Greek screen. I stumbled into a perfect double space denial on the Aeon road with Parmenio and a Greek that blocked Grimnak from getting any Chomps without extreme aggression into Redcoat range. After Round 1, I never put an order marker on the Greeks again and went straight Redcoats to blast through the entire army. W

Round 4 vs. Garenex (Blades x4, Grimnak, Nerak, Tornak, Marro Warriors, Isamu)
This mega 27-hex powerhouse build was what Chris Perkins was running in the other semifinals match. It was going to be tough, but I had done an online test game of this matchup Chris Perkins before the Con, and the key to it was focusing down the Blades' heroes first, to destroy Chomp and their attack boost, and leave them as 2/2 peons. That's how this game went, and I was helped by Garenex's poor Grimnak defense rolls. The Blades and Tornak themselves did a lot of work, but not enough for the Marros to clean up. I pushed aggressively on the Marros with 6 move Redcoats, breaking Marcus pod formation, to close out the game. W

Chris Perkins won the other semifinal, and since we were in different Generals we became General Wars cochampions, as the event was out of time. Chris Perkins had two other unplayed side event championship games to play that night, and since the two of us had already played the match once, it felt like a fine ending to me. I had a lot of fun playing the Greeks and taking them to some big wins.

Three-Headed Hydra

Spoiler Alert!

My team was me, my dad, and Chris Perkins. Our builds were:

Chris: Cutters x4, Charos, Guilty
Vegie Dad: Mohicans x5, Brave Arrow, Theracus
vegietarian18: Nagrubs x5, Tor-Kul-Na, Zetacron

I thought our builds were solid with smooth matchups, which is important when the other team sets matchups, but Chris and I pretty significantly overlooked how good Zombies were going to be, and all three of our builds were quite bad into Zombies.

Round 1 vs. UnseenShadowz (Charos, Drones x4, Guilty)
This game was bound to come down to a Charos vs. Tor-Kul-Na duel and it did. Tor-Kul-Na had fantastic shields, and got Charos down to 1 life, wbut died. Zeta was able to clean Charos up, and then rolled clutch shields to take down Guilty. On the other games of the series, Chris Perkins was soundly defeated by Earl of Sandwich's Zombies, but my dad pulled out the win over johnnyfrisbee's Cutters, but Johnny had maybe gone too hard for the multiplayer championship the night before and forgot to put a squad of his Cutters on the board until about halfway through their game. W

Round 2 vs. Deroche (Zombies x5, Syvarris, Theracus)
I had to take the Zombies since my teammates' armies were even worse into them. Many Nagrubs were turned into Zombies, but Tor-Kul-Na killed many many Zombies. Syvarris came out when Zombies got low, and I had a fun play where I ate one of my own engaged Nagrubs that was in my way to catch the elf archer before he ran away. On the other games, my dad was pretty soundly defeated by Tagawa Samurai Archers, while Chris Perkins got a crucial narrow win over NecroBlade's Blades. W

Round 3 vs. Dragon Ruler (Sacred Band x4, Parmenio, Valguard)
We were about 70% through a pretty tight game that I was narrowly losing when I realized that Dragon Ruler had been moving the Band five spaces all game when he didn't have Marcus in his army. We chose to play it out, hoping that either our teammates would decide the series, but that didn't happen, with my dad defeating HoundsRule's Hounds and Chris Perkins losing the Cutter mirror to OEAO. I lost the match in the startzone when TKN couldn't find the tramples he needed on the Greeks; there were about 5 Greeks and a 3-life Parmenio remaining. Dragon Ruler thought/thinks that the match wasn't impacted by the mistake, but I pretty strongly disagree; 50+ move points of extra development over the five rounds before I noticed the mistake gave the Greeks sizable advantages. I don't disagree that I had chances to win even with the mistake, but I don't think the mistake didn't impact the game. I feel bad about it because it was certainly an honest mistake, but it was a very impactful one, and he had played it that way in his prior games too. The end solution was to throw this game out, leave the series tied 1-1, neither of our teams advancing to the next round, and the undefeated IS/ISB3/Q23 team taking the title.

[vegietarian18]

I decided to add NHSD battle reports to this thread.

2011 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

My army: KoW x2, 4th Mass x2, Gilbert, Eldgrim, Raelin


Battle #1 Boromir96 (Stingers x5, Sonya, Cyprien) on Broken Skyline

I won the initiative and put the first marker on the knights. Eldgrim rushed out and overextended, reaching the glyph nearest to my start zone on his first turn. It was the attack glyph. I then slowly advanced my knights and 4th, while Boromir advanced Cyprien. Cyprien and the knights got tangled up in a battle, and Cyprien took out one or two knights and a couple 4th before the attack glyph amped knights brought down the vampire lord. Sonya was heartbroken, leaving her nearly dead. The knights and Raelin advanced forward, but stinger drain and overall good playing on boromir's part allowed him to come back from the loss of Cyprien. Fast forward to the end of the game, where he had two stingers and a one life sonya, and I had a two life Raelin, a 4th, and a Knight holding the attack glyph. Boromir won the intitave and killed my 4th, and I lost two turns, giving him ample time to slay Raelin and the KoW.

Record: 0-1

Battle #2

Facing LangfordRocks:
Phantom Knights x3, Moltenclaw, Marro Warriors, Zettian Guards on Ember Canyon Road

This was not a good map for my army. The lava at the top would make the 4th retaining a height and wait then fire bonus impossible. Furthermore, this height COULD be retained by Moltenclaw due to his Lava Resistance. Also, the Phantom Knights could just fly over the hills in the middle. My troops all had to walk around. I opened the game up as usual, with Eldgrim heading for the nearest glyph. It was the glyph of defense. The phantom knights swarmed him and grabbed a glyph along the way (some sort of dud, it was abandoned and not used again) but he held up against their attacks. I advanced the 4th up the canyon side, but Moltenclaw and the Phantom Knights swarmed over there. The phantom knights range defense of eight was too much for the 4ths measly two or three attack dice, and I was forced to engage them. I probably killed about two squads of them as he killed away most of my army. Eventually, his phantom knights fell due to lava damage and whiffs, and Moltenclaw finally retreated. At this time, I believe I had Gilbert, Raelin, 2 Knights and 1 4th Mass. I moved across the road with my remaining brave soldiers, knowing that time would be called soon. The Marro warriors fell to the knights, until only one was left. The Zettians attempted to pick off the knights, but only one died due to Raelins aura of protection. The last 4th died, leaving me with only Raelin, Gilbert, and one knight. As we began our next round, time was called. We were allowed to play our number one markers. Mine was on the Knights. Quickly calculating point totals, I realized that he was just barely edging me out. My lone knight charged up the hill with some help from Jandar's Dispatch, and took down the final Marro warrior. I won on points, 260-240. I DEFINITELY got a lucky break there. He had a better army and played much better than I did, and I hadn't even touched his dragon yet.

Record: 1-1

Battle #3: Another unknown username player but he played:
Q10, Krav, Heirloom, Blastatrons, and the Iron Golem on Fire Isles

He won the first initiative and sent out Q10. Q10 shot down Eldgrim immediately. There went my glyph grabbing plan. The knights instead bonded this time with Sir Gilbert, who rolled a decent Jandar's Dispatch to send the knights to confront Q10. No wounds on him yet, but I had a two knights that could attack him there. He moved out a couple Krav, and I moved out a couple 4th. I won the next initiative and shot down two of the Krav with the 4th, due to some very unlucky rolling on his part. I hacked away at Q10 for the rest of the round with 4 Knights and Gilbert, but it would take awhile for him to eventually fall. The Iron Golem and the Blasts came out next. The Iron Golem cut through the lava river in the middle, and the 4th wait then fired him into oblivion. The Blastatrons sent two of their ranks adjacent to my knights, and two stayed down low for the targeting bonus. They killed one knight before they all died themselves. Heirloom came out as a last stand, and I didn't really know how to handle him very well, never playing against him before. His force orb attacked killed four or five 4th and Knights before he finally fell. (Just a note, a lot of these individual fights happened at the same time, but due to the nature of the battle report, it's hard to switch back and forth for every single attack)

Record: 2-1

Battle #4: EvarScarcarver:
Braxas. Gorrillanators x2, and Evar Scarcarver on Ruins of Pine Tree Marsh

I had heard bad things about the Gorrillas, but never played with or against them myself so once again I didn't know what to expect. For that matter, I never played against Evar Scarcarver either, but he didn't even have to leave the starting zone. I opened up the game with my usual Eldgrim glyph grabbing, which turned out to be a Resurrection glyph. The knights moved out into the middle of the battle. He sent out three gorillas and Braxas right at the beginning and I never really recovered from that first wave of death. Braxas acid breathed at least eight 4th and Knights, along with Gilbert. (By the way, Braxas was acid breathing figures unadjacent when she was engaged with one. I asked him about this and he said it was perfectly legal. Is it?) The Gorillas killed four or five on their own, but they were mainly distractions. Their height and auto-defense against special attacks distracted me for quite a while. Eventually, Raelin and the couple remaining knights took down the big dragon, but the Gorrillas cleaned up the field and took out everything else. By the end of the game, I only had killed Braxas and two Gorillinators.

