Utah's NHSD #5 - reports

[UtahScott]

UTAH -- NHSD #5 - "Wasatch Warfare" -- Bingham Creek Library (same venue as 2009)
(tied with Hexes in Texas for the third-largest NHSD event of 2010.
The Tree Town Open VI (56) and Ohio (46) events were first and second, respectively.)

Three states (UT, ID, NV). Six counties. Two sexes. 24 maps. And a WHOLE LOT of plastic-ey death!
October 2010 was the most collaborative, best-attended, most organized event to date.
43 players and 2 Tournament Directors joined us in battle! (36 youth/adult, 7 youth)

"Utah Soundoff" thread
Utah 2010 NHSD Tournament info (with maps)

Thank yous to: Craig van Ness, etc., Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, the game designers & playtesters, truth and everyone else at www.heroscapers.com, Agent Minivann, for kicking off the Utah group, all the local players who joined us this year, Rÿchean (as usual) for spearheading tournament support, Ruby Cheesman and her staff at the Bingham Creek Library, special thanks to locals HokshilaTo, BiggaBullfrog, tannergx, wjscaper and KingKorman. Additional thanks to my friends, my wife, who somehow continues to put up with me, and my sons (may they grow to enjoy gaming, and become skilled opponents).

2010 adult rankings

Spoiler Alert!

Adult rankings (36)

Bingham Creek Library's 50-person capacity meeting room. We brought in two extra tables: one for the maps, one for a Tournament Director's computer. For some reason, we ran out of chairs way too early.... Three maps per table. Upper left is Castles, Upper right is Ice. Near bottom right is Trees/"greens," adjacent to table #4, which held the last of each group.


You can see most of the room here. The outer wall is convex, which makes blocking out the space a little difficult. This year's setup seemed to noticeably improve player flow. Upper center is the Lava table, upper right had the last Lava map and half of the "basic RotV" maps. The table directly behind that had the other "basic" maps and Road map #4. At far right, the grey table's corner marks the double entry doors.


The Road table, on the far side of the room. KingKorman's Tournament Director computer table is to the bottom right, just out of the picture.

More pictures

Spoiler Alert!

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Me-Burq-Sa takes a headshot. ----------------------------------She's drawing a crowd.

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...and he's this big, you say? ------------------------------------Who's schooling who? (Hint: the kid won this one.)

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Apparently, Blackroot presents many LOS issues. -------------The boys wonder if he can block all those skulls...

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The Lawnmower rushes Heirloom. ------------------------------Staring contest, down the line.

The Simpsons Movie came out in 2007. Ebay provided me trophy figures for two years. Mr. Burns (says "Ex-cellent") is the ideal choice for a first place trophy: conniving and scheming. Comic Book Guy was originally the booby prize for that year, but I had to finish assembling both after the tourney. The Worst Place finisher never came around after that, so I had CBG's plaque changed for this year (FIRST PLACE / National HeroScape Day). The bases are from Joe's Trophies, a Murray, Utah company that's been around for years.

Comic Book Guy is the perfect note on which to end this post. He's an ubergeek archetype, a reminder not to take any of this seriously. We're here to have fun, and we're doing it while playing with little dolls.

Edit: ScottManDeath had a picture of CBG below with his winning army...but it's disappeared.
Ah, he's added a link to it.

[ScottManDeath]

The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy* has on his shirt: "Taelord costs too much". And pressing a button on his back says "Excuse me ... "


My army:

3x Greenscale Warriors = 180
1x Nilfheim = 185
1x Raelin RotV = 80
Total = 445/450

Game 1 (1x Iron Golem, 1x Gurei Oni, 1x Syvarris, 2x Drow Chain Fighter, 4x Dumutef Guard) on Dragon's Gulch against I don’t know whether member of this forum



(Starting in the yellow zone)

In the first round I moved Nilfheim and the Greenscales to the entry of the valley, followed by Raelin. Syvarris then came forward, shot a bit, but didn’t do much damage. The Drow Chain Fighter sneaked around on the right side, to get to the glyph, but couldn’t survive. Since I was spread out rather thinly, I got a little bit scared when the Iron Golem stomped forward (yes, 2 auto shields render Nilfheim’s special attack pretty much useless), so I pulled back a bit, got height on it, and then melee attacked it with Nilfheim, followed by 2 buffed lizard folk helping out. While Gurei Oni was charging ahead, Nilfheim positioned himself at the top of the ridge close to the opponents start zone and then took shots at the Dumutef Guards, which fell rather quickly.

