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dok's battle reports

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. :D
 
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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.

Exactly. After you moved into position I thought, "sure, that makes total sense", but only after the fact. At that point I realized I was going to have to get my money's worth out of those wyrmlings. The battle would be won or lost with them by neutering the power of the 10th while still in the pod.

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.

I thought about this later (because I like to turn things over in my mind) and you are absolutely right. When you drew it (because it was still in the pool) I remember thinking, "great, now he's going to wallop me with 7 or 8 dice and knock off one more head on the first attack". But you withdrew at that point moving him back up. I seriously thought you were coming for me. But the bridge didn't allow you the movement to move up from ground level and the Deathreavers were on the bridge, so I guess you had to withdraw.

Congrats, man - it was a heck of a run.

Thank you. I had so much fun. You're a great player and I learned even more at this GenCon. 27 games of Heroscape in 3 days. Whew!
 
GENCON 2014

4x400


Probably no format brings out the minmaxer in me more than this one. I know the intention is just to let people play a bunch of builds in one event, but it always feels like an engineering challenge to me: how much can I wring out of four builds without re-using any figure?

Round 1
Opponent: The Orange Mailman (Braxas, Greensacles x3, Isamu)
Map: Vestige
My army: dok: Stingers x5, Raelin, Marcu

This was literally the first time I have ever brought Stingers to a tournament. I generally find playing Stingers kind of boring, but the 10th regiment armies didn’t really come out right with the space and point restrictions. The plan was to sit Marcu unless Wannok was on the map. It wasn’t, so I sat him.

So, this ended up being one of my two great bad beat stories of the ‘con. Oddly enough, both came against the same army, albeit in very very different circumstances.

I started by sliding Raelin up a little onto the plateau. THis may well have been a mistake, as contesting the advance of the GSWs on the same wing of the map is probably not worth it here. However, it ended up kind of working out for me, as T.O.M. tried to gas Raelin from the high perch a couple times. I abandoned Raelin and was content to take shots up at Braxas from 5 spaces away. A couple turns of this and I had Braxas at 5 wounds.

What followed in round 2 was the critical sequence of the game. Braxas moved forwawd to level 2 and gassed a couple stingers, and the three nearby greenscales moved to engage the lead stinger I had on the smaller sub-hill. At this point I still had 2 unengaged stingers on the same level as Braxas, but this was the last turn where I could reasonably expect to get level ground attacks on Braxas.

So… you probably know where this is going. Roll for drain, miss, 1 guy dies. Braxas goes 3/3, greenscales kill another. T.O.M. actually leaves me a level ground shot, and now I need to get lucky for sure, so I roll for drain again. Another 4. Braxas goes 2 for 3, greenscales kill another. That makes 9 dead stingers in 2 turns with absolutely nothing to show for it. I finally killed Braxas after that, but the damage was done, and the GSWs had no difficulty cleaning up.

So, you could argue back and forth forever about whether rolling drain that first time as right. Your answer probably says more about you than it does about the situation, to be honest. The math says that you maximize average wounds and the chance of killing Braxas that turn if you roll for drain. On the flip side, you can argue, basically, that I was in a good position, and I should just try to minimize the chance of something really bad happening even if the average result from that move is a little worse. Some very successful stinger players (like Hendal) would roll drain there every time. Other successful stinger players (like lonewolf) would never roll for drain there. Of course, half the fun for me is analyzing it and discussing it.

T.O.M. was a total gentleman as always, which took a touch of the sting out of watching him methodically dispatch my army.

Round 2
Opponent: Infectedsloth (Mohican River Tribe x5, Brave Arrow)
Map: Common Ground (Unique Attack and… d20?)
My Army: Heavies x3, Nerak, Grimnak, Isamu, Otonashi

This was probably the least metagamey of the armies I played, which says more about the others than this one I think. That said, even against a horde of ranged commons I felt good in this matchup. I just had to get across and chomp/attack through him.

However, things went downhill for me fast in this one. With his first elevated attack, Nathan got a 3/3 on Nerak, and one whiff later I lost him. The next shots killed the guys who would have been able to engage, so I was kind of caught in the middle of the map with Grimnak, trying to chase down the Mohicans who were using the irregular terrain to deny chomps. Meanwhile, repeated 2/3 rolls were winnowing down my heavies at an alarming rate.

Grimnak did eventually make it across to the startzone with a very limited backup, and thanks to the attack glyph he blitzed through a half-dozen Mohicans basically by himself. But it was too little too late. My Isamu missed his first vanish (I hate Isamu, part 1), and despite my best cat and mouse efforts Otonashi and the last Grut could not kill two Mohicans and Brave Arrow.

So, for the second time in 5 years I was 0-2 in a Gencon event… and for the second time, it was Infectedsloth that put me there. It was a great game and a good time against one of my regular online foes, but if I never face Nathan in round 2 ever again it will be too soon. ;)

As I’ll explain later, this game influenced my take 2 army choices.

Round 3
Opponent: Retlaw (Grok Riders x2, Me-Burq-Sa, Ne-Gok-Sa)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise
my army: 4th Mass x4, Nilfheim

I have soured a little on “suicide Mass” builds, but Nilfheim is probably the best figure to use in them, because he’s almost completely impossible to ignore.

The worst part about being 0-2 is that I’m unlikely to get a competitive game. The last time it happened I ended up playing a younger kid in that round, and I just kind of felt bad. In this case, it was much better, as the legendary Retlaw wasn’t going to take the game too hard no matter what happened.

Unfortunately, the Grok Riders are probably the very worst squad in the game. MBS and the first wave of Groks actually did manage to kill Nilfheim, but the 4th Mass had basically no trouble WTFing NGS and the last four Groks. A perfunctory game, but a good time thanks to my opponent.

Round 4
Opponent: Rÿchean (Warforged Soldiers x3, Krav Maga Agents, Marro Warriors)
Map: Song of the Walrus
my army: Deathreavers x3, Q9, Krav Maga Agents

This was probably the most nasty of all the builds I went with. I normally don’t like Krav without Raelin but the points and space restrictions kind of led me to this one. This was my second game against the godfather of tournament ‘scape, and the second time he had to play against me playing rats and Q9. Since I’ve only played that combo in four events in five years (and here it was just one game out of four), this was pretty bad luck for him.

I led with the rats of course, and pushed them forward aggressively to tie down the krav. Mark did get a shot on one of my krav at one point, but he never managed to get adjacent to them. I continued to push the rats forward and I gave lots of attacking opportunities, but I did try to minimize warforged switches onto height. I lost most of my rats, but Mark lost most of his warforged in the process. When the third Krav whiffed, Mark resigned rather than try to overwhelm my vydar range with Marro Warriors.

2-2

I will probably stop signing up for this one in the future - mainly because it ends up taking up so much room when packing figures… but also because I ended up playing armies I don’t really enjoy that much in the quest for dice.
 
WAR OF THE WORLDS

I played 4th x3, Kaemon, Sam Brown, Isamu in the practice for this event. It was pretty solid but sometimes it felt like I had to trick my opponent into attacking Kaemon. I expected to see a lot of range in this format, so in the end I decided to go with the very first army I had thought of: Phantom Knights x4 + Fen Hydra. As a bonus, I had an awesome Red Hydra that I borrowed from Generalrolando before flying out to Gencon. I got a lot of compliments on it, so nice work, GR.

Round 1
Opponent: Sixthflagbearer’s Dad (Nilfheim + Braxas)
Map: Song of the Walrus

I played against this army twice in the online event, and I went 1-1 against it with 4th Mass, so I had a healthy respect for it. Playing against it with this army, my basic strategy was to try to spread out my army, anticipate OM placements, and limit the number of PKs Nilf and Braxas could attack in a given turn, or at least force them to take a bunch of leaving engagement attacks if they want more.

This strategy had somewhat limited success. I did manage to prevent Nilf from ever icing more than 1 PK in a turn, and Braxas only had three targets once. However, Braxas went 8/9 over five turns on PAB, and I was whiffing on a lot of attacks. By the end of the third round I had two PKs left, and all I had to show for it was 4 wounds on Nilf and 3 on Braxas.

Then the Fen Hydra happened. :D There was a little maneuver, but in the end the Hydra got the jump on Braxas, blocked an Ice shard attack, and killed Nilf. I won with a 3 life Fen Hydra.

Round 2
Opponent: Juniour (Heavy Gruts x3, Grimnak, Nerak)
Map: Highways and Dieways

Ugh. So many ranged common builds in the event, and I draw what is probably my army’s worst matchup. That said, I think I could have won it if I had played a little smarter. I made an error when I got greedy midgame and moved the Hydra up to kill three Heavies. It worked, but at the cost of allowing the Hydra to get pinned on low ground. When he took 3 quick wounds, I couldn’t afford to disengage and burn the healer glyph.

The Hydra did hold out for a long time, and I used the terrain and engagements to prevent Grimnak from getting any chomps until the end of the game. However, I had to resign with one PK against Grimnak and 3 Heavies (no way to prevent a chomp kill).

Round 3
Opponent: Major Q23 (Dividers x5 + Laglor)
Map: Stygian Rift (Move + Healer)

I don’t have a ton of notes from this one. Q23 led with Dividers and I lef with PKs. The dividers managed to sieze control of the move glyph, and I basically couldn’t contest it. We traded shots for a while and eventually the PKs went down, but by then the Hydra was in position. I took a couple wounds finishing off the nearby Dividers but burned Healer and headed off for the startzone. Laglor took a few pings and did wound the Hydra, but a 2-life Hydra was left at the end.

Round 4
Opponent: Vegietarian18 (Stingers x5 + Ne-Gok-Sa)
Map: Stygian Rift (Move + d20?)

My first of two contests with vegie on the weekend, but by far the less memorable of the two. ;)

Once again, my notes are spotty here. Both of us put our OMs on the squads early on. Despite what the stats suggest, the PKs didn’t really dominate here; it was basically a draw. The game came down to a 3-life Hydra against Ne-Gok-Sa. Ne-Gok-Sa missed his mindshackle attempts, but survived the Hydra hits, and inflicted 1 wound with a 2v6 for three turns in a row to win the duel.

2-2

Another pretty disappointing opening day at Gencon for me, which is how it’s gone for me in the early going for the last few years now. I seem to hit my stride as the weekend goes on. Or maybe everyone else gets tired, I dunno.
 
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2014 CHAMPIONSHIP DAY 1

This year might have been the hardest time I had yet coming up with an army for the main event. I have so many checkboxes I’m trying to fill in this format. I want an army that is roughly equally good in a broad range of matchups. I want an army that requires tricky decisions both on OM management and on figure placement. I want an army that is unlikely to lose on points if I run into a terribly slow player on day 1. On the flip side, I want an army that isn’t drastically better in an untimed format. Finally, I want an army that’s pretty low-variance.

I seriously considered just dropping Marcu from my 2013 build (Raelin, Fen, Black Wyrm x3, Red Wyrm x3, Deathreavers x1). That army was swingier than I liked, though. I looked at similar builds that replaced the Hydra with two squads of Horned Skull Brutes, or that replaced the rats and Hydra with Axegrinders and Darrak or Romans and MBS, and/or that replaced the Wyrmlings with Mezzodemons. I also looked at a couple different TKN builds, as well as several builds based on the Goblin Cutters.

In the end, though, I decided on Glads and Blasts. The problem when I had practiced them in 2013 or early in my 2014 testing was that I kept trying two squads of Glads and 1 squad of Blasts. This army is very swingy and matchup dependent because losing one Blast has a huge impact, and some armies are much better at getting to them than others. Once I realized I could switch that around and go with one squad of Glads, things started to fall into place. In that version, the Blasts have to get involved in boosting one another, which adds complexity too.