Record: 2-2

Once again, I'll finish it up if I have time.

2012 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Thanks for hosting a great tournament. It was fun getting 3rd (1st) place on my birthday. My report turned out to be super long due to the need to explain the draft and the game, so click the spoiler if you wanna read it.

Spoiler Alert!

My pool was:

10th x6
Marcus
Johnny Shotgun Sullivan
Heirloom
Marcu
Isamu

I really wanted to play some Redcoats every game, because I wanted to make sure I was playing something good all of the time. So I brought every single Redcoat I owned, as well as some filler heroes that work well with them. I never got to play my ideal army (10th x4, Marcus), but as you will see, the armies that I played were far from awful.

Round 1 vs. Captain Canuck (Pool: Krav, Nakitas, Laglor, Skahen, Guilty, Stingers x2, etc.) on Embattled Fen
Captain won the draft initiative, so he decided to defer to me. I wasn't really sure of his general direction with his armies, but I knew that I wanted to play Redcoats, and Redcoats are terrible against the Krav, so why not play the Krav? I ended up playing 10th x4 and the Krav as my army. The Captain wanted some ranged counter figures that the Redcoats would have to catch to kill, so he took Skahen, Nakitas, and Laglor, as well as Marcu and Guilty as filler.

I opened with the Krav, going for some fishing of the Nakitas to draw them in range of Bayonet Charge. The Krav's early play wasn't great; two of the agents died with only two Nakitas dead and two wounds on Laglor. That's what I get for playing Krav without a screen, I guess. The Redcoats did much better though, taking the wound glyph and just slowing whittling away at Canuck's army. Skahen fell to sustained Bayonets and then he pretty much lost his offense. Marcu survived two turns of attacks before eventually collapsing.

Round 2 vs. Legoboy's Son (Pool: Werewolf Lord x3, Fen Hydra, Gurei Oni) on Ruins of Pine Tree March
His pool was weird, but he won his first game against a solid opponent with it, so I knew not to underestimate him. The draft was pretty uneventful; we both just took figures from our own pool. He went with WWL x2 and the Hydra, and I debated in my head for a while whether I should pick 10th x5 and Marcu or 10th and Marcus, but I eventually settled on 5x because of the speed of the WWL.

The game opened with me taking height and blasting at his Werewolf Lord while he made his way over to one of the glyphs. He eventually got it, and it turned out to be defense, which had me scared, but he had some truly awfully rolling that lasted all game, and I was able to kill his first Werewolf and take the glyph. Things went downhill for him from here, as my Redcoats were already set up on height so I could just WTF his oncoming Werewolf Lord and Hydra. I didn't lose a single figure the whole game, which is extremely crazy. My Redcoats shouldn't have blocked all of his 10ish attacks, but the defense glyph does help a lot I guess.

2-0

Round 3 vs. Kevindola (Pool: Knights x1, Finn, Harqs x1, Yari x1, Krav, Q10, etc.) on Stygian Rift
He had another weird pool, but I was giving him the figures that he had won this tournament two years in a row with. He won the draft roll, and chose Marcu with his first pick. I just decided I was going to go with more Redcoats than him and try to beat him with numbers, so I took four Redcoats as he took two. He ended up with Q10 next, so I went with the Krav to attempt to get rid of Q10 , or at least distract him. He took the Harqs and Isamu as filler.

The Krav did much more than that though; he won initiative and moved Q10 one space in front of the shadow pool in the center. On my first Krav turn, I moved the Krav on to the lava field and just blasted Q10. I got a lucky three skull roll on the first shot. Q10 whiffed, and he died before the end of the turn. I then gained one Order Marker with which pick off Redcoats. I believe I only killed one or two, but that's a big deal when you only have eight. My Krav perished to lava field and Redcoat shots, but the rest of my Redcoats performed up to snuff and finished off his 10th, Marcu, and Isamu with relative ease. At the end of the game, Kevin realized he forgot to put his Harqs on the board. They probably wouldn't have done much, but it sucks to see a game not played how it should have been.

3-0

Round 4 vs. Clarissmus (Pool: Gorrillanators x2, Gladiatrons x1, Grok Riders x1, Gurei Oni, Guilty McGreech, etc.)
Clarissmus had gone 2-1 with his G6 (I think he had six G figures. I may be forgetting one of his squads, and if so excuse the stupid joke and move on), but I was seeded down, being the only undefeated. I can't remember exactly how this draft went down, but I know he went with the Gorrillas midway through, hoping I wouldn't take a special attacker, but I took Johnny as soon as that happened. I ended up playing Redcoats x4, Johnny, Marcu, and Isamu, while he had two squads of Gorillas, Gurei Oni, Guilty, and Heirloom.

He lead with the Gorillas, so I used Johnny to blast through them and ignore Tough. They went after sleeping Redcoats, and killed around five of them. Heirloom was the next wave of attack, and he killed Johnny before succumbing to Redcoat fire. Gurei actually hit a Redcoat with Evil Eye Defense after I completely forgot about that power, but she died to the Bayonet.

4-0

Round 5 vs. Jexik (Heavy Gruts x2, Nerak, Grimnak, Warriors of Ashra x2, Airborne Elite, Tagawa Samurai, Kozuke Samurai)

Jexik realized that the best way to beat my army was to fight fire with fire so when the Redcoat grab ended, we each had three squads. I took Johnny with the first real pick, hoping for Johnny and the AE to perfectly fill out my points. Alas, it wasn't to be, and Jexik took the AE for himself. I decided on Marcus instead, which turned out to be a mistake, because then he took Isamu and forced me to play 10 points short. He took the Warriors of Ashra with his last pick.

The Airborne dropped on the first try, but the Redcoats won the initiative and were able to catch the AE, and killed three before they got a shot off. They weren't able to gain much from that though; they whiffed a turn of attack rolls down in the start zone of the Redcoats, and Jexik had his three well placed on Redcoats and was able to turn the tide back to himself and kill some Redcoats. From there on out, it was just dice. There wasn't ever a deciding die roll, and we both rolled OK, but even a few dice rolls different in a mirror match mean a lot. Jexik got me down to three Redcoats before I got him down to three, and he did a great job of keeping his figures from being adjacent to deny me Shotgun Blast opportunities, so he eked out the win.

4-1

Round 6 vs. jetjake (Pool: Mohicans x2, Theracus, Iskra, Retchets, Krug, Brave Arrow, Tarn Viking Warriors)

I didn't get to play in the Championship game, because I lost in the Semis, though I had the highest point total of anyone in the tournament. I got to play against the other semifinal loser, jetjake. He saw that Jexik was able to beat me using my own figures against me, so he took a similar strategy. He won the draft, so after the three squad of Redcoats picks, he took Brave Arrow. Seeing that Krug would perfectly fill out his points, I decided to steal Krug just to mess with his possible plan. It may have worked, because he ended up taking Iskra, Theracus, Marcu. I took the Tarn to fill out my points.

The game was kind of a boring one, just some back and forth Redcoat fire that I eventually came out on top of due to him putting Order Markers on Brave Arrow in the middle of the game, which cut down on his activations. That let me really push down his Redcoats faster than he was killing mine. I killed Brave Arrow in the midgame with potshots, and Marcu came out next. He fell in a couple turns of attacks, and jetjake resigned, because people were waiting for us to finish so they could take their prizes. I had 2 Redcoats, a full-life Krug, and the Tarn remaining.

Final Record: 5-1, 3rd Place.

Kevindola ended up winning after he beat Jexik in the finals. I beat the champ and ruined his undefeated streak that spanned three years!

2013 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

My pods for NHSD were:

Eltahale, Gurei-Oni, Dumutef x1
Warden 816, Zettian Guards, Drow Chainfighter x3

I wanted to play some rarely used figures, so I went with an all guard/warden theme. My Eltahale and Gurei-Oni pod seemed slightly stronger to me, but I thought it was beatable with the more solid overall Soulborg and Drow pod.

