dok's battle reports

[dok]

At last, I have battles worth reporting. The Mile High City has been graced with the presence of lonewolf, and last night we got together for a couple games of 'scape. We set up Moss Creek Road and got to it.

Game 1:

dok
Romans x3
10th x2
MDG
NGS
MBS

lonewolf
Gladiatrons x4
Blastarons x2
Raelin

It was startzone-stuffing squadscape at its best, and I got my butt handed to me pretty good. I made an early mistake of pushing NGS too far forward and allowing him to get engaged inside Raelin's aura. At that point I basically sacrificed him to buy time to get the rest of my army arranged. NGS did his job as a tank, even if MBS failed to get any paralyzing stares on Raelin in the process.

It was the sequence in the aftermath of NGS's death that swiftly cost me the game. I was feeling pretty good about my setup as I had two blocks of Romans sitting 6 hexes from Raelin, with the 10th right behind them. I figured that lonewolf would have to break through those Romans in order to get at the 10th, and in the mean time I'd be hitting with 4 attacks of 2-4 attack dice. Mike surprised me by continuing to ignore the Romans, and simply shooting with his Blastarons (including a few on height 3) at my 10th, sans homing device. In the first turn of this, he managed to kill 3 of 4 Redcoats clustered around MDG. (Some might argue this is why Redcoats suck.) I scrambled and managed to get some shots in, but I was down to 1 Redcoat 2 turns later and that was pretty much the game.

By the time he killed MBS, I had only taken out 3 Blasts and 4-5 Glads. I still had all my Romans (and MDG), but it was pretty painfully clear that they wouldn't be able to get it done without ranged support, so I resigned. It might have turned out differently if more of my 10th had survived that first exchange, but unless I got him under a full squad of Blasts, it wasn't going to matter.

In retrospect, it was clear that I should have advanced with the Romans and engaged as many Blasts as possible. Lonewolf was really only concerned with my ranged figures, so I may as well have used the Romans more aggressively. That, and the early mistake with NGS, was two mistakes too many against this player/army combo.

It was a real pleasure to see lonewolf play the 'trons. That army involves making a huge number of decisions every turn, and watching lonewolf crank through it all as he moved 8 figures and picked his targets was fun to watch. I can see where people trip up when playing them, but in the right hands, they are really tough.

Game 2:

dok
Knights of Weston x3
Sir Gilbert
Nilfheim

lonewolf
Deathreavers x2
Braxas
Laglor
KMA

The first couple rounds turns were spent with lonewolf spooling out his rats and me assembling my knights in a column on the road. Then things settled in with Nilfheim taking on rats, while the KMA fired in from the next zip code. Nilfheim managed to freeze 5 rats in 3 turns and open up the path; I did expose him to elevated Krav at one point (my only blatant mistake of the match, probably) but managed to escape with only 2 wounds.

The Knights, freed from the Deathreavers, took over, and swiftly worked down the road and brought the pain. I lost a couple knights in the process of killing the Krav and two more rats. At this point, I felt really good about my chances, but then Braxas began her reign of terror. She killed 5 knights in her first two activations. Still, I felt pretty good, as I managed to get a couple wounds on her with Nilfheim's approach and ice breath, and the next turn would presumably see me fly over and bring Nilfheim's 6 attack into play.

But then came the key turn of the game, as lonewolf brought Braxas to Nilfheim, and put an all-skulls roll on me against a single shield, killing Nilf in one shot and denying me my next OM. In one roll, I went from favorite to severe underdog. Gilbert and the remaining knights put up a valiant effort, getting several wounds on both Braxas and Laglor, but in the end it was to no avail.

So, I have tasted defeat in Heroscape, and twice in one evening. But the thing is, losing to a player as talented and gracious as lonewolf is actually a lot more fun than beating a weaker opponent. Thanks for the experience, lonewolf.

 

[Jexik]

Thanks for the report, dok! I like losing to good players too because you actually have an opportunity to learn something. Sounds like you kind of just had a tough break with Nilfheim in that second game. That has been my experience too. About 3/4 of the time, he'll just go crazy and kill 300 points, but every now and then, he's a dud.

lonewolf sux, imo.

(I'm actually 0-2 against him too).

Too bad I can't get my revenge against him this summer at GC.

 

[lonewolf]

So, I have tasted defeat in Heroscape, and twice in one evening. But the thing is, losing to a player as talented and gracious as lonewolf is actually a lot more fun than beating a weaker opponent. Thanks for the experience, lonewolf.

Dok, I had a great time playing against you and even though you lost, your strategy and game play are both excellent.

Thank you for the games!

 

[dok]

Sounds like you kind of just had a tough break with Nilfheim in that second game.

Well, mostly yes, but also no. The allskulls/one shield hit that swung the game was pretty unlucky, but I had also been lucky to escape the elevated Krav hit with only 2 wounds. The expected hit there was almost three wounds, and could of course have been much worse. And he rolled even ground KMA shots against Nilf at least one other time, and blanked.

The reason I had placed Nilf on low ground was because I was engaged to one rat, and out of range of the other two. I chose to walk around the rat so that I would be able to hit the other two if I killed the first one. The better play would have been to disengage and take the height three perch. This would have cost me half a wound at the outset, but it would have guaranteed me three shots, and given me five defense dice against the Krav in the next turn. lonewolf pointed this out to me after the game.

And Nilf rolled pretty hot when it came to clearing out the rats. So Nilfheim had one titanic failure, but if you look at all his rolls, he did pretty good. He just had the bad roll at exactly the wrong time.

--

I only made one other error I can think of - I botched the order of attack of my knights one turn, so that after I killed the last Krav, I couldn't attack Laglor with the one knight who had been engaged to both. This being a friendly game, lonewolf offered to let me roll the attack, but at the time I was winning and not in the mood to accept charity. A couple turns later, not so much.

 

[Rÿchean]

Moss Creek Road?? cool

Did I read the luck/skill thread correctly, dok. You haver only lost 3 games of Heroscape ever?

BTW, I own LW and he knows it.

 

[dok]

Yep, Moss Creek Road. It set up quickly and plays very fairly for a wide range of figures. It's not a flashy map, but it's a very nice one.

Yes, these were my second and third losses, although the first was with many rules wrong. But I've never played in a competitive tournament, and until Tuesday night I'd never played against anybody who posts here.

I guess I've also lost quite a few games against myself, if you want to count those...

 

[lonewolf]

BTW, I own LW and he knows it.

It is true...everyone has a nemesis and mine is you! Plus you beat up on my kid more than a couple times. You are my family's nemesis!

 

[Rÿchean]

Gen Con just won't be the same for me without you and Scaper_dude there. You guys will be missed.

 

[lonewolf]

Gen Con just won't be the same for me without you and Scaper_dude there. You guys will be missed.

Thanks Ry. It is killing me that I am not going. It is such a fun thing for me personally to do and also such a great bonding for me and scaper_dude to do together. I can't even read the 'who is going to Gencon thread' because it just makes me feel worse about not going.

I know that I am doing the right thing by not going, but it still makes me crazy!

 

[killercactus]

Yes, these were my second and third losses, although the first was with many rules wrong. But I've never played in a competitive tournament, and until Tuesday night I'd never played against anybody who posts here.

I guess I've also lost quite a few games against myself, if you want to count those...

Man, you sure start high up on the ladder! A couple of your first Heroscape games against a player like lonewolf, and also against some strong armies! Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to play lonewolf (I was one Scatter away from it at GenCon last year), but I have played scaper_dude, and he was very, very tough.

Thanks Ry. It is killing me that I am not going. It is such a fun thing for me personally to do and also such a great bonding for me and scaper_dude to do together. I can't even read the 'who is going to Gencon thread' because it just makes me feel worse about not going.

I hear you. I read through that, and the Events thread and wanted to cry. I had soooo much fun last year..... oh well - I'll be back.

 

[dok]

So, here's a quick summary of my games at the innagural Colorado NHSD event, the Rocky Mountain Rumble.

The format was 520 point, 24 hex, marvel allowed armies. Of the 11 maps in play, 8 used standard rules, and 3 used Heat of Battle rules. Due to the rolling rumble format, you could end up on a HoB map at any time. However, as fate would have it I did not play any HoB games. (If I had known that would happen, I might have brought a different army!)