After the obligatory Raelin add, I was left with 140, which allowed for Eltahale. She’s a nice piece in general, and I like how she smooths out some of the bad matchups (Phantom Knights, most notably) for the Gladblast. Kaemon could have served a similar purpose, but Kaemon can be kind of easymode at times and I didn’t want to hand him to my opponents on day 2. In general, the plan would be to pod up with the ‘trons and use Eltahale as a heavy if things get close, but in some matchups Elty heads out front to meet a threat.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty weak army, and that I was cutting it tight. But I felt like you have to kind of play matchup roulette in this format and hope that you draw the right opponents and roll the right dice to make day 2. So, off I went.

Round 1
Opponent: Unseenshadowz (Hounds x3 + Q10)
Map: Stygian Rift (d20+Wound?)

It turned out that this was the year of the hounds, more or less. Obviously, ‘trons being plague-proof makes this a decent matchup on paper. However, Q10 is a major (sorry) problem for me as he can easily draw the ‘trons out of Raelin’s aura and then take them out.

I started the matchup by covering the right-hand glyph with Raelin (unfortunately my notes miss which glyph this was and I don’t remember with certainty, but based on my play I suspect that it was wound and the other glyph was d20). I built a pod of trons on that side of the map and moved up Eltahale. Predictably, after a couple probing moves with the hounds, EJ brought up Q10 and took a shot at Raelin herself.

My early attack dice were not doing much to the hounds and certainly weren’t going to help me take out the major, so I responded with an Eltahale gambit, moving her forward and trying to set up an assasination. Q10 put a few wounds on Eltahale, but the position he did it from allowed Elty to thunder step onto height above Q10. 5/7 skulls, 1 shield, and the game was basically decided. Eltahale moved back within Raelin’s aura and basically gummed up the lava ground approach to my pod for most of the game.

The hounds were effective enough and did take out Eltahale and a number of trons. I had to repeatedly use Blastarons to boost my attacks, which left them vulnerable to return attacks. But at the end of the game I still had 2 glads, 2 blasts, and Raelin when the last hound went down.

Round 2
Opponent: Nicktheant (Phantom Knights x3, Braxas)
Map: Song of the Walrus

Ugh. Nick is a very good player who has made day 2 before (I beat him in the quarters back in 2011), and he was piloting a really strong build that made things very tough on me. ‘trons have a really hard time piercing the 7 defense of the PKs, and I only have 4 glads to try to tie down the stealth flying.

I podded raelin and the ‘trons in one corner of my endzone and just blitzed Eltahale from the beginning. This was actually pretty successful, as Eltahale managed to kill two squads of PKs before she died. However, this still left the black queen to deal with. I rolled out the trons and tried to ping her and make it difficult, but she was doing her thing with acid breath and keeping me from really getting my attack boosted (just one squad of glads really hurts here, obviously).

At the end of the round, Nick left Braxas somewhat exposed on the central plateau of the map. I put a couple ‘trons next to her and brought some more into position. If I had won the initiative switch there, I could have gotten 5 ‘trons engaged and probably pulled out the game. However, I lost that initiative, and Nick wisely double-disengaged and went 3/3 on PAB to basically end the game.

It ended up being a more competitive matchup than I gave it credit for, as I would see again the next day. Nick did lose one game later on but managed to qualify with a 4-1 record for day 2.

Round 3
Opponent: Mattsertruckrally (Nilfheim, Greenscales x3, Marro Warriors)
Map: Fossil

When Matt had told me his army before the event started, I said to him “congratulations on your quarterfinals loss on day 2.” I honestly felt like that was optimistic, but Mattser is such a great player that I was willing to give him credit for somehow pulling out his first round game. This turned out to be exactly where he finished, actually. His army was just way too strong for the metagame. The Schaubs are fantastic players but they just don’t spend any time planning out armies for the events; they just grab something and go.

Anyway, there’s not much to report here. Matt just blitzed me with reckless abandon and steamrolled my whole army. His dice were pretty relentless (lots of 3/4 Ice Shard rolls) but honestly I’m not sure it would have mattered. Even if I had managed to get at Nilf and kill him, I wouldn’t have had enough left to take out the Marro Warriors.

Thankfully, MTR won out to go 4-1 and give me some crucial strength of schedule, so there was that at least.

Round 4
Opponent: Capsocrates (Deathreavers x2, Horned Skull Brutes x2, Kaemon Awa, James Murphy)
Map: Highways and Dieways

Caps is another online player, and he had success with this same build in the online warmup event. It was great to finally meet and play him face-to-face.

His notes on this game are better than mine, but I’ll summarize briefly. He led with rats and followed with Johnny Shotgun, while I assembled my army around one of the central 7-hexers. Early on, everything was going caps’s way. I spaced out to avoid shotgun but he was putting rats in spots to create chains. At one point he had a rat between Raelin and two ‘trons, and he blasted it. He went 1/3, but the rat blocked and I whiffed all 11 defense dice to lose two blasts and take a wound on Raelin. Ouch.

Then, in one round, everything turned. Eltahale took Murphy down with a Thunder Ram followed by a Thunder Step, and then proceeded to Thunder Ram away most of the rats while caps ate OMs. The Brutes moved in after that, but the glads prevented most of the Barge into Battle moves (can’t barge away a cyberclawed figure) and pretty much mowed through the Brutes. Kaemon moved up but Eltahale healed, returned to the action, and took out Awa.

---

After the game I counted out all the wins from my opponents up to that point and concluded that if I won and every one of my previous opponents won, I would probably make it in at 3-2 on strength of schedule. That’s a lot of ifs, but I was pretty confident that Nick and Matt (both 3-1) would win their games with those dragon builds. Still, it starts with me taking care of business. So…

Round 5
Opponent: lonewolf (Deathreavers x2, Horned Skull Brutes x3, SotM Raelin; sit two rats)
Map: Fossil

This was basically caps’s build from the round before… but without the scary ranged special attacks. Honestly, going 2-2 with that army was an achievement. Obviously, Mike was playing to get into day 2 by the slimmest margin possible.

Improbably, this was my first tournament game against lonewolf. But obviously we both know matchups and we both know the ‘trons. When we sat down, it was obvious to both of us where it was headed. Unless I made a mistake or the dice were horribly slanted, I was pretty assured of a win.

Early on, Mike sent out some rats. I chewed up a few of them with glads but I was content to form my army into a dense pod on the near high ground, and didn’t advance to engage anything else. I just took 1v3 potshots at bad Raelin while lonewolf slowly worked some brutes around behind the formation. He did get a couple even ground hits on Raelin, but the brutes were quickly engaged and dispatched.

The brutes actually held up remarkably well this game, rolling 2+ shields a huge number of times to stave off attacks from the trons. It really was a very funny game, as lonewolf was talking a ton of trash while very slowly losing the war of attrition. We had quite a crowd by the end of the game appreciating the show. I did eventually get worn down to just a few ‘trons, but Eltahale finished things off without incident.

-----

I asked around to my four former opponents after the game and found that they had all won except one. I thought this might leave me just one opponent’s win short of making day 2. However, fate smiled on me and I finished in 16th place exactly (well, a 3-way tie for 14th, anyway) to claim the last spot in day 2!
 
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2014 CHAMPIONSHIP DAY 2

Looking at the other armies, I felt my army was probably an underdog (making me the favorite) against most of them. There were a few that worried me. The two Marrden Hound armies that made it (Rÿchean’s and Hendal’s) are fairly strong overall in the limited figure metagame, but ‘trons are good against Hounds so that worked against me. Matthias’s Cyprien/Marro Warrior army is swingy and potentially fairly strong, but again, Cyprien hates the ‘trons. And then there was my fellow T-14th, Mantrainchoochoo, who had made it with a Mohican build (just three squads, plus Raelin).

Round of 16
Opponent: Rollitontop (Mezzodemons x5, Raelin, Marcu)
Map: Song of the Walrus

This was my first game against Rollitontop since my very first Gencon tournament - General Wars 2010, when my TKN and PKs rocked his stingers and hive. Good times. Anyway, his army (i.e. the one I was playing) was quite strong against mine and we both knew it.

I put Raelin up near the middle right away and started moving up Mezzos to support. I didn’t bother with either glyph at first, preferring to use Marcu to absorb wound hits and take shots down at the glyph holders. In early sniping I managed to pick off some ‘trons, which put Tristan in a bind. I wasn’t allowing the ‘trons to engage Raelin, so he decided to fly Raelin straight across for a head to head showdown. This didn’t really work out for him as the Mezzos picked her off fairly quickly, so he turned to Eltahale. However, I surrounded Eltahale and forced her to thunder step onto low ground to get at Raelin. From there I was able to take Elty down with attacks of 4.

When the dust cleared my Raelin was still clinging on with 1 life. ‘trons did eventually pick her off, but the damage was more than done at that point. I won with 7 mezzos, 6 markers, and a 4-life Marcu.

Quarterfinals
Opponent: Nicktheant (Phantom Knights x3, Braxas)
Map: Fossil

Day 1 revenge time! For the fourth time in my last three day 2s, I was facing someone I faced on day 1. Those players had gone 3-1 against me on day 1, but with this game I stretched the day 2 record against my repeat opponents to 4-0. But it wasn’t easy. I had thought this was a slanted matchup, but given the way the two games played out it’s hard to say that for sure.

Rather than lead with PKs and save Braxas for cleanup like Nick did on day 1, I rolled the PKs out in a screen and started gassing with Braxas. The lodin-enhanced breath mowed through the ‘trons, but my screen crumbled under 2v7 and 3v7 attacks. I dealt a few wounds to Eltahale, but she burned healer, settinng up endgame. The PKs put a few more on Eltahale before I was down to just Braxas facing down Raelin and Eltahale in a ladies’ showdown. Braxas managed to lure Elty out of Rae’s aura and finish her, but Raelin whittled Braxas down a single life before Brax finally finished things. I still had the one PK back on Lodin, so it wouldn’t have been over if she had died, but man, that was closer than I expected.

This was the second time I had knocked Nick out in the quarters of the main event; both times the games looked like I had them under control early but turned into white knuckle affairs at the end.

SEMIFINALS
Opponent: Mantrainchoochoo (Mohicans x3, Brave Arrow, Raelin, James Murphy - It adds to 415! Good idea leaving yourself a margin there, Ben.)
Map: Common Ground (Wound main area, move on the island)

This did not look good for me. Mohicans are not terrible against trons (one glad clamping means +1 A for the other guy but +2 D for me) but I really don’t have much of an answer for Eltahale, plus I’m outnumbered.

A powerful glyph on initiative island always generates an odd dynamic in Common Ground. I didn’t put a Mohican on the island, but I did take a shot at the glad that took the move glyph on the first turn. I can’t help thinking that a 3v3 hit there leads to a completely different game and possibly a win, but it was not to be. Instead I never got to that glad, as my mohicans pretty much got shot to pieces. Few blocks, and no conceals all game long (even on Blasties shooting from 7 spaces away). Mantrain’s Raelin moved face-to-face with mine, overlooking the Wannok glyph, and most of the fighting happened in and around there.

