GENCON CHAMPIONSHIP
I had a lot of trouble settling on an army this year. I did consider using the TKN army that I had played in “take 2”, which lonewolf termed the “dok special” for good reason. However, I didn’t really like the idea of giving my day 2 opponent the Marro Warriors in an untimed game, while I had them in a timed game. I tried a Heaviesx2/Grimnak/Krav/Raelin build in the online event, but I eventually concluded it was too strong to beat four times in a row. I also considered a similar Mogrimm/Axegrinder build, but never really warmed to it. For a while I thought I would run Raelin, Gladiatrons x2, Blastarons x1, Skahen, Marcu, but I decided the single squad of Blastarons were just too vulnerable to early assassination against a ranged opponent. I’ll even admit that I considered something like ratsx2/Raelin/Mezzodemonsx3/Concan, with the idea being that it would do well in short day 1 rounds but fail due to lack of offense on day 2. But I pride myself on playing pretty quickly and I just didn’t think I could “take advantage” of that sort of build.
The combos I toyed around with the most was either Mezzodemons or Wyrmlings as a ranged component, combined with either Hydra+ratsx1 or axegrinders and Darrak. In the end I liked the Hydra/Wyrmling combo the best. I’ve run it before, and it’s very tricky but potentially pretty effective. My one reservation was that Hydras can be a little swingy, and I really don’t want swingy in the main event. But I eventually decided that this was the least bad option given the restrictions of the format. So Red Wyrmling x3, Black Wyrmling x3, Raelin, Hydra, Deathreavers x1, and Marcu was my build.
ROUND 1
Opponent: Deroche (Phantom Knights x2, Raelin, Fen Hydra, Krav)
Map: Flash Fire
Deroche and I have spent a lot of time together at recent Gencons and have played together online before, but this was our first live game. Our armies had some obvious similarities with the Raelin/Hydra combo, but he had the PKs and Krav while I had wyrmlings and filler.
The first round went quite well for me; I put my first two OMs on rats, and managed to kill a krav with a 2v5 on my second turn after Raelin and the krav each moved up. I put my third on wyrmlings and managed to kill a second one with a black wyrmling.
However, things went very bad for me in the second round. For some reason I convinced myself that Gordon would go with his PKs next, so I would be able to set up the wyrmlings and snipe back and forth. I moved up Raelin and started to roll up wyrmlings, but Deroche’s Hydra just barged across and started dismantling my army, getting past the wyrms and rats and getting to Raelin.
In round 3, I pulled my Hydra up to try to equalize. I managed to maneuver around, grab the healer glyph, and kill Deroche’s Raelin, so things came down to Hydra vs. Hydra. I had 3 attacks against a 2 life Hydra, but couldn’t get it done, and on the next turn Deroche’s Hydra finished mine off. I attempted to snipe with my remaining wyrms and with Marcu, but the PKs were able to chase them down without issue.
These armies are pretty well matched and things could have gone either way when we had that Hydra/Hydra showdown. But the bottom line is that I made a major OM management mistake and Deroche outplayed me. He would end up winning his next two games before dropping his final two and making day 2 with the best strength of schedule in the event.
ROUND 2
Opponent: rym (Arrow Gruts x3, Mimring, Krug, MBS)
Map: Shiver
rym opened with a Mimring blitz, which is pretty easy to pull off on this map with the nice central bridge. Mimring took out a number of wyrms, but the real blow was when he moved up to take a 5v8 with height on my approaching Hydra, and got two wounds. Mimring was dead shortly after that, but the damage was done. Insult was added to injury when rym plinked his own Krug with an AG on OM3, won initiative, and burned the healer glyph one turn before I could have done the same.
The rest of the game was a lot of maneuver. I wasn’t attacking Krug, instead trying to pick off the Arrow Gruts. (The funniest moment of the game was when Nathan asked me if I wanted my leaving engagement attack on Krug and I just glared at him.) My plan, eventually, was to try to sandwich 4 Hydra attacks around an initiative switch. Even if I failed to kill Krug, the wyrmlings have a decent chance to finish him off on this map. However, I really needed the AGs dead first so that I would have the mobility. It was a slow process, as I was keeping most of my army inside Raelin’s Aura to minimize the chance of an AG getting a lucky kill. I had a couple rats wedged in front of Raelin that kept Krug fron having a chance to get at her. Nathan was having a hard time trying to figure out how to crack the nut, but he did have more success killing wyrms with AGs, and ended up taking almost all of them out.
