GENCON 2013
HEAT OF BATTLE
Much like last year, I decided to play some broken stuff in my first event in the hopes of getting my prize dice fix sated quickly. Much like last year, this did not work out.
I always struggle a little with the Heat of Battle Metagame. It seems like it always veers a little towards degenerate, semi-broken stuff. In the old days, Warriors of Ashra were dominant. Once the “no engagement” rules were put in, wait then fire was king - first 4th Mass in 2011, then my Marcus/Raelin/10th pod in 2012. With the 16 figure limit this year, 10thx3/Raelin/Marcus/Filler was very obvious, I thought. (Both vegietarian18 and vegie’s dad ran this build.) So I figured I would metagame the metagame, and play ratsx3/Q9/Q10. I’d never lost a game where I’ve played Q9 (something like 36-0), so I figured this was in the bag, right?
Game 1
Opponent: Infectedsloth (Death Chasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, Ogre Pulverizer)
Map: Shiver (Heal and d20)
Infectedsloth has done extremely well in the online events (currently #3 in our rankings, and he won the Gencon prep tournament where we copied the main event format) and has beaten me both online and live before, so I knew this game would be a challenge. I also have a healthy respect for this army, which is an exact copy of the one that Necroblade used to knock me out of the main event last year. Orc Battle Rush is extremely useful in HoB, allowing the orcs to reposition and take any good ground where you leave a gap.
IS placed first and took one of the two high grounds. I took the other, but he crowded that high ground too. The only way I was able to prevent my majors from getting engaged on battle rush was to wall off the bridge, and place the majors there.
In the early going, I quickly picked off all the orcs that were outside of Raelin/Nerak’s aura, while Q9 worked his way over towards one of the high grounds. IS couldn’t really avoid scatter, so my rats were able to set up a decent screen, including completely blocking the OP’s advance across the bridge. In an effort to buy himself time, IS moved Nerak up, slipping past my screen to engage Q9. Nerak was inside Raelin’s aura, so I expected it would take a few turns of Queglix gun to take him down. What I didn’t expect was that it would take eight turns, and a total of 23 attacks.
Simply put, it just took me too long to kill Nerak. By the time Q9 was finally free to take down Raelin and then swiftly clear the 2-defense deathchasers, he actually wasn’t, because most of the rats and Q10 gone, and the deathchasers were engaging him. While I ended up taking out most of the deathchasers, their high attack did its job and finished the big major.
Nathan went on to win the event, defeating one of those 10th/Raelin/Marcus pods along the way. It was a great win for one of the up-and-coming top players.
ROUND 2
Mr. Migraine (Granite Guardians x4, Marro Warriors)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (Unique Attack and wound)
While I am 3-0 against nicktheant, I am 0-1 against his brother - he gave me my lone loss in Heat of Battle 2011. Here he had decided to play, obviously, a more unusual army. Still, as he said, HoB was one format were the GGs at least have a chance to be competitive. And indeed, this game was probably closer than most people would expect looking at the armies.
Mitchell spread his GGs across a wide area to make it hard to engage them all, grabbing most of the smaller hills, while the Marro Warriors took the high sandy area near the unique attack glyph. I created a tight screen of rats near the wound glyph, and shoved the majors on the two small hills near there. Early on, MM forced me to contract my screen quickly to avoid rock throws, while my 3v5 and 4v5 attacks with the majors were hitting at a well below-average rate. MM was killing Marro Warriors with the wound glyph in order to keep the pressure on.
I had to abandon the smaller hill with Q10 as I didn’t have enough rats left to screen both, so I ended up clustered around the 3-space hill, with my rats trying to stay out of range of rock throw except for an occasional foray to grab the wound glyph on OM3. With gain high ground, MM’s army inevitably closed the noose around mine, and he did even manage to get a couple through to attack the majors, managing a few wounds on Q10 in the process.
However, my attack dice soon swung to the other side of average (I tracked rolls, and by the end of the game I was almost exactly average) and I managed to kill all of his GGs on the non-wound glyph side of my pod. This gave me the breathing room to get my majors out away from his last surviving GGs. I machine pistoled the last couple Marro Warriors to prevent any endgame heroics. A GG ended up claiming the wound glyph, and I actually killed Q10 rather than my last couple rats when he hit, as Q10 was dead weight at that point. Q9 finished off the last couple GGs for the win, leaving me an unwounded Q9 and one rat.