With my Mohicans dropping so fast, and with Ben able to reinforce so quickly thanks to holding onto the move glyph, things turned pretty grim for me pretty quickly. However, I did pick off enough trons outside the aura with advancing Mohicans (and got some very lucky kills with 3v6s on Glads) to make endgame interesting. Murphy got a couple kills moving up, while Eltahale killed my Raelin. In a critical late-game turn, Murphy stepped onto the perch where Raelin had been, adjacent to both Ben’s Raelin and Eltahale. I rolled the whip, hit it, went to shotgun both Eltahale and Raelin… and rolled 1 skull. If I roll 3/3 there I think the game might swing my way, but it was not to be. Instead Eltahale finished Murphy off, and Brave Arrow followed soon after.

Thus ended my main event run. I was actually very at peace with the way this one ended; everything pretty much made sense. I won every game I should have won and lost every game I should have lost all tournament long. You can’t really control your fate completely in this format, and I did as well as I could have reasonably expected. If I had played a weaker army that would have given me an edge in semifinals on day 2, I probably don’t make it past caps on day 1.

Ben finally got (legitimate) revenge for his loss to me in the finals in 2010, although unfortunately for him it just led to a second finals defeat.
 
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2014 TAKE 2

This format is kind of my thing, and I’m also the defending champ - in fact, I had won the Friday night event two years running, with my TQ title back in 2012. I knew I wasn’t playing gauntlet or General Wars or Team Tournament, so by this point I knew that I was either winning dice here or in the main event, or not at all.

Since I wasn’t repping him anywhere else at Gencon this year, and since he worked so well for me the year before, I decided to run TKN again. At this lower point total, that made for just a pure melee build, but the previous year I never activated the Marro Warriors anyway, so that didn’t worry me. TKN, Raelin, grubs x3, and Otonashi went just fine.

I went back and forth between a lot of builds for the other end of the army. I was considering another melee build, but after my 4x400 game where Infectedsloth’s Mohicans took apart my Heavy Gruts, I decided I wanted more mobility and a little range. In the end I decided to use Braxas like last year, only this time I’d pair her with Greenscales. With 10 points left after Braxas and three squads of Greenscales, I added Isamu. I figured I wanted the build to be strong enough that it would give me some rock-paper-scissors relationships with other stuff, and TKN isn’t afraid of Isamu (one block, squish, done). I mean, what’s the harm in little ol’ Isamu?

Round 1
Opponent: Rosencrantz (Zelrig + PK x3; Zombies x5 + … Syvarris?)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise

My first (and only) game of the weekend against one of my three roommates. Rosencrantz is a Colorado local, too, so this was far from our first game. He had a pretty rough Gencon but he definitely knows how to play.

I don’t remember the exact breakdown of the zombie army, but it was irrelevant since Troy won the diceoff and took the PKs. Zombies can’t beat other undead, so it was between my armies. I am a little leery about TKN vs. Zelrig because Zelrig can bomb adjacnent nagrubs, and this map gives him lots of room to bounce around and ping me while I advance. It was a tough call, but I decided to run Braxas.

Predictably, Zelrig led out, but I spread my Greenscales out quickly and denied multiple kills with Majestic Fires. Zelrig only targeted two figures once all game, and that was a whiff.

By the second round it turned to Zelrig on one of the 3-spacers on the Unique attack side attacking down on Braxas with a 5v3, and me attacking back each turn with a glyph-enhanced 6v5, a level ground 3v4, and some 3v5s in the later turns as I got more greenscales in place. (I tempted him to bomb Braxas and a Greenscale, but Troy wisely recognized that his only path to victory was killing Braxas, and stuck with normal attacks.) Troy’s attack dice were pretty weak and I managed to take down big red with only a few wounds. From there it was just a matter of gassing the PKs while the greenscales limited Braxas’s engagements and killed PKs that the breath missed.

The final result was a bit of a rout, but could have easily swung the other way had the dragon showdown gone differently.

Round 2
Opponent: Megasilver (Venoc Vipers x5, Mittens, James Murphy; Tagawa Samurai Archers x3, Eltahale, Johnny)
Map: Fossil

Our first live game since 2012, but we’ve played several times online. Tommy has beaten me in supers, but I’ve beaten him in every classic game.

I lost the dice-off, and Tommy was basically deciding between my two builds. The lure of Braxas/GSW/Isamu was too strong to pass up for him. Of course, I responded with TKN.

Early on, I moved onto the nearer high ground with Raelin and TKN and ferried up grubs as quckly as I could. Mega started with Braxas set back on the level 2 sand, pinging on grubs as best he could with PAB while the greenscales attacked up on TKN. I was content to move my grubs out of range and pound the nearby greenscales, so Tommy moved Braxas up next to the healer glyph to put more of my army in her reach. My stomping rolls were atrocious early, but I did manage to get to Braxas and make her burn the glyph. Then I jumped over he and kept pounding with TKN’s big attack. I grabbed lodin, which never made a difference in reality (no “7” was rolled) but seemed to break me out of my stomp funk.

Braxas flew onto my high ground to try to do more damage with gas, but TKN followed her and kept hitting. As seems to happen often for me for some reason, Braxas did a good job blocking TKN but took a beating from the grubs, and went down. I managed to heal TKN most of the way back, although a couple late 2v7 whiffs on my end actually brought TKN near death. Still, I got it down to Isamu, who managed just one measly attack before TKN put him under his heel.

Mega says that Isamu didn’t enter into his thinking here… which does not make me feel better about things.

Round 3
Opponent: Necroblade (Death Chasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, MBS; Deathreavers x3, Q9, Krav)
Map: Song of the Walrus

Necro is the top player in Louisville and is generally regarded* as the top active Gencon player with no Gencon prize dice. He was also 2-0 lifetime against me, including crushing me in the main event in 2012 to give me my only day 1 flameout.

Necro won the dice-off and deferred to me. The choice is not obvious. That deathchaser army is simply phenomenal; it’s one of the very best 400 builds possible in the format. It puts out a crazy amount of attack dice. And this map is melee friendly, denying ranged armies a chance to attack down on an advancing foe. I’m sure Jacob had beaten the rats/Q9/krav army with the ‘chasers in early rounds. But… still, he’s gonna have to prove he can do it to me. Q9/reavers/krav? Yeah, I’ll take that.

Predictably, Jacob responded with his Deathchasers. After the game we debated whether TKN would have been a resonable option. I think it would have been (trample denial is exceptionally hard on this map) and Jacob does know how to play that build, but I understand his reticence.

Anyway, the game pretty much played out as I had planned it. Necro took the wound glyph but I had range leering over the move glyph. I managed to set up a tight screen of rats just far enough up that a couple krav could shoot from level 3 while remaining protected. I took a couple shots at Raelin early but mostly tried to pick off anything that moved out of the aura.

Early on, MBS took a shot at a krav. I whiffed on 3 dice and was ready to remove him before Necro pointed out that I had height, and I promptly rolled a shield. In the “no good deed goes unpunished” category, the Krav killed MBS in one turn after he strayed out of Raelin’s aura to grab the move glyph.

At that point Jacob got Raelin and Nerak in close, and started pounding on my screen in earnest. The rats were dropping quickly, as expected, but Raelin and Nerak died before the last ones were gone. At that point I started slinging 2-2-2-3 or 2-2-2-2-1s on the Deathchasers with Q9 (depending on the number of available targets) and the ‘chasers just couldn’t hold up. While all the krav and nearly all the rats went down, Q9 only had to weather about 3 attacks (no wounds) before the game was mine.

* “generally regarded” = that’s what Rÿchean says

Round 4 (Retrospective Finals)
Opponent: Vegietarian18 (Death Chasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, MBS; Kinghts x3, Gilbert, Finn)
Map: Stygian Rift (Unique Attack and… +d20?)

Megasilver beat Hendal, the only other 3-0 player, in this round, so this ended up being the finals, effectively.

For the first time all tournament, I won the dice-off. There was that same ridiculous Deathchaser build again. So... much... dice. I picked it, and Vegie already looked crestfallen. He pointed out that he had beaten the DCs with the knights earlier in the event. But still, I’m sure he knew that I wouldn’t give him many openings to work with if he went that way in this match. I’d just ping him until he came to me, and then I’d just roll more dice until he died. So he went for high variance and took my Braxas build.

(Incidentally, this meant that I had played all four permutations of Take 2 in my four games. In Round 1 I played one of my armies against one of my opponent’s armies. In round 2 I played one of my armies against the other. In round 3 I played one of my opponent’s armies against the other. And in round 4, we played my favorite: the reverse, where each player had an army of his opponent.)

After the rush, I moved Raelin up to the edge of the level 2 ground on the right side of the map, just far enough up to cover the unique attack glyph. I moved Nerak up near her and then started with MBS. Braxas came up quickly, trying to gas Raelin, but i think Tanner realized how precarious that spot was, so she disengaged (0/2 on that roll) to take the central height. Given that there were only a couple Greenscales up with her and she ignores defense anyway, I was comfortable leaving Raelin’s aura to take her down. My rolls weren’t great by any stretch, but you can only take so many turns of repeated attacks of 4 before you go down. When Braxas dropped, I still had ~5 Deathchasers and all my heroes, against 6 or 7 Greenscales, and some ninja who clearly couldn’t possibly make a difference.

At that point, things started to get a little weird. Vegie had few options but to run the greenscales into the meatgrinder and hope for the best. I don’t know how many times he rolled 2 of 3 shields in the next few rounds, but it was a lot. Despite rarely having three attacks in a turn, while I could frequently get all four, and despite rolling 4v3s while vegie was rolling 2v4s and 2v5s, I was only very slightly outpacing him in kill rate. I did eventually grind through all the GSWs, but not before they had killed Nerak and a few more Deathchasers.

At that point, it was Isamu against Raelin, MBS, and a couple ‘chasers. vegie said it was 5 vanishes. I thought it was six, but that could be the PTSD talking. Anyway… it happened, and there went my 4-year dice streak and my 12-game Friday night streak. I drowned my sorrows by winning a game of King of Tokyo with caps, Xorlof, and the Ash clan (I used the “don’t even try to get victory points, just kill everyone” strategy) and got ready for day 2. I’m not sure whether I should be happy or not about the end of the third place game, as it would have been another clash with vegie. It would have been a good match though.
 
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Round 3
Opponent: Necroblade (Death Chasers x4, Raelin, Nerak, MBS; Deathreavers x3, Q9, Krav)
Map: Song of the Walrus

Necro is the top player in Louisville and is generally regarded* as the top active Gencon player with no Gencon prize dice. He was also 2-0 lifetime against me, including crushing me in the main event in 2012 to give me my only day 1 flameout.

Necro won the dice-off and deferred to me. The choice is not obvious. That deathchaser army is simply phenomenal; it’s one of the very best 400 builds possible in the format. It puts out a crazy amount of attack dice. And this map is melee friendly, denying ranged armies a chance to attack down on an advancing foe. I’m sure Jacob had beaten the rats/Q9/krav army with the ‘chasers in early rounds. But… still, he’s gonna have to prove he can do it to me. Q9/reavers/krav? Yeah, I’ll take that.

Predictably, Jacob responded with his Deathchasers. After the game we debated whether TKN would have been a resonable option. I think it would have been (trample denial is exceptionally hard on this map) and Jacob does know how to play that build, but I understand his reticence.

Anyway, the game pretty much played out as I had planned it. Necro took the wound glyph but I had range leering over the move glyph. I managed to set up a tight screen of rats just far enough up that a couple krav could shoot from level 3 while remaining protected. I took a couple shots at Raelin early but mostly tried to pick off anything that moved out of the aura.

Early on, MBS took a shot at a krav. I whiffed on 3 dice and was ready to remove him before Necro pointed out that I had height, and I promptly rolled a shield. In the “no good deed goes unpunished” category, the Krav killed MBS in one turn after he strayed out of Raelin’s aura to grab the move glyph.