I think I lost 2 squads of lizard folk, two figures getting burned to death on the +8 Initative glyph. ^_^

Game 2 (1x Drake Alexander, 1x Major Q10, 1x Einar Imperium) on Shrine of Mo-Ne-Ca against I don’t know whether member of this forum



(Starting in the blue zone)

In the first round, the dragon/lizards went onto the ledge of the plateau at 6 height, Raelin was sitting adjacent, 3 hexes below so she could cover both the plateau and the highest level of the castle. Q10 came forward, shot at Raelin, dealing 3 damage to her (making me putting the X on her for the rest of the game).

Then, Nilfheim moved to the highest level of the castle, special attacking Q10 and Drake at the bottom of the long ladder close to their starting zone, who a turn later grapple gunned to the single highest hex on the top of the castle, dealing 2 to 3 wounds to Nilfheim.

Scared, I disengaged (no damage) from Drake, going back to the lower plateau at the edge, special attacking Q10 (who died rather quickly) and Drake. Three lizard folk (which were replaced, as they fell) also engaged Drake, pinning him down and doing buffed attacks, slowly taking him down.

Drake at 1 life finally fell to a 6 attack of Nilfheim, taking out two unrevealed order markers , giving the dragon/lizards enough time to engage the Einar Imperium standing in the opponents starting zone.

Game 3 (1x Brave Arrow, 1x Mogrim Forgehammer, 4x The Axegrinders of Burning Forge) on Out Cold, against tannergx



(Starting in the green center zone, with all but 1 of my lizard folk there; tannergx hat the core of his dwarves at the opposing center zone, 4 dwarves + Mogrim in the small orange one on my right side, and 4 dwarves + Brave Arrow in the other orange zone on my left side)

This game looked quite challenging, lots of tough melee fighters, with +1 attack/defense vs huge, so I was quite a bit worried.

Brave Arrow came forward, capturing the +1 attack glyph in the center of the map, on top of the ice, followed by the dwarves from the right charging towards my starting zone. Nilfheim took out a few dwarves that were coming from the left and right towards my starting zone. Putting lizard folk in between helped to reduce the damage taken by Nilfheim, though he got a few wounds from the survivors.

Then, I moved Raelin on the single snow tile on top of the 7 hex sand tile, placing Nilfheim close by, and the lizardfolk as meat shields around both of them, while special attacking the dwarves that where coming closer. I rolled lucky a lot, sort of compensating for their +1 defense against huge figures. From there on, there was not much the dwarves could do, since Nilfheim was Raelinified and surrounded by Greenscale Warriors.

Game 4 (1x Charos, 1x Kaemon Awa, 1x Krav Maga Agents, 1x Marcus Esenwein) on Black Root against I don’t know whether member of this forum



(Starting in the blue zone)

Counterstrikers, such as Charos worried me before, I just hoped that I didn't have to fight them, especially in a Greenroller configuration

I moved the dragon pod forward (at the right side road), followed by Raelin, to engange the Krav Maga Agent who were, as expected rather resilient against the Ice Breath. They eventually fell to them, right about the time when Kaemon Awa was moving closer to the hive, to engage my troops.

Raelin and Nilfheim then went behind the hive, the lizard folk engaging (not attacking) Kaemon Awa to pin the counter striker down, who was double attacking the green meat shields, Nilfheim (buffed by Raelin). This went on for 2 to 3 turns, when Charos was moving in too, scaring the crap out of me. I then used between 1 to 3 Green Scale Warriors (replacing the dead ones) and put them adjacent to Charos, on high ground, without attacking, which instead I did with Nilfheim’s special attack (also against Kaemon Awa, who eventually fell). Nilfheims chunkyness was quite annoying amidest all those trees Greenscales were also useful to block the 2 hex spots for Charos to crunch on Raelin.

Damage was getting through here and there, so Charos was at 4 life left, I had a 2 life Raelin and 2 lizard folk adjacent to Charos. Nilfheim then got high ground against Charos and melee attacked him down to 1 life, which the green scales took (buffed + high ground).

Marcu then had the bad luck to loose his turn to me, so I sent him into the water, surrounded by Nilfheim and the green scales with high ground, that took him out.