Game 1 vs. briaka's son on Steaming Bridge



Redcoats x2, Kaemon Awa
Fen Hydra, Stingers x1, Marro Warriors
Eltahale, Gurei-Oni, Dumutef Guard
Warden 816, Drow Chainfighter x3, Zettian Guards

I was worried about how good Redcoats would be in this matchup so I was happy when I won the die roll and was able to take them. He took his Hydra pod and my Soulborg guard pod. I was hoping to end up with Chainfighters on this map, because it's the only one where I can chain grab into lava, but I was fine with Eltahale too. I led with her, picked up a defense +1 T-glyph along the way, and she slowly bashed her way through the Utgar forces. I was able to get first strike and knock off a order markers, and the defense glyph allowed Eltahale to stay alive against the low attack Zettians and Marros. Eltahale died to the final Drow, but the Redcoats had already moved into position and mopped up fine.

1-0

Game 2 vs. ISB3 on Blackroot



Marro Dividers x4
Marrden Hounds x2, Kaemon
Eltahale, Gurei-Oni, Dumutef x1
Warden 816, Zettian Guards, Drow Chainfighter x3

He won the diceoff, and deferred to me. Definitely the right choice; he guaranteed himself Eltahale and one of his own pods. I wasn't sure of my decision, but I went with Hounds. He took Dividers and Eltahale as I expected, so I was left with Warden & friends. Lots of Soulborgs made it easy for me to avoid plaguing my own figures, so I led with Hounds. I barely got any plagues, but he barely got any divides. Unfortunately we were still only trading casualties, so the Hounds underperformed. Kaemon was able to finish off the last Dividers and score a hit on Eltahale as she began her death run. Eltahale killed Kaemon only taking a few more wounds, but Warden and the Zettians finished her off, with half of the Zettians and half of Warden perishing in the fight. Gurei-Oni came out to fight the Warden, and Warden got first strike and killed her in two Everciraxes. The Dumutef proved to be tough to kill, but eventually, I got him down, after losing two Drow.

2-0

Game 3 vs Evar Scarcarver on Turret Rocks

Redcoats x2, Venoc Warlord
Venoc Vipers x3, Evar Scarcarver
Eltahale, Gurei-Oni, Dumutef x1
Warden 816, Zettian Guards, Drow Chainfighter x3



Redcoats are good against Venocs so this was a disappointing diceoff to lose. Evar took Redcoats, so I took Vipers to block him and Eltahale because she's awesome. I led with Vipers but they had a miserable performance, killing only two Redcoats despite holding Astrid. Eltahale killed a more, along with the Venoc Warlord, but two had climbed to height, and I foolishly went after them. She took five wounds in two shots of four, and while I still got the Thunder Step to those Redcoats off safely and killed one of them, she was dead the next turn. Evar Scarcarver and Gurei-Oni moved up alongside each other, Gurei serving as an LOS blocker for Evar when she could. Evar had some bad rolls but still managed to take out the Drow and the Zettians. Gurei was able to use Tetsubo on the Redcoats standing on height and killed both, so I began to feel better about my chances. But Evar died to a Warden potshot and Gurei just couldn't get a hit in on him.

2-1

Game 4 vs The Bearded One (Theracus, Sonlen, Tarn and Marro Warriors, Brunak, Thorgrim) on Fire Isles

Theracus, Sonlen, Tarn Viking Warriors
Brunak, Thorgrim, Marro Warriors
Eltahale, Gurei-Oni, Dumutef x1
Warden 816, Zettian Guards, Drow Chainfighter x3



I won the diceoff and took Brunak and the Marro Warriors. He took Sonlen and Theracus and Eltahale. I led with the Marro Warriors, only aiming to kill Eltahale. I didn't accomplish that, but I did get two wounds on her as well as a dead Theracus and a slightly wounded Sonlen. Brunak and Thorgrim were next and Thorgrim's aura apparently made Brunak roll amazing shields all game long. I never once whiffed, as he slowly rampaged through the entire army. My opponent just couldn't get enough skulls to do any damage; Eltahale had a chance but rolled 2/7 for her Thunderstep and height attack.

3-1

Game 5 vs. kevindola (Ninjas of the Nothern Wind, Izumi, Harqs x1 and Shiori, Moriko, Kozuke) on Blackroot



Eltahale, Gurei-Oni, Dumutef x1
Warden 816, Zettian Guards, Drow Chainfighter x3
Ninjas of the Northern Wind, Izumi Samurai, Harqs x1
Shiori, Moriko, Kozuke Samurai

My 3-1 record and SOS pushed me to the playoffs. I got the diceoff and chose Eltahale. Kevin took Warden and his Moriko/Shiori/Kozuke pod, leaving me with Harqs, Izumi, and NotNW. I led with Harqs and he led with the Warden. Warden failed a shot on an Ashigaru as they moved up, which bought them time. I was able to open fire on his startzone, and though the shot I wanted most, on a Kozuke failed, I did manage two wounds on Moriko. The Kozuke charged, killed the Ashigaru, and set off toward my startzone. They got two wounds on Eltahale and killed two Ninjas before my Ninjas took them down. I sent out the wounded Eltahale next. Shiori got two wounds on her before I took the ninja down. Warden went in to try to finish the wounded Goliath with a 5v5, but the attack failed and Warden died the next turn. Eltahale died shortly later, to the Drow. I sent out the Izumi next. One of them was able to engage the Zettians, which severely limited their offensive potential by denying Zettian Targetting. The Izumi died taking out maybe one Drow, courtesy of Moriko's Saber Storm. I won a huge initiative the round after, and my final ninja was able to kill Moriko, knock off two OMs, and give me a big edge. Gurei mopped up the Zettians to end the game.

4-1

Game 6 vs boromir96 on Blackroot



Cyprien, Sonya, Zetacron
Major Q10, Kelda
Eltahale, Gurei-Oni, Dumutef x1
Warden 816, Zettian Guards, Drow Chainfighter x3

I messed up this draft pretty badly. I was disadvantaged from the start, with boromir forcing me to pick first, so I knew I was going to end up with my Soulborg pod. I felt like Eltahale was my best chance at getting lucky and taking out Q10 and Cyprien. Unfortunately, it just didn't happen that way. Cyprien killed Eltahale with an 18 on CT. My X factor was dead. Cyprien took out Gurei too, with a 19, and I was in serious trouble. The Zettians and Warden brought him down but I couldn't come back from that much of a deficit, especially with the shields that Zetacron rolled.

4-2, 2nd place

I was still excited; I got to take the Azurite Warlord home with me!

2014 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Thanks to kd for hosting another good year of NHSD. I had fun games today. It was cool to have a format where the metagame wasn't really set yet.

When I initially saw the format, I thought that it was obvious to run five card armies, just for value. But when I started to build armies, I realized that there were not five great small or medium heroes to build around. I scrapped the idea and decided to build around a core of Fen Hydra and Eltahale, with a squad and a big hero to compliment the duo. For the squad, I considered Redcoats, Axegrinders, and Mezzos, and for the hero, I considered Braxas and Jotun. I think any combo of those would be strong (besides maybe Mezzos and Braxas, too strongly anti-squad), but I went with Jotun and Mezzos. Jotun is incredible in this format; he almost always takes at least one card to the grave with him, and pretty often can take two or two and a half. Mezzos were purely a value pick; I could get four squads of them whereas other squads I could only get two.

Game 1 vs. briaka (Omnicron Snipers x2, Death Knights x1, Venoc Warlord, Taelord, Moggrim Forgehammer) on Vestige
I opened with the Mezzos, since they match up extremely favorably against the Omnicrons. I had some bad attacks early but weathered the storm and got rid of the Snipers without any losses besides Exo markers. But I misplayed pretty badly and got my Hydra initiative switched on, and wasted essentially a whole round of turns. Unfortunately, his army didn't really have hitting power to punish me as I sat, and Eltahale bashed in Taelord pretty easily after I was able to take turns again. The Viper and the Dwarf tried to fight with Jotun and Eltahale, but Eltahale and Jotun are just better in straight up combat with those two.

1-0

Game 2 vs. jetjake (Jotun, Eltahale, Krav, Rhogar) on Volcan Pass

I led with Jotun here, hoping to smash some Krav. I got 2 wounds on Eltahale when jet opened with her instead, but disengaged once the Agents came into play. I failed a Wild Club swing that hit two Krav, which was kind of disappointing, but the Krav in turn failed to get anything more than 3 or 4 wounds on Jotun. That didn't matter though, because the other Jotun charged at my startzone. I won a big initiative that allowed me to slide my Hydra into a wall of Mezzos and shred Jotun with 4 attacks of 4. I got 5 wounds, and Jotun responded with some damage on Eltahale. Eltahale could not finish the job though, and after spending my three repositioning my own giant, I lost Eltahale and was facing down a giant on my Hydra. I lost the initiative this time, but Hydra survived with two heads, just enough to take down the giant. He sent his Eltahale in to finish off the Hydra, but through two attacks of five on six, he only managed two wounds. My Jotun, who had spent some time smashing Rhogar, came up to the Hydra-focused Eltahale and got three wounds in a single swing, ending the game.