Anyway, I played:

20 Marcu Esenwein
80 Raelin RotV
180 Major Q9
240 Zombies x4
520, 16 hexes

My basic plan was to use Raelin-backed Q9 to bring the opponent in, and then just roll with zombies as long as I could. Zombies act both as a screen for Raelin/Q9 and as an agressor. Once you start feeding OMs to the zombies, though, it's really hard to stop, because every attack is a chance to bring back dead zombies.

I figured roughly the same strategy would work on HoB maps, if it came to it. Marcu was an extra card for HoB, a glyph-grabber, and wound glyph insurance.

Game 1
Opponent: Seth A (Raelin, Charos, Cyprien, Kelda)
Map: Can't See the Jungle (Unique attack and Lucky 20-sider)

The glyphs were great for him and bad for me, however, he wasn't happy to see Q9. He opened by putting Cyprien on the Unique attack glyph; I put Marcu on the 20-sider glyph, simply to deny it from him. Things quickly settled into a dice-fest as Q9 dispatched Raelin, Cyprien, and put 6 wounds on Charos before going down. Kelda hit a 20 to bring Charos back to full health, though, and Charos killed my Raelin not too much later. However, this was really too little too late, as the zombies onslaughted Charos to death, and finished off Kelda shortly after that.

1-0

Game 2
Opponent: Eric (10thx2, ratsx2, Iskra, Rechets, Crixus, Morsbane)
Map: Mayan Ruins (wound glyph)

The game opened up with some redcoat and rat movement from Eric, claiming the wound glyph. (Eric held the wound glyph nearly the entire game, but all he got out of it was a heavily wounded Marcu.)

Q9 got to work killing redcoats like it was his job. I was starting to think he was going to dominate the game nearly singlehandedly, but Morsbane's 17 put the kibosh on that idea. Q9 used his remaining OMs in that round to kill Morsbane using attacks of 5 from height, before he could negate Raelin, too.

At this point, I put the rest of the OMs for the game on zombies, and just let them go to work. At one point I was down 4 zombies or so, but I took out the redcoats and got some back. Iskra and the Rechets proved tough and nearly finished the Raelin job the Redcoats had started (despite me only allowing one to get adjacent) but I eventually finished them, and started working through rats.

Eric still had Crixus and 5 or 6 rats, and a sliver of a chance to win, but rather than waste a ton of time finishing the game, he resigned so we could get to some more games. Eric's a solid player and ended up only losing one other game all day.

2-0

Game 3
Opponent: Elginb (Mittens, Venocsx3, MRTx2, Aubriensx2)
Map: Forsaken Swamp (wind and initiative)

The glyphs were pretty irrelevant here. Elginb said right at the outset that he had been really afraid of playing zombies with his army, and for good reason. Still, he put up a good fight, and this was definitely my closest game of the day.

Things started with some exchanges between Q9 and the MRTs/AAs. Q9 and the zombies took out about 2 of each, but I had no dead zombies at that stage so I couldn't get revives. I was staying in Raelin's range pretty well, and I think Dave recognized he wasn't going to be able to out-snipe Q9, so he got busy with the Venocs.

Things started slow in the frenzy department, but a timely initiative switch combined with a couple frenzy rolls made things really interesting really quickly. Elgin managed to outflank my entire position, kill Raelin, and put two wounds on Q9. The zombies quickly stepped in and eliminated all the nearby vipers, but with no Raelin and a weakened Q9 I was now forced to play the slow-moving horde while Elginb's remaining range gnawed away at my army.

At one point I had lost half my zombies, and I was nearing that tipping point where the horde stops being effective. However, a key initiative switch allowed me to close on the Aubriens and effectively squelch the threat. With only vipers remaining and a healthy host of zombies knocking on the door, Dave conceded the match. It ended up being his only loss of the day, which doesn't surprise me at all. That army has crazy speed and is really dangerous, and he played it well.

3-0

Game 4
Opponent: Bubbles (Capuans x2, Spartacus, Crixus, Retiarius)
Map: Common Ground

With only 6 squaddies to play with, I sort of felt like I had to screw up to give Bubbles a chance in this one. However, I actually did just that, leaving a hole in my zombie screen that allowed Retiarius to get at Raelin and kill her. That at least allowed the gladiators a pucher's chance.

Still, it was just a matter of time before the zombies turned Retiarus and all the Capuans. I actually won initiative early on despite giving up 11 points (glyph plus Capuan bonus), which didn't help the gladiator cause. Spartacus only managed one kill before onslaught took him down. Crixus spent the entire game on "initiative island" - in the end I bottled him up with zombies and let Q9 finish the job.

4-0, first place.

It was a lot of fun getting out and playing new players in a competitive setting. I can't wait for the next chance. So far, my record remains unblemished against players who haven't finished second at the Gencon championship.

 

[GeneralRolando]

edit- my battle reports

http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=938733#post938733

If we meet on the battle field next time i'll have my hand at you.^^

 

[dok]

Here's my report of the Colorado event on January 16th.

The format was a doozie. You picked a 750 point drafting pool. Each map in the pool had a set format that was played. The points total was either 380, 450, 520, or 590. And there were also various formats in play, depending on the map - either kill 'em all, Heat of Battle, Capture the Flag, Kill the General (designate a hero on your team; if that figure dies you lose), and "Escape" (you can get points either by killing opposing figures, or moving your figures out the end of your opponent's start zone).

I chose the following drafting pool of 750:

220 Tor-Kul-Na
90 Marrden Nagrubs x3
80 Raelin RotV
180 Major Q9
50 Marro Warriors
20 Marcu Esenwein
10 Isamu
100 Warriors of Ashra x2
750 (26 total hexes - startzone spaces were not an issue)

I chose this army for a few reasons. First, I really like playing Tor-Kul-Na alongside his nagrubs, and think he's still a little underrated in the tournament scene at large. The basic idea was to team him with various ranged uniques, Raelin, and fillers. The Warriors of Ashra give me another look for Heat of Battle, and also give me an alternative melee screen in case I play without Tor-Kul-Na (which I actually did twice).

Game 1
opponent: kpucblek (Omnicron Snipers x2, Raelin RotV, Syvarris, Finn TVC, Axegrinders x1, Deathreavers x1, Migol)
map: Swamp Helix
format: 380 points, kill 'em all
I played: Q9, Raelin, Warriors of Ashrax2, Marcu
kpucblek played: Omnicron Snipersx1, Axegrindersx1, deathreaversx1, Finn, Raelin

I didn't pay close enough attention to Chris's draft pool; If I had realized he didn't have a second squad of dwarves, I probably wouldn't have backed out of my plan A army (TKN, grubs, Marro Warriors, Marcu). Still, this game pretty much went to script. Marcu grabbed the move glyph, which allowed the Warriors of Ashra to grab the Attack glyph. Q9 took the platform and took out the Omnicron Snipers. From there on in, it was basically extended cleanup.

1-0

Game 2
opponent: Troy (Captain America, Raelin, 10th Regiment x2, Krav Maga Agents, Izumi Samurai, Morsbane, Theracus)
map: Fossil (initiative and range)
format: 380 points, kill 'em all
I played: TKN, marrden Nagrubs x3, Marro Warriors, Marcu
Troy played: Captain America, Raelin, 10th x1

This was the other 380 point map in play, so I got to play my "A" lineup at that point total after all. The range glyph obviously figures prominently here. I threw Marcu on it on OM 1, and on OM 2 I fired four shots on Raelin from across the board with the Marro Warriors, taking her out in the start zone. The 10th followed soon after, falling prey to extended-range Marro Warriors on height. Captain America did manage to take out Marcu and a couple Marro Warriors, but Tor-Kul-Na finished him off.