At that point Jacob got Raelin and Nerak in close, and started pounding on my screen in earnest. The rats were dropping quickly, as expected, but Raelin and Nerak died before the last ones were gone. At that point I started slinging 2-2-2-3 or 2-2-2-2-1s on the Deathchasers with Q9 (depending on the number of available targets) and the ‘chasers just couldn’t hold up. While all the krav and nearly all the rats went down, Q9 only had to weather about 3 attacks (no wounds) before the game was mine.

* “generally regarded” = that’s what Rÿchean says

Great write-up on our game. Too bad I couldn't continue to remain undefeated against you. :) As you said, you probably still would've been fine just switching to Q9 had that Krav died so early. Either way it was an excellent game, and I think the key point was actually that one damn Rat sitting in the middle of the board for so many rounds. I do know how to play TKN, but I don't have a lot of experience (which you do), which I think would've hurt me sorely had I gone that route.

Also, good to know I'm so highly regarded. :oops:
 
Just had a fun game online and I feel like sharing.

It was a 4-way free-for-all on Dignan's "Six Points". Win condition was most points for damage done, including fractional points for wounds on heroes. Self-damaging powers (hivelord life bonding, blocked pounces, etc) don't count negative, but attacking (or wounding via special power) one of your figures with another of your figures does count negative.

We drafted 390 point, 14-space armies snake-style, with the restriction that each player could have only one card that is A- or better, and a freeze-out rule (i.e. nobody gets the same card).

Draft went:
Code:
[U]dok[/U]		[U]kevindola[/U]	[U]Dysole[/U]		[U]awesomeunleashed[/U]
Raelin
		Eilan Sidhe
				Black Wyrmling
						Morgoloth
						Wolves of Badru
				Black Wyrmling
		Eilan Sidhe
Tor-Kul-Na
nagrubs
		Eilan Sidhe
				Black Wyrmling
						Isamu
						Wolves of Badru
				Black Wyrmling
		Eilan Sidhe
nagrubs
nagrubs
		Eilan Sidhe
				Black Wyrmling
						Wolves of Badru
				Black Wyrmling
		Eilan Sidhe
		Cyprien
				Major J15
				Hoplitron
				Hoplitron
				Hoplitron
				Otonashi

I was in the SW corner of the map; kd was in the NW, Dysole in the NE, and AU in the SE. The west glyph was Wannok and the east glyph was Dagmar.

Things started out with kevindola divebombing Dysole's startzone and killing multiple Black Wyrms to take an early lead. I set up around Wannok with my army while Dysole defended the Vampire with his Hoplitrons and Morgoloth and wolves moved to the center. Cyprien made a move to flee behind a ruin at the end of the round, but Morgoloth moved over to engage him. (This pretty much ruined kevindola's strategy for the game, as he had to keep feeding the exposed Cyprien order markers, which led to the Sidhe never really getting going.)

In the second round, the big heroes mostly avoided each other - TKN stomped all the sidhe, Cyprien fled Morgoloth and tried to pick off wolves, Morgoloth went for some Hoplitrons after Cyprien left, and J15 sniped wolves.

By the third round, the startzones were empty (save for a couple 10 point ninjas) and action shifted towards the center of the map. With Cyprien down to 2 life, kevindola had to make a play, and went for a chill and kill on Morgoloth. He came up short, though, and Morgoloth finished him. KD started very strong, but the early attention Cyprien drew, and then some poor dice to prevent much healing, sunk his army.

At the end of the round it was a 3-life Morgoloth, 2 wolves, and Isamu for AU, a 1-wound J15 and a Hop for Dysole, and a 1-wound TKN, unwounded Raelin, and 8 nagrubs for me. This sounds like a rout for me, but the damage score was 310 (AU) to 244 (Dysole) to 215.4 (me). So I had some catching up to do.

In the final round the 3 big heroes were all in a mosh pit in the middle. Morgoloth took height on J15, but couldn't crack the tin can, only doing 2 wounds, and J15 and a Hoplitron managed to take down the demon darklord. Still trailing AU in points, Dysole got his big break when J15 once again survived (taking only 1 wound from TKN), then put 2 wounds on TKN in Raelin's aura. This put Dysole in a strong lead in damage points. J15 went down on the next turn, and my army managed to clean up the rest of the map (2 wolves, a Hoplitron, and Isamu), with an unwounded Raelin, unwounded TKN, and 3 grubs remaining. But this was only enough to claim second place.

Final:

  1. Dysole 386.67
  2. dok 361.25
  3. awesomeunleashed 353.75
  4. kevindola 226.67

stats:
Spoiler Alert!
 
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GENCON 2015

TREASURE QUEST

Every year I say I am going to play fewer events and spend more time demoing and learning new games. The last couple years I’d played four Heroscape events, and this year I was only signed up for three: take 2, draft, and championship (i.e all three events that you couldn’t win just by bringing the best cheese). However, when I stepped into the dealer hall Thursday morning, I was immediately reminded why I try to stay away at that time. It’s a complete madhouse with a huge initial rush of people trying to get the Next Big Thing and/or the shiny new promo. So I wandered back to the Heroscape area. When I heard that there was almost nobody registered for Treasure Quest, I figured that a couple games could be fun, so I grabbed some generics, borrowed some figures, and signed up.

IMO Nilfheim and Greenscales x2 is the clear best army core for treasure quest, so I grabbed that. That left me 95 points, so I plugged in Heirloom, who isn’t bad in TQ either (although it would be better if he could grab glyphs that figures are standing on), and I was set.

Round 1
Opponent: Fomox (Nilfheim, Cyprien, Sonya, Isamu, Otonashi)
Map: Fossil (U. Attack, d20 +1)

So… there were only four of us in this event. But it was quite a foursome, with Hendal and Rÿchean comprising the other two. Fomox had a very strong build, as Nilf and Cyprien are both excellent in TQ.

I naturally bonded with greenscales, while Fomox bounced back and forth between Cyprien and Nilfheim. Two glyphs on this map were in spots where Nilf could not pick them up, but I blocked the one in range of Cyprien. My Nilf grabbed the defense treasure, while Fomox’s nilf got the attack rune. However, it quickly shifted to a kill ‘em all game, with my Nilf and greenscales trying to kill Fomox’s two big heroes. Cyprien only managed two wounds from chilling touch, and thanks to the unique attack permanent glyph and the ability to sling more dice per OM, I managed to take both of the two heroes out with one Nilfheim life remaining. My nemesis Isamu failed his first vanish, and I was through.

Round 2
Opponent: Rÿchean (Warforged Soldiers x3, Heirloom, Arkmer, Marcu)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (Healer and d20 +1)

We had initially planned to play a round robin plus a finals game as needed, however, Fomox and Hendal decided to beg off and just let the 2-0 player take it. So it was down to me and the defending world champion for the title.

Unfortunately, there’s not much to report here. Not only did I have a much better army on paper for the format, but this was just about the hottest dice I had in any game at the convention. I pretty much rolled through the warforged, picking up the last glyph to win it after I had reduced Rÿchean to just a couple warforged and Marcu.

So… that was the whole event. A bit of a cheap event win, but hey, I just play who they put in front of me. I skipped the afternoon events, so this meant I ended up with a nice solid block of time in the dealer hall after lunch. (I got to demo Ashes, which I definitely recommend.)

2-0, first place.
 
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DRAFT

The nice thing about a draft event is that it’s very hard to pick a bad pool. I guess if you make a draft pool with one obvious first pick that beats everything else, that’s bad. But aside from that, just about anything goes as long as you understand it and know what plays well against what.

So, I didn’t really put much thought into this one, and basically put my draft pool together the night before I left for Gencon. The one thing I knew was that I wanted some good counters for Silver Surfer, since Marvel was legal in the event. So, I went with:

Black Wyrmling x6
Krug
Marro Warriors
Krav Maga Agents
Phantom Knights x2
Warriors of Ashra x3
Deathreavers x1
Marcu

I felt like this draft offered a good selection of picks and counter-picks, along with a few traps to fall into. I arguably failed my own standard of avoiding a dominant first pick, but it wasn’t super obvious or impossible to beat.

So… this was, hands down, the craziest event win I have ever had. I have a tendency to be slightly pessimistic about my chances during games (this probably helps me stay focussed), but that said, I was pretty sure I was hopelessly lost in every game I played in this event. Somehow, I managed a comeback win in all of them. It was surreal.

Round 1
Opponent: Mr. Chompie (Frost Giant, Wyvern, Greater Ice Elemental, Feral Troll, Torin, Evar Scarcarver, RotV Drake)
Map: Blackroot (Talisman of Defense, Healing Potion)

As happened in 3 of 4 games, I lost the diceoff but was handed first pick. As happened in all three of those games, I opened with Marro Warriors. The draft went as follows:

Code:
[U]dok[/U]		[U]Mr. Chompie[/U]
MW
		Krav
		Frost Giant
Krug
PK x1
		PK x1
		Black Wyrm
Black Wyrm x2
		Black Wyrm x2
Wyvern

Mr Chompie wisely counterdrafted the second squad of PKs. For my last 100, I did debate a few options, but I figured that the only hero I could lead off with with the reasonable expectation of getting at Krav and Black Wyrms before they were shooting into my startzone was the Wyvern.

Mr. Chompie opened with Black Wyrms, while I opened with the Wyvern. On my first turn, I tried to place the Wyvern where it was exactly 6 spaces away from engaging two wyrms, so that they couldn’t get any closer without risking a Wyvern attack, but would not be able to attack the Wyvern due to their slower movement. However, those blasted Wyvern wings got in the way, so I was forced to slide the Wyvern up one spot. This meant the wyrms could get to him, but I figured with height on one of them, I could probably do fine with this. Well… those two wyrms did 3 wounds on the Wyvern that turn. The wyvern did kill those wyrms, but the Krav were already rolling out into position.

I gambled that I could get initiative on the switch, tying down two krav and possibly killing one of them with a 4v3. But, of course, I lost init, and down went the Wyvern. The Krav killed all my black wyrms, two Marro Warriors and one PK before being reduced to one figure by my PKs.

At that point, Mr Chompie’s PKs swept across to finish the job. However, they only managed to kill one PK and anger Krug before Krug smashed them with attacks of five. I cloned my Marro Warriors back while Frosty moved up. Frosty did manage to drop a 3 wound hit on Krug, but no battle frenzy, and Krug finished him off the next turn.

Round 2
Opponent: Deroche (Spider-Man, Black Wyrm x8, Marro Warriors, Zetacron, Romans x2, MDG)
Map: Sidewinder (Lodin + Kelda)

Deroche ended up being my only two-time opponent on the weekend. Our games are enjoyable and intense, and this was no exception.

I won the diceoff and, despite the 14 black wyrmlings in play, went for Spider-Man. We drafted out all the wyrms, with Gordon taking eight to my six. I finished out with the Marro Warriors, while Gordon took Krav and Marro Warriors.

I opened the game by having Spidey swing line up behind the ruin, four spaces away from the healer glyph. Gordon grabbed the d20 +1 on the other side of the map and started spooling his black wyrms out. I moved up my Marro Warriors to get them in play, but Gordon rushed around an intiative switch, and killed all four Marro in two turns to cost me an OM, along with taking out a couple of my lead Black Wyrms.

At this point it looked extremely bleak. I desperately tried to snuff out the wyrms that had gotten into Spidey’s view, while Deroche potshotted a few wyrms with the Marro Warriors and then settled in to take out Spidey with wyrms. However, his hot dice got cold, and Spidey held out a bit longer than expected. I managed to time things just right, popping an OM on Spidey just in time to heal from 1 life to full.