2-0

Game 3 vs. Don (Braxas, Greenscales x2, Krug, Rhogar) on Sirroco

I opened with Jotun again, and on my second turn I landed a massive Wild Club Swing that took out three Greenscales. The turn after, Jotun hit Braxas for five wounds. Braxas and her Greenscales finished the giant the turn after, causing the giant to die without rolling a shield (on offense or defense). Eltahale was able to finish what Jotun started, after a bit of walking and Rhogar healing. The Greenscales really struggled to kill Eltahale once their queen died, and she was able to clean them up. Krug advanced to Wannok, but he was on low ground. The Mezzos got a little blood on him, then the Hydra came in and cleaned up with 4 attacks of 5. Eltahale fell to Rhogar, but the Hydra brought down the dragonborn. This game made me very glad I brought Mezzos over Redcoats. There is no way I could have won it had I made the other choice.

3-0

Game 4 vs. boromir96 (Skahen, Taelord, Snipers x2, Rhogar, Kaemon) on Badru Valley

I led with Mezzos, and was pleasantly surprised when boromir led with Skahen. It was an extremely favorable matchup for me, and I just ignored Skahen's damage with Exos and eliminated five Snipers with repeated height attacks. boromir switched to Kaemon, but by that time the damage was done. I kept going with Mezzos, but they didn't get much done besides scratch up Taelord. Jotun rolled out and got rid of Kaemon. Rhogar finished him before he was able to get to the rest of the pod, but by I had eliminated his range. Eltahale walked across the board as the last Omnicron pinged at her, and she finished off Taelord and Rhogar.

4-0

After game 4, there was a playoff between the undefeated players. My dad got a bye, and I was paired with the other 4-0.

Game 5 vs. briaka's son (Braxas, Raelin, 10th x2, Tul-Bak-Ra) on Cold Front?

He opened with Braxas, and after a quick OM1 on Elthale, I went with Jotun. I was worried about Braxas gassing the Mezzos, but once she commited to it, I was realized I was completely fine with it. Braxas gassed while Jotun smashed. I was able to clean his startzone with the near-unanswered giant, then switch order markers to the Hydra and finish Braxas.

5-0

Game 6 vs. vegie's dad (Braxas, 10th x2, Eltahale, Fen Hydra) on Fossil

I opened with Jotun, and my dad with Eltahale. There was a summoning glyph on the board, and my dad won initiative to get to it first. He summoned my Hydra, and killed it in a single hit. Eltahale got punished though, since Jotun was able to reach her with a height attack on the next turn. She died the turn later, as my dad had his OM3 on the 10th. Jotun desperately tried to get through the 10th to the dragon, but he died too quickly to get in even one swing, thanks to a well-timed Hydra OM. I sent my Eltahale after the dragon, and my dad and I agreed that whoever won the fight would win the game. I'm not actually sure who is favored to win that fight, but I think it's pretty close. Eltahale got two swings of six on Braxas, each yielding three wounds, before the dragon landed her acid breath on her third try. The Mezzos were unable to bring down the queen before she gassed every one of them. It was a close game, but the end result was pretty lopsided.

Final Record: 5-1, 2nd place

This is the third time in a row that I have taken second place in Peoria. Crazy to think that was already my fourth NHSD.

2015 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

NHSD 2015 Report

Every time a format encourages you to play figures regarded as weak, I always like to break out the Anubian Wolves since I think they are a good deal underrated. With four squads of Wolves and the Darklord, I had 155 points of good figures that I got to fill out my army with. I decided to play Major Q10, to add a Harquebus counter as well as some range.

Game 1 vs. briaka (10th x2, Sonlen, Mika Connor, Sharwin Wildborn)

10th are pretty good against Anubians, so I decided to open with Q10 with the goal of shooting down the Redcoats regardless of what he opened with. He opened with Reds and they fell fairly quickly, but it ended up being an even trade of Q10 for the Redcoats. Luckily, my B- segment of my army was a little stronger than his. He placed Sonlen very well, on a chokepoint that forced the Wolves to step into water to get up to even ground a turn later, but sheer number overwhelmed the heroes.

1-0

Game 2 vs. vminer (Deathchasers x2, Swog Rider x2, Jotun, Frost Giant)

I opened with Q10 again, since he was good at thinning out 2 defense figures last time. He shot down a few Deathchasers and their Swog before they got much done, but the Frost Giant crept up on him and got rid of him pretty quickly. The Anubian Wolves finished the giant and then moved on to the next Giant. Jotun smashed a few Wolves, but I eventually rolled my first 20 of the day and finished him off.

2-0

Game 3 vs. jetjake (Stingers x2, Raelin, Anubian Wolves x2, Iskra, DW8K)

I led with the Anubians since I was worried about Q10 against pretty much everything in his army besides DW8K. jake opened with Stingers, who had some red hot attack rolls, but I had some great fury rolls that allowed me to hit through Raelin's aura and limit their activations. That gave me time to eat through Raelin, even though she threw a lot of shields. Eventually he had to switch over to his own Wolves, and he was bit by not having Khousmet with a 1 attack and 1 dead wolf turn. That turned the tide of the game and was enough for my few remaining wolves to finish off the rest of his army.

3-0

Game 4 vs. kevindola (Greenscales x2, Raelin, Mimring, Gorillanators x2)
kevin's army was one of the best for the format; I think all bonding in general is really good in B- and lower formats and he had a very good bonding army. This board made things really awkward for me. There was a lot of high ground lava and the only path to the start zone was a swampy low ground. He just sat in his startzone and scorched wolf after wolf as I ran them into the grinder of Greenscales he had set up. In retrospect I maybe should have used Q10 to try and stop that, but even then we just would have been exchanging blows. I was also pretty worried about a Mimring fireline on my startzone as I went with Q10. I think I misplayed this matchup pretty badly but I just had to win one more game to go into the playoffs and get a rematch.

3-1

Game 5 vs. Ninja Status (Knights x2, Thorgrim, Sir Denrick, Sir Dupuis, Marro Warriors)

Unfortunately, I was not able to get that game. Ninja Status's Knights proved to be too much for the Wolves to handle. I only managed to get 5 wounds on Sir Dupuis and kill Thorgrim and six Knights with the entire forces of the Anubian Wolves, due to a combination of really poor fury rolls and Thorgrim rolling excellent defense. I always felt like I had a chance if the dice turned, but it just never happened. There was just too much left over for Q10 to deal with, and he fell to the Marro Warriors.

3-2

Overall, I don't think my army was really ideal for the format. Q10 wasn't the best use of the non-B area of my points, and Anubians inconsistency and limited number of activations hurt throughout the day. I think the best armies for the partial ban list format are probably bonding armies (Spiders, Greenscales, MacDirks). It's a fun format to see different figures played though, and it was a fun day of Heroscape. I got to play 7 games in 5 hours, with time for lunch, so that was pretty cool.

2016 reports

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

For First Crack Pod Draft, things work out so that 90+% of the time, you play (what you think is) your opponent's stronger pod and (what your opponent thinks is) your weaker pod. Because of this, you want to minimize the effect your opponent has on choosing first from your pods. I decided to do this by playing really bad pods. To restrict my selection of really bad, I only played blue figures. This is what I ended up playing:

Boys in Blue
Pod 1: Kumiko, 4th Mass x1, Ice Troll Berserker, Blue Wyrmling
Pod 2: Kozuke Samurai, Erevan Sunshadow, Zetacron, Water Elemental

Game 1 vs. vminer (Cyprien, Sonya, Frost Giant | Jotun, Eldgrim, Isamu) on Embattled Fen

vminer deferred, and I selected his Cyprien and Frost Giant pod, with the logic that Cyprien is better than Jotun and the Frost Giant is only a little bit worse. He took my Kozuke pod. He opened with Zetacron, while I opened with the Frost Giant. Both of us sent our heroes up the road, and the Frost Giant came out on top. The giant took down Eldgrim and two Kozuke before Jotun came in. The normal giant and the frosty giant traded a pair of wounds before Jotun landed a big hit and finished his enemy off. I took out the final Kozuke with Dying Swipe. Cyprien flew in next, getting a 3 wound Chilling Touch on Jotun, before Jotun landed a huge 5 wound blow on the vampire on his first hit. Luckily, Cyprien managed to finish Jotun off, and with lost order markers and a natural 20 on Erevan, I was able to finish things off.