Game 5 (3x Minions of Utgar, 1x Airborne Elite, 1x Isamu) on A Stone's Throw, against ortimus





That was the game I had been fearing most, after seeing that gang of winged evils fighting at a table across the room. Plus, I lost to ortimus last year at the NHSD, on his way to the top.

I rather would have liked to have Braxas (who was in my roomies army, together with Green Scales and Raelin and Theracus), but all I got was Nilfheim.

(Starting in the yellow zone):

I clustered Nilfheim and Raelin in the large zone at the right, having a few lizard folk at the two 2 hex zones in forward position. Minions were spread all over the map, and were able to get the common attack + 1 glyph (revealed after setup), since I deployed close to the healer glyph (which Nilfheim could not have used, since it was at a 1 hex tile surrounded by higher level hexes)

The Airborne Elite did not deploy until round 3, which pretty much saved my butt. For the first few turns, the minions killed a green scale or two per turn, dealing around 4 damage to Nilfheim. I took out one, rarely two minions with Nilfheim and the green scales combined (6 defense is just tough)

At that point, I didn’t think I could make it, but a few turns later, with lucky dice rolls (and having more space to strategically place Nilfheim, meat shielded by the green scales, due to increased map space void of threatening minions with 3 to 4 attack; 4 move vs 6 move + 5 range helped quite a bit, too), there were 2 minions left, Isamu, 3 lizard folk, an unharmed Raelin and Nilfheim at 1 life left. By then I was a bit more confident to actually make it.

Then the Airborne Elite dropped *gulp* cleverly one in each corner of the map. I luckily won initiative and took out two air borne and the penultimate minion, moving forward to engage the other minion and remaining two airbornes. I didn’t think that my dragon pod would live, so I but OM number 3 on Raelin, which then moved behind the ruin, to the left side, “wasting” an attack.

The next turn, the airborne wiffed their attacks, and Nilfheim four skulled the last airborne and Isamu (+5 attack vs Nilfheim’s one life was scary) failed to vanish, 30 seconds before the 45 min round time was over.

I did not expect to win that game, since it was pretty much one of the worst case match ups (another one I feared was 4 squads of the 4th or similar nasty range), but being *very* lucky with the dice and trying to keep each of the remaining figures alive in the end game made it happen






I think to sum it up, it was in my favor that I could make 3 to 6 attack consistently per round. Raelin was very effective too; I had to move her rarely around, since her defense buff range of 4 is pretty good on the small maps we played. All those order markers then instead went directly into the lizardfolk and the dragon.

Also I think at 500 points, other armies could be built that have more punch than at the 450 points we played.

Thanks UtahScott for organizing and making the trophy, wjscaper and tannergx (who also donated the MISB Heroes of Lindesfarme I picked from the prize table, w00t) for setting up maps! I had a blast.

*
It seems that something is eating the pictures from the post, so here the link to the picasa gallery with some play testing pictures, and the trophy and prize:

http://picasaweb.google.com/scottman...O3KjfS_9O_cngE

P.S.
My roomie played 1x Braxas, 2x Greenscale Warriors, 1x Raelin RotV and 1x Theracus. He finished 4-1 (5th place of 34), due to a bad match up on Shrine Of Mo-Ne-Ca and a very lucky Death Walker 8000 getting 4 attacks of three (3.9% chance!!), so Braxas (6 Defense) was chain gunned to death in a single turn.

[BiggaBullfrog]

Alright! Report for my first tournament:

First off, let it be known that I may wander slightly off-topic once in a while. But I digress...

My Army, and how it got there

In my early thinking for my favorite army this year, I was expecting a larger point value for the armies. So, naturally there were somewhere between 10-15 armies I was thinking of. Then when it was revealed we'd be at 450 points, many of those dropped away, but there were still a lot. However, playtesting quickly showed that my favorites were Nilfheim, GSW x3, and Raelin (same as ScottManDeath's); Blades x4, Grimnak, Nerak, and KA; and Warforged x3, Heirloom, IG x1, and Marcu.

Well, I'd played orcs at a game day earlier in the year, so my Blade army dropped in value. I knew that the Nilf/GSW (WinterGreen, as I like to call it) was the army to beat, but I just had a blast with my warforged. So, I decided if one of the prizes happened to be a TJ or TT (I doubted it), I'd take WinterGreen. If not, my Warforged.