At that point Deroche’s Black wyrms were mostly spent, so it came down to spidey and my last few wyrms against the RotV ranged squads. My wyrms took out the last Marro Warriors, but went cold against the Krav. Spidey was up to the challenge, though, and finished things out.

Round 3
Opponent: Major Q23 (Eltahale, Mohicans x2, Brave Arrow, Theracus, Skahen, Heirloom, Zombies x3, Deathreavers x1)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (stock glyphs in reversed position)

Draft went:

Code:
[U]dok[/U]			[U]Q23[/U]
Marro Warriors
			Krav
			WoA
PK x2
			WoA x2
Eltahale
Black Wyrm
			Krug
			Marcu
Black Wyrm

I led with the PKs, while Q23 had a more balanced opening. Despite getting many attacks, I only managed to kill two Krav before the PKs were done. However, I held the wound plateau, and the Marro Warriors managed to take out most of the Ashra on their approach. However, Krug came out to play, pushing forward with that last unkillable Krav behind, and I had to try to take him down before he got across the map. Angry Krug got to the startzone and eliminated the wyrms, but had an OM on the Krav at a key moment, allowing the Marro Warriors to finish the job before Eltahale could be taken out. Eltahale chased down the last Krav and the final Ashrans for the win.

Round 4 (Finals)
Opponent: Micah (not on Heroscapers) (Knights x3, Gilbert, Tarn Vikings, Axegrinders x3, Krav, Laglor, Marcu)
Map: Dance of the Dryads (Move, initiative)

Micah is a member of the Louisville crew, but is not on Heroscapers. The draft went:

Code:
[U]dok[/U]			[U]Micah[/U]
Marro Warriors
			Krav
			Laglor
PK x2
			Axegrinders x2
Krav
Black Wyrm
			Tarn Vikings
Black Wyrm

At this point it was quite late (after midnight) and we were the only ones playing. Just after my PK picks, the lights in the convention hall went out. We thought they might not come back on, but drafted the rest of the draft under the lights of a half-dozen flashlight apps from other scaper’s phones. It was pretty surreal. It was, apparently, too surreal for either of us to handle at that late hour, as we both screwed up our next picks pretty badly (I miscounted my available figure spots and he miscounted his points) so we ended up calling a mulligan, rewinding, and redrafting from there.

I gambled that he would lead with his melee, anticipating my PKs, so I led with Krav. I guessed right, and was able to thin out the Axegrinders. However, my Krav got caught on the switch. I moved over to PKs, but as seemed to be the pattern this event, they underperformed pretty badly, failing to finish off the Krav. Laglor was really hot, putting out lots of 2 skull, one symbol rolls with autoload. I tried to bring the Black Wyrms in to finish things, but they did exactly nothing before getting killed.

It looked pretty bleak as I turned to the Marro Warriors, looking to take out a 4-life Laglor, a Krav, and the Tarns. However, as had been the pattern all event long, my dice turned just when I needed them to, as I snuffed out Laglor with some Marro Warrior shots from height. The Tarns held up for a while, and could have chased the Marro Warriors down with a well-timed berzerker charge, but I managed to finish them for the win.

4-0, first place. This also runs my night-time Gencon record to 16-1. I think it's just that I manage to fight through the fatigue better than most.
 
TAKE 2

Take 2 is my baby, and I have a 8-1 record in the event since it joined the schedule in 2013, so of course I had to give it another shot this year. This was the only event I planned to play in where 24 figures were allowed, instead of a 16 figure cap. Because of that, I was pretty much settled on playing 5 squads of cutters in this event. Cutters are one of my favorite things to play, but they are really hamstrung by the 16 figure restriction. I just had to figure out the other 150 points in that build, and the right build to pair it with.

I considered a bunch of different builds, but in the end I decided that beating a fully cheesed out 4th Mass build with a bunch of goblin cutters sounded like the most fun option. So I made the counter build 5 squads of 4th Mass with filler (Eldgrim and Kyntela). I tossed a Hydra, Marcu, and Ontonashi* to fill out the last 150 for the cutter build. (I used Generalrolando’s sweet red repainted Hydra, which he was nice enough to loan me for Gencon again this year. It once again got a lot of compliments.)

* no, not Isamu. Why would you even ask?

Round 1
Opponent: Ethan (HSB x2, Cutters x1, Raelin, Krug, ???)
Map: Dance of the Dryads

Ethan was a young player playing in his first tournament. Unfortunately he had chosen Take 2; aside from the kids tournament, the heroes only event that was happening at the same time would probably have been the easiest event at the entire convention for a first-time player. Fortunately, everyone was very welcoming to him and he seemed to have a good time in the event.

I chose my cutters first, then he chose the build above. I don’t remember his other build. I won using only the cutters. After the game, I chatted with him, giving him some pointers on army selection and strategy, as well as directing him to heroscapers.

Round 2
Opponent:
Vegie’s Dad (Phantom Knights x4, Kaemon Awa / Stingers x4, TBR)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (Kelda in the Wannok spot)

VD and I have faced each other many times in online play to go with our semi-regular meetings at Gencon. He had chosen a somewhat similar army set to mine: a conventionally strong ranged army, and a counter-range army. I chose the cutters first. After some consideration, VD chose the Phantom Knight build.

I moved the Hydra up with my first move, towards the Kelda glyph, but after that shifted to the cutters. This was, in my opinion, one of the two or three biggest mistakes I made in all my games at Gencon. I should have realized that VD was going to lead out with Kaemon Awa, and the Hydra is, by far, the better option against Awa.

Anyway, this mistake cost me several cutters, but in round 2 I turned to the Hydra and tried to chase the Samurai down. I took two wounds from Kaemon while trying to close the gap, but a miscount on spaces put VD’s Kaemon in my range, and the last two heads were sufficent to take him out.

At that point I retreated the Hydra back across the map towards Kelda, and massed my cutters around him to protect him. The PKs tried to put pressure on the Hydra, but in typical cutter fashion, I was getting about 1 kill a turn to my opponent’s 1 kill a turn, allowing me to turn a small profit. I did have some pretty poor dice in spots, and between that and the early losses to Kaemon I ended up losing my lead in squaddies. However, when time was called, I had 4 cutters, both filler heroes, and a 1 life Hydra next to Kelda, against 4 PKs. It was my first Gencon game going to time since 2013, and it wasn’t completely wrapped up, but I did definitely have the lead.

Round 3
Opponent:
OrcElfArmyOne (Heavy Gruts x3, Grimnak, Nerak, Marcu / Knights x3, Gilbert, Raelin)
Map: Sidewinder

OEA1 is a melee specialist who had his favored Orcs along with a strong knight build. He won the dice-off, and chose the Orcs. I chose the 4th Mass for the only time in the event. OEA1 immediately wished he had deferred the pick, as Orcs actually do quite well against cutters.

Anyway, at first things were going to plan, as my early wave of 4th Mass took out Nerak using four elevanted shots before they could get tied down. I was on height, shooting at Grimnak and the squad and change he had with him. However, the dice went kind of crazy at this point, and for about a round and a half I just couldn’t kill a thing. Grimnak and his lead squad took out all my fourth mass that were into the map, swept around, and started tearing through my startzone. I was reduced to WTFing on level ground and hoping that the gambler’s fallacy would come true and the luck would even out.

Thankfully for me, it did, as Grimnak went down and the rest of the figures with him swiftly followed. At this point, OEA1 was kind of a victim of his own success, as the remaining orcs had fallen behind the lead squad that had pushed forward. I was able to snipe most of these stragglers before they even reached me. I had a five left when OEA1 was left with just Marcu.

At that point, we had yet another crazy swing in a game with no shortage of them, as Marcu went on a miracle run, surviving a couple rounds of Wait then Fire and taking out the entire squad before jumping across to take on my two filler heroes. Eldgrim failed to kill Marcu with an overextend, and it looked like Marcu was going to win the battle of the filler. However, he finally hit his Eternal Hatred for the first time since entering the fray, allowing Eldgrim to gain the crucial height advantage and finish Marcu off.

Round 4 (Finals)
Opponent:
Bengi (cutters x4 + Rhogar + Heirloom, Greenscales x2 + Moltenclaw + Agent Carr + Otonashi)
Map: Dance of the Dryads (d20?, Kelda)

Finals turned out to be a matchup of one bed in one hotel room. Bengi and I have been playing each other since the dawn of online play; he took our first few games but lately I’ve had his number. He is pretty much the president of the dok-heckling club, so the trash talk was pretty free-flowing in this one.

Unlike most of my opponents, not only does Bengi know the Take 2 format very well, but he’s also very familiar with how to play cutters. My cutter build was stronger than his, so when he won the dice-off I was pretty sure he would snag mine and I would be scrambling for the right reaction. However, whether it was because of the bright lights of Xorlof’s topdown recording kit, or my offer to accept his early surrender, Bengi decided to defer. I took almost a second to consider before taking my cutter build, and then began heckling him for deferring.

Bengi thought for a while before taking my 4th Mass build. In an interesting little tactical twist, the first two OMs of the game were on Marcu and Eldgrim - Bengi intended to overextend to burn Kelda and deny it to the Hydra, while Marcu was going to get in the way in order to block Eldgrim from reaching the glyph on his overextend turn. Bengi won the opening initiative and got the Kelda burn.

In the early play, Bengi methodically set up his 4th on the plateau overlooking Wannok, attempting to arrange the figure where no mob attacks would be possible. He would also attempt to engage 3 cutters, then shoot at an unengaged fourth one so that he could get two kills even after scurry. This was working to some extent, as he was managing slightly better than 1 for 1 kills. I was able to infiltrate from the other side of the map, though, getting around the minutemen on the other side of his startzone that had not made it up to the plateau yet, and bringing it back to a 1-for-1 exchange rate towards the end of the game.

Unfortunately, this ended up being my second game (of three) that went to time at Gencon. When time was called, it was Kyntela and eight or ten 4th Mass against about six cutters and the Hydra. Bengi had to make a silly desperation play to kill the Hydra because last round had been called, but it didn’t work out.

4-0, first place.

As always it was a fun game with Bengi. It was a bit of a bummer to get the finals called on time but I was happy to have time for lunch before the main event. Over lunch, Bengi actually talked me into changing the last 70 points of my main event army.
 
CHAMPIONSHIP

I waffled like heck over my main event armies this year. In the online event, I actually tried a variant on the Mohican x3/Brave Arrow/Raelin build that Mantrainchoochoo had played the year before, with Tandros as the hero instead of Murphy. That was too weak, so I toyed with Krug as the last hero. That was still too weak, so I tried plugging in the Hydra. That worked, but it felt too swingy.

I also strongly considered a Axegrinder/Raelin/Darrak/Wyrmling build, which Dysole also considered strongly. I did toy with a variant on my Glad x1/Blast x2/Raelin buld from the year before, with Shurrak and Marcu replacing Eltahale, but I ruled it out pretty fast.

For most of the prep time, my strong inclination was to return to the only army I had ever failed to qualify for day 2 with: Arrow Gruts. I was leaning towards just slapping Otonashi on that 2012 build, for AG x3, Swog x3, Raelin, Nerak, Krug, Otonashi*. No army forces you to plan ahead and understand positioning more than the Arrow Grut army, and a relatively small fraction of the current players have any experience playing with it. So I thought it was a pretty strong day 2 option if I could make it. It was one of two armies I packed to play, and as late as the morning of the championship, I thought that was what I would use.