1-0

Game 2 vs. Ryan D (Capuans x2, Spartacus | Mohicans x3, Brave Arrow) on Turret Rocks

I selected the Mohicans, mostly because I don't own any and don't get to play them much. He took my 4th Mass pod. I opened with the Kozuke Samurai, and caught Spartacus off guard on low ground on my second turn. I dropped 3 attacks of 6 to slay the big gladiator early. The Kozuke continued to do great, landing a couple Counter Strikes and killing a couple Capuans and even a 4th as they rolled up. Zetacron was my next wave, and he sat 8 away from 4th and pinged at them. I got rid of enough to cripple his offense permanently. From there, the Mohicans did not struggle taking out single attacking offense.

2-0

Game 3 vs. Don D (Heavy Gruts x2, Tornak, Nerak | Axegrinders x2, Migol, Darrak) on Vulcan

I selected the Axegrinders, mostly because I don't own any and don't get to play them much. He took my 4th Mass pod. I opened with Kozuke, and caught Tornak off guard on low ground on my second turn, dropping 2 attacks of 6 to slay the big orc early. The Axegrinders swept over the board next, using 6 move to catch Nerak and smash him, then running over the Gruts with more attacks per turn. The 4th Mass did not have the space to get going.

3-0

Game 4 vs. JMAN2222 (Marro Warriors, Krav Maga Agents, Super Sgt. Drake | Frost Giant x2) on Fire Isles

I took the Marro and Krav pod, since the Marro and Krav are super good. He took my Kozuke pod. He opened with a fun water Elemental play, swimming to a T1 hit on my startzone, but the shot missed. The Marros gunned down the Water Elemental, then used their height advantage to create space as they gunned down the Kozuke, then used their height advantage to create space as they gunned down the Frost Giant and Zetacron. After that, they used their height advantage to gun down the other Frost Giant, but I accidentally left them on lava and two died. I retreated them, and finished off Erevan and the other Giant with the Krav.

4-0

Game 5 vs. vegie dad (Obsidian Guards x1, Shurrak, Fire Elemental | Kelda, Iskra, Einar Imperium x1, Air Elemental) on Big Road Board

Both of our armies were really bad, so there was actually an interesting draft. My dad won the diceoff and picked my Kozuke pod. I took his lava team, and almost took his flying team but eventually settled on my 4th Mass pod. I opened with the Kumiko, but Zetacron killed him in one hit, with a 2/2 met with a 1/6. Zetacron gunned down two 4th, before I WTFed him down. The Kozuke charged across the board, but the final two 4th killed one before their demise. The remaining Kozuke got a big hit on Shurrak, but he special attacked them down. After that, the Einar Imperium descended on my startzone. I smashed them in with the Obsidian Guards, and they did very little damage aside from a couple wounds on Shurrak and one dead Obsidian. My dad sent out Erevan across the side of the board, and I sent the Obsidian Guards right down the middle. We both ate into each other's startzones, and at the end, it was Erevan vs. 2 Obsidians. Definitely a tough position for me to win from, but a better position than before that trade. Luckily, Erevan's range is only 5, and with 4 move, if the Obsidians are going downhill, they can always catch him if he can shoot them. I caught Erevan twice, which was just enough damage for my final Obsidian to get the win.

5-0

Game 6 vs. kevindola (Warforged x3, Sharwin | Deepwyrm Drow x3, Pelloth, Feral Troll) on Fire Isles

kevin has already written an excellent report on what happened in our game, so I will just give my thoughts on the mistakes I made.

1. Pod Selection: I think the Deepwyrm Drow Pod would have been a much better selection, given the value of the Feral Troll in low offense games. I was simply thinking to take the best card in the pool, the Warforged, but I don't think that was the right call.
2. Order Markers: I wasted two order markers slow rolling Warforged to set up for a Wyrmling chain on two Drow that never happened, then another one using that Wyrmling again because I really wanted it. Just not a good use of resources, there are only so many order markers in a game.
3. Threat Ordering: This is probably one of the least talked about concepts in competitive HS relative to how important it is. I guess it makes sense since until recently most competitive armies were coherent. But lining up your figures into opponent's figures they can reasonably take out is really important. I did not think that through wrt. the Feral Troll and my two heroes that he slowly smashed through. I should have sent Sharwin into the Kozuke, and maybe even Kumiko into the Drow, saving the Warforged for the troll.

5-1, 2nd Place

I had a fun time again at Peoria NHSD. This is like the fourth time where I've come one win short of a tournament victory in Peoria. Maybe next year

[dok]

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Game 1 vs. Xorlof (Tor-Kul-Na, Nagrubs x4, Raelin) on Fossil

This board is so good for Arrow Gruts. The height tiles right outside the startzone near the hive/big tree can be covered by Raelin’s aura without the kyrie moving, and from those spaces the Arrows can shoot clear across the center of the board.

Yep, this is the best map for AGs in the pool by far. In the main event in 2012, when I ran a similar army (just Krug and Nerak instead of Mimring) I was able to beat Cleon's stingers x5 + Q10 on Fossil. I don't think I could have won that game on any other map.

Of course that's my one time missing day 2 (but only because Mantrainchoochoo is a cheater ) but in general the AG metagame has improved a little bit, since the figure limit doesn't hurt them. I liked your army; it would have been a fun third place game. Eltahale would have been tough though - as you say, not a lot of hero-killing in that army.

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Game 4 vs. dok on Stygian Rift

At this point, I knew my Orcs were really strong, so the championship was a coinflip. dok won it. I didn’t like the Knights on Stygian Rift, so I decided to take his Braxas, Greenscales x3, Isamu army in hopes that I would get lucky, gas Raelin and a lot of Chasers, and win where I shouldn’t have. dok placed Raelin very far back, so I probably was overextending when I went for her. My acid failed, but Braxas did get kill two Deathchasers and her Greesncales became physical barrier from a Deathchaser attack and killed another. Still, Braxas took two wounds from two Deathchaser attacks, which was low, so I had to disengage and fly her to the middle of the board height. She got their safely and gassed another two Orcs. She got surrounded though, and her Greenscales were too far behind to help her. She got one more turn and killed two or three more Orcs (I’m sure dok has the exact Acid Breath stats somewhere), but died. I kept playing with my Greenscales for a while, but both of us knew the game was kind of over. I got some crazy kills and crazy blocks with the Greenscales though, dok took a lot of lava damage with Nerak and Me-Burq-Sa, and suddenly I had an Isamu staring down an actually manageable task. Nerak died to another lava hit, and Isamu rolled out. He Phantom Walked to the twice wounded Raelin and killed her in two hits, then went over to the once wounded Me-Burq-Sa on lava. He failed the first attack, but the second got one wound, and at the end of the round, Me-Burq-Sa took the lava hit that ended the game. Isamu Vanished a total of 5 times to steal the tournament win. I 100% made a late game mistake; Isamu could have Phantom Walked through Me-Burq-Sa on to the Unique Attack glyph for 1 more attack die, but I just missed it. I’m interested to read dok’s side of the report and find out why he left MBS on the lava for such a long time instead of retreating to the flat ground startzone.

I'm still working on my summaries, but to answer the question briefly, I didn't have an easy way to get him around to the startzone without putting him next to low ground for a turn, and potentially allowing him to get engaged there. Also, I did like shooting down to minimize whiff chances. And once Raelin died I was engaged on my turns. I should have moved him away from the U-attack glyph, but that didn't hurt me anyway.

I disagree that the game was a coinflip on the dice-off; obviously Braxas had a chance there. I thought you should have slow rolled a lot more in early game (do you remember what the other glyph was? I never wrote it down) but aside from that you played it well.

Crazy finish to that game. Definitely my most brutal loss of the weekend, by far. What a way to lose my dice streak and my undefeated Friday night streak (12-0 in the night events up to that point).

[MegaSilver]

Great battle reports, vegie!
@vegietarian18 : Why not a report of the VC event? I'd like to read that as well.

[Dad_Scaper]

Vegie, you should start your own Battle Reports thread, if you haven't already.

Here's the beginning of my report, copied from my own thread:

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

GenCon 2014

Lightweight: 300 points, 12 figures

I considered a less competitive build that I thought would be fun, and people would remember it: Stingers x2, Taelord. I figured it would respond well to the heroes I thought would dominate this format, though I recognized it was not particularly likely to do well overall. In the end, I went back to one of my favorite squads, the Phantom Knights. I figured their main foes - 10th Reg.; swarming melee - were both discouraged by the format, so I'd give it a shot. Expectations were, however, low. I thought KidScaper's Hydra + Stingers x3 was far more likely to succeed.

Round 1:
DS - Phantom Knights x4
Josh - Raelin, Krav, Erevan Sunshadow

Stygian Rift

Josh was a new player, he said his first game had only been the day before, but he played well. It's just that, unfortunately for him, my army matched up very well against him. I seized the high ground easily enough with my mobility, and could, from there, send down units as needed to reinforce the PKs I had flying around his start zone, killing his stuff. This was to become a theme. . .