So, long long story somewhat shorter... this ended up being my only game at Gencon that went to time. At the end I had 2 rats, Raelin, the Hydra, and a lone wyrm, against 3 AGs, MBS, and Krug. I felt bad about this one, as this is probably the first time I’ve ever won a game on time where I think my odds would have been less than 50/50 if we had finished. I definitely used less than half the time, but it’s not like I was forcing the action and bringing the game to a swift conclusion. rym was totally cool about it, though.
ROUND 3
Opponent: Mattsertruckrally (Raelin, Q10, Phantom Knights x3)
Map: Ticalla Jungle
Before rounds were posted, I had been joking with Matt about how spider_poison wasn’t playing this year, so it was up to the two of us to ensure that none of these [redacteds] won the championship. Unfortunately, neither of us would have the chance to knock anyone else out this round. I’d always wanted a chance to play MTR, but this wasn’t really the setting I had in mind…
This game almost surely had more rounds than any other game I played all weekend (12 or 13, I think). Matt is a very fast player, and there was a lot of maneuver in this game. I set up on the sandy high ground, with some rats holding unique attack, while MTR set up around the wound glyph. I actually managed to rotate my entire army up that way, even moving Marcu so that he could not get picked off in the startzone. Marcu was crucial for me in the game, as he allowed me to absorb multiple wound glyph hits without feeling the need to advance before I was ready. (MTR didn’t even have wannok occupied for a few rounds, as it just wasn’t that valuable to drop a wound on the vampire. He also rolled a 1 one of the times he did have it occupied.)
MTR sent a few PKs up to try to deal with my army, but they were disposed of by the Hydra, and we settled into a long stretch of sniping back and forth. Mattser didn’t want to risk putting Q10 within the Hydra’s threat range, so he was reduced to machine pistoling my Hydra (in Raelin’s aura, on height) as that was frequently the only target he had. Matt probably threw somewhere in the neighborhood of 48-64 dice up at the Hydra, but the ~250 defense dice held up, and the Hydra never took a scratch.
Meanwhile, I was plinking away with wyrms, trying to use the hive to stay away from Q10, and trying to thin out PKs. I was generally using black wyrms to try to pick off PKs that had tons of defense (Raelin+Brush), and if PKs moved up to take down those wyrms, I’d use reds to shoot them down. It was very, very cat and mouse for several rounds, but when the dust cleared, I had taken down almost all the PKs with a couple wyrms to spare.
Of course, the wyrms were nearly useless against Q10, so I had to advance to actually win the game. I moved Raelin up next to some brush in the middle of the map and sent the Hydra up. The Hydra took down the last of the PKs with his attack-glyph enhanced awesomeness, and managed to put a couple wounds on Raelin, but then Q10’s fortune turned around in a huge way. Q10 managed to snuff out the Hydra with a couple 4v8s using Wrist Rockets. Suddenly, the game had gone from “according to plan” to “I need a miracle”.
A miracle I got, though. My glyph-enhanced Raelin killed Matt’s Raelin, while my last wyrmling managed to tie down Q10 for a key turn. Then Raelin moved up and started whacking Q10 for 4v5s, and I got lucky and took the major out before the major took me out. I ended the game with a 1-life Raelin, one Red Wyrmling, a heavily wounded Marcu, and a few rats over by unique attack.
It might not have been the setting I wanted for a game against MTR, but man, what a game.
ROUND 4
Opponent: David K (Romans x3, Parmenio, Ne-Gok-Sa, Marcus Decimus Gallus)
Map: Ticalla Jungle
Just like in Heat of Battle, it always seems like the matchup is slanted when David and I line up to play. This one pretty much went my way from start to finish. I set up almost identically to my last game on TJ, taking the sandy ground and planting a rat on the U-Attack glyph, although I set my other rats up to be more of a screen to the Roman advance. Rather than deal with scatter, David just approached the plateau from the other side. My wyrmlings did a good job of thinning things out as the Romans approached, and the first couple times David moved up a hero, I had the next OM on a very angry Hydra that rained 4 attacks of 6 and put that hero down.
