OHS Season 50 Quad Pod: Four Seasons CONGRATS VEGIETARIAN18!

[vegietarian18]

I defeated Ryguy and took home the undefeated Season 50 title. I didn’t write battle reports for the individual games this time, but I wanted to write something for the whole season.

List of my games:

Spoiler Alert!

Game 1 vs. S1r Art0r1us. Clayton, Kate, Guilty, Mad Dog and Dwarves x2, Beorn vs. Othkurik, Black Wyrmling x3 and Drudge x3, Re-Tak-Shi
Game 2 vs. ogblaha. Clayton, Kate, Guilty, Mad Dog and Knights x2, Finn vs. Warriors of Ashra x2, Fen Hydra and Kaemon Awa, Krav Maga Agents
Game 3 vs. ThrasherDarkrai. Clayton, Kate, Guilty, Mad Dog and Dwarves x2, Beorn vs. Isamu, Black Wyrmlingx3, Red Wyrmlingx2, White Wyrmlingx2 and Dreadguls x3, Guilty
Game 4 vs. dok. Clayton, Kate, Guilty, Mad Dog and Dwarves x2, Beorn vs. Obsidians x3 and Warden, Zettian Infantry x2

Quarterfinals vs. Grey Waves. Clayton, Kate, Guilty, Mad Dog and Ravagers x4, Olog vs. Teeth of the Makwa x3, Phantoms x3
Semifinals vs. kevindola. Clayton, Kate, Guilty, Mad Dog and Sidhe x4, Concan vs. Axegrinders x2, Beorn and Warforged x2, Shiori
Finals vs. Ryguy266. Clayton, Kate, Guilty, Mad Dog, and Airborne, Ninjas of the Northern Wind vs. Heracles, Drow Chainfighter and Kaemon, Sentinels of Grax

Every single game I drafted my Cowboys. Not always with the first pick, but I always drafted them. The goal was to find something that was okay with falling asleep on the shootout turns, but could smooth out the offense while the Cowboys slept and waited for the next shootout. The way this army concept works is you use the sheer firepower of once-per-round Shootout to gain an edge, and try to tread water on the other turns while the Cowboys sleep. My name for this sort of army is “fuel management”; I like doing similar things with Ornak and Utgar Heroes and Heavies, going to top 4 in ScapeCon 2021 and winning OHS S43 with that concept.

Where I pushed my edge with the Cowboys was the Round 2 Shootout. In Round 1, the Cowboys have only moved with Posse once. You still want an R1OM3 on Clayton, in my opinion, because if your opponent rushes the Cowboys you can unload a ton of offense, but you’re usually just firing once with Clayton, maybe a few pings. But in the second round, your Cowboys have all now moved 10 spaces. Often Mad Dog can get in the mix and Brawl with enemies, often Kate can get Fan the Hammer, and Guilty can maybe launch some shots from height. You can routinely throw 15+ attack dice on this volley, and it can be enough to cut the legs out from your opponent. I blitzed Re-Tak-Shi in Round 2 against Sir Artorius, blitzed Dreadguls in Round 2 against ThrasherDarkrai, blitzed Teeth in Round 2 against Grey Waves, blitzed Warforged in Round 2 against kevindola, and unloaded four more wounds into Heracles against Ryguy. The only games where I didn’t land this sort of blitz were against ogblaha and dok, and both of those games were much slower paced. Ogblaha had a four piece army that he was gradually developing. Dok was attempting to slowroll Obsidians protected by Zettian ranged fire but also keep Zettians safe from Beorn’s Sabotage. Those games that were slower paced the Cowboys did even better, in my opinion. The Cowboys have a tough dynamic where if you rush them, they can unload a ton of attack dice at once, but if you don’t rush them, they can wear you down over time with once per round pings from 7 away.

Despite the Cowboy commonalities, all my games were fun and unique. My game against Sir Artorius was my first time playing this Cowboy concept and I saw just how much offensive potential it had with how fast it piled wounds on Othkurik and Re-Tak-Shi. My game against ogblaha I immediately put the Cowboys up against powerhouse armies, paired with a Knight of Weston screen against great figures. There were some super interesting dynamics in this game with the Warriors of Ashra, who I could easily gun down with range from the Cowboys, but only once per round. And Kaemon, who was easy to catch with Knights on the road, but needed to be shot with my dwindling Cowboys.

