GenCon Reports '13

[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

[greygnarl]

4x4

Round 1: Tul-Bak-Ra, Stingers x5 vs Matthias Maccabeus playing Minions x4 on Shiver

Close game, with both of us doing a lot of dancing. It came down to 2 Minions against TBR and a Stinger and I got off a few good attacks to end it.
1-0

Round 2: Minions x3, Airborne Elite vs OrcElfArmyOne's dad playing Airborne Elite, Warforged x4 on Stygian Rift

I got the drop and killed 7 Warforged in the first round. No grenades. He dropped round 2 and killed an Airborne, my Minions flew up and killed 3 of his Airborne. From there the Minions just rolled over the remnants.
2-0

Round 3: PKs x3, Q10, Raelin vs DrLivingston playing Mohicans x3, Warriors of Ashra x3 (sit one), Brave Arrow, Raelin on Stygian Rift

A lot of defense dice were rolled here. I set Q10 up in the middle of the board and he probably attacked up at him about 20 times. The PKs fought around Q10 but he had good defense too and eventually the WoA pulled out the win.
2-1

Round 3: Mogrimm, Axegrinders x2, Q9 vs Mr. Wookie playing Anubians x4, Khosumet, Zetacron on Burial Marsh

I misplayed the Dwarves and he killed Mogrimm really easily, but I managed to salvage it somewhat by getting 2 attacks of five on Zetacron and killing him. Then, Q9 came out and just Queglixed away for the win.
3-1


Day 1: Airborne Elite, Minions x3

Round 1 vs Cleon playing Deathchasers x4, MBS, Nerak, Swog, Raelin, Isamu(sit) on Burial Marsh

Cleon set up a good pod but I got position next to it and my Minions defense held out. I never got the Drop though, and he got a turn where I whiffed 2 defenses in a turn to leave me with 2 Minions against 1 Chaser, Nerak, MBS, and Raelin. I missed the Drop again and MBS eventually shot down my last kyrie.
0-1

Round 2 vs Nate K. Playing TKN, Nagrubs x2, Marro Warriors, Ne-Gok-Sa on Stygian Rift

I don't think Nate had played scape in a long time and he made a lot of mistakes which let me get a lot of easy attacks with the Minions. He did make some nice plays with the Marro Warriors but I won fairly easily.
1-1

Round 3 vs Kildawabit Playing Capuans x3, Spartacus, Black Wyrmling

Charles was a good player but I got the first round drop and the Airborne put 4 wounds on Spartacus and killed 4 Glads. After that the Minions had good dice and I won with 2 squads left.
2-1

Round 4 vs nicktheant playing Nilfheim, Isamu, Stingers x4 on Ticalla Sunrise

I gambled and went for the drop round 1 hoping to engage Nilf with 1 AE and shoot him up. He won init though and after round 1 Nilf had 3 wounds and the Airborne were gone. He put OM1 of round 2 on Nilf but then abandoned him and as I rolled my Minions up towards Wannok I finished off the dragon. We slogged it out and I was gaining ground but he had numbers. Then 3 Minions dropped in a turn and it was basically over.
2-2

Round 5 vs rym playing Mimring, Krug, MBS, Arrow Gruts x3 on Shiver

The Airborne dropped round 1 and could've killed all his gruts, but he got init
nd they only got 4 Gruts and 2 wounds on Mimring before dying. I rolled the Minions up and he couldn't put a dent in them. I surrounded and killed Mimring, then MBS, then the Arrows, then Krug, but he escaped to the Healing glyph and we had to do it over again. I had 6 Minions left in the end though.
3-2

[vegietarian18]

Main Event Day 1

5, 4, 8, 3, 3. Those are the number of wounds that my opponent or I had left to take at the end of each of my games. 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.

[caps]

Originally Posted by greygnarl

4x4 Round 3: PKs x3, Q10, Raelin vs DrLivingston playing Mohicans x3, Warriors of Ashra x3 (sit one), Brave Arrow, Raelin on Stygian Rift

A lot of defense dice were rolled here. I set Q10 up in the middle of the board and he probably attacked up at him about 20 times. The PKs fought around Q10 but he had good defense too and eventually the WoA pulled out the win.
2-1

Did he tell you that was the build he was playing for me? I'm pretty sure it was only 2xWoA, though, unless 4x4 uses 490 points instead of 440.

[greygnarl]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

Did he tell you that was the build he was playing for me? I'm pretty sure it was only 2xWoA, though, unless 4x4 uses 490 points instead of 440.

He did, though you were just "a friend". And yes, only 2 squads, editing now.