2-0

Game 3
opponent: Cyberclaw16 (Zelrig, Sujoah, Kaemon Awa, Deathreavers x2, Tul-Bak-Ra, Marro Warriors)
map: Can't See the Jungle (no glyphs)
format: 520 points, Capture the Flag (glyphs in the center of the 7-hexers in each side's start zone)
I played: Tor-Kul-Na, Marrden Nagrubs x3, Major Q9, Marcu, Isamu
Cyberclaw16 played: Sujoah, Kaemon Awa, Tul-Bak-Ra, Deathreaversx2

Rats are normally not so effective on this wide-open map, but Ross wisely packed them around his flag, which more or less guaranteed that his flag wouldn't fall unless all three of his heroes were dead. The early action involved Tor-Kul-Na facing off against Kaemon and Sujoah. Sujoah did manage to roll for poison sting once, which does get the blood pressure rising, but TKN managed to heal multiple times and took out both heroes. TBR teleported next to my flag and put a couple wounds on Marcu, but Q9 finished the job, and Ross conceded rather than try to win the game with the rats.

3-0

Game 4
opponent: Elginb (Marrden Hounds x3, Cyprien, Sonya, Marcu, Airborne Elite, Marro Warriors, James Murphy, Eldgrim TVC)
map: Embattled Fen
format: 450 points, Kill The General
I played: Major Q9, Raelin, Warriors of Ashra x2, Marro Warriors, Marcu, Isamu (Q9 was my general)
Elginb played: Marrden Hounds x3, Airborne Elite, Marcu, Sonya (Marcu was his general)

At the time of this match we were both undefeated, and if I won it I could pretty much guarantee first place. This match lived up to billing and was by far my closest match of the day.

Hounds are definitely a terrible matchup for TKN+grubs, so I went with my "B" option. Since TKN+grubs take 310 points, I played the other 440 points of my army. I delayed showing my hand as long as possible, drafting Isamu, Marcu, Raelin, and the Marro Warriors first, in the hopes that Dave would suspect I'd draft TKN + grubsx2 in stead of Q9 + WoAx2. I was hoping to induce him to draft Cyprien, but he didn't take the bait. Unfortunately for him, space restrictions forced him to take Sonya in stead of the Marro Warriors. Since we both had cheap heroes (Marcu for me, Sonya to him) that we stashed in the back, the wound glyph was essentially irrelevant.

The early play centered on Hounds vs. Warriors of Ashra and the Marro Warriors. Dave wisely slow-rolled his hounds, and set them up on the roads where they could move in quickly and get first strikes. In general, he rolled terrible for plague and attack, but great defense dice, so things went slowly. By the end of the second round, I had lost a couple WoA and a couple Marro Warriors, and Elginb had lost two hounds.

The AE dropped to start the third round, but fortunately I had a Marro Warrior in the middle of the elevated 7-hexer, which kept Raelin from being exposed to multiple attacks from height. The AE still managed to kill the remaining Marro Warriors and Raelin, and put a wound on Q9, before they got reduced to a single figure. Things were very tight at this point, as Dave had six remaining hounds to throw at Q9 and was rolling plague against the WoA every turn. Unfortunately for him, his defense dice turned south, and there were still 3 WoA left when the hounds went down. Elginb went for the hail mary with Marcu, but it was not to be.

I realized while driving home that if I had had to play Elginb's army at 520 points on "Can't See the Jungle", I probably lose. The best luck I had all day was probably just the timing of who I played on which maps.

4-0

Game 5
opponent: chief (Zelrig, Cyprien, Sonya, Raelin SotM, Airborne Elite, Gladiatrons x1, Blastarons x1)
map: Swamp Helix
format: 590 points, kill 'em all
I played: Tor-Kul-Na, Marrden Nagrubs x3, Major Q9, Marcu, Raelin
Chief played: Zelrig, Cyprien, Sonya, Airborne Elite, Blastsx1

Several maps were being taken down at this point, so we had to go to a re-tread map. Since I hadn't played at 590, Jeff agreed to play at 590, in stead of 380 as was standard on that map. Chief is known around here for his fantastic customs, and he brought a sweet one to this event for the prize table (which I unfortunately didn't get a picture of).

The AE dropped immediately for him, but they only really managed to take out a bunch of nagrubs in the startzone and land a couple wounds on Raelin before Q9 took out a few of them. Marcu took the move glyph again, and then TKN just barged through the middle of the map, killing off Zelrig and Cyprien. Q9 finished off the Blastarons.

5-0, first place.

 

[dok]

Summary of drafting frequency:

All five games: Marcu.
Four of five games: Q9.
Three of five games: Raelin, TKN, grubs.
Two of five games: Marro Warriors, Warriors of Ashra, Isamu.

I'd also like to add a word on Tor-Kul-Na. In Taeblewalker's strategy guide, he makes the point that TKN's main goal should not be stomping squads, but killing heroes. You could hardly find a more clear demonstration of that point than the three games I played with TKN today. I had a grand total of zero kills via trample stomp; I only managed two wounds on heroes using the power. Nevertheless, in those three games TKN managed to land killing blows on Captain America, Sujoah, Kaemon Awa, Zelrig, and Cyprien. Toss in a rat and that's 870 points of kills by one figure, and he never went down. Dude is a tank.

 

[J4Jandar]

What's your experience playing against the PoU? I'm wondering how long TKN could withstand combined arbalest.

 

[dok]

I've only seen PoU against TKN once, in a casual game. The PoU won. It's not a very good matchup for TKN unless the PoU are on stompable terrain.

 

[Backcountry Gamer]

I've only seen PoU against TKN once, in a casual game. The PoU won. It's not a very good matchup for TKN unless the PoU are on stompable terrain.

Kudos to youdos! Grat summary, and like I said, my army was not good for that map. I have some units in mind for the next tournament. And since I use these new units regularly ... watch out dok, im comin for you! (I will still get more than a run for my money though.)

That day I did either everything right or everything wrong, easy wind or easy losses for me.

 

[dok]

Here's my battle report for the March 6th Event in Colorado.

The format was 495 points, Marvel allowed, and various scenarios played on different maps, including Heat of Battle.

I didn't have very much time to test armies this time around, so I ended up picking something that's almost pure cheese:

80 Raelin RotV
180 Major Q9
225 10th Regiment x3
10 Isamu

I've argued that this is a really strong army in the past - I've even suggested that it would have been the ideal counter to the metagame at the Gencon main event last year. Past armies I've played have featured figures I consider a bit underrated - zombies and Tor-Kul-Na. This one was more about showing off a combo that I think should be regarded as one of the best.

Game 1
opponent: Kevin (Cyprien, Sonya, Migol, Darrak, Axegrinders x1, Izumi Samurai)
map: Sidetrack
scenario: Capture the Flag

Sidetrack is a big and fairly wide-open map, so asking his all-melee army to march into the jaws of the Raelin+10th combo was pretty brutal. I slow-rolled across the map, killing his figures as I went, and finally killing the last Izumi standing on his flag.

1-0

Game 2
opponent:Revloscaper (Minions of Utgar x2, Atlaga, Taelord)
map: Straight and Narrow
scenario: Capture the Flag

Straight and narrow, as you might guess, is a long narrow map with a road down the center. In addition, there are extremely high canyon walls on each sides of the road, at parts.

I decided at the outset that it would take me too many moves to try to claim the extreme height, so my best bet was to take some relative height near the road and hope to beat the minions with numbers.

This was the only game where I put OMs on Isamu. I saw that Revloscaper was moving out his whole army at the front of his startzone, so I dumped my first four OMs on Isamu and tried for the mad dash to the flag. It almost worked, as Oliver didn't realize what I was up to until it was almost too late. If I had one initiative to start round 1 I would have won the game right there, but he managed to cover up and prevent the short win.

After that phase ended, there was one more dramatic moment, with Atlaga attempting to witherwood Q9. I dodged that one, which left me in pretty good shape. Minions, particularly Taelord-backed ones, are nasty against Q9, and Q9 got 2 wounds pretty quickly. While revloscaper did manage to take down Q9 and Raelin by the end, the 10th were able to kill off the Minions at the same time.

2-0

Game 3
opponent: Nacho (Thanos, Deathreavers x2, Marro Warriors)
map: Vesuvian (Defense and Common Attack)
scenario: Kill 'em All

Nacho admires the beauty of my map and the awesomeness of my army.

At the time of the match we were two of the four remaining undefeated players, and I had heard people talk about how nasty Nacho's army was. They weren't lying - his army was pure evil (it takes one to know one). I see now why this is a popular combo in mixed Marvel events.