1-0

Round 2:
DS - PK's x4 @happyjosiah - Krug, Stingers x3

Ticalla Sunrise

It turned out that KidScaper was not the only player to bring Stingers x3 + (120 point hero). I wasn't too worried about HJ's Stingers, but I thought my low attack might not be enough to bring down Krug before he'd done a *lot* of damage.

I lost quite a few Phantom Knights early in the game, when their 4 defense dice, sometimes 5 with jungle or height, failed. Eventually, the dice balanced out and the Stingers went down. Eventually I caught Krug from height and killed him on an OM flip between rounds.

It was great to meet Happy Josiah, an old timer around these parts, but of course it was good to meet everyone.

2-0

Round 3:
DS - PK's x4 @Junior - 4th Mass. x3, Sam Brown

Stygian Rift

My notes from this game are as follows: "Junior played well. Terrible matchup for him." Which is the truth. With my high defense, and a map allowing me to dominate the center, and his opening position forcing him to move, conceding WTF, or stay still, and concede any valuable real estate, it was not a good situation for him.

3-0

DS - PK's x4
Bob - Krav, Kaemon Awa, Rats x2

Vestige

The rats made me nervous. With their high defense and Scatter and 4 attacks/OM, I was worried that I might not be able to take them down. Plus there was a Unique Attack +1 glyph in play, which I had to deny Kaemon Awa and the Krav.

Bob, @Cleon 's dad, won initiative in Round 1 and fanned out with the rats, one of which headed to the Unique Attack glyph. He grabbed it on OM 2, but I landed 2 PK's next to it on the following OM, walling it off from the rest of the map. I killed the rat and secured the glyph from other rats scattering onto it, until much later in the game.

The first round was rats; the second was the Krav. I managed to get rid of them by the end of Round 2, and I got lucky with a few attack rolls and managed to kill off a few rats, too. In Round 3 Kaemon Awa emerged, but he rolled poorly on defense and I was spared Counterstrike death even on my bad attacks. Bob conceded once KA was out; his few remaining Deathreavers were badly outnumbered by my remaining Phantom Knights.

4-0

Championship Round:
DS - Phantom Knights x4
@UnseenShadowz - Phantom Knights x3, Heirloom

Vestige

There were virtually no attacks from height for almost the entire game. It was just 3 vs. 4, over and over, for most of the game. Luckily, before the first time I ever brought the PK's to a tournament, when they were new (2009?), I thought everyone would be bringing them. So I put little pink stickers on their bases.

Anyway, as anyone with a single gray hair knows, you cannot beat a person younger than yourself in a competition to roll the highest dice. I would have liked to see US make a mistake or do something foolish, but he is a sensible person and declined to do so. KidScaper explained to me afterward ways in which I could have approached the endgame differently, and who knows, maybe I could have been smarter. But the difference was not Heirloom, who didn't do much besides absorb occasional attacks; it was pretty much the dice.

4-1
Second Place

I got a nifty Agent Skahen, though. Awesome!

More to come later.

[vegietarian18]

Since the GenCon report idea didn't really take off this year, I'm cannibalizing this thread for my future GenCon reports. It's just for the main event this year.

In the Main Event, I tend to gravitate towards armies that have un(der)used figures. I think it gives an advantage on both days, since the opponent will not know how to play with and against unseen figures. Last year, I used Mimring, and this year I used Taelord.

Taelord
Raelin
Marro Warriors
10th Regiment x2

Along with the obligatory Raelin to add consistency to the army, I played two squads of Redcoats and the Marro Warriors. The general idea of the army was to fish opponents in with the Marro Warriors, and then blast with pumped up Wait Then Fire shots. Using Marro Warriors to fish in figures to Wait Then Fire range was very effective in the Betrayal From Within tournament that @kevindola ran online. Adding Taelord was inspired by the army that @The Orange Mailman won with in 2013, where he used Marcus for his attack boost on two squads of Redcoats. I liked the extra 3 spaces of aura to make the fourth Redcoat attack die all but guaranteed. The army worked for a couple of other reasons: the four different people who practiced against the army lost against it the first time; it can make opponents uncomfortable with the amount of dice it dishes out from a long range; people don’t know how to play against two cheerleaders; it’s fragile enough to tear apart on Day 2.

Game 1 vs. Rollitontop (Warforged x4, Raelin, Deadeye Dan) on Fossil

I opened with the Marro Warriors to try to thin out Warforged and put pressure on the figures he put on Wannok. He responded with a conservative Raelin placement, behind the evergreen tree on level 3. She covered a lot of spaces, but not spaces he could attack me from. I picked at the edges of his army, tanking the Wannok wounds with the twin kyries. Eventually, he was forced to go in to a hoard of bayonets, and attacks of 5 tore apart the Warforged. Deadeye Dan had some good moves, but the Redcoats Wait Then Fired him down. My opponent really suffered from not having any range that he could threaten me with.

1-0

Game 2 vs. Heirloom (Greenscales x3, Charos, Marro Warriors, Marcu) on Remains of Clionesia

He used Charos very aggressively, going straight for my Raelin. A second round full of Wait Then Fire volleys took out the dragon before he managed to bring down the kyrie. After that, the Greenscales struggled to get rid of any Redcoats or Marros with 2v6 attacks. His Marros were difficult, but eventually I managed to run them down. I retreated my army to my startzone, let Marcu pick up all the treasure glyphs, then blew him up with Wait Then Fire when he went in. I think a Marro Warrior opener would have made this matchup a lot closer than it ended up being, but a lot of people prefer them as cleanup.

2-0

Game 3 vs. Cleon (Braxas, Fen Hydra, Marro Warriors, Deathreavers x2) on Fossil

This was one of the stronger armies in the pool, and a good one against my army. Cleon opened with Rats. I had never tested against a Rat army, since I thought most people considered them taboo to play. I don’t think I’ve played against Rats in a few years honestly. They were extremely hard to deal with, shutting down the Marros completely, and the glyphs (Unique Attack and Lodin) were great for his army. Braxas swooped down on my tied down Marro and gassed the remainder, but they managed two wounds on her. A lucky OM3 on the Redcoats after Cleon failed 2/3 acids allowed me to blast Braxas with Taelord boosted Wait Then Fire for 6 wounds, and an exact kill. I was feeling like I had a chance then, but his Marros repeatedly were able to pick at my Reds and successfully switch the initiative and escape to clone. The Hydra never even took a wound before he finished eating through the remaining Redcoats and their cheerleaders.

2-1

Game 4 vs. Dad_Scaper (Deathchasers x4, Ogre Warhulk, Brandis Skyhunter) on Dance of the Dryads

After the Orcs came rushing across the smallest map in the pool, I was pretty worried that I would lose my Marro Warriors before the end of round one. My OM3 on the Redcoats turned out to be poorly placed when he instead led with Brandis Skyhunter. Brandis was able to step up on to height and drop 5/6 skulls to instantly slay Raelin. I tried to stay confident and just Wait Then Fire down the incoming orcs, and for the most part it worked. 5 attack dice on 2 defense dice is a pretty favorable attack. The Warhulk made some noise but I eventually silenced him with Wait Then Fire. I was fortunate that my cheerleaders were able to block the path into the startzone to draw fire away from my Redcoats, as losing activations could have cost me the match.

3-1

Game 5 vs. ManTrainChooChoo (Tagawa Samurai Archers x3, Raelin, Marro Warriors, Torin) on Sidewinder

This game I played much more aggressively than I did the rest. After I won initiative and saw a round full of markers on the Tagawa Samurai Archers, I left my auras behind and decided to aggressively gun for the Samurai, since they would struggle to hit back with only 2 attack. Thanks to some incredible skulls the plan worked incredibly well. I gunned through all but one of the Tagawa only losing a single Marro, and then I retreated back to my startzone. He moved up Torin, but after he moved up Raelin next to him, I just refused to shoot and waited for him to come to me. He brought up his Marros and had a lot of success, but Wait Then Fire brought them down. He had been a little frustrated all game at my refusal to leave my start zone or to shoot at his Torin, so he conceded with Raelin, Torin and a Tagawa still left. It definitely was tough to win from there, but I felt bad that my choices frustrated him to that extent. I think he was just upset since he was so close to Day 2, but luckily his SoS got him in anyway.

Thoughts after Day 1: I think my army was what I intended it to be. It’s a difficult to play against, slow, anti-melee army that can throw a ton of dice. 4-1 actually seemed a little out of reach to me when I was thinking through matchups, but I’m happy I was able to do it. I don’t know how well I am going to do tomorrow, since there are quite a few melee armies in the pool and those are very bad matchups for this army. But no matter how I do I’m happy I was able to get Taelord to Day 2.