No TJ or TT, so my Warforged went. But there was an important change. I liked the IG for flavor, and Marcu for glyph grabbing so I could use my Warforged where they were needed. However, after one game trying the Hydra instead of those two, I never went back. So my army was:

Warforged Soldiers x3 80
Heirloom 90
Fen Hydra x1 120

Total: 450/12

A mean combination. Each card can pull its own weight, and while they don't have direct synergy, they all work well together. I was set.

The Battles:

Note: I may get some of this stuff wrong (names, exactly what happened-I've never claimed to have a great memory) so correct me if there's anything wrong.

Round 1:

My first game was against HokshilaTo, who along with UtahScott and me, helped decide the maps this year. We played on:

My first battle on a map with Jungle. When I saw his army, I knew it would be a tricky match:

Protectors of Ullar x2 110
Syvarris 100
Atlaga 90
Theracus 40

Ranged flyers on a castle map. I knew if I didn't want him to have complete domination over the shrine, I'd need to take both glyphs (Valda and Gerda), otherwise he'd slaughter most of my Warforged before they could get to his Protectors and Atlaga before they offed my Hydra and Heirloom.

So we started. I moved Heirloom up early to pull a Treasure Glyph out from under the shrine, and also hoping he'd be bait tough enough to distract his PoU while I brought up my Warforged. He led with the PoU and Syvarris while I moved up two squads of Warforged. I took the Move glyph early and it wasn't contended later on and sent two Warforged up the shrine. They were both killed by his Protectors (one of whom turned out to be Atlaga; we switched him with his real Protector brother ) the next turn. I brought up more Warforged (helped by the move glyph and road bonuses) to engage and switch two of the Protectors on the shrine and kill them, meanwhile stealing the Defense glyph from another Protector. I more or less had control of the shrine at that point, so he sent his remaining Protectors to contend the Defense glyph while my Warforged took care of Syvarris. Then followed a messy dispute by the hive over the Defense Glyph, and the PoU got dangerously near my Hydra before I tied them down with Warforged and used the switch to kill them.

Then I just had to take Atlaga, one last Protector by the defense glyph, and Theracus. I stretched my Warforged to tie down Atlaga while I advanced my Hydra onto the treasure glyph Heirloom grabbed earlier, which ended up being the Attack +1. HokshilaTo couldn't move Atlaga because my Warforged were surrounding him, and My Hydra finished him off in one turn from height (Four attacks of Six-I like). After that I used the Hydra to kill Theracus and the last Protector, winning my first game. Great game, Hokshila.

Record: 1-0

Round 2:

First game won at my first tournament, I felt good. However, I made sure to observe the most important rule when playing Warforged: "Don't get overconfident." And believe me, it's a very important rule.

Game two was against a kid (I'm not sure if he has a user here) on:

Which happened to be my first battle on a map with the Tundra. This was up against a big, frightening army:

Isamu
Drow Chainfighter x1
Guilty McCreech
Zombies of Morindan x4
Deathwalker 7000
Major Q10

I'd played against the Zombies with my army, and they're scary. And on top of that, it was hard to set up switches with so much snow, keeping him from taking height. But hey, if nothing else, it'd be fun, right?

So we started. He led with Zombies and took the Wound glyph, which throughout the game killed at least half of my Warforged. I think I took it once with a switch, and then he killed the soldier with an Onslaught and put a new zombie on it. This wasn't going my way. However, my Warforged pushed through the zombies with some help from my Hydra (Lawnmowing Zombies-no better feeling). He tried to bomb my Hydra with his DW7K, but I got him first (and yes, he did a Deathwalker roll). After that, I used Heirloom to Force Orb the last group of Zombies while my Hydra fought Q10 who had taken high ground. My Hydra took a wound, but Q10 took four, and all he had left was Guilty, Isamu, and the Chainfighter. I moved my Hydra to try to kill Isamu, but he disappeared. Then he attacked me with his Chainfighter, no luck on his side. I killed the Chainfighter and Guilty quickly, then chased down Isamu for the win.

Record: 2-0

Round 3:

I mentioned earlier I'd used orcs earlier in the year at a game day. Well, at that game day, I fought a certain Vivaldi. Fate determined that we would fight again in Round 3, and this time, he brought the orcs:

Blade Gruts x3 40
Nerak the Glacien Swog Rider 50
Tornak 100
Major Q9 180

We were to fight on a Lava map, one of which was Dragon's Gulch, built by yours truly. Naturally, we opted for neutral ground on:


The glyphs were revealed to be Common Attack +1 and Defense +1, and I was torn from the beginning how to proceed. Boosted Gruts could break my Warforgeds defense easily enough, and the Hydra seemed like the best way to take care of them. However, Q9 was easily the biggest threat, and I wanted to save the Hydra for that. There were also powerful glyphs to consider.