With the valuable glyphs in play, I figured it would be an early glyph-grabbing duel between the rats and 10th, so I led out with two activations of the 10th followed by Raelin. Nacho surprised me by going straight for the throat with Thanos. I engaged him with the 10th, but Thanos simply took disengagements and had Raelin dead within a few OMs. This was not the start I was looking for!

Nacho then moved out with the Marro Warriors, looking to pick off my glyph-holders. However, 10th+common attack is pretty nasty, and I quickly had them down to a single warrior. However, he rolled well on a key turn to stay alive, and retreated back to the water near the startzone for cloning. At this point, Thanos was starting to take shots at Q9, so I used glyph/height/bayonet enhanced 10th to take him down. For the first time.

(The conventional wisdom on defeating Thanos armies is to save Thanos for last. In some cases, this is definitely right. If your army is cheap squad figures, and your opponent has other big hitters besides Thanos, then sure, save him for last. But if you have powerful heroes that Thanos can take out, and the offensive output of the Thanos army is pretty weak aside from Thanos, then killing him and taking your chances with Rejected by Death is actually a pretty reasonable play. If I had just left Thanos alone, I have no doubt that Q9 would have died.)

While I had lost Raelin and about a squad of 10th at this point, I felt pretty confident. Q9 was unwounded, and I had the center of the board. I finished off the Marro Warriors, and turned my attention to the rats. And the rats. And the rats. Nacho has special rats that do not die. While Nacho begged, cursed and pleaded with his d20, I futilely attempted to kill his Deathreavers. The crafty Spaniard made full use of scatter, sending the rats around ruins and columns to deny me full activations or eliminate bayonet bonuses. I chased his rats literally across the board and back, finally getting them down to three... and then Thanos came back.

Things started to look grim for me when Thanos hit Q9 for 3 wounds. I rolled defense with Q9 at least twice after that, but managed to make the blocks. Finally, down to my last four 10th, I managed to take Thanos out a second time. At that point, Q9 managed to clear out the remaining rats, and thankfully Thanos did not come back a third time (which would have almost guaranteed my defeat).

This was a really dramatic and fun game, and I didn't think it would get topped. (I was wrong.) Ignacio's one of those guys who knows how to make trash-talk fun in stead of nasty.

3-0

Game 4
opponent: Lafleurhero (Raelin RotV, Kaemon Awa, Tagawa Samurai Archers x3, Gurei-Oni)
map: Jack of Spades (Wound and Unique Attack)
scenario: King of the Hill

Marshall and I have been waiting a while to get a game in. He's really the only one in our little burgeoning tournament scene who has played the big names. We talked a bit about some of his Gencon experiences and the massive amount of Heroscape swag that Clarissimus walked away with.

The "king of the hill" rule was that you won by having a figure on a central glyph of Brandar for three full turns (yours and your opponent's), and being unengaged at the end of the third turn.

The unique attack glyph was mostly meaningless to both of our armies. I used early OMs to move Raelin into a good shadow/jungle spot where she could cover the central spot, and moving the 10th toward the height. Marshall sent Gurei-Oni onto the wound glyph. I decided that it really wasn't worth my time to try to kill G-O with Q9 or bayonets, and in stead concentrated on trying to take out Raelin and random TSAs. Wannok led to the death of Isamu and a few rearguard 10th over the course of the match.

I nearly pulled off an early win on this match by holding the central glyph, but Kaemon moved in and saved the day by killing the redcoat on the glyph. It was setting into an close match, with Wannok kills balancing out my superior height. However, I had cleaner shots on lafleurhero's Raelin than he did on mine. My dice went crazy, and in one turn Raelin and Kaemon were both dead. Marshall was in a hole but rolled with it, getting his TSA adjacent to my elevated 10th so that any attacks risked counterstrike. At that point Q9 took over, and eliminated the TSAs and, finally, Gurei-Oni.

4-0

Game 5
opponent: Eric (Finn, Theracus, Knights x1, KMA, Nilfheim)
map: Sidewinder (Move and Wind)
scenario: Kill 'em All

This was my first time seeing the FaT bomb in action. As I dove the 10th into the water in a bid for the move glyph, Eric planted Finn and Theracus in my way. However, melee defense and Raelin limited the damage, and before long I had them cleared out. Finn's spirit went on the Krav, naturally. Eric's knights had advanced as Finn had hacked away, but a key initiative switch allowed me to take them out before they could reach Raelin, and I managed to set up most of my army on the move glyph side with Raelin behind the ruin.

Eric rolled Nilfheim out next, and there was a bit of sniping between Niflheim any my army as the big guy closed in to a spot where he could see Raelin. Seeing that Eric was going all-Nilfheim, I sent the move-enhanced Q9 across into Eric's startzone, killing two Krav before they got an activation. WTF dropped Nilfheim soon after that.

5-0

Game 6
opponent: Elginb (Spider-Man, Major Q10, Stingers x3)
map: Invasion (initiative and lucky 20-sider)
scenario: Capture the Treasure

At the time this game began, I was 5-0, Elginb was 4-1 with a loss to Nacho, and Nacho was 5-1 with a loss to me. I really needed to get out of there and pack for my move, so I waived my right to a "finals" match if I lost this one. So for me, this was the tournament championship game.

Stingers were pretty much the last thing I wanted to face with my army. When positioned well, they can make it pretty hard to get WTF activations, which can lead to attacks of 3v2 for the stingers and attacks of 2v3 for the redcoats. Moreover, stingers are one of the few squads in the game that are favored point-for-point against Major Q9.

We were playing capture the treasure, which is just like capture the flag except the flag is a treasure glyph that can be placed on one of your heroes to start the game. I put my treasure on Q9.

At the outset, I assumed that Dave would put his treasure on Spider-Man, and save Spidey for his traditional cleanup role. In stead, he surprised me by putting the treasure on Major Q10 and leading out with Spider-Man. This proved to be a brilliant tactical move that nearly won him the game.

I set up my Raelin and Q9 in the battlement-ringed 7-hexer near my startzone, and tried to get my 10th on the high road spot under Raelin's protection. However, Spider-Man rushed in and clogged things up. After taking a couple shots at Raelin and only drawing one wound, Elginb was content to leave Spider-Man on the height next to the 10th, engaging them and preventing them from shooting down on anyone else. This meant that the stingers advancing on the other side of the map had the only high ground that really mattered. Moreover, spider-man was positioned such that it would be really difficult to get Q9 around him to attack other parts of the map.

At this point, I had two real choices - either try to eliminate spider-man so that my height advantage became useful, or just try to eliminate stingers without the dominant position on the map. I pretty much chose the latter - I shot at Spider-Man, but generally just with 10th that were moving up from the back, and I was more focused on taking down stingers. I still go back and forth on whether this was the right decision. But at any rate, it worked out OK. I did get some nice bayonet opportunities, and I managed to knock off about half of Elginb's stingers with about 6 Redcoats still on the board.

At this point, Elginb brought Q10 into the game. However, he made what was in my opinion his only real mistake of the game when he dropped the trasure glyph before moving out with Q10. By dropping the glyph, he gave me the opportunity to try to steal the game without taking down the soulborg. I was able to double-engage Q10 while rushing a third redcoat toward the treasure. Q10 had to disengage, and I lucked out with a double-skull roll on the disengage, which in retrospect turned out to be the difference in the game.

Q10 managed to eliminate my remaining redcoats, while I finished off all of the stingers except for one back in the startzone. Q10 then finally finished off Raelin, while Q9 finally took out that amazing Spider-Man. It came down to a duel between the majors. I had Isamu in the back, but since the treasure was on Q9, there was no way he would come into play.

Things looked really really bad for me when Q10 managed three wounds on his big brother with a well-placed wrist-rocket. Soon enough, both majors had three wounds and were in each other's faces, and we had a little crowd watching the end of the game. But I took initiative, finished off Q10, and took the last stinger down on the next OM.

It was a ridiculously close game, and a really tactically interesting one, too.

6-0, first place.

So, another undefeated event for me, but I really don't think I'm going to keep it up much longer. I didn't really have any close games in the first tournament, and I only had one moderately close game in the second tournament. In this tournament I had two very close games, and I was pretty lucky to win both of them. I'm looking forward to the next event already - these events are just getting better and better.