My game against ThrasherDarkrai he pulled off a Clayton assassination with Wyrmlings. My Dwarves didn’t quite hang with the Dreadguls, but my Clayton volleys before his death left me just enough in the tank to safely clean up with Mad Dog and Kate. My game against dok was a cat-and-mouse situation, with dok trying to hide his Zettians from Dwarves while threatening the Cowboys, but as the cat I had more range and gradually chipped away at him. My game against Grey Waves was a rock vs. paper and scissors game, with Grey Waves interestingly opting to open with Scissors, and doing some solid damage to rock, but again not having enough left in the tank after the Round 2 blitz.

My game against kevindola was very tight. He drafted Axegrinders first. I went with Cowboys and Sidhe on a tree board, knowing that he had Warforged available to tactical switch Sidhe away from trees. But I felt like if the focus was on Sidhe in the early game that was fine, the Cowboys would get time to do their work. Kevin did take Warforged, and opened with them. My early Sidhe were slaughtered, but the Cowboys had a huge and fairly lucky round 2 shootout to kill 3 Warforged in a single turn. Guilty killed one with two 3v2s, Mad Dog killed another with two 3v2s, Clayton and killed one with a 4v2. Clayton had failed a kill on another in the first round, but still, three Warforged dead by this point was big. The remaining Warforged did last a while, and piled some wounds on Mad Dog. In Round 3, I pushed Guilty and Kate forward, to hit Dwarves in the startzone. Guilty went down, but Kate set a good screen. With the Warforged gone, I played a patient game with the Sidhe, holding them by trees against the melee Dwarves. I initially focused Beorn to take them down an activation per turn, and from there Sidhe held out. I had one Sidhe who was surrounded by Dwarves who lasted an entire round of Dwarf attacks and tied down kevin’s whole army, and that sealed the game.

The finals against Ryguy was completely different from the rest of my games. The game was on Forest Fire, and with its huge hills and open sight lines I felt like there was no other first pick than his Airborne Elite. I planned to take either Dwarves or Kaemon to fill out, but Ryguy countered with a Heracles and Kaemon draft, so I was once again pushed back to my Cowboys. A sketchy situation for them, not having much of a screen to ride, but they can pile wounds on these heroes fast. I got the round 1 Airborne drop and initiative, and in 6 Airborne shots Kaemon was dead. One Airborne took a potshot on Heracles and dropped 2 wounds on him. Heracles rushed towards the Cowboy pod, killing a few Airborne along the way but was smartly positioned out of range of my round 1 shootout. Heracles took a wound to lava, and then painfully lost the Round 2 initiative and took four more wounds, now at 1 life remaining. Despite the dire straits, Heracles survived the rest of Round 2 with clutch blocks against my reduced offense non-Shootout turns from the remaining Airborne and Mad Dog, and he killed Kate Crawford and another Airborne with his time in Round 2. He won Round 3 initiative and hit four wounds on to Mad Dog, and was finally subdued. The game was Sentinels of Grax against 1-life Mad Dog, 1-life Guilty, full life Clayton, one Airborne, and the Ninjas.

The rest of the game was me trying to figure out a way to play against the Grax. I seized the Lorja Ivor glyph with my last Airborne, and then we played. First, I tried to huddle my troops together like you do in a traditional endgame, but it became apparent that wasn’t a viable approach when Ryguy hid one behind a wall and rushed me with another. Then, I tried rushing with the Ninjas and Cowboys at once, hoping to overwhelm with sheer offense, but the Ninjas didn’t quite have enough in the tank to overcome hot Reconstitute rolls and I totally lost them with nothing to show for it. I pulled the Cowboys back and reset for a third time. I tried fanning Guilty and Mad Dog to completely different sides of the board and rode straight Clayton turns, only using Shootout when it mattered. Clayton landed a kill, and the Sentinels went cold on Reconstitutes, failing two in a row, and then got initiative switched for Clayton to find the final kill. I was fairly fortunate throughout the game, winning big initiatives and dodging some silly lava wounds that I didn’t need to take.

Apologies for the 1500 word Heroscape essay, but I did have fun this season. I really love Quad Pod, it’s the drafting format I enjoy the most, and I’m happy to win my first Quad Pod event. Strange to have a Quad Pod where half of my army was the same every time, but that’s the way the cards fell. Happy to take the Cowboys to an undefeated season.