Marcus and the last few Romans did manage to get established on the plateau, and I ended up losing Raelin and all my wyrmlings except one red, but I had a 3-life Hydra at the end along with the rats and Marcu.
ROUND 5
Opponent: Arrow Grut (Raelin, Moltenclaw, Greenscales x3, Otonashi)
Map: Embattled Fen
These round 5 games between the 3-1 players are always a pressure cooker. At first glance, I liked my matchup. Moltenclaw is pretty killable by the Hydra even in Raelin’s aura, and his range isn't quite long enough to plink away at Raelin/Hydra with impunity.
Matt opened things up by putting Raelin in the turreted 7-hexer by the road before starting to roll up his greenscales. I set my Raelin up on the level 2 sand tile on the wannok side of the map, overlooking the glyph, and moved up the other components of my army.
AG utilized an initiative switch to pull off a neat trick: he brought a greenscale up, then had Moltenclaw toast his own greenscale from the safety of Raelin’s Aura, with the rest of the burning breath shot extending towards Raelin and a wyrm. Still, aside from that one, I was able to snipe the greenscales as they moved up. With Moltenclaw moving up on the road side of the map, outside Raelin’s aura, I brought the Hydra up onto the road side of the map, but still in my Raelin’s aura, to threaten Molty. I survived a few 4v8s from burning breath as Matt brought greenscales up to engage the Hydra and keep it from advancing on Molty. But the wyrms and Hydra were able to kill them as they came up.
With the GSWs almost spent, once again, Arrow Grut took advantage of an initiative switch, this time to move Molty up to attack the Hydra directly. The Hydra did take some wounds, and was actually brought down by Moltenclaw, but Moltenclaw was down to his last life. I had a few wyrmlings left at that point, and they took down Moltenclaw without further incident. AG resigned rather than try to win with Raelin, Oto, and the last GSW.
So, I had survived an opening loss start to finish 4-1 and make day 2. I actually had the worst SoS of all the 4-1s (Mattser dropped after my loss, so I only got 1 win from him, 3 each from Arrow Grut and Deroche, and 2 each from Rym and David K). This didn't really matter for me, though, as day 2 is randomly paired. Arrow Grut did make it on strength of schedule, though. So both of my opponents who finished 3-2 made it, which was cool.
DAY 2
ROUND 1
Opponent: Deroche (Phantom Knights x2, Raelin, Fen Hydra, Krav)
Map: Stygian Rift
This guy again? Yeesh. Well, if I let him beat me both ways I’d never hear the end of it, so I had to roll up my sleeves and get to work.
The early game went fairly well for me. I set up Raelin on cold ground on the right side of the map, near the move glyph. The rats did take the move glyph, which I did not heavily contest, but I was able to take out the wyrmlings with PKs before any black wyrmlings had a chance to gas the Krav, which I was worried about. With most of the PKs and wyrms dead, I moved up the Krav up and started to snipe at Raelin (who was also on the move glyph side of the map).
Deroche moved his Hydra up outside Raelin’s aura to try to swing things. A boneheaded Krav placement on my part allowed the Hydra to get shots at Raelin, but lady luck was with me and Raelin managed to survied through a turn of Hydra attacks. My Hydra interposed on the next OM, and with Raelin’s help managed to win the duel after a few turns. My Hydra was down to 1 life at that point, but the remaining Krav managed to deal with the remaining reds and finish off the game.
Aside from that one Krav placement, I thought I played a solid game. Deroche’s Raelin placement ended up not really helping him get his wyrms at the Krav or protect the Hydra. Although the same army won both of our games, I’d argue that the games were won more by who played better in each game than by the relative strength of the armies. I made more mistakes on day 1, and Gordon made more mistakes on day 2. Great games, buddy.
QUARTERFINALS
Opponent: Arcus (Stingers x3, Braxas, Marro Warriors)
Map: Ticalla Jungle
Funny note: this was the third time in my life that I had used Stingers in a game, but the second time I had used them in the quarterfinals of the Gencon Championship. I guess that’s stinger round for me!