 

[dok]

Here's my battle report for the May 1st Colorado Event. Unlike previous events, this one was held in a gaming shop called Enchanted Grounds. It was really fun to interact with gamers in the store and introduce them to Heroscape.

The format was 600 points, Marvel allowed, kill 'em all.

Since this was the first event since the release of the D1 wave, I had decided before the format was hammered out that I was going to use at least one figure from the wave. When Matthias Maccabeus announced that he might come, I decided that I was going to play an all-melee army, just to fight fire with fire.

For a while I was pretty convinced I was going to go with:

Spoiler Alert!

210 Charos
180 Greenscale Warriors x3
80 Raelin RotV
20 Marcu
110 Brunak
600, 15 hexes

That army is really a fantastic spot for Brunak. He carries Raelin around, tanks heavy hitters, and clears rats from the GSWs and Charos. Also, with three lava maps in the pool, Brunak's lava resistance comes into play quite a bit.

Still, that army is very tricky to play well and doesn't really fit my preferred style of play. When you get Charos and the GSWs engaged in a wide open area, it's pretty devastating, but I found that if I made one mistake in positioning early on, it was often very hard to recover.

In stead, I decided to go with one of my favorite armies, the TKN trample stomp army. Normally when playing TKN, I like to back him with one of the long-ranged Vydar figures (Q9/Q10/Krav/Nakitas) or the Airborne Elite. However, I've come to the opinion that the Phantom Knights can actually fill the role that "ranged support" typically fills in an army. So, in keeping with the all-melee and D2-using theme, I chose:

220 Tor-Kul-Na
90 Marrden Nagrubs x3
80 Raelin RotV
210 Phantom Knights x3
600, 21 hexes

This army was a total blast in testing, and has very few glaring weaknesses. The irregular terrain and ranged commons that give TKN trouble are exactly the sort of situation that the Phantom Knights shine in. The worst matchup for this army is probably 10th regiment, with Cyprien being no picnic either.

Game 1
opponent: Revloscaper (Mimring, Greenscales x1, Iskra, Rechets, Wyvern, GIE, Earth Elemental, Sauhuagin Raider)
map: Elswin Plateau (Wound and Initiative)

I decided to concede the glyphs and get my figures positioned up on the high side of the map. Revloscaper led out with Mimring/GSW and Iskra, although Iskra failed to summon the Rechets in three tries. TKN was just devastating from the start, killing Mimring in two hits. TKN and the grubs finished off the GSWs and Iskra soon after that, while Revloscaper put the GIE on the wound glyph. After I repositioned Raelin, TKN moved up and one-shotted the Wyvern. After cleaning up the Raider and the elementals, I had lost only two nagrubs (one to Wannok) and taken one Ice Spike wound to TKN.

I think my army was pretty clearly stronger, but I still had ridiculously good dice luck in this game. Oliver took a real beating at this tournament, but he's actually not that bad a player. Afterward he made a comment that his army lacked focus, which is a very accurate way to describe it. Give yourself a few fewer places to put your order markers, buddy.

1-0

Game 2
opponent: Lafleurhero (Tor-Kul-Na, Su-Bak-Na, Marrden Nagrubs x3, Kee-Mo-Shi)
map: Flooded Temple (Move and Wind)

This map is pretty bad for Tor-Kul-Na, but we both had him so that was a wash. It's actually pretty good for Phantom Knights, though, even against an all-melee army, so I liked my chances. We did the "face your nagrubs forward" thing, so it was rarely a source of confusion.

I started out by grabbing the move glyph with a PK and putting Raelin on one of the towers that covered that glyph, with PKs on the other perches forming a screen around her. Marshall moved TKN and grubs forward a bit, and was able to pull off some key kills of phantom knights with grubbies. This opened up an avenue for KMS to run across, climb a ladder, and one-shot mindshackle Raelin. Ugh.

At this point, things looked sort of grim, as my PKs were dropping like flies to grub attacks and Raelin was in the perfect spot on the map. However, I was able to use the irregular terrain to not just deny TKN trample stomp, but actually deny him the ability to get adjacent to my figures, and force Marshall to work him all the way back around the other side of the map. Meanwhile, I eventually managed to hold the move glyph for a full turn so that I could get Tor-Kul-Na up onto the central platform and finally get rid of my traitorous Raelin.

At this point, I had lost almost all of my PKs and, of course, Raelin, and had only managed to kill most of Marshall's grubs. Still, I had most of my grubs, and I took Kee-Mo-Shi (who couldn't mindshackle my TKN) down soon after that. Marshall's TKN was all the way around in my startzone where he had chased my one rearguard grub, so I moved off the height and took on SBN with TKN. It was a bit of a cat and mouse game as we both positioned grubs to prevent first strikes or height advantage, but eventually we got down to an even ground showdown (I ate a grub while at full health to allow me to move into position) and TKN came out ahead.

At this point, it was my wounded TKN and grub against Marshall's TKN. I was able to secure height advantage in exchange for yielding first strike, but after eating my last grub and returning the attack, we were left with a 3-wound TKN against a 3-wound TKN, only I had height advantage. However, three turns later it was my TKN down, not his.

So, my amazing winning streak ended here. On paper I liked my matchup, but Marshall played an extremely tactically sound game and earned the win. I do feel like I got the worst of the dice in this game, but honestly, I've now had four really close games over the last two tournaments, and the weird thing would be if I hadn't gotten the worst of it and lost at least one of those.

It was a bit frustrating playing on this map. Both of us really didn't like the way it forced us to play - constantly positioning figures in places where they denied TKN even the opportunity to attack. This game probably took twice as long as any other game I played, and while Marshall is a careful, deliberate player, the map had a lot to do with the slow pace of play.

1-1

Game 3
opponent: GeneralRolondo (Marro Stingers x3, Minions of Utgar x2, Raelin RotV, Fen Hydra)
map: Vesuvian (Defense and Common Attack)

Roland had a very, very dangerous army, with three different cards that could all take down TKN. (He actually killed Thanos three times in his game against Elderbigdave later on, which is pretty amazing.) However, this map (like most maps I design) is pretty stomp-friendly, so I felt pretty good about my chances.

Early on, I placed my Raelin on the level 2 cold ground where she could provide support to the common attack glyph, and I reinforced the position with PKs. GeneralRolondo never took either glyph, preferring to avoid the lava damage and attack my glyph-holders with height advantage. This proved a wise tactic, as I was rolling literally all skulls for lava damage for the first three rounds of the game.

The Fen Hydra was still in the back, and I held TKN in reserve right in front of Raelin, so the early action was mostly PKs and grubs against Stingers and Minions. The insubstantial bonus basically forced the stingers to close into adjacency if they wanted to land a kill. Roland was rolling for drain every time, and it bit him at least once. The PKs did get whittled down to a single knight, but not before they had killed Raelin and most of the stingers.

At that point, TKN stomped out most of the remaining stingers, but the Minions hit the big Hivelord for 4 wounds before the nearby Minions were exhausted. The fight was down to a 2-life TKN, 4 grubs, a single PK, and Raelin, against the Fen Hydra, two Minions, and one stinger. I stomped the stinger but then backed away, staying out of threat range the whole time, and ate all my grubs.

Eventually Roland had massed his Minions and Hydra on the non-hot level 3 ground at the center of the map, and I couldn't wait any longer. I charged out and met the Fen Hydra head on. The sequence went like this:

• Fen Hydra blocks 6Av6D
• TKN avoids lava damage (my first successful lava defense of the game) and I win initiative
• TKN stomps both minions, Fen Hydra blocks 6Av6D
• Fen Hydra lands 2 wounds attacking 4Av7D four times
• TKN takes two heads with a 6A v 6D attack
• Fen Hydra lands 2 wounds attacking 4Av7D two times (TKN has two life remaining)
• TKN takes the Fen Hydra down to 1 life with a 6A v 6D attack
• GeneralRolando loses an OM on the Minions, but wins initiative. I don't take lava damage again.
• TKN blocks a single 4Av7D attack
• TKN kills the Hydra

The Hydra would have had to clean up Raelin and the PK, so I wasn't assured of losing if the Hydra won the showdown... but it really felt like it was for all the marbles. It was a really great game; my second in a row that had come down to a melee showdown between two big hitters.