Day 2

Game 1 vs. BigBoa (Deathchasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, Brunak) on Fossil

I drew one of the best boards in the pool for my Redcoat army, especially against melee, so I was kind of worried. I opened with Brunak, carrying Raelin to an aggressive perch that covered the middle of the board. Once I saw his order markers split between Redcoats and cheerleaders, I decided to hard engage on the 10th. I had great dice and slammed through two on the first turn of the engage, and then brought Nerak up and killed three more on the following turn. Just like that, his army was running out of steam. Since I was basically on top of him, it was relatively easy to catch the the Marros and shut down his comeback mechanism. I ground out the rest of his army with the orcs, never activating the Brunak and Raelin combo. I think this game showcased the biggest advantage of my army; the awkwardness of picking it up without knowing how to play it. Opening with Marro Warriors would have both thinned my army more effectively and left him with better tools to deal with the weakened orcs.

on to Round of 8

Game 2 vs dok (Tor-Kul-Na, Nagrubs x3, Me-Burq-Sa, Marcu) on Fossil

Well, I drew the worst board in the pool again. This time I was handed a weaker, still melee army, and I was playing against a pretty decent player. It was going to be a tough game to win. I opened with Raelin flying to a more conservative perch than in the previous game, but she could still help the double-spaced TKN where he was planning to go. I rolled the Marros up the hill and waited for a good chance to strike. I couldn’t manage to lose initiative early, so I had to go in and give him the initiative switch. Luckily my defense held out fairly well, and I was able to smash through the Redcoats and keep TKN alive. The game ended up hanging in initiative. If I win, I can trample up to 3 Marros and crush his chances to come back. If he wins, he’s able to mow through grubs, cut TKN’s healing off, and take control of the game. He got it, gunned through Nagrubs and denied the big trample, and TKN fell shortly after. MBS tried to make a game of it, but it was basically impossible with dok’s liberal use of water clone. He did a good job of making sure I had no way back into the game once he killed the Hivelord. I’m not sure if I would have done much differently though. It was a very tough matchup, definitely less than 50% to win on paper, so getting the game to the initiative coin toss was actually an accomplishment I think.

eliminated

I think overall my army was a good choice for the event. The abundance of melee armies in the field this year helped me on day 1, but hurt on day 2. I can’t be too disappointed in my losses, as they were both to good players with favorable matchups. I really like the Reverse the Whip two day format for GenCon and I hope to see it continue in the future.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by vegietarian18

Game 4 vs. Dad_Scaper (Deathchasers x4, Ogre Warhulk, Brandis Skyhunter) on Dance of the Dryads

After the Orcs came rushing across the smallest map in the pool, I was pretty worried that I would lose my Marro Warriors before the end of round one. My OM3 on the Redcoats turned out to be poorly placed when he instead led with Brandis Skyhunter. Brandis was able to step up on to height and drop 5/6 skulls to instantly slay Raelin. I tried to stay confident and just Wait Then Fire down the incoming orcs, and for the most part it worked. 5 attack dice on 2 defense dice is a pretty favorable attack. The Warhulk made some noise but I eventually silenced him with Wait Then Fire. I was fortunate that my cheerleaders were able to block the path into the startzone to draw fire away from my Redcoats, as losing activations could have cost me the match.

3-1

I was lucky to get it as close as I did. You did a good job of denying Brandis any good perches during Round 1, and (as you know) his one-shot on Raelin was a super-long shot. Though, come to think of it, he should have attacked again. Oops! Wouldn't have made a difference, I'm sure. The pathing into your start zone was super-favorable to your WTF army. I just couldn't get in, with all the molten lava.

It was a fun game. I would have done better, if only you hadn't played so well.

[The Orange Mailman]

I toyed with the idea of Death Knights, Taelord, and the 10th. You wouldn't be able to have Raelin though. Here we play 600 point armies and for a while I had this in the mix:

Taelord
Death Knights x 3
Sir Hawthorne
10th Regiment x 2

The army did fairly well but it seemed that Sir Hawthorne never pulled his weight.

[vegietarian18]

These are my 2016 reports. Again just the Main Event. I play in a lot of other events, but I just don’t think they are as interesting to write or read about. The Main Event promotes lots of armies that people think they can play better than others, so the games tend to be unique and I like to have a record of them somewhere.

In past years, I’ve liked to bring single underused figures and put them in strong builds to pull them to Day 2. It works, but often people can just ignore the twist you put on your army and just beat you with Redcoats . So this year, I decided to cut the range common squads, and go a different route.

I went with Elves, after having a lot of success with them in the Classic League: Unsung Heroes event. The build I ended up taking to GenCon was the exact same build I took to that event, with Raelin and Otonashi added to reach the massive point total. I really liked the army and was settled on it for a while. It has a lot going on, it has a decent offense and defense, a lot of range, and a lot of variables. The only thing I really debated was Morsbane. I didn't really consider 2x Ashra, but Acolarh and Emiroon both felt viable for different reasons. The exact build I ran was:

Raelin
Ulginesh
Jorhdawn
Chardris
Arkmer
Kyntela
Morsbane
Otonashi

Game 1 vs. Weesel99 on Fire Isles (Mezzodemons x6, Raelin, Kaemon Awa)

This was a pretty horrible matchup for the Mezzos. No commons, two special attacks, one of which can hit multiple figures. I opened the game with a Raelin negation, just to make things worse. I blew up 10 Mezzos with various flaming Specials, and he got rid of Arkmer and wounded Jorhdawn and Chardris. He left his last two Mezzos hiding, and then sent in Kaemon, who ripped through Jorhdawn and Morsbane before he died. Suddenly we had to play another game. The Mezzos, now with strong Exoskeletons, slowly grinded wounds onto the Wizards. Then, he flew Raelin in, pinned down Ulginesh, and I was looking like I was going to lose. But I realized that his last two Raelin moves had been illegal; she couldn't fly. Weesel conceded inmediately. It did really did change the context of the game massively, since Ulginesh can kite Raelin around for a while but not if she can fly. Still, it was far from an ideal answer and I felt bad taking the win in such a close game. Luckily, Weesel still made Day 2 at 3-2.

Game 2 vs. ??? on Flash Fire (Ulginesh, Jorhdawn, Chardris, Arkmer, Morsbane, Emiroon)

The first Elf Wizard mirror in Main Event history. I liked my chances, since Raelin is good. Still, a lot of it would hinge on what the Morsbanes did. There was a ton of juicy negation targets on both sides, topped off with Ulginesh. With this in mind, I aggressively used my Morsbane to go after his. I failed my first negation, and seeing what I was doing, he tried to do the same thing. He also failed his first, and I responded with a successful second negation. From there, I retreated into my shell and just Rained Flames on his Emiroon summons. He was forced to cluster where I was able to spread my figures and leave gaps to deny the area of effect damage. I won with only Morsbane going down.

2-0

Game 3 vs. MrWookie on Vestige (Capuans x4, Spartacus, Crixus, Guilty)

Vestige is the best board in the pool for my army, since Jorhdawn can very safely Rain of Flame the enemy startzone on turn 1. I did just that this game, and his Guilty opener fared very poorly against that. I flamed four or five Capuans on the first round, and blew up Guilty with Chardris and Arkmer. He then began the Steamrolling, and things progressively got scarier as the match went on. I exclusively targeted the Capuans, just trying to limit his attacks per turn, but that let Crixus pound Morsbane turn after turn. Morsbane did eventually negate him, but not before Crixus went down. I finished off the Capuans, but had lost Chardris and Morsbane and taken a few wounds on Ulginesh. Crixus got rid of Kyntela before his defense went cold, leaving Arkmer and Jorhdawn to finish Spartacus. Jorhdawn screened for Arkmer while he rained down height dice on Spartacus until he went down.

3-0

Game 4 vs. Dysole on Flash Fire (Deathstalkers x4, Raelin, Krav, Marcu)

I talked to Dysole after Game 1, where she shredded an elf pod with the Krav, about the weakness of the Wizards to Stealth Dodge. It’s so hard for them to break formation to chase down the Krav (even more than the average pod army), since they lose dice, auras, and even the ability to take turns. The only real way to win is to negate the Krav, but even that usually requires some risky positioning for Morsbane. I was chalking this matchup up as a loss when I saw we were paired.