It was nice to get another game against Arcus after our great game in round 3 of the 2011 main event. Arcus had somehow managed to beat his army in the previous round when using Rÿchean’s unique squad-based army, which was remarkable. I figured Braxas could have won that game nearly singlehandedly. However, Braxas was much less useful against my day 1 army, with its heavy reliance on heroes that require a 17+ (and the Hydra, which can’t be gassed at all). Still, I felt that I had to use Braxas to try to thin things out before I moved up the Marro.
For the third straight time on Ticalla Sunrise, I initially moved to the sandy high ground near unique attack while my opponent spooled out in the direction of the wound glyph. However, after a quick feint with the Marro Warriors, I poured my OMs into Braxas. I bounced around with Braxas, content to take leaving engagement attacks and wounds as long as I stayed out of the threat range of the Hydra. Each turn, I attempted to gas Raelin, and then any rats that were in range, and then any wyrms in range, in that order. On the fifth try, Raelin went down. Braxas went down soon after that, having killed Raelin, one wyrmling, and two rats. It was far from “killing her points”, but in my mind she had done her job.
I started moving my stingers up onto the plateau, and exchanged shots with the wrymlings using both the attack-glyph enhanced MW and the stingers. My greater number of attacks per OM won out, and before long Tom had to bring out the Hydra. Once I had three stingers in range, I rolled for juice, and hit it on back-to-back turns to take out the Hydra and effectively end the game. (This 2/2 performance brought my lifetime stinger numbers to 1 backfire, 1 miss, and 2 hits.)
SEMIFINALS
Opponent: The Orange Mailman (10th x2, Marcus, Raelin, Drake RotV)
Map: Shiver
TOM has already summarized this one as part of his championship report. This was a long, tough, match. Early on, I think I threw Darrin by moving up towards the Lodin side rather than the Kelda side. TOM moved Raelin, I think, four times during the game from hill to hill, before eventually putting her in a spot she could have gotten the first time. He was really struggling with whether he wanted to contest me where I was, or try to make me come to him.
Early on, the critical sequence was well-documented in TOM’s report. I had two rounds of Marcus-enhanced Wait then Fire (1 attack of 5 with height, 3 level ground attacks of 4) and could not kill a single wyrmling. In the following turns, his wyrmling attacks went 3 for 4. This really decimated my army. If those exchanges go differently, then I can WTF the advancing Hydra, which makes for a completely different endgame.
Still, I was able to reduce TOM to just a couple wyrmlings before my 10th were exhausted, so I had at least a puncher’s chance with Drake as I moved him up. Drake grabbed the attack glyph on the way. TOM said this was the perfect glyph to grab, but while it doesn’t exactly stink, it’s actually the very worst glyph I could have drawn. The defense glyph is more significant than the attack glyph when Drake attacks once per OM and the Hydra attacks 4 times. The healer glyph is better still. The Brooch of Shielding would have saved me two wounds (TOM went 2/2 on leaving engagement attacks on Drake). Even the glyph that is typically the dud, the Elixir of Speed, would have guaranteed me first strike on the Hydra.
As the Hydra lumbered up the long way (up to the other hill with Raelin, then Raelin flew back again to my hill, then the Hydra came across the bridge) I worked Drake up to the hill. I moved MDG up to a spot inside Raelin’s aura, engaging rats where the Hydra would have to attack MDG from low ground in order to move through the rats to engage Raelin or Drake. The Hydra killed a full-health MDG with attacks of 4v6 in just one turn, but Drake managed to kill Raelin at the same time, so he hadn’t died completely in vain. There was a little more cat and mouse around the glacier (with basically everyone left in Heroscape-land watching, as this was now between events and Matthias had long since won his semifinal) before TOM got the initiative switch and finally engaged my Drake, albeit within my Raelin’s aura and from low ground.. Just as with MDG, one round of 4v6s was enough for the kill, and I never got to drop those 8 dice in return. We both had all our OMs on the big hitters, so I resigned rather than watch the Hydra drop 8 attacks of 4 on Raelin.
It was a tough loss, but what can you say - The Orange Mailman was the player of destiny that day. He ended up topping Matthias for the title in the finals. Congrats, man - it was a heck of a run.
There was unfortunately no third place game this year. I say unfortunately because I could hardly design a better counter for my Hydra/wyrmling build than the Q9/Axegrinder build I would have gotten to play in the third place game.