But I decided quickly enough when Vivaldi did what I did not expect; he moved Q9 first and took a pot shot at my Hydra, putting a wound on it. I counter attacked with Warforged, but the Blades and their champions blocked them from reaching Q9. But, Heroscape happened, and I ended up killing Tornak with one blow from a Warforged Soldier. I then fought for and took both glyphs while the Orcs were pretty stuck-without Tornak to boost their attack, they couldn't break through my Warforged Resolve.

But Q9 was still there, and he started to simply Queglix away at my Warforged while standing on the lava rock by the Hive. Be it noted now, both of us had dice all over the place during this game. Sometimes he'd go a whole streak of Queglix without a single skull, but I whiffed plenty of attacks against Q9, and when I did get skulls, he'd roll defense like a champ.

Throughout this whole middle game was Q9 constantly killing Warforged on both glyphs while I struggled to hold said glyphs and keep Q9 engaged at the same time. By the time I ran out of Warforged, I had only put one wound on Q9. When I ran out of Warforged I brought up my Hydra-who promptly lost two more life to Q9. With a one-life Hydra, I decided I'd use it to hold the defense glyph rather than attack Q9.

Then was Heirloom. I don't know why people don't like this guy. Already at this point, he'd blasted away a group or two of orcs, and when duty called him to attack Q9, he responded quickly. For at least two rounds Vivaldi and I were hammering away at each other-Q9 against Heirloom. Unfortunately, Q9's attacks of 3 weren't enough to penetrate Heirloom's defense consistently enough, and by the time he'd put 3 wounds on me, Heirloom had dealt 2 wounds to Q9 which, in addition to the wound from a Warforged and another from Lava damage, took Q9 out of the game. Luckily, my gambles had payed off, because I'd been placing all my order markers on a low-life Heirloom.

However, Vivaldi still had a chance with six or so Blade Gruts (Nerak had already died somewhere in the Q9 v. Warforged mess) against my two Heroes-both with one life left. He took the common attack glyph while tying down Heirloom with two orcs, one on height; while also attacking the Hydra to get rid of my defense bonuses. But Heirloom pulled through, dispatching of the orc on height then killing both orcs attacking the Hydra with one Force Orb attack. The last orc fell to another orb, giving me another win. Epic game, Vivaldi.

Record: 3-0

Round 4:

All day I'd been hearing stories about this guy. He with the dwarves, who won without losing a single figure his first round. He with the dwarves, who only lost one squad of the little guys his second. He with the dwarves, who unfortunately couldn't break ScottManDeath's "WinterGreen" army. Yes, it was he, tannergx, who also had a map of his own in the tournament, Shrine of Mo-Ne-Ca (see my first game). We were to battle it out on:

And his dwarves scared the poo out of me:

Axegrinders of the Burning Forge x4 70
Mogrimm Forgehammer 120
Brave Arrow 50

I'd tested against a Roman army featuring Mogrimm, and when that guy is on fire with Commander's Strike, my Warforged suffer. A lot. Fortunately for me, he only successfully rolled it once our whole game-but I was terrified of it none the less. And he had Axegrinders to kill my Hydra. But I went in, ready for anything. We set up our figures, and waited for the next round to begin.

And waited. And waited.

In retrospect, we probably should have started early.

When we started, I moved Heirloom onto the road on my start-zone's left and advanced my Warforged while tannergx used an interesting tactic: rather than speed his Axegrinders to me and bond with Mogrimm once they were engaged, he bonded first, sending Mogrimm to a hill while he slowly rolled his mass of dwarves out of his start zone. Maybe I just play Mogrimm wrong, but I'd never thought to use him like that.