ROUND 3
Opponent: ISB3 (Warforged x3, Raelin, Kaemon, Isamu
Map: Embattled Fen (Wound)
The youngest member of the Ash clan (Unseenshadowz and Infectedsloth are his older brothers), Matthew was last year’s kids tournament champion. He was actually still eligible to play in it this year (his last year), but didn’t because he qualified for day 2 of the main event (going 5-0, including wins over Mattsertruckrally and Rychean)! I’ve played him both live and online, and he has a win against me in one online game (definitely the youngest player with a win over me).
ISB took the high rock plateau with his first placement. I placed my first squad of rats on the opposite end of the middle of the map - next to the 1-lane road that overlooks the wound glyph. Matthew then placed Isamu in a spot on that road in an attempt to disrupt my placement. Matthew put Raelin outside of safe Queglixing or Machine Pistoling range, and put the rest of his army on the main road inside her aura. Sensing an opportunity for the rare isamu-mate, I placed my rats and majors around that area in a way that denied any vanish spots, then put my first OM on the rats and killed Isamu.
In the early going, Q9 was woefully unsuccessful taking out Warforged that advanced outside Raelin’s aura. I actually ended the game 1-for-12 attacking 3v2 against warforged resolve - an average result there would be between 3 and 4 kills. Q10’s wrist rockets weren’t much better, but some long distance attacks of 5 from the back row did manage to crack the warforged. The warforged killed several rats and managed a few attacks against the majors in the early going.
Matthew decided to stop risking warforged on the advance, and instead try to snipe with Kaemon across against the majors directly, with normal attacks. This led to a lot of cat and mouse, as I was trying to get shots against Raelin (managed 2 wounds in a couple attacks) and maneuver to spots that would induce Matt to move forward. Kaemon killed Q10 and some more rats, but Q9 returned the favor and took out Kaemon with some 5v6s from distance.
At that point, it was Raelin and about 4 warforged against Q9 and about 5 rats. I took out one warforged while the warforged cleared rats from around the wound glyph. As I expected, ISB3 flew Raelin up to where she would be able to lend her aura to approaching warforged. However, he surprised me by putting his next 4 OMs on Raelin as well, and attacking up on Q9. After 4 turns of 3x3v3, I finally managed to get the last three wounds on Raelin, but she had delivered 2 wounds to Q9 with 3v8 attacks in that time. While a couple warforged were still tied down with rats, the third one did manage to get free, work his way up to Q9, and kill him off.
ROUND 4
Opponent: David K (Izumi, Tagawa, Kaemon Awa, TSAx2)
Map: Dry Season (move and healer)
I was now firmly in the low end of the bracket, and with a pretty busted army. David K (aka Dragonmaster384’s dad) is a solid player, but we always seem to play in games where my army has a massive inherent edge. This was definitely no exception, although you never count out an army with Kaemon Awa.
David placed his TSAs on the 3-space elevated ground in the middle of the map, and ended up taking most of the rest of the plateau on that side, with the move glyph at his back. I used my rats to prevent him from getting any decent placements on the other high ground plateau, and then placed my Q9 and Q10 in the midst of the rats, with the healer glyph behind me. My first OM was naturally on the rats, who tied down most of the figures near the majors, including Kaemon Awa.
David’s first couple rounds were mostly TSAs, as he tried to shoot across at the majors with the free TSAs. I shot the free TSAs, then set about taking down Kaemon Awa while David ground through rats. Once Kaemon was dead, I knew the screen was safe, and it was just a matter of methodically grinding through the samurai. With the help of the move glyph, David was able to attempt some extreme flanking moves to get around the rats with Izumi and Tagawa Samurai, but I was able to get enough kills to squelch the threats before they became too dangerous.