I had a lot of trouble settling on an army this year. I did consider using the TKN army that I had played in “take 2”, which lonewolf termed the “dok special” for good reason. However, I didn’t really like the idea of giving my day 2 opponent the Marro Warriors in an untimed game, while I had them in a timed game. I tried a Heaviesx2/Grimnak/Krav/Raelin build in the online event, but I eventually concluded it was too strong to beat four times in a row. I also considered a similar Mogrimm/Axegrinder build, but never really warmed to it. For a while I thought I would run Raelin, Gladiatrons x2, Blastarons x1, Skahen, Marcu, but I decided the single squad of Blastarons were just too vulnerable to early assassination against a ranged opponent. I’ll even admit that I considered something like ratsx2/Raelin/Mezzodemonsx3/Concan, with the idea being that it would do well in short day 1 rounds but fail due to lack of offense on day 2. But I pride myself on playing pretty quickly and I just didn’t think I could “take advantage” of that sort of build.
The combos I toyed around with the most was either Mezzodemons or Wyrmlings as a ranged component, combined with either Hydra+ratsx1 or axegrinders and Darrak. In the end I liked the Hydra/Wyrmling combo the best. I’ve run it before, and it’s very tricky but potentially pretty effective. My one reservation was that Hydras can be a little swingy, and I really don’t want swingy in the main event. But I eventually decided that this was the least bad option given the restrictions of the format. So Red Wyrmling x3, Black Wyrmling x3, Raelin, Hydra, Deathreavers x1, and Marcu was my build.
ROUND 1
Opponent: Deroche (Phantom Knights x2, Raelin, Fen Hydra, Krav)
Map: Flash Fire
Deroche and I have spent a lot of time together at recent Gencons and have played together online before, but this was our first live game. Our armies had some obvious similarities with the Raelin/Hydra combo, but he had the PKs and Krav while I had wyrmlings and filler.
The first round went quite well for me; I put my first two OMs on rats, and managed to kill a krav with a 2v5 on my second turn after Raelin and the krav each moved up. I put my third on wyrmlings and managed to kill a second one with a black wyrmling.
However, things went very bad for me in the second round. For some reason I convinced myself that Gordon would go with his PKs next, so I would be able to set up the wyrmlings and snipe back and forth. I moved up Raelin and started to roll up wyrmlings, but Deroche’s Hydra just barged across and started dismantling my army, getting past the wyrms and rats and getting to Raelin.
In round 3, I pulled my Hydra up to try to equalize. I managed to maneuver around, grab the healer glyph, and kill Deroche’s Raelin, so things came down to Hydra vs. Hydra. I had 3 attacks against a 2 life Hydra, but couldn’t get it done, and on the next turn Deroche’s Hydra finished mine off. I attempted to snipe with my remaining wyrms and with Marcu, but the PKs were able to chase them down without issue.
These armies are pretty well matched and things could have gone either way when we had that Hydra/Hydra showdown. But the bottom line is that I made a major OM management mistake and Deroche outplayed me. He would end up winning his next two games before dropping his final two and making day 2 with the best strength of schedule in the event.
ROUND 2
Opponent: rym (Arrow Gruts x3, Mimring, Krug, MBS)
Map: Shiver
rym opened with a Mimring blitz, which is pretty easy to pull off on this map with the nice central bridge. Mimring took out a number of wyrms, but the real blow was when he moved up to take a 5v8 with height on my approaching Hydra, and got two wounds. Mimring was dead shortly after that, but the damage was done. Insult was added to injury when rym plinked his own Krug with an AG on OM3, won initiative, and burned the healer glyph one turn before I could have done the same.
The rest of the game was a lot of maneuver. I wasn’t attacking Krug, instead trying to pick off the Arrow Gruts. (The funniest moment of the game was when Nathan asked me if I wanted my leaving engagement attack on Krug and I just glared at him.) My plan, eventually, was to try to sandwich 4 Hydra attacks around an initiative switch. Even if I failed to kill Krug, the wyrmlings have a decent chance to finish him off on this map. However, I really needed the AGs dead first so that I would have the mobility. It was a slow process, as I was keeping most of my army inside Raelin’s Aura to minimize the chance of an AG getting a lucky kill. I had a couple rats wedged in front of Raelin that kept Krug fron having a chance to get at her. Nathan was having a hard time trying to figure out how to crack the nut, but he did have more success killing wyrms with AGs, and ended up taking almost all of them out.