2-1

Game 4
opponent: Daniel (Warriors of Ashra x2, Marro Warriors, KMA, Venom, Spider-Man, Water Elemental)
map: Highways and Dieways (Unique Attack, Lucky 20-sider)

H&D is always a dream map for TKN, and doubly so with this glyph set (although I never rolled a 7 for stomp with the glyph). This game really went to script for me. I started by claiming unique attack with a PK and setting up a shell on that side of the map with Raelin at the center. with the LoS blockers and the physical blockers, it was almost impossible for Daniel to get shots at Raelin. (Later I suggested that Daniel could have used his Marvel heroes to try to swing line in for an attack on Raelin, but this is a tough way to play it with TKN on the board.)

Daniel led out with his WoA, who successfully blocked every attack they faced using defensive agility all game long. However, this did them little good, as every single one of them ended up on the bottom of TKN's foot. The PKs moved forward to take out the Marro Warriors and, eventually, the Krav. The Krav did manage several wounds on TKN firing up from their startzone, but he ate his way back to full health.

Eventually it came down to TKN versus the Marvel heroes in the startzone. I was stomping Spidey (no spider sense for that) and attacking Venom, and then turned to Spidey after Venom died. Daniel never rolled successfully for spider-sense, so they didn't last for very long.

3-1

Game 5
opponent: Seth A (Major Q9, Major Q10, Zetacron, Minions of Utgar x1, Deathstalkers x1)
map: Vulcan (attack treasure and defense treasure)

The PKs aren't great against the Majors, so my goal was to use TKN to take them out, then clean up, as needed, with the PKs.

The game began peacefully, as Seth ran Q9 up to the attack glyph, while I ran TKN up to the defense glyph, and shifted my grubs around behind him to stay out of Q9's range. In round 2, I put Raelin on a central shadow tile, and charged TKN across the top at Q9. Q9 took Raelin out pretty swiftly, so I wasn't feeling too great about my strategy. However, TKN put two wounds on Q9, won initiative, killed Q9 on round 1 (Q9 had OMs 1 and 2), took the attack treasure, and killed Q10 in round 3 (Q10 had OM 3). So, that was basically the game right there. TKN stomped the Minions and killed Zetacron and the deathstalkers, eventually healing to full health. The PKs never took an OM.

4-1

Game 6
opponent: Stryker (Braxas, Nilfheim, KMA, Syvvaris)
map: Invasion (no glyphs)

Seth's army, like the Seth before him, featured a couple big heroes who can make the PKs seem pretty pedestrian. I led out with TKN, which didn't seem so wise when Nilfheim landed three wounds on the Hivelord with an Ice Shard attack. However, I managed to get settled into a level ground fight with Nilfheim after that, and Raelin's defense allowed me to heal as I fought. I took 5 wounds over the course of the fight, but healed four of them, and managed to kill Nilfheim on the 5th attack of 6Av4D.

Meanwhile, Braxas moved up the other side of the map, and gassed the single squad of PKs I had rolled out in round 1, along with Raelin on a 20. However, TKN and the grubs took Braxas down fairly quickly after that (elevated grubs actually did quite a bit of damage), and at that point the game was pretty much in hand. TKN managed to stomp all three KMA, and took down Syvarris with some support from the PKs.

5-1

FINALS
opponent: chief (Phantom Knights x2, Axegrinders x2, Braxas, Airborne Elite)
map: Underground Iceways (Move and Unique Attack)

It took 12 days, but chief paid a visit to casa de dok to play out the finals. Chief's army really has an answer for everything: Braxas for expensive small and medium figures, Axegrinders for the big guys, PKs for entrenched range, and the AE to put the fear of God into ya. I figured the game was going to come down to matchups. I love TKN against Braxas, and PKs against airborne elite, but I had to tread carefully lest I end up with Braxas gassing PKs and TKN mobbed by Axegrinders.

The AE failed to drop in each of the first two rounds, and the result was a very cautious slow-roll by both armies. I posted PKs at most of the high spots on my side of the map, put TKN on the road with his grubbies, put Raelin on the elevated shadow, and managed to get a grub on the unique attack glyph, which slightly reduced my Airborne-phobia. Jeff put an Axegrinder on the move glyph, but collected most of his dwarves in a pod surrounding Braxas on the elevated 7-hexer just in front of his startzone. Both of us made some probing attacks on the other glyph-holder, but it was all blocks.

In round 3, the AE dropped, and things got busy quickly. chief won initiative, but what followed was probably the key turn of the game. The shadow-protected Raelin emerged with only 1 wound from three attacks, and the PKs took out three of four AE on the next turn. Braxas did manage to gas a couple PKs at the end of the turn, but it was cold comfort as the PKs took the move glyph and established board control.

chief rushed in with PKs after that, and despite some TKN stomping, he did manage to eliminate Raelin after a round and change. Meanwhile, though, the PKs and grubs were chewing away at the idle Axegrinders. By the time Raelin was dead, there weren't enough dwarves left to really threaten TKN, and it was simply a matter of working across to Braxas. It didn't help chief's cause that Braxas was rolling subpar on her PAB, too. TKN eventually engaged Braxas head-to-head on the same 7-hexer where she had spent most of the game, and his glyph-enhanced attack of 7 took her down with only one (nagrub-healed) wound to show for the trouble.

Because of the flat road on the approach and the PKs that could clog up the high ground, my army presented a pretty tricky tactical nut for Jeff to crack. After thinking about it for a while after the game, I came to the conclusion that he probably should have played Braxas more aggressively. I think he was just a bit too conservative - using her like she was Q9 in stead of a fast, disengaging dragon. It would be risky, but rushing in to try to gas Raelin and a bunch of PKs early on might have swung things. Also, having the AE drop in the first turn, win initiative, take the unique attack glyph, and rain 4 attacks of 5 on my start zone would have been a good strategy, too.

6-1, First place.

So, my undefeated record in tournaments ends, but I keep my top finishing streak alive.

 

[Backcountry Gamer]

Here's my battle report for the May 1st Colorado Event. Unlike previous events, this one was held in a gaming shop called Enchanted Grounds. It was really fun to interact with gamers in the store and introduce them to Heroscape.

The format was 600 points, Marvel allowed, kill 'em all.

Since this was the first event since the release of the D1 wave, I had decided before the format was hammered out that I was going to use at least one figure from the wave. When Matthias Maccabeus announced that he might come, I decided that I was going to play an all-melee army, just to fight fire with fire.

For a while I was pretty convinced I was going to go with:

Spoiler Alert!

210 Charos
180 Greenscale Warriors x3
80 Raelin RotV
20 Marcu
110 Brunak
600, 15 hexes

That army is really a fantastic spot for Brunak. He carries Raelin around, tanks heavy hitters, and clears rats from the GSWs and Charos. Also, with three lava maps in the pool, Brunak's lava resistance comes into play quite a bit.

Still, that army is very tricky to play well and doesn't really fit my preferred style of play. When you get Charos and the GSWs engaged in a wide open area, it's pretty devastating, but I found that if I made one mistake in positioning early on, it was often very hard to recover.

In stead, I decided to go with one of my favorite armies, the TKN trample stomp army. Normally when playing TKN, I like to back him with one of the long-ranged Vydar figures (Q9/Q10/Krav/Nakitas) or the Airborne Elite. However, I've come to the opinion that the Phantom Knights can actually fill the role that "ranged support" typically fills in an army. So, in keeping with the all-melee and D2-using theme, I chose:

220 Tor-Kul-Na
90 Marrden Nagrubs x3
80 Raelin RotV
210 Phantom Knights x3
600, 21 hexes

This army was a total blast in testing, and has very few glaring weaknesses. The irregular terrain and ranged commons that give TKN trouble are exactly the sort of situation that the Phantom Knights shine in. The worst matchup for this army is probably 10th regiment, with Cyprien being no picnic either.