Anyway, my Warforged and his Dwarves eventually clashed. We both were doing a lot of thinking this game-he didn't want to lose any-if no-figures to my Tactical Switch, while I wanted to kill as many dwarves as possible with my warforged so all that was left for my Hydra was Mogrimm and Brave Arrow. He clearly had an advantage with up to six attacks (including Commander's Strike) per turn, but his dice were lacking, and my Warforged Resolve blocked most attacks. I was trying to flank around the edge of the hive to where his reserved Dwarves were with my warforged, but never ended up getting to as I didn't want to give up any attacks. He slowly pushed me back, and most of the fighting ended up on my side of the Hive. At one point, Mogrimm was within two spaces of the piece of high ground near my start zone, so I decided to try to get him early with my Hydra to get rid of Commander's Strike, but he won initiative (that bonus is no joke) and moved Mogrimm away, and my Hydra had to settle for a single Axegrinder. I went back to my remaining Warforged to throw around and tie down some of his Axegrinders while preparing for a Hydra/Heirloom strike, but he kept moving Mogrimm out of the water I threw him in, risking the passing swipes (I think I got one on him). Eventually, I just killed Mogrimm with the Hydra, but he still had around six (I think) Axegrinders and Brave Arrow against my single Warforged, a wounded Hydra, and Heirloom. He killed the Hydra while Heirloom decided to spring the trap on a Treasure glyph he summoned and take two wounds. After more fighting, we ended up having to go to time-everyone was waiting for a winner. So, after some confusion as to how the scoring was working, I was determined winner (whole card scoring, my Heirloom and one Warforged against less than a squad of his Axegrinders and Brave Arrow). I really hate it when this stuff goes to time, and really think that game could have gone either way, but hey, that's the game. Awesome game, tannergx.

Record: 4-0

Round 5:

Well, here I was, undefeated in my first tournament. There were two other undefeated players-ScottManDeath and ortimus, who were both paired to duke it out. I was set to fight another kid, who I don't think has a user here. We were on:

He brought an interesting army:

Shurrak 160
Major Q10 150
Krav Maga Agents 100
Guilty McCreech 30

Not something obvious, but like my army, each of his units could pull its own weight, and I didn't have any really easy answers to Shurrak, who could easily wound my Hydra if I got careless. Honestly, it reminded me of how my brother plays-risky units like DeD or Sonlen who he proceeds to roll amazingly with and dominate, so I was sure to observe my first rule when using the Warforged-"Don't get overconfident."

We started, and while I led with Warforged Soldiers, he made his big mistake of the game-leading with his Krav. They did their share of damage, plunking off my Warforged and trying to wound my Hydra, but once my Warforged got near, it was easy enough to switch and kill them. Next he brought out Shurrak, who whiffed his first attack and failed Knockback-things weren't going his way. I countered with more Warforged and put some hurt on Shurrak, who killed two of my Warforged with one sweep. Then I finished of Shurrak with my Hydra while he brought out Q10. My Hydra killed Guilty in the start zone while Q10 took shots at my remaining warforged and Heirloom in my start zone. After some chasing, I eventually caught Q10 with my Hydra and Q10's defense failed him, giving me the win. I kind of felt bad-that guy's dice just weren't doing him justice. But it was still a fun game.

Final Record: 5-0

And that's it. I went 5-0 my first tournament, placing second under ScottManDeath by one SoS point. I was happy-I played well and had fun. Huge thanks to UtahScott for doing this again, and thanks to whoever else helped with maps, etc. (I'm really not sure of everyone who helped, and I'm sure there are more than most are aware of). No thanks to the library for giving out bottles of pop to kids 17 and younger, which I missed by one stinking year.

Nah, the Library's great, and big thanks to them.

[Kaiser Cat]

ScottManDeath, are you sure the first opponent was using Kato Katsuro? That doesn't seem right to me.

[The B.I.V.]

My Battle Report is up, yo! Congrats, ScottmanDeath and to everyone else! it was a great Tournament! Utahscott, I must spread some rep around before giving you anymore.. Thanks for organizing another great tourney!

Brandon

[ScottManDeath]

Originally Posted by Kaiser Cat

ScottManDeath, are you sure the first opponent was using Kato Katsuro? That doesn't seem right to me.

Fixed it.

[Vivaldi]

BIV, at the start of your recap you reference a rivalry to D&D but never expound(or I missed it)-- I'd like to hear it. Also, You list yourself as 5-1 which is pretty amazing in a 5 round tournament. Do you have a time-turner?

Report coming sooner or later, whichever comes first.

[The B.I.V.]

Thanks Viv. I think what I was trying to say was that I beat every army that I faced that had DnD figs in it except for Andrew's. But since it was really Braxas that beat me and not the Greenscales, I'm counting it, too!