2-2 final, and I was decidedly no longer undefeated with Q9. (As weesel99 would say after making semifinals of the main event, beating Q9 twice in the process - he’s a chump )
HEAT OF BATTLE
Much like last year, I decided to play some broken stuff in my first event in the hopes of getting my prize dice fix sated quickly. Much like last year, this did not work out.
I always struggle a little with the Heat of Battle Metagame. It seems like it always veers a little towards degenerate, semi-broken stuff. In the old days, Warriors of Ashra were dominant. Once the “no engagement” rules were put in, wait then fire was king - first 4th Mass in 2011, then my Marcus/Raelin/10th pod in 2012. With the 16 figure limit this year, 10thx3/Raelin/Marcus/Filler was very obvious, I thought. (Both vegietarian18 and vegie’s dad ran this build.) So I figured I would metagame the metagame, and play ratsx3/Q9/Q10. I’d never lost a game where I’ve played Q9 (something like 36-0), so I figured this was in the bag, right?
Game 1
Opponent: Infectedsloth (Death Chasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, Ogre Pulverizer)
Map: Shiver (Heal and d20)
Infectedsloth has done extremely well in the online events (currently #3 in our rankings, and he won the Gencon prep tournament where we copied the main event format) and has beaten me both online and live before, so I knew this game would be a challenge. I also have a healthy respect for this army, which is an exact copy of the one that Necroblade used to knock me out of the main event last year. Orc Battle Rush is extremely useful in HoB, allowing the orcs to reposition and take any good ground where you leave a gap.
IS placed first and took one of the two high grounds. I took the other, but he crowded that high ground too. The only way I was able to prevent my majors from getting engaged on battle rush was to wall off the bridge, and place the majors there.
In the early going, I quickly picked off all the orcs that were outside of Raelin/Nerak’s aura, while Q9 worked his way over towards one of the high grounds. IS couldn’t really avoid scatter, so my rats were able to set up a decent screen, including completely blocking the OP’s advance across the bridge. In an effort to buy himself time, IS moved Nerak up, slipping past my screen to engage Q9. Nerak was inside Raelin’s aura, so I expected it would take a few turns of Queglix gun to take him down. What I didn’t expect was that it would take eight turns, and a total of 23 attacks.
Simply put, it just took me too long to kill Nerak. By the time Q9 was finally free to take down Raelin and then swiftly clear the 2-defense deathchasers, he actually wasn’t, because most of the rats and Q10 gone, and the deathchasers were engaging him. While I ended up taking out most of the deathchasers, their high attack did its job and finished the big major.
Nathan went on to win the event, defeating one of those 10th/Raelin/Marcus pods along the way. It was a great win for one of the up-and-coming top players.
ROUND 2
Mr. Migraine (Granite Guardians x4, Marro Warriors)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (Unique Attack and wound)
While I am 3-0 against nicktheant, I am 0-1 against his brother - he gave me my lone loss in Heat of Battle 2011. Here he had decided to play, obviously, a more unusual army. Still, as he said, HoB was one format were the GGs at least have a chance to be competitive. And indeed, this game was probably closer than most people would expect looking at the armies.
Mitchell spread his GGs across a wide area to make it hard to engage them all, grabbing most of the smaller hills, while the Marro Warriors took the high sandy area near the unique attack glyph. I created a tight screen of rats near the wound glyph, and shoved the majors on the two small hills near there. Early on, MM forced me to contract my screen quickly to avoid rock throws, while my 3v5 and 4v5 attacks with the majors were hitting at a well below-average rate. MM was killing Marro Warriors with the wound glyph in order to keep the pressure on.
I had to abandon the smaller hill with Q10 as I didn’t have enough rats left to screen both, so I ended up clustered around the 3-space hill, with my rats trying to stay out of range of rock throw except for an occasional foray to grab the wound glyph on OM3. With gain high ground, MM’s army inevitably closed the noose around mine, and he did even manage to get a couple through to attack the majors, managing a few wounds on Q10 in the process.
However, my attack dice soon swung to the other side of average (I tracked rolls, and by the end of the game I was almost exactly average) and I managed to kill all of his GGs on the non-wound glyph side of my pod. This gave me the breathing room to get my majors out away from his last surviving GGs. I machine pistoled the last couple Marro Warriors to prevent any endgame heroics. A GG ended up claiming the wound glyph, and I actually killed Q10 rather than my last couple rats when he hit, as Q10 was dead weight at that point. Q9 finished off the last couple GGs for the win, leaving me an unwounded Q9 and one rat.