However, I kept feeling the pull to probably my favorite army, Tor-Kul-Na and the nagrubs. While maybe not quite as tricky as the Arrow Gruts, TKN/grubs does force you to think about positioning in unusual and subtle ways. I still find that many players seem to struggle to find the right strategy when playing either with or against TKN.

However, unlike the Arrow Gruts, I couldn’t quite hammer this build down. Three squads of nagrubs and Raelin brings that build to 390 points, leaving 70 points for whatever filler I’d like in a main event build. Marro Warriors would be the obvious choice, but I will pretty much never play Marro Warriors given the current championship format (i.e. timed games when I have the Marro Warriors, untimed games when I play against them). I toyed with numerous other options. My first thought was Zetacron and Otonashi*, but Zetacron is another of those figures who can either be amazing or terrible based on one stray dice roll. I also considered Shotgun Sullivan, and as gencon approached I was actually leaning towards a single squad of 4th Mass. kevindola even tried to talk me into Zettian Guards (and almost did).

However, at the last minute, Bengi managed to convince me that Me-Burq-Sa and Marcu would be a good option. I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of that before, but I liked the sound of it. I borrowed MBS from Deroche, and rolled with Tor-Kul-Na, nagrubs x3, Raelin, Me-Burq-Sa, and Marcu.

* no, not Isamu. Don’t be ridiculous.

Game 1
Opponent
: Fomox (Microcorp Agents, x2, Q10, Zetacron, Theracus, Isamu)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (Lodin in Wannok spot, Wannok in Ulaniva spot)

I knew the battle would center around the plateau overlooking Wannok. I spooled out TKN and the grubs in that direction, putting Raelin on the back edge of the plateau where he would be difficult to snipe at. fomox opened by flying an agent up to a high ground perch, then shooting down with that one while others moved up. fomox ended up bringing a number of the agents up onto the plateau. TKN’s stomp rolls were abysmal (I only hit one, and it was blocked by stealth armor), and Theracus pretty much refused to die, but MBS and the grubs did eventually manage to squelch the agent threat. TKN took some wounds along the way, but healed most of them back. Wannok was devastating to fomox’s low-life army, costing him Isamu, some Microcorp, and a wound on Q10.

I managed to snipe Zetacron using MBS, but Q10 just kept backing up and trying to pull me off of height/Raelin. Inevitably I gave in and threw Raelin forward so that TKN could close the gap while protected. Q10 ended up on height on the other side of the map when TKN caught up, but his attack of 6 was enough to bring down the big soulborg.

Game 2
Opponent:
Dad_Scaper (Deathchasers x4, Ogre Warhulk, Brandis Skyhunter)
Map: Fossil (Healer + d20)

Oh, how I had waited for this moment. D_S and I are in regular contact thanks to our collaboration on the C3V customs project, but we never had a game last year. This event was my only chance to cross paths with him, but fortune smiled on me and paired us up.

I set up on the hill nearer to the healer glyph, and did some sniping with MBS while he sniped with Brandis. Brandis put a few wounds on Raelin, but MBS took him down before he could finish the job. At that point I was able to pretty much play in the aura and define the location of the battle. TKN actually rolled pretty terrible defense and took a bunch of wounds, but I burned Kelda around an initiative switch, then got a ridiculous 6-wound hit with TKN to finish the Warhulk. With the big guy down it was basically cleanup. After missing every stomp attempt for the first two games, I successfully stomped the final ‘chaser to take the game.

Game 3
Opponent:
Hendal (Marrden Hounds x4, Iron Golem)
Map: Ticalla Sunrise (Lodin in Wannok spot, Wannok in Ulaniva spot)

This is a pretty terrible matchup for my army; not only are his figures stomp-proof, but plague ignores my high defense. Also, he had lodin on the far side of the map making his hounds much stronger. However, I did have the advantage of a wannok glyph available to help kill his expensive wounds, and Tor-Kul-Na’s steady attack of 6 can allow me to win a war of attrition if I can set things up correctly. That’s a big ask on this relatively open map, though.

Just as in the first round game against Fomox on the same map, I spooled out the grubs and TKN, then placed Raelin on the edge of the plateau. I chose a space one spot further over since, in this matchup, covering the wannok spot was a priority. Unlike the previous game where MBS was an important piece, In this game MBS sat in the startzone all game long.

The majority of the game was one long desperate defense of the attack on Raelin. The Hounds would sweep in, TKN would try to get in their way and whack them, I would use grubs to tie hounds down so they couldn’t engage Raelin. Hendal started fairly hot, but then his plagues went quite cold, and when he did get hounds to Raelin, as he did on occasion, Raelin held up quite well. Overall, I’d say this was my second-luckiest game of my 18 games at Gencon, only trailing the treasure quest game against Rÿchean.

Because I was using my grubs as a screen (and to heal of course), they ran down and finally ran out. However, not too long after the last grub was eaten by TKN, TKN stepped on the wound glyph to kill the last hound. It came down to a mostly-healthy TKN. a 2-life Raelin, and a full life MBS and Marcu in the startzone, against a charging Iron Golem. However, Iggy put a hurting on TKN, dropping him to 1 life. I tossed an OM on Marcu at the end of the round in case TKN had died, but Marcu decided to hate me and kill Raelin instead. I thought I was going to have to turn to MBS running and gunning to finish Iggy, but one TKN block later, he took out Iggy on OM 1.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was actually the pair-down, and I had given Hendal his second loss. However his strength of schedule ended up being quite good and he managed to qualify for day 2.

Game 4
Opponent:
Wookie (Stingers x5, Raelin, Concan, sit 1)
Map: Sirocco (Move and Unique Attack)

Welp, if hounds wasn’t bad enough, this sure seemed worse. I really had no idea how I could pull this one off. Early on, Wookie moved Raelin up towards the move glyph hill. I did as well, but put Raelin in a spot where she couldn’t be targeted unless the opposing stingers pushed out of Raelin’s aura and next to TKN and the grubs. MBS got a couple shots down at Raelin, and wookie decided to protect the girl by having her fly off to the other hill. However, the stingers kept coming at TKN, often rolling for drain (wookie hit it way more than half the time, but did have two backfires as well). Wookie denied me stomp opportunities, but this came by way of engaging TKN from low ground. I was able to basically wear the army down by killing one stinger a turn with TKN and healing up from the attacks of 4v8 or 3v8. Eventually, I did run out of grubs, but TKN still managed to finish off the stingers, Raelin, and Concan.

This was actually my second straight pair-down, so my strength of schedule was complete junk. Fortunately I was already in day 2.

Game 5
Opponent:
Deroche (Glad x2, Blast x2, Raelin, Heirloom, Isamu, sit 3)
Map: Dance of the Dryads (Heal and unique attack)

My second game against Deroche on the weekend. We were both 4-0, so this was the bragging rights round, more or less.

Early on I brought Raelin up to a spot overlooking the wound glyph on my left hand plateau, carefully shielded behind the trees. I then pulled the rest of my army up next to her. It was a highly defensive, conservative affair for a while, as Deroche’s Raelin was on the plateau in the opposite corner, and Gordon was not committing Glads to the center.

I ran MBS up to do some sniping, and did take out some Glads. Deroche responded by bringing some glads up to finish him, and then I took care of them. At that point I had the lead in our staring contest, and Deroche pulled Raelin up to the middle to try to get a push against me.

At that point I made probably my biggest mistake of the convention, miscounting spaces to end up with TKN one spot outside of Raelin’s aura when attacking Gordon’s Raelin. Gordon dropped 3 Glads on him the next turn and tried for the kill, but luck was on my side as I escaped with only 4 wounds. I healed one wound, then disengaged from the glads and Raelin (took just 1 wound), and retreated. I took another wound from blasts that were boosted by a disengaging glad the next turn, but I managed to survive with 1 life left, and then healed, disengaged, and burned Kelda.

After that, I was able to return back to Raelin in a safer spot and kill her. At that point the Gladblast momentum was broken. I finished off all but one Gladiatron and was set to push Raelin forward for the final Blastatron kills when time was called.

5-0, second seed going into day 2. (Cleon and his cheesetastic build was the other 5-0.)

At this point I was 15-0 for the convention. I think “out of body experience” is the best description for how I felt about that. Obviously I consider myself a very strong player, but there’s really no way I should have managed to pull out every game. (Spoiler alert: my luck did eventually run out.)

Funny note on day 1: I hit two stomps, total (the one to end the D_S game and one against a glad in the last game) out of 8 or 9 attempts, and I was about 0/10 on paralyzing stare. The d20 was not my friend.
 
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DAY 2 - REVERSE THE WHIP

At the end of day 1, Infectedsloth and Q23 were looking at the slate of armies and putting them in a rough order of their perceived strength against the metagame of the other 15. My army ended up slotting pretty much dead center. For my part, I felt pretty good about most of my matchups. There were only a few armies where I felt like I would need to induce a questionable play from my opponent to have a good chance. Of course, a couple of those were the weakest armies overall, so there was a distressing possibility I would be facing them at the end of the event, but so it goes.

Round of 16
Opponent:
Unseenshadowz (Charos, Greenscales x2, Skahen, Otonashi)
Map: Remains of Clionesia (Initiative and Wannok)

Unseenshadowz is part of the Ash clan, along with Infectedsloth and Major Q23 and ISB3. This felt like a tricky matchup, but I felt that if he sat back in Raelin’s aura, Skahen could give me an advantage. It turned out that Skahen was a spectator, though, as this one turned into a slugfest quickly.

Initially EJ moved Raelin up to the level 3 turret near his startzone. Charos grabbed the Heroic Rune while TKN got onto the road in front of Raelin. As I massed the greenscales up (avoiding the trampable spots) I put Charos in a spot where TKN could reach him and get first strike, but would have to leave Raelin's aura to do so. EJ couldn’t resist the shot, and sent TKN out to engage. Charos disengaged, flew over TKN’s head, and attacked down on TKN while two more greenscales engaged TKN from height on the other side. Unseenshadowz moved Raelin up the next round to protect TKN, but it was too late, and Charos’s 7 die attacks brought him down. With TKN down, there was little drama as Charos and the scales took down Raelin, then MBS.

Quarterfinals
Opponent:
Vegietarian18 (10th x2, Raelin, Taelord, Marro Warriors)
Map: Fossil (Unique Attack and d20 +1)

As we were setting up, Vegie cracked the plastic wrap on the dice Isamu won for him in the 2014 Take 2 finals against me. I normally don’t play with prize dice at Gencon because it’s so easy to lose dice at Gencon, but I couldn’t resist pulling out the 2015 Take 2 prize dice I had won the previous morning.

This was an extremely favorable matchup for my army; I thought it was one of the two or three most reliable wins for me among the 15 possible day 2 opponents. Really all I needed to do was kill the nagrubs before TKN stomped the Marro Warriors and the game was mine, and I would need to be pretty unlucky to fail at that.

As fate would have it, I was nearly that unlucky. After some initial sniping as I set up the 10th on the near hill overlooking unique attack and vegie put his Raelin on the other hill, vegie took a shot with MBS and then charged TKN and the grubs into the fray. I was frequently failing to kill the nagrubs with 10th on height, mostly in Taelord’s aura, killing only 5 over the course of repeated 4-attack turns. But Vegie was 4/4 on his first four attacks against 10th on height in Raelin’s aura, which was what he needed to get TKN onto the hill, and once he was there the 10th’s position collapsed, leaving only one Redcoat at the end of that round.