Game 1
opponent: Revloscaper (Mimring, Greenscales x1, Iskra, Rechets, Wyvern, GIE, Earth Elemental, Sauhuagin Raider)
map: Elswin Plateau (Wound and Initiative)

I decided to concede the glyphs and get my figures positioned up on the high side of the map. Revloscaper led out with Mimring/GSW and Iskra, although Iskra failed to summon the Rechets in three tries. TKN was just devastating from the start, killing Mimring in two hits. TKN and the grubs finished off the GSWs and Iskra soon after that, while Revloscaper put the GIE on the wound glyph. After I repositioned Raelin, TKN moved up and one-shotted the Wyvern. After cleaning up the Raider and the elementals, I had lost only two nagrubs (one to Wannok) and taken one Ice Spike wound to TKN.

I think my army was pretty clearly stronger, but I still had ridiculously good dice luck in this game. Oliver took a real beating at this tournament, but he's actually not that bad a player. Afterward he made a comment that his army lacked focus, which is a very accurate way to describe it. Give yourself a few fewer places to put your order markers, buddy.

1-0

Game 2
opponent: Lafleurhero (Tor-Kul-Na, Su-Bak-Na, Marrden Nagrubs x3, Kee-Mo-Shi)
map: Flooded Temple (Move and Wind)

This map is pretty bad for Tor-Kul-Na, but we both had him so that was a wash. It's actually pretty good for Phantom Knights, though, even against an all-melee army, so I liked my chances. We did the "face your nagrubs forward" thing, so it was rarely a source of confusion.

I started out by grabbing the move glyph with a PK and putting Raelin on one of the towers that covered that glyph, with PKs on the other perches forming a screen around her. Marshall moved TKN and grubs forward a bit, and was able to pull off some key kills of phantom knights with grubbies. This opened up an avenue for KMS to run across, climb a ladder, and one-shot mindshackle Raelin. Ugh.

At this point, things looked sort of grim, as my PKs were dropping like flies to grub attacks and Raelin was in the perfect spot on the map. However, I was able to use the irregular terrain to not just deny TKN trample stomp, but actually deny him the ability to get adjacent to my figures, and force Marshall to work him all the way back around the other side of the map. Meanwhile, I eventually managed to hold the move glyph for a full turn so that I could get Tor-Kul-Na up onto the central platform and finally get rid of my traitorous Raelin.

At this point, I had lost almost all of my PKs and, of course, Raelin, and had only managed to kill most of Marshall's grubs. Still, I had most of my grubs, and I took Kee-Mo-Shi (who couldn't mindshackle my TKN) down soon after that. Marshall's TKN was all the way around in my startzone where he had chased my one rearguard grub, so I moved off the height and took on SBN with TKN. It was a bit of a cat and mouse game as we both positioned grubs to prevent first strikes or height advantage, but eventually we got down to an even ground showdown (I ate a grub while at full health to allow me to move into position) and TKN came out ahead.

At this point, it was my wounded TKN and grub against Marshall's TKN. I was able to secure height advantage in exchange for yielding first strike, but after eating my last grub and returning the attack, we were left with a 3-wound TKN against a 3-wound TKN, only I had height advantage. However, three turns later it was my TKN down, not his.

So, my amazing winning streak ended here. On paper I liked my matchup, but Marshall played an extremely tactically sound game and earned the win. I do feel like I got the worst of the dice in this game, but honestly, I've now had four really close games over the last two tournaments, and the weird thing would be if I hadn't gotten the worst of it and lost at least one of those.

It was a bit frustrating playing on this map. Both of us really didn't like the way it forced us to play - constantly positioning figures in places where they denied TKN even the opportunity to attack. This game probably took twice as long as any other game I played, and while Marshall is a careful, deliberate player, the map had a lot to do with the slow pace of play.

1-1

Game 3
opponent: GeneralRolondo (Marro Stingers x3, Minions of Utgar x2, Raelin RotV, Fen Hydra)
map: Vesuvian (Defense and Common Attack)

Roland had a very, very dangerous army, with three different cards that could all take down TKN. (He actually killed Thanos three times in his game against Elderbigdave later on, which is pretty amazing.) However, this map (like most maps I design) is pretty stomp-friendly, so I felt pretty good about my chances.

Early on, I placed my Raelin on the level 2 cold ground where she could provide support to the common attack glyph, and I reinforced the position with PKs. GeneralRolondo never took either glyph, preferring to avoid the lava damage and attack my glyph-holders with height advantage. This proved a wise tactic, as I was rolling literally all skulls for lava damage for the first three rounds of the game.

The Fen Hydra was still in the back, and I held TKN in reserve right in front of Raelin, so the early action was mostly PKs and grubs against Stingers and Minions. The insubstantial bonus basically forced the stingers to close into adjacency if they wanted to land a kill. Roland was rolling for drain every time, and it bit him at least once. The PKs did get whittled down to a single knight, but not before they had killed Raelin and most of the stingers.

At that point, TKN stomped out most of the remaining stingers, but the Minions hit the big Hivelord for 4 wounds before the nearby Minions were exhausted. The fight was down to a 2-life TKN, 4 grubs, a single PK, and Raelin, against the Fen Hydra, two Minions, and one stinger. I stomped the stinger but then backed away, staying out of threat range the whole time, and ate all my grubs.

Eventually Roland had massed his Minions and Hydra on the non-hot level 3 ground at the center of the map, and I couldn't wait any longer. I charged out and met the Fen Hydra head on. The sequence went like this:

• Fen Hydra blocks 6Av6D
• TKN avoids lava damage (my first successful lava defense of the game) and I win initiative
• TKN stomps both minions, Fen Hydra blocks 6Av6D
• Fen Hydra lands 2 wounds attacking 4Av7D four times
• TKN takes two heads with a 6A v 6D attack
• Fen Hydra lands 2 wounds attacking 4Av7D two times (TKN has two life remaining)
• TKN takes the Fen Hydra down to 1 life with a 6A v 6D attack
• GeneralRolando loses an OM on the Minions, but wins initiative. I don't take lava damage again.
• TKN blocks a single 4Av7D attack
• TKN kills the Hydra

The Hydra would have had to clean up Raelin and the PK, so I wasn't assured of losing if the Hydra won the showdown... but it really felt like it was for all the marbles. It was a really great game; my second in a row that had come down to a melee showdown between two big hitters.

2-1

Game 4
opponent: Daniel (Warriors of Ashra x2, Marro Warriors, KMA, Venom, Spider-Man, Water Elemental)
map: Highways and Dieways (Unique Attack, Lucky 20-sider)

H&D is always a dream map for TKN, and doubly so with this glyph set (although I never rolled a 7 for stomp with the glyph). This game really went to script for me. I started by claiming unique attack with a PK and setting up a shell on that side of the map with Raelin at the center. with the LoS blockers and the physical blockers, it was almost impossible for Daniel to get shots at Raelin. (Later I suggested that Daniel could have used his Marvel heroes to try to swing line in for an attack on Raelin, but this is a tough way to play it with TKN on the board.)

Daniel led out with his WoA, who successfully blocked every attack they faced using defensive agility all game long. However, this did them little good, as every single one of them ended up on the bottom of TKN's foot. The PKs moved forward to take out the Marro Warriors and, eventually, the Krav. The Krav did manage several wounds on TKN firing up from their startzone, but he ate his way back to full health.

Eventually it came down to TKN versus the Marvel heroes in the startzone. I was stomping Spidey (no spider sense for that) and attacking Venom, and then turned to Spidey after Venom died. Daniel never rolled successfully for spider-sense, so they didn't last for very long.

3-1

Game 5
opponent: Seth A (Major Q9, Major Q10, Zetacron, Minions of Utgar x1, Deathstalkers x1)
map: Vulcan (attack treasure and defense treasure)

The PKs aren't great against the Majors, so my goal was to use TKN to take them out, then clean up, as needed, with the PKs.

The game began peacefully, as Seth ran Q9 up to the attack glyph, while I ran TKN up to the defense glyph, and shifted my grubs around behind him to stay out of Q9's range. In round 2, I put Raelin on a central shadow tile, and charged TKN across the top at Q9. Q9 took Raelin out pretty swiftly, so I wasn't feeling too great about my strategy. However, TKN put two wounds on Q9, won initiative, killed Q9 on round 1 (Q9 had OMs 1 and 2), took the attack treasure, and killed Q10 in round 3 (Q10 had OM 3). So, that was basically the game right there. TKN stomped the Minions and killed Zetacron and the deathstalkers, eventually healing to full health. The PKs never took an OM.