ROUND 3
Opponent: ISB3 (Warforged x3, Raelin, Kaemon, Isamu
Map: Embattled Fen (Wound)
The youngest member of the Ash clan (Unseenshadowz and Infectedsloth are his older brothers), Matthew was last year’s kids tournament champion. He was actually still eligible to play in it this year (his last year), but didn’t because he qualified for day 2 of the main event (going 5-0, including wins over Mattsertruckrally and Rychean)! I’ve played him both live and online, and he has a win against me in one online game (definitely the youngest player with a win over me).
ISB took the high rock plateau with his first placement. I placed my first squad of rats on the opposite end of the middle of the map - next to the 1-lane road that overlooks the wound glyph. Matthew then placed Isamu in a spot on that road in an attempt to disrupt my placement. Matthew put Raelin outside of safe Queglixing or Machine Pistoling range, and put the rest of his army on the main road inside her aura. Sensing an opportunity for the rare isamu-mate, I placed my rats and majors around that area in a way that denied any vanish spots, then put my first OM on the rats and killed Isamu.
In the early going, Q9 was woefully unsuccessful taking out Warforged that advanced outside Raelin’s aura. I actually ended the game 1-for-12 attacking 3v2 against warforged resolve - an average result there would be between 3 and 4 kills. Q10’s wrist rockets weren’t much better, but some long distance attacks of 5 from the back row did manage to crack the warforged. The warforged killed several rats and managed a few attacks against the majors in the early going.
Matthew decided to stop risking warforged on the advance, and instead try to snipe with Kaemon across against the majors directly, with normal attacks. This led to a lot of cat and mouse, as I was trying to get shots against Raelin (managed 2 wounds in a couple attacks) and maneuver to spots that would induce Matt to move forward. Kaemon killed Q10 and some more rats, but Q9 returned the favor and took out Kaemon with some 5v6s from distance.
At that point, it was Raelin and about 4 warforged against Q9 and about 5 rats. I took out one warforged while the warforged cleared rats from around the wound glyph. As I expected, ISB3 flew Raelin up to where she would be able to lend her aura to approaching warforged. However, he surprised me by putting his next 4 OMs on Raelin as well, and attacking up on Q9. After 4 turns of 3x3v3, I finally managed to get the last three wounds on Raelin, but she had delivered 2 wounds to Q9 with 3v8 attacks in that time. While a couple warforged were still tied down with rats, the third one did manage to get free, work his way up to Q9, and kill him off.
ROUND 4
Opponent: David K (Izumi, Tagawa, Kaemon Awa, TSAx2)
Map: Dry Season (move and healer)
I was now firmly in the low end of the bracket, and with a pretty busted army. David K (aka Dragonmaster384’s dad) is a solid player, but we always seem to play in games where my army has a massive inherent edge. This was definitely no exception, although you never count out an army with Kaemon Awa.
David placed his TSAs on the 3-space elevated ground in the middle of the map, and ended up taking most of the rest of the plateau on that side, with the move glyph at his back. I used my rats to prevent him from getting any decent placements on the other high ground plateau, and then placed my Q9 and Q10 in the midst of the rats, with the healer glyph behind me. My first OM was naturally on the rats, who tied down most of the figures near the majors, including Kaemon Awa.
David’s first couple rounds were mostly TSAs, as he tried to shoot across at the majors with the free TSAs. I shot the free TSAs, then set about taking down Kaemon Awa while David ground through rats. Once Kaemon was dead, I knew the screen was safe, and it was just a matter of methodically grinding through the samurai. With the help of the move glyph, David was able to attempt some extreme flanking moves to get around the rats with Izumi and Tagawa Samurai, but I was able to get enough kills to squelch the threats before they became too dangerous.
2-2 final, and I was decidedly no longer undefeated with Q9. (As weesel99 would say after making semifinals of the main event, beating Q9 twice in the process - he’s a chump )