So, long long story somewhat shorter... this ended up being my only game at Gencon that went to time. At the end I had 2 rats, Raelin, the Hydra, and a lone wyrm, against 3 AGs, MBS, and Krug. I felt bad about this one, as this is probably the first time I’ve ever won a game on time where I think my odds would have been less than 50/50 if we had finished. I definitely used less than half the time, but it’s not like I was forcing the action and bringing the game to a swift conclusion. rym was totally cool about it, though.
ROUND 3
Opponent: Mattsertruckrally (Raelin, Q10, Phantom Knights x3)
Map: Ticalla Jungle
Before rounds were posted, I had been joking with Matt about how spider_poison wasn’t playing this year, so it was up to the two of us to ensure that none of these [redacteds] won the championship. Unfortunately, neither of us would have the chance to knock anyone else out this round. I’d always wanted a chance to play MTR, but this wasn’t really the setting I had in mind…
This game almost surely had more rounds than any other game I played all weekend (12 or 13, I think). Matt is a very fast player, and there was a lot of maneuver in this game. I set up on the sandy high ground, with some rats holding unique attack, while MTR set up around the wound glyph. I actually managed to rotate my entire army up that way, even moving Marcu so that he could not get picked off in the startzone. Marcu was crucial for me in the game, as he allowed me to absorb multiple wound glyph hits without feeling the need to advance before I was ready. (MTR didn’t even have wannok occupied for a few rounds, as it just wasn’t that valuable to drop a wound on the vampire. He also rolled a 1 one of the times he did have it occupied.)
MTR sent a few PKs up to try to deal with my army, but they were disposed of by the Hydra, and we settled into a long stretch of sniping back and forth. Mattser didn’t want to risk putting Q10 within the Hydra’s threat range, so he was reduced to machine pistoling my Hydra (in Raelin’s aura, on height) as that was frequently the only target he had. Matt probably threw somewhere in the neighborhood of 48-64 dice up at the Hydra, but the ~250 defense dice held up, and the Hydra never took a scratch.
Meanwhile, I was plinking away with wyrms, trying to use the hive to stay away from Q10, and trying to thin out PKs. I was generally using black wyrms to try to pick off PKs that had tons of defense (Raelin+Brush), and if PKs moved up to take down those wyrms, I’d use reds to shoot them down. It was very, very cat and mouse for several rounds, but when the dust cleared, I had taken down almost all the PKs with a couple wyrms to spare.
Of course, the wyrms were nearly useless against Q10, so I had to advance to actually win the game. I moved Raelin up next to some brush in the middle of the map and sent the Hydra up. The Hydra took down the last of the PKs with his attack-glyph enhanced awesomeness, and managed to put a couple wounds on Raelin, but then Q10’s fortune turned around in a huge way. Q10 managed to snuff out the Hydra with a couple 4v8s using Wrist Rockets. Suddenly, the game had gone from “according to plan” to “I need a miracle”.
A miracle I got, though. My glyph-enhanced Raelin killed Matt’s Raelin, while my last wyrmling managed to tie down Q10 for a key turn. Then Raelin moved up and started whacking Q10 for 4v5s, and I got lucky and took the major out before the major took me out. I ended the game with a 1-life Raelin, one Red Wyrmling, a heavily wounded Marcu, and a few rats over by unique attack.
It might not have been the setting I wanted for a game against MTR, but man, what a game.
ROUND 4
Opponent: David K (Romans x3, Parmenio, Ne-Gok-Sa, Marcus Decimus Gallus)
Map: Ticalla Jungle
Just like in Heat of Battle, it always seems like the matchup is slanted when David and I line up to play. This one pretty much went my way from start to finish. I set up almost identically to my last game on TJ, taking the sandy ground and planting a rat on the U-Attack glyph, although I set my other rats up to be more of a screen to the Roman advance. Rather than deal with scatter, David just approached the plateau from the other side. My wyrmlings did a good job of thinning things out as the Romans approached, and the first couple times David moved up a hero, I had the next OM on a very angry Hydra that rained 4 attacks of 6 and put that hero down.