And yea, it as 4-1. Sometimes my delusions of grandeur get in the way....

Brandon

[ortimus]

I lost to ScottmanDeath, what more can I say.

At least he also admits that there were several critical dice rolls that went to his favor towards the end of the game. I can admit defeat.

The Lizard men and a big white dragon throwing down roughly 6 attacks a turn is hard to beat. Good game.

[The B.I.V.]

Anyone who hasn't repped UtahScott, yet, go to his post at the top of page 1 and click on the little "scales" icon and leave him a nice comment.

Brandon

[wjscaper]

I came into this tournament wanting to play something new as I always do. I focused more on what I would enjoy the most and fit my style. I thought at first I was going to bring the warforged and thought about greenscales/Dragon, Phantom knights, Several different arrangements of Elemental armies, and the rest of my brainstorming of other armies all seemed to lose my attention. So after a few days of not thinking about it, I settled on the Elementals. I had talked with Derek and while deciding on Kurrock, 3 fire, 4 water, 2 Air, 1 ground and Isamu, also Airborne elite was in the mix to bring something anti range, so I wouldn't lose my Elementalist. I later settled on trading out Isamu and one water, dropped the Air bourne and added Theracus. My 450 point army was finally set. I didn't think I would win all my games, but I felt pretty confident they would do fairly well.

First game:
I was still trying to get my strategy down for the map, remember all my figures abilities and keep track of my openents figures and what weakness they might cause me. My first thought was, oh great he brought Sonlen. I played a game last year where I thought I had a game in the bag and all I had to do was kill Sonlen. To my surpise he waisted the rest of my army and I lost. He also fielded Nelfheim, one squad of greenscales, and a Stinger squad. The wound glyph was on the map and I don't remember the other one. We started out the game with a short battle between 3 Water Elementals against Nelfheim and 3 greenscales. I attacked the dragon only to have him kill all three with one turn. Stunned by the first round events. I was thinking my army was done for. He captured the wound glyph and the other glyph on the other side(which had Sonlen on it. His greenscales were moving in and he left the Stingers back to watch the encounter. I counter attacked of coarse this time I tied up his dragon with a Air Elemental to weaken his defense. That's right the other glyph was a defense plus one. So the defense was a wash. I also attaked with two other elementals. Fire, put a wound for searing and the air put a couple hits on him. With in two or three turns I had taken out Nelfheim and a greenscale. I revived a Water Elemental and my focused switched to Sonlen. Losing a few more Elementals and having Theracus taken out(2 wounds from a bad roll on a trap, plus a hit from a greenscale) left my Elemental list all alone by 2 greenscales. However, Kurrak killed a greenscale and revived my Air Elemental back in play. My attack on Sonlen proved barely worth while, only one wound on him that round. He attempted to heal, but failed. Dragon swoop failed the first time and killed my fire Elemental on the second. I used my favorite Elemental(water) with a fire, and help from an Air to take out Sonlen. The Stingers got into the action killing off a fire and Air. I sacrificed my Ground to a Wound glyph, mainly because he was to slow to be of use at this time. The second wound from the glyph I put on Kurrak. Later I thought it was dumb to kill my Elemental, instead of just wounding Kurrak. Just didn't want to lose him. Gradually I finished off the squads and was left with Kurrak and a water. I was able to revive one more time and in the end take the wound glyph fore my own. The last blow to his stinger came from the wound glyph. I would have won on points anyways, but we barely had enough time to finish the round. It ended just before time was up. Great battle.

1-0

2nd match was against the dreaded Orcs. I know they are tough and With Grimnak/2 squads of Arrow and Blade gruts+ 2 swogs/ and 2 Wyrmlings. I new I was in for a tough battle. My first encounter left Grimnak chewing/drinking up a Water elemental./Wyrmlings killed Theracus off easily and wounded Kurrak. The waters returned the favor and killed both of them off, and then I counter attacked and killed Grimnak within two order markers. I took a sigh of relief. But then came the Arrow Gruts who with the help of the Glyph's and the swogs were taking down my Elementals. I was dying off fast. I revived two Elementals and Used Kurrak to kill some of the orcs. I killed off a swog and it came down to one of each squad and a swog against Kurrak and I think three Elementals. the game definetly turned to my favor as the last swog went down. He only had two figures left. I had the points on him as time ran out. We played threw the round and I still had the upper hand.