4-1

Game 6
opponent: Stryker (Braxas, Nilfheim, KMA, Syvvaris)
map: Invasion (no glyphs)

Seth's army, like the Seth before him, featured a couple big heroes who can make the PKs seem pretty pedestrian. I led out with TKN, which didn't seem so wise when Nilfheim landed three wounds on the Hivelord with an Ice Shard attack. However, I managed to get settled into a level ground fight with Nilfheim after that, and Raelin's defense allowed me to heal as I fought. I took 5 wounds over the course of the fight, but healed four of them, and managed to kill Nilfheim on the 5th attack of 6Av4D.

Meanwhile, Braxas moved up the other side of the map, and gassed the single squad of PKs I had rolled out in round 1, along with Raelin on a 20. However, TKN and the grubs took Braxas down fairly quickly after that (elevated grubs actually did quite a bit of damage), and at that point the game was pretty much in hand. TKN managed to stomp all three KMA, and took down Syvarris with some support from the PKs.

5-1

FINALS
opponent: chief (Phantom Knights x2, Axegrinders x2, Braxas, Airborne Elite)
map: Underground Iceways (Move and Unique Attack)

Because I had to leave, chief and I will play our finals match at a later date. It should be a really interesting game.

Great reports and i look forward to our match!

 

[GeneralRolando]

You really make the most fun to read battle reports. Makes me want to take notes at the next one I go to to copy you. But I'll most likely become lazy and just want to play. The only report I will be doing is the wonderful 3 time smack-down of Thantos. Anyway great job.

 

[kpucblek]

What's your experience playing against the PoU? I'm wondering how long TKN could withstand combined arbalest.

This is a response to a pretty old post, but I had to respond. I had some experience this weekend this this exact scenario an Enchanted Grounds. I faced Lafleurhero's army of TKN, SuBakNa and KiMoShi with a plethora of Nagrubs x3. My army was one PoU x2 with Atlaga and Dwarves x2 with Migol and a few Rats.

The PoU had height on TKN and were in an unstompable location. They kept on striking out! Miss, miss and miss! Then Atlaga came along with his bolt of the Witherwood and SMACKed TKN down! It was pretty sweet.

Overall I think the PoU could have done the job, if I'd had better luck with the dice. TKN sure does benefit from the tasty morsels of Nagrub.

I ended up winning the game. The PoU took out KMS and my dwarves knocked SBN's knee caps off. After that, the Nagrubs fled like a flock of sparrows.

 

[Backcountry Gamer]

I love your analogies kpucblek. "like a flock of sparrows. "

 

[dok]

Updated...

FINALS
opponent: chief (Phantom Knights x2, Axegrinders x2, Braxas, Airborne Elite)
map: Underground Iceways (Move and Unique Attack)

It took 12 days, but chief paid a visit to casa de dok to play out the finals. Chief's army really has an answer for everything: Braxas for expensive small and medium figures, Axegrinders for the big guys, PKs for entrenched range, and the AE to put the fear of God into ya. I figured the game was going to come down to matchups. I love TKN against Braxas, and PKs against airborne elite, but I had to tread carefully lest I end up with Braxas gassing PKs and TKN mobbed by Axegrinders.

The AE failed to drop in each of the first two rounds, and the result was a very cautious slow-roll by both armies. I posted PKs at most of the high spots on my side of the map, put TKN on the road with his grubbies, put Raelin on the elevated shadow, and managed to get a grub on the unique attack glyph, which slightly reduced my Airborne-phobia. Jeff put an Axegrinder on the move glyph, but collected most of his dwarves in a pod surrounding Braxas on the elevated 7-hexer just in front of his startzone. Both of us made some probing attacks on the other glyph-holder, but it was all blocks.

In round 3, the AE dropped, and things got busy quickly. chief won initiative, but what followed was probably the key turn of the game. The shadow-protected Raelin emerged with only 1 wound from three attacks, and the PKs took out three of four AE on the next turn. Braxas did manage to gas a couple PKs at the end of the turn, but it was cold comfort as the PKs took the move glyph and established board control.

chief rushed in with PKs after that, and despite some TKN stomping, he did manage to eliminate Raelin after a round and change. Meanwhile, though, the PKs and grubs were chewing away at the idle Axegrinders. By the time Raelin was dead, there weren't enough dwarves left to really threaten TKN, and it was simply a matter of working across to Braxas. It didn't help chief's cause that Braxas was rolling subpar on her PAB, too. TKN eventually engaged Braxas head-to-head on the same 7-hexer where she had spent most of the game, and his glyph-enhanced attack of 7 took her down with only one (nagrub-healed) wound to show for the trouble.

Because of the flat road on the approach and the PKs that could clog up the high ground, my army presented a pretty tricky tactical nut for Jeff to crack. After thinking about it for a while after the game, I came to the conclusion that he probably should have played Braxas more aggressively. I think he was just a bit too conservative - using her like she was Q9 in stead of a fast, disengaging dragon. It would be risky, but rushing in to try to gas Raelin and a bunch of PKs early on might have swung things. Also, having the AE drop in the first turn, win initiative, take the unique attack glyph, and rain 4 attacks of 5 on my start zone would have been a good strategy, too.

6-1, First place.

So, my undefeated record in tournaments ends, but I keep my top finishing streak alive.

great game chief, and thanks for making the drive to make it happen.

 

[Backcountry Gamer]

Updated...

FINALS
opponent: chief (Phantom Knights x2, Axegrinders x2, Braxas, Airborne Elite)
map: Underground Iceways (Move and Unique Attack)

It took 12 days, but chief paid a visit to casa de dok to play out the finals. Chief's army really has an answer for everything: Braxas for expensive small and medium figures, Axegrinders for the big guys, PKs for entrenched range, and the AE to put the fear of God into ya. I figured the game was going to come down to matchups. I love TKN against Braxas, and PKs against airborne elite, but I had to tread carefully lest I end up with Braxas gassing PKs and TKN mobbed by Axegrinders.

The AE failed to drop in each of the first two rounds, and the result was a very cautious slow-roll by both armies. I posted PKs at most of the high spots on my side of the map, put TKN on the road with his grubbies, put Raelin on the elevated shadow, and managed to get a grub on the unique attack glyph, which slightly reduced my Airborne-phobia. Jeff put an Axegrinder on the move glyph, but collected most of his dwarves in a pod surrounding Braxas on the elevated 7-hexer just in front of his startzone. Both of us made some probing attacks on the other glyph-holder, but it was all blocks.

In round 3, the AE dropped, and things got busy quickly. chief won initiative, but what followed was probably the key turn of the game. The shadow-protected Raelin emerged with only 1 wound from three attacks, and the PKs took out three of four AE on the next turn. Braxas did manage to gas a couple PKs at the end of the turn, but it was cold comfort as the PKs took the move glyph and established board control.

chief rushed in with PKs after that, and despite some TKN stomping, he did manage to eliminate Raelin after a round and change. Meanwhile, though, the PKs and grubs were chewing away at the idle Axegrinders. By the time Raelin was dead, there weren't enough dwarves left to really threaten TKN, and it was simply a matter of working across to Braxas. It didn't help chief's cause that Braxas was rolling subpar on her PAB, too. TKN eventually engaged Braxas head-to-head on the same 7-hexer where she had spent most of the game, and his glyph-enhanced attack of 7 took her down with only one (nagrub-healed) wound to show for the trouble.

Because of the flat road on the approach and the PKs that could clog up the high ground, my army presented a pretty tricky tactical nut for Jeff to crack. After thinking about it for a while after the game, I came to the conclusion that he probably should have played Braxas more aggressively. I think he was just a bit too conservative - using her like she was Q9 in stead of a fast, disengaging dragon. It would be risky, but rushing in to try to gas Raelin and a bunch of PKs early on might have swung things. Also, having the AE drop in the first turn, win initiative, take the unique attack glyph, and rain 4 attacks of 5 on my start zone would have been a good strategy, too.

6-1, First place.

So, my undefeated record in tournaments ends, but I keep my top finishing streak alive.

great game chief, and thanks for making the drive to make it happen.

great summary, and nothing to add. Always a pleasure and look forward to another game someday!