I climbed to the hill directly outside my startzone and podded hard after I saw the round of order markers on Deathstalkers. I got off a nice Rain of Flame that killed two Stalkers and got a wound on Raelin. The Stalkers went down relatively fast, since they had to leave Raelin’s aura to attack. Dysole put a lot of focus onto Morsbane, trying to deny the Krav negation possibility, but didn’t manage to bring him down. I cleared out about half the Stalkers before the Krav came out. I had a ton of trouble with them, failing a ton of ranged attacks before eventually giving up and sending in Arkmer on an initiative switch, who also failed to do damage. Then I just sent in Jorhdawn and Chardris all at once, and finally got into them. I had to move up Ulginesh and Raelin after that, but there were still three Stalkers and Raelin left to kill. The last two Stalkers blocked a ton of attacks, and landed two Mauls on Ulginesh and Raelin, but they did not have the damage to finish off either, and when the game ended on time, I got the win, with a 3 wound Ulginesh and 3 wound Raelin left against a full life Raelin and one Stalker. I think that’sabout as close as you can get to a 50/50 endgame, but it probably slightly favored Dysole.

4-0

Game 5 vs. Rÿchean on Flash Fire (Tarn Viking Warriors, Marro Warriors, Krav Maga Agents, Nakita Agents, Kaemon Awa, Sonlen)

This ended my four year streak of playing in the 3-1 game at GenCon. That’s one of my favorite parts of GenCon, since it has interesting armies, players who have gotten familiar with them over the course of the day, and a motivation for everyone to win. It was kind of a weird game, since we were the only two undefeated players playing each other. We actually debated taking the tie/forfeiting, since the change to a seeded Day 2 slightly punishes the top seed with a 3-2 opponent. We ended up deciding to play the game out, since it really didn’t matter with matchup roulette going on anyway.

He led with Tarn, and I was able to blow them up pretty quickly. The Nakitas had the same fate. Kaemon however, hit Chardris for five wounds and Jorhdawn for two. The Krav and the Marros picked off Arkmer and Chardris from safety, and I started to get worried. With how Dysole’s Krav shredded me in mind, I played much more aggressively against these Krav. It worked really poorly. I took way too many wounds with Morsbane and Jorhdawn taking down a single Krav. I just ran out of ways to kill things, and Sonlen is really able to punish that. He never went above two wounds and he healed, swooped, and shot through the remainder of my army.

4-1

Thoughts after Day 1: I think I actually managed to successfully land in the bottom half of armies that made Day 2 this year, which is a lot harder to do than you’d think. I’m hoping people make mistakes with Elves, especially in early deployment, since it’s very difficult to just pick them up and play. I’m not a huge fan of my first round matchup with Cleon’s MacDirks though. Rain of Flame in particular seems like it could be really devastating on a lot of the boards in the pool. I’m also not sure how to play four squads of MacDirks, since losing Alastair is just game over with that many Scots in play. Even if I do lose Round 1, I’m happy to take the Elves to Day 2. They are really fun and a lot more viable than people think, and I think I showed that today.

Day 2 Game 1 vs. Cleon on Vestige (MacDirk Warriors x4, Raelin, Alistair, Thorgrim)

This was one of the matchups that I liked the least in the pool, except on a huge board like Wendigo. It’s way too easy to Rain of Flame a ton of MacDirks and knock out the hitting power of the army. With that in mind, I was very careful to avoid clumping my figures as I slow rolled up MacDirks and wounded Alistair with overextend. Raelin was very far back, and I planned to rush her in on an OM3 when I was ready, and then pile in MacDirks behind her. Unfortunately, Morsbane hit the negation on her, so that plan was dead. I immediately changed gameplan, and ran in MacDirk after MacDirk. I had a lot of trouble actually finishing off the Elves. Morsbane hung on to his final life for four attacks of 6v4, really slowing down my rush. That gave him time for another negation on Thorgrim, which was a big deal later. Jorhdawn took four wounds, but successfully retreated to the startzone. Arkmer hit 3/4 engagement strikes to really limit my activations. Eventually, I was able to hit down Jorhdawn after baiting her into a Rain of Flame out of safe range. Chardris went down to the last MacDirks, leaving Arkmer, Kyntela, Raelin, and Ulginesh, with a wound on all four figures, against my negated Raelin and my Alistair. Raelin got the last wound on Kyntela before I switched over to Alistair, grabbed the healing glyph, and went in for the final try. I overextended towards Ulginesh, hoping to knock off order markers, but only got rid of one. Raelin got him to three wounds at the end of the round, and he did the same to her. The game was hung in initiative, with an Alistair overextend threatening to knock order markers off of either Arkmer or Raelin, or a Raelin hit wounding MacDirk to a point where he couldn’t overextend. Cleon got it, and got two wounds on Alistair, preventing Overextend entirely. Arkmer finished him off on the next turn.

eliminated

I’m sad I didn’t have another chance to prove I could beat the overpowered Elf Wizard army I brought, but it was a really fun, interesting, and close game that I got to play. I think I was pretty close to nailing the power level I wanted to be at, but winning games against your army still has to happen. There was a lot of variety on Day 2 this year. The weakness creep for Reverse the Whip has started.

[Sir Heroscape]

What a fun report to read...Thank you! Since I was not able to attend this year...I'm looking forward to reading all the battle reports on everyone's GenCon trip.

[kevindola]

Thanks for posting these Vegie. Always a great read.

I am glad to see the elves do so well, and wow. A near mirror match? With elf wizards. That is pretty incredible.

What was the Morsbane negation counter for the tournament?

(re: Round 3)I assume Mr. Wookie kept Spartacus safe from Mr. Negation until Crixus could finish the job. Crixus losing his one shield defense isn't spectacularly bad actually. But Spartacus getting negged would be pretty problematic. Do you think the Steamroller would have been able to win the game full force if Guilty hadn't been utilized first round?

(re: Round 4) Flash Fire seems like a pretty good map for the Krav in this matchup as well. Kravs are always a tough pickle to crack, but catching them with that elf wizard build is going to take some lucky whiffs or dangerous out of aura advancement. 7 move flying Ulginesh can catch them, but is likely going to get exposed. Also, deathstalkers can't Maul Ulginesh. Not sure if that was a typo or just phrasing there.

Looked fun and thanks again for the report! If you aren't going to post your other game reports would you mind posting your results?

[vegietarian18]

Morsbane negated Raelin, Morsbane, and Crixus on Day 1, and Raelin and Thorgrim on Day 2. That's five negations in six games, not too bad.

Spartacus did not come out until Crixus was completely dead. I did not ever move the pod so he wasn't too close to getting negated. I wasn't planning on negating Spartacus since I knew he would only come out when he was the last figure on the board. I think Steamroller almost certainly wins without Guilty opener. He could not fan the Gladiators to deny Rain of Flame, and Gladiator's defense was lowered by one.

I tried for whiffs on the Krav for a while, but it wasn't happening and I needed to bring them down. I forgot about Ulginesh being immune to Maul, it was what Dysole called "functional Maul", 3 skulls met with a whiff.

Other results:

Thursday Night Classic (Deathchasers x4, Raelin, MBS, Nerak, Spartacus)

Game 1 vs William099 (Badru x3, Werewolf Lord x2, Raelin)
Pouncing two defense figures is fun. Win
Game 2 vs. Capsocrates (Warriors of Ashra x5, Raelin, Moltenclaw, Syvarris)
I unlocked the rare achievement, "beat Warriors of Ashra after forgetting to Battle Rush". Win
Game 3 vs. infectedsloth (Blades x2, Nerak, Brunak, Raelin, Ornak, MBS, Marcu, Isamu)
Blades are a lot worse than I thought. Loss

2-1

Heat of Battle (10th x4, Raelin, Marcus, Marcu)

Game 1 vs. MrWookie (10th x4, Raelin, Fen Hydra)
Raelin backed Marcu was able to hold off Hydra from my last two Redcoats. Win
Game 2 vs. ??? (Blades and bonders)
WTF happened. Win
Game 3 vs. Major Q23 (Raelin, Marro Warriors, Rats x1, Kurrok, Fire Elementals x6)
Bunch of burnt british. Loss
Game 4 vs. nicktheant (Mezzodemons x6, Cyprien)
WTF happened. Win

3-1

General Wars (Redcoats x5, Zelrig, Marcus)

Game 1 vs. ??? (Stingers x?, Phantoms x?, Hydra, Feral Troll)
The fact that I don't know how many squads he had shows how good Zelrig was. Win
Game 2 vs. Turkeyclubsammich (Glads x3, Blasts x2, Braxas, Heirloom)
Reams of roasted robots. Win
Game 3 vs. Major Q23 (Mezzodemons x4, Phantoms x3, Fen Hydra)
Could not kill Mezzos fast enough after Phantoms swarmed Zelrig. Loss
Game 4 vs. Rollitontop (Redcoats x5, Zelrig, Marcus)
Someone had to win. Loss
Game 5 vs. KidScaper (Warforged x5, Krav, Black Wyrmling x2)
I got two skulls on Majestic Fires on seven Warforged. Win

3-2