2-0

Somehow I was marked for a tie. So my text aponent had already taken a loss. Which actually made for my favorite match up of the day. Nelfheim again, Greenscales again, 4 Wyrmlings (one of each color). I thought except for the map being really big, I should do fairly well. I was nervous about the match up again with Nelfheim. I had lucked out on the previous match up with him. I started off with The fire and water. It took two order markers to even get close enough to engage each other. This turned to his advantage, having most of the fliers on the board. He brought up the greenscales with Nelfheim down the right side/his left and two Wyrmlings down my left side/his right. He used one order marker to get them out there and used the other two on greens/dragon combo. He took the wound glyph with a wyrmling and killed off a water with his dragon and took the other glyph on the other side. The wound glyph was my undoing on this map. The other glyph was a treasure move glyph. He move right in the center of kurrak/3 fire and Theracus. He attacked killed a fire, wounded Kurrak and killed Theracus. I killed a greenscale, that's it. Great I thought. He killed off Kurrak next and I layed the revengeful blow on Nelfheim. But it was to late so I thought. My army was ruined. I had to attack one at a time and plan each Elemental out perfectly if I was to have a chance. I pretty much thought it was over. I was fortunate to have revived twice before losing Kurrak. I used my fire to kill off a Wyrmling and eventually killed the 2nd when he crossed the board to take on my waters. Bad move he killed a water but was eaily killed in return. I had perfect move with the waters jumping around the water spaces. They were the strength of the army. Killing most of his figures in the game. I relied on them to much I think or needed more of them. One more would have been nice. This is where I regreted the trade for Theracus for the water I was going to bring. The game stayed close. I killed his 3rd Wyrmling and had offed his Greenscales using a Ground slam after tunneling up a level next to 2 greenscales. I killed one of them and finished off the other with a water. I lost my last water and had Air and fire left. He was on the wound glyph still. I was just to far away to get to hime before the time ran out. At the end of the round I had to make a choice which Elemental to kill (Wound Glyph). I new my one elemental could never make it to him and so my last hope rested on my air elemental. 35 points him against 30 points me. It wouldn't have mattered at this point. My other Elemental was only worth 30 points as well. So once I made the kill from the wound, it was a race to get to him and kill him before time ran out. We played it out, I had to take a chance and was killed. I had lost. What a match though. Fun as heck. I blame the free wounds on my figures of coarse and the map being so hard for me to cross.

2-1

I want to make sure this posts so I will continue with my last two games later. Plus I want to read and try to edit and make sure the facts are as close as possible. I don't remember everything exactly so there may be some flaws. But, I think it is really close enough you get the gist of the games played.

[wjscaper]

Alright after reading my last post and feeling pretty good about the details. Forgive the miss spelling of coarse. This is about the Heroscape tourney not English class.

Bring on Game 4

My next match was against a friend. Andrew, who had Protectors of Ullar/ Doesn't matter what else he had. His Protectors just wasted all my figures. He killed Kurrak on the first round. I was done for. There range plus the map being barely 10 spaces across or so it seemed. Being all water or swamp, totally made my fire elementals useless. I was just target practice. I killed Syvarris after he layed wounds on Kurrak. I think I killed 4 Protectors. Not sure what else. What else can I say had fun getting shot to death. I told him make your last kill a Bolt of witherwood. What do ya know it worked. Atlaga did more than just get to cheer. The final kill of the game.

2-2

Last game. I thought what the heck. This guy only has 5 figures. This should be easy. Deathwalker 9000/ Sargeant drake from sworm are the only ones really we need to mention. The rest went down easy. I lost a couple elementals to Deathwalker and after much of the game finally was able to land that one needed blow to him. It was Drake that is still haunting my dreams. He killed everybody in my army. I gradually wounded him here and there. only to have it end with a 2 on one. I had a fire on a wound glyph, that back fired. I died. My last fire and my last Air against Drake. This looked grim. I was very uneffective against him. He moved in to kill my air before I relized he had to stop one space before. Luckly for me that was the case. I was able to kill him on my turn. New respect for that guy. Wow! every game was a close one except one. I realized that the Elementals are about there staying power and wearing down the other armies. I loved playing them. Want to try them again, better strategy of coarse and more waters. No Theracus.

3-2

Great tournament, Already want to do it again!!! Hint Scott...
Just kidding... thanks to everyone who came, it was great.

Scape on....