Marcus and the last few Romans did manage to get established on the plateau, and I ended up losing Raelin and all my wyrmlings except one red, but I had a 3-life Hydra at the end along with the rats and Marcu.
ROUND 5
Opponent: Arrow Grut (Raelin, Moltenclaw, Greenscales x3, Otonashi)
Map: Embattled Fen
These round 5 games between the 3-1 players are always a pressure cooker. At first glance, I liked my matchup. Moltenclaw is pretty killable by the Hydra even in Raelin’s aura, and his range isn't quite long enough to plink away at Raelin/Hydra with impunity.
Matt opened things up by putting Raelin in the turreted 7-hexer by the road before starting to roll up his greenscales. I set my Raelin up on the level 2 sand tile on the wannok side of the map, overlooking the glyph, and moved up the other components of my army.
AG utilized an initiative switch to pull off a neat trick: he brought a greenscale up, then had Moltenclaw toast his own greenscale from the safety of Raelin’s Aura, with the rest of the burning breath shot extending towards Raelin and a wyrm. Still, aside from that one, I was able to snipe the greenscales as they moved up. With Moltenclaw moving up on the road side of the map, outside Raelin’s aura, I brought the Hydra up onto the road side of the map, but still in my Raelin’s aura, to threaten Molty. I survived a few 4v8s from burning breath as Matt brought greenscales up to engage the Hydra and keep it from advancing on Molty. But the wyrms and Hydra were able to kill them as they came up.
With the GSWs almost spent, once again, Arrow Grut took advantage of an initiative switch, this time to move Molty up to attack the Hydra directly. The Hydra did take some wounds, and was actually brought down by Moltenclaw, but Moltenclaw was down to his last life. I had a few wyrmlings left at that point, and they took down Moltenclaw without further incident. AG resigned rather than try to win with Raelin, Oto, and the last GSW.
So, I had survived an opening loss start to finish 4-1 and make day 2. I actually had the worst SoS of all the 4-1s (Mattser dropped after my loss, so I only got 1 win from him, 3 each from Arrow Grut and Deroche, and 2 each from Rym and David K). This didn't really matter for me, though, as day 2 is randomly paired. Arrow Grut did make it on strength of schedule, though. So both of my opponents who finished 3-2 made it, which was cool.
DAY 2
ROUND 1
Opponent: Deroche (Phantom Knights x2, Raelin, Fen Hydra, Krav)
Map: Stygian Rift
This guy again? Yeesh. Well, if I let him beat me both ways I’d never hear the end of it, so I had to roll up my sleeves and get to work.
The early game went fairly well for me. I set up Raelin on cold ground on the right side of the map, near the move glyph. The rats did take the move glyph, which I did not heavily contest, but I was able to take out the wyrmlings with PKs before any black wyrmlings had a chance to gas the Krav, which I was worried about. With most of the PKs and wyrms dead, I moved up the Krav up and started to snipe at Raelin (who was also on the move glyph side of the map).
Deroche moved his Hydra up outside Raelin’s aura to try to swing things. A boneheaded Krav placement on my part allowed the Hydra to get shots at Raelin, but lady luck was with me and Raelin managed to survied through a turn of Hydra attacks. My Hydra interposed on the next OM, and with Raelin’s help managed to win the duel after a few turns. My Hydra was down to 1 life at that point, but the remaining Krav managed to deal with the remaining reds and finish off the game.
Aside from that one Krav placement, I thought I played a solid game. Deroche’s Raelin placement ended up not really helping him get his wyrms at the Krav or protect the Hydra. Although the same army won both of our games, I’d argue that the games were won more by who played better in each game than by the relative strength of the armies. I made more mistakes on day 1, and Gordon made more mistakes on day 2. Great games, buddy.
QUARTERFINALS
Opponent: Arcus (Stingers x3, Braxas, Marro Warriors)
Map: Ticalla Jungle
Funny note: this was the third time in my life that I had used Stingers in a game, but the second time I had used them in the quarterfinals of the Gencon Championship. I guess that’s stinger round for me!