While this run of solid fortune had given vegie an angle, I still had the Marro Warriors. I snagged the unique attack glyph and mowed down the remaining nagrubs in the first two turns of the next round. Vegie lost an OM, and I was able to spread out and hit TKN from multiple angles. With no healing and no Raelin, it was only a matter of time before the boosted Marro Warrior attacks brought the big hivelord down. Once TKN was gone, I remained patient, cloning the Marro Warriors to make sure a bad run of dice couldn’t hurt me, and moving Taelord up so that I could snipe at Raelin from within his aura. My double boosted cloning MW finished things off without incident.

Semifinals
Opponent:
Weesel99 (Venoc Vipers x3, EOVs, Venoc Warlord, Kaemon Awa)
Map: Sirocco (Move and Unique Attack)

Somewhat incredibly, this was my first ever game against Lucas. It’s possible that he had the most Gencon games played of anyone I hadn’t faced yet (other contenders for that title: Jexik, jacob_jp, SWNinja). I said before the game that this was probably where my luck runs out. It turned out to be a closer matchup on paper than I had appreciated, though - Weesel99 ended up needing a few things to go his way to pull it out.

I opened the game with two full rounds of Venoc Vipers, while Lucas moved Raelin up near the move glyph and then got to work with the grubs. By the second turn I was putting dice on Raelin, including one even ground hit, however, I wasn’t hitting my frenzies, and Raelin was holding up to the onslaught quite well. The pattern continued into the second round; even as I lost control of the move glyph, I was still able to keep slinging dice at Raelin as well as at any nagrubs I found outside Raelin’s aura. I even managed to sneak a couple vipers around the backside into the startzone, and was taking shots at MBS along with some nagrubs. However, by the end of the round I was out of vipers, and I hadn’t managed to take down Raelin.

In the third round I moved Kaemon off towards the other hill to hunt some nagrubs that had gone after a couple vipers there the round before. He shot them up and took position on the hill. I also activated the EOVs and had them take a last couple shots at Raelin, but she continued to hold firm at 2 life, and I finished the game 0/7 for frenzy. Then, in a critical sequence, MBS moved out towards Kaemon, hit paralyzing stare, and went 2/3 shooting up at Kaemon. Kaemon killed MBS the next turn, but the damage was done.

I continued to bounce around with Kaemon and pick off nagrubs as I could, but with the move glyph on his side, there was no way I could run away from TKN forever. I did take out all but two nagrubs (one on the move glyph, and the other disconnected from TKN), but TKN came barging up my end of the map to take out the samurai. I only managed a couple wounds with an elevated shot and a quick release before TKN engaged and one-shot-killed Kaemon. Mittens managed to put two more wounds on TKN, but that was the end of it.

Weesel99 managed to defeat his army one more time with Matthias’s Sacred Band to take the title, and for the first time since 2009 CVN was on hand to play the champion’s game. We should have video of both of those games, along with my semifinal.

2-1, T-3rd place for the third year in a row.

Overall 2015 Gencon record: 17-1. So... that happened.
 
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2016 GENCON

REVERSE DRAFT


This was an open play event, which I ran. The Gencon organizers supported the event with prize dice, for which I am very grateful. We ended up with 11 participants, and a lone 3-0 champ after 3 rounds of play.

While “Take 2” and all its variants (Pick Your Poison, First Crack, Cut the Cake, etc) have been my baby for a while, I decided that I wanted to showcase my new pet format this year at Gencon. Reverse Draft is a new variant format that only requires each player to bring 1 army, but balances the armies by allowing players to bid against each other on how many figures they will sit from the army in order to play the army of their choice. The players go back and forth bidding on the army the first player selects until one player passes, and decides to play the other army. It’s a nice format for live play because the paring back of one army is a much quicker process than drafting up two armies. Plus you end up with reasonable coherent armies instead of hodgepodges. (Although it can be fun to play hodgepodges from time to time.)


I was 90% sure I wasn’t playing Tor-Kul-Na in the main event, so rather than practice my main event army I decided to give him a run here. My army (fitting the 600 point/18 figure limits exactly) was Tor-Kul-Na, nagrubs x3, Raelin, Black Wyrmling x4, Red Wyrmling x3.

I had a first round bye (just random chance, but it did make it easier for me to get the event going) so I started in round 2.

ROUND 2
Opponent: Infected Sloth (Raelin, Blade Gruts x2, Ornak, Brunak, Mindflayer, MBS, Nerak, Marcu, Isamu)
Map: Quasatch Playground

(I didn’t do a good job noting glyphs this weekend unless they were relevant to the gameplay. Since I don’t know what the glyphs were for this map, that means that they weren’t move or wound, and probably not unique attack either.)

This ended up being a pretty incredible week of Heroscape for the Ash clan, with three of them picking up event titles, including a main event title. IS was the first, as he was (spoiler alert) the winner of the reverse draft event. Nathan has, by a significant margin, the best win differential against me of anyone, and he added to it in this event.

We bidded on my army, going back and forth sitting wyrmlings a couple times until Nathan let me play it with 2 fewer red wyrms and 1 fewer black wyrms.

Early on things went very well for me, as my black wyrms took out Raelin not too long after Brunak had carried her up to high ground. Tor-Kul-Na was making his way up to bash some heads when my demise came, in the form of the Mindflayer Mastermind.

The illithid was the undisputed MVP of the game, unless you count TKN, since TKN killed more of my army than any figure in IS’s army by far. Enslave hit 4/7 attempts on TKN. Not only did this lead to the death of Raelin, 4-5 nagrubs, and a couple wyrmlings, but it also meant that TKN kept heading back away from the front and preventing me from getting into position.

Because of the way IS had positioned Burnak, MBS, and Nerak to deny TKN a double-spaced landing area, and because of the way I kept getting sent backwards, I was usually reduced to just swinging 6v8 up at Brunak. I did take Brunak out eventually, but it was far too little, too late. Mindflayer OP!

0-1 (1-1 by tournament reckoning but I don’t count forfeits in my personal records)

ROUND 3
Opponent: Mr. Chompie (TKN, SBN, grubs x4, Krav)
Map: Wendigo (Unique attack and wannok)

My second game against Mr. Chompie after beating him in draft last year. We were set for a stompy mirror. The armies were reasonably well-matched. After we bartered two grubs off of my build, I agreed to take his army.

Initially, I led with SBN and grubs. My main goal was to make sure the black wyrms didn’t get to the Krav, who I had crammed in the back of the startzone. I was largely successful with this, taking out most of the wyrms while getting my grubs worked up the hill where Raelin had set up, on the Wannok side of the map.

Mr. Chompie started bringing TKN up the middle, but thanks to the irregular terrain of Wendigo, I was able to limit TKN to a single grub kill each turn while I brought my TKN up to contest the high ground. My TKN got several whacks in at Raelin on her perch, but TKN (as he so often does for me) rolled pretty lousy attack dice, and I couldn’t take down the Kyrie.

I had secured the unique attack glyph on the far end of the map, and it seemed pretty assured that TKN would wear through Raelin soon enough, but Nathan retreated Raelin farther back on the hill to protect her. However, I brought the Krav out, and was able to eliminate the Kyrie.

With a couple Krav, about half of my grubs, and both Hivelords against just a stray wyrm and TKN/grubs on the other side, things looked very safe for me. However, the dice had other ideas. Despite having the high ground, my TKN lost the brawl with the opposing TKN when he died to a 5-wound smash. My krav got chased down too, although they managed to eliminate the last nagrubs in the process. SBN took down the last wyrm, but TKN chased down my last grub on unique attack, leaving a SBN vs. wounded TKN showdown. Again I managed to secure height, but again Mr. Chompie’s Stompy came out on top, and that was the game.

0-2 (1-2 officially) and my first two losses ever in this format. Still, I was really happy to be able to put this event on at Gencon. Good times.
 
2016 MAIN EVENT

I spent less time than ever preparing for events this year, and the main event was no exception. I played goblin cutters (with Jotun and Moltenclaw) in the online prep event, but quickly decided that I didn’t want to play them this year. I never managed to find the time to play any additional practice games, so I was going to build my main event army solely using the powers of Theoryscape.

While I always enjoy TKN, and I had a solid TKN build in my back pocket (the one I ran in Reverse draft), I didn’t feel like running stompy in back-to-back years. I had thought about using Mohicans for a long time, and with all the points in play this year it seemed like a reasonable time to give it a go. Because I like to create OM decisions in my armies when possible, I didn’t want to go with more than 3 squads of Mohicans. Three squads of Mohicans, Brave Arrow, and the obligatory Raelin add got me to 340, leaving me with 260 points and 7 figure spots remaining.

My first instinct was to add two squads of Deathchasers and the Ogre Warhulk, but after thinking about it I decided that I didn’t like how that played, and also it made the army a touch stronger than the power level I was going for. I really liked the way two squads of Horned Skull Brutes and Brunak seemed like it would play, but I decided that would also be too strong. I seriously considered two squads of Templar Cavalry and Marcu, but I decided that was actually too weak (plus I would have to borrow a squad since TC are one of the very few commons I don’t own 3+ copies of).

In the end, my theoryscape landed me on two squads of Deathstalkers and Sam Brown. The Deathstalkers are tough enough that two squads can still survive decently long a fair amount of the time, and they are less likely to be extremely good or bad in a given game than their cheaper Marrden Hound brethren. Sam Brown was basically filler, but I also thought he made for decent tech in the case I really needed a special attack. (Ironically, I never used him except as a wound glyph soak, but he nearly cost me a game on day 2.) The army also took exactly 24 spaces, which I kind of liked.

So, I rolled into the event with Mohicans x3, Brave Arrow, Raelin, Deathstalkers x2, Sam Brown.

All references to Daniel Day Lewis movies are unintentional.

ROUND 1
Opponent: Rollitontop (Anubians x5, Khosument, Q10)
Map: Burial Marsh (Wound, Healer)

I was not very excited to see Burial Marsh, which was probably the worst map in the pool for my army due to the split startzones and irregular terrain. My early OMs had to be dedicated to collecting my army into a coherent force. I ended up abandoning the wound glyph side of the map (Sam Brown soaked the hits for me) so that I could get my stalkers on the high ground on the Raelin side.

After not much action for the first round plus, Tristan rolled a 20 for fury the first time he had an opportunity to get more than 1 attack in a turn. This led to three dead Deathstalkers, and basically reduced me to playing a Mohican army for the rest of the game.

It was a slog, but I was able to manage it. I didn’t dominate the proceedings by any stretch, but the Anibians didn’t roll great defense and I managed to string them out, limit attacks, and pick them off reasonably well. Inevitably, Q10 stepped up to try to take out my last squad+ of Mohicans and RaeRae, but I managed to screen him out from the Healer glyph and tie him down. Q10's defense didn’t hold up, and the last Mohicans were able to clean up the rest of the board.

1-0

ROUND 2
Opponent: Hendal (Phantom Knights x2, Marro Warriors, Hydra, Frost Giant, Heirloom, Arkmer, Isamu)
Map: Flash Fire (d20, Healer?)

For the second straight year, Hendal and I faced off on day 1. I felt a bit more confident than I had last year, when my TKN army had improbably managed to outlast the Marrden Hounds. Still, this was far from an easy matchup - any matchup involving a Hydra and the Marro Warriors can be lost.

I spooled my army out steadily in the early going, while Hendal sent the PKs out and went straight for Raelin. He managed a couple adjacencies and kept pounding away. I nearly took them out before they completed the job, but Raelin went down before I cleared out (all but one of) the PKs. By points the exchange had gone my way, but of course Raelin is worth a lot more than 80.