It was nice to get another game against Arcus after our great game in round 3 of the 2011 main event. Arcus had somehow managed to beat his army in the previous round when using Rÿchean’s unique squad-based army, which was remarkable. I figured Braxas could have won that game nearly singlehandedly. However, Braxas was much less useful against my day 1 army, with its heavy reliance on heroes that require a 17+ (and the Hydra, which can’t be gassed at all). Still, I felt that I had to use Braxas to try to thin things out before I moved up the Marro.
For the third straight time on Ticalla Sunrise, I initially moved to the sandy high ground near unique attack while my opponent spooled out in the direction of the wound glyph. However, after a quick feint with the Marro Warriors, I poured my OMs into Braxas. I bounced around with Braxas, content to take leaving engagement attacks and wounds as long as I stayed out of the threat range of the Hydra. Each turn, I attempted to gas Raelin, and then any rats that were in range, and then any wyrms in range, in that order. On the fifth try, Raelin went down. Braxas went down soon after that, having killed Raelin, one wyrmling, and two rats. It was far from “killing her points”, but in my mind she had done her job.
I started moving my stingers up onto the plateau, and exchanged shots with the wrymlings using both the attack-glyph enhanced MW and the stingers. My greater number of attacks per OM won out, and before long Tom had to bring out the Hydra. Once I had three stingers in range, I rolled for juice, and hit it on back-to-back turns to take out the Hydra and effectively end the game. (This 2/2 performance brought my lifetime stinger numbers to 1 backfire, 1 miss, and 2 hits.)
SEMIFINALS
Opponent: The Orange Mailman (10th x2, Marcus, Raelin, Drake RotV)
Map: Shiver
TOM has already summarized this one as part of his championship report. This was a long, tough, match. Early on, I think I threw Darrin by moving up towards the Lodin side rather than the Kelda side. TOM moved Raelin, I think, four times during the game from hill to hill, before eventually putting her in a spot she could have gotten the first time. He was really struggling with whether he wanted to contest me where I was, or try to make me come to him.
Early on, the critical sequence was well-documented in TOM’s report. I had two rounds of Marcus-enhanced Wait then Fire (1 attack of 5 with height, 3 level ground attacks of 4) and could not kill a single wyrmling. In the following turns, his wyrmling attacks went 3 for 4. This really decimated my army. If those exchanges go differently, then I can WTF the advancing Hydra, which makes for a completely different endgame.
Still, I was able to reduce TOM to just a couple wyrmlings before my 10th were exhausted, so I had at least a puncher’s chance with Drake as I moved him up. Drake grabbed the attack glyph on the way. TOM said this was the perfect glyph to grab, but while it doesn’t exactly stink, it’s actually the very worst glyph I could have drawn. The defense glyph is more significant than the attack glyph when Drake attacks once per OM and the Hydra attacks 4 times. The healer glyph is better still. The Brooch of Shielding would have saved me two wounds (TOM went 2/2 on leaving engagement attacks on Drake). Even the glyph that is typically the dud, the Elixir of Speed, would have guaranteed me first strike on the Hydra.
As the Hydra lumbered up the long way (up to the other hill with Raelin, then Raelin flew back again to my hill, then the Hydra came across the bridge) I worked Drake up to the hill. I moved MDG up to a spot inside Raelin’s aura, engaging rats where the Hydra would have to attack MDG from low ground in order to move through the rats to engage Raelin or Drake. The Hydra killed a full-health MDG with attacks of 4v6 in just one turn, but Drake managed to kill Raelin at the same time, so he hadn’t died completely in vain. There was a little more cat and mouse around the glacier (with basically everyone left in Heroscape-land watching, as this was now between events and Matthias had long since won his semifinal) before TOM got the initiative switch and finally engaged my Drake, albeit within my Raelin’s aura and from low ground.. Just as with MDG, one round of 4v6s was enough for the kill, and I never got to drop those 8 dice in return. We both had all our OMs on the big hitters, so I resigned rather than watch the Hydra drop 8 attacks of 4 on Raelin.
It was a tough loss, but what can you say - The Orange Mailman was the player of destiny that day. He ended up topping Matthias for the title in the finals. Congrats, man - it was a heck of a run.
There was unfortunately no third place game this year. I say unfortunately because I could hardly design a better counter for my Hydra/wyrmling build than the Q9/Axegrinder build I would have gotten to play in the third place game.