Speaking of underpriced units, the Marro Warriors stepped up next. The Mohicans actually did a very good job limiting them, though, reducing them to just a couple squaddies. It was too early in the game for Hendal to start playing the clone game, so the big bruisers stepped up next.

I tied the Hydra down with single Mohican each turn, while trying to shoot down on the Hydra and Frost giant with other units. I was able to limit the Hydra to single kills, and did eventually break through with a few wounds on it, but meanwhile the Frosty did make it up to the height and thinned me out quite a bit. However, with the help of Brave Arrow and the 'stalkers I was able to take Frosty down. Heirloom died to a very timely Deathstalker Maul, and despite being pretty decimated I had things mostly under control. I had a few of each squad and Sam Brown left against Isamu and a wounded Arkmer at the end of the game.

2-0

ROUND 3
Opponent: Nicktheant (Microcorp Agents x4, Raelin, Laglor, Isamu)
Map: Burial Marsh (Wannok, d20)

Welp, I was right back to the worst map in the army for my pool, and against a Microcorp army that loves this map a lot.

Raelin took a couple early wounds from long-range sniping, but I moved RaeRae up to high ground, where she could only take 2 dice instead of 4, and she ended up lasting much longer. It was predictably a struggle for me to gather my army on the high ground, leaving me a little short on troops contesting the high ground than early on. On the bright side I did end up having largely uncontested control of the Wannok glyph on the far side. (However, stealth armor ended up blocking multiple wannok hits.)

This ended up being a pretty defensive struggle. We both had Raelins on perches. Mine never died; I did kill Nick’s Raelin but it took a long time. I had finally pretty much claimed the high ground at the end, and I had a wounded Raelin, 2 Deathstalkers, 5 Mohicans, and Sam Brown, while Nick had a wounded Laglor and 7 Microcorp. Thanks to full card scoring, I was a loser by 30 points.

It was my second day 1 loss to Nick, but at least I could take solace in being 2-0 against him on day 2. (For the moment.)

2-1

ROUND 4
Opponent: Mr. Wookie (Capuan Gladiators x4, Spartacus, Crixus, Guilty)
Map: Fire Isles

On fire isles, you really need to be playing from the jump. This is doubly true when you’re going up against a straight-for-the-jugular army like the steamroller. Despite this, I made what was a pretty big blunder by putting Raelin in my front row. This meant that when Crixus crushed my deathstalker on the second turn, capuans were already assaulting Raelin. Raelin didn’t last long. Crixus ended up gathering quite the bloodly tally, dealing killing blows to Raelin, Brave Arrow, and a couple deathstalkers. Gross.

At this point though, Mr. Wookie’s defense dice turned sour, and I was able to take down a bunch of Capuans with my last couple squads of Mohicans. The key sequence came late, when I had about 4 Mohicans and Sam Brown remaining in my army, while Mr. Wookie had a mostly healthy Spartacus, Guilty, and three Capuans. I saw the OMs were on the Caps, and I realized that I could get height on all three capuans. I announced that I was about to kill all three of them, and three 4v4 hits later, I had. I then had a couple uncontested OMs to kill Guilty and get a couple more wounds on Spartacus. The Mohicans finished things in the next round.

I really didn’t deserve to win this game after the early strategic and positioning blunder, but sometimes dice and circumstance can bail you out. Fortunately I didn’t cost Chandler day 2, as he ended up being one of the 3-2 qualifiers.

3-1

ROUND 5
Opponent: The Orange Mailman (Taelord, Omnicron Snipers x3, Hydra)
Map: Vestige

Obviously, a high-variance matchup, as this Taelord build can deal a disgusting amount of damage very quickly. However, I was guardedly optimistic, as I felt that superior squad numbers should carry me through this matchup.

I moved Raelin up early on, but rather than put her on the highest spot where Snipers would have clean shots up at her, I hid Raelin a bit further down the hill where she’d be a bit harder to spot. She took 3 quick wounds, but then I was able to fan out my Mohicans and take out the lead snipers to protect Raelin's position.

The Hydra moved up, but much like I had done against Hendal, I was able to single-engage it to slow its advance, and give it a few wounds after a couple turns of fire. I hit a few key concealments to limit kills, and I was able to thin out the Snipers by targeting those unprotected by jungle trees. Things snowballed pretty badly and I ended up winning in kind of a rout, which boosted my point differential way up and landed me a high day 2 seed.

This was actually my first win against Darrin, who topped me twice before, more notably in the semifinals on the way to his 2013 main event win.

4-1, third seed for day 2.
 
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2016 MAIN EVENT DAY 2

ROUND OF 16
Opponent: Capsocrates (Warriors of Ashra x5, Raelin, Moltenclaw, Syvarris)
Map: Fire Isles (Unique Attack)

This was my only game against a roommate outside of the C3V event. I was guardedly optimistic based on the matchup, but Moltenclaw has been very swingy for me in the past so I knew things could go sideways on me.

Caps moved his Raelin up to start, while I just left mine in my startzone and immediately began shooting his Raelin with Syvarris. With the Deathstalkers screening, I was able to take out Raelin very quickly. However, caps threw a few Mohicans forward, and killed my Raelin shockingly quickly to return the favor. Syvarris died shortly after, but at that point I was focused on advancing with Ashra anyway.

Once the Ashra were in decent position, I stepped up with Moltenclaw, hoping to burning breath some Mohicans and other figures back in the startzone and put things out of reach. However, Moltenclaw killed… two squaddies, I think, before joining Raelin in the shockingly quick death club. Suddenly I was looking at trying to overwhelm a bunch of kiting ranged figures with unsupported Ashra. Not ideal...

I took some high-risk maneuvers, like leaving several Ashra up on hot ground between rounds, but I was able to chase down and thin out all but one Deathstalker and Mohican and a wounded Brave Arrow. However, as I alluded to much earlier in this write-up, Sam Brown suddenly became a huge factor, as his special attack could allow him to circumvent the Ashra special… if he had the chance to get his special off.

Caps got me down to 4 Ashra when, in a key sequence, I blocked Sam Brown’s second attack with fire and rush. The next turn I was able to get three Ashra on him (one via disengage) and take him out. With the last Mohican dropping the next turn, I was in pretty solid shape and cleaned up without incident.

The quick Moltenclaw death made me think I might have my first early day 2 exit, but in the end all my elves did their jobs, and that was enough.

QUARTERFINALS
Opponent: Scaper_Dude (Mimring, Airborne Elite, Raelin, Krav, Agent Carr, Tarn Vikings)
Map: Burial Marsh (Healer, d20)

My fourth Gencon, third main event, and second day 2 game against Brandan. He had brought the Rise of the Valkyrie special - basically all the good stuff except the Marro Warriors.

I honestly felt like a first round drop and initiative win could basically win me the game, but the drop was not in the cards, so I turned to Mimring. Mimring was able to fireline Raelin and the startzone multiple times, but he was rolling 1/4s like it was his job. The Airborne dropped the next round, and I continued to fire away at Raelin as best I could with the Airborne, but Raelin was up high by then and held strong on her perch.

As the Mohicans and Deathstalkers advanced, Mimring and the Airborne lost the OMs in favor of the Krav. I was still trying to pick off anything outside of Raelin’s Aura, and doing my best to keep the Mohicans from activating Brave Arrow, but most of my attacks were directed at Scaper_Dude’s insanely tough Raelin. She finally went down, but with Mimring and the Airborne already dead, I was in a hole.

Needing to move up to the high ground to stand a chance, I advanced my own Raelin to the height, swinging down and taking a Mohican out while I was at it. Of course this meant Raelin became a target, but wouldn’t you know it, my Raelin had the invulnerable gene this game as well. She absorbed way more punishment than she had any business taking, allowing the Krav to thin things out quite a bit.

Eventually Raelin fell and the Krav went down, but Brandan only had a handful of squaddies left to go with Brave Arrow and Sam Brown in the back. The Tarns rolled out and took out a couple squaddies, then Carr stepped up. He was as awesome as advertised, and easily blitzed the remaining squaddies, Brave Arrow, and Sam Brown to take the game down.

SEMIFINALS
Opponent: Nicktheant (Microcorp Agents x4, Raelin, Laglor, Isamu)
Map: Flash Fire (move)

A rematch of my one loss from day 1, although it was an extremely narrow loss on points so it’s not like the army margin is that big. Sadly for me, it was a much better map for the army I was handing Nick than the map I had on day 1. (Nick decidedly did not get map love in the finals, as the Microcorp army loves Fire Isles.)

Nick opened by putting his Raelin on a high perch. Rather than put my Raelin up on the perch alongside his, I put mine on the road nearby, in a spot where only one figure could engage her on level ground from the adjacent road. I then started pouring OMs into the Microcorp. I tried to shoot any figure outside of Raelin’s aura whenever possible, and Raelin if I couldn’t. I did manage to snipe a decent number of figures on the way up with super-long range shots with 4 dice, but (just as Nick had experienced the day before) I had no reliable way to kill Raelin on height, instead resorting to attacks of 2.

I continued to work my Microcorp up the height, shooting down whenever possible. Still, I just couldn’t get through Nick’s Raelin. So I turned to Laglor and his 3-dice attack, hoping to get some momentum. However, despite being in Raelin’s aura, Laglor died to just a few attacks from stalkers and Mohicans. So I sent a few Microcorp over to the far hill, which allowed me to snipe at figures still in the startzone and also gave me shots down on any figures that engaged my Raelin.

Finally, I managed to take down Raelin, but by this point both of us were running short on troops. Still, with only a couple Deathstalkers left and only a squad and change of Mohicans against my Raelin and Microcorp on height, it seemed like I finally had things in good shape. However, the last Mohicans rushed my Microcorp on the far hill, and hit multiple concealment rolls in their advance to enable them to overwhelm the agents. At that point, my likely win quickly snowballed into a hopeless position, as Brave Arrow and the last squad of Mohicans took down Raelin and the rest of the board. Isamu hates me so obviously there was no comeback there.

So, my fourth consecutive trip to semifinals ends with a loss, just like the previous three. On one hand I’m happy to be doing consistently well in the event, and I don’t want to be overly fixated on final results. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it eats at me a bit the way I seem so snakebit in the third game on day 2. So it goes.
 
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2016 GENERAL WARS

I have only entered General Wars three times in seven years at Gencon. In part this is because it’s usually Saturday afternoon and I’m usually playing semifinals or finals when it starts. However, I’ve also shied away because it’s it’s basically the most spammy metagamey format of them all, and I don’t usually enjoy that. However, fresh off my semifinals defeat, knowing I had no other events lined up for the weekend, I just didn’t feel like I had gotten my ‘scape fix. So I decided to join the cheese party, and I rolled into General Wars with a kamikaze 4th Mass build: 4th x5, Sgt. Drake (RotV), Nilfheim.

I figured that Nilfheim is basically impossible to ignore if I lead with him, so my 4th would be valiant most of the time. The only likely exception that would ignore Nilf to get at my startzone would be Zelrig, but really, who was going to play Zelrig, 10th x5, and Marcus?

Oh… right. Three people. Three people would play that. Plus another Zelrig army or two.

ROUND 1
Opponent: Nelson O. (Knights of Weston x4, Nilfheim, Gilbert, Eldgrim)
Map: Quasatch Playground

Nelson is Major Q23’s brother and Infectedsloth/ISB2/Unseenshadowz’s cousin. He doesn’t play quite as much as the rest of the clan, but he was bringing a solid knight build, one of the many Jandar knight builds in play.

The game began, unsurprisingly, with a Nilfheim duel. I managed to take height, and got a big chomp down to take the duel. Nilf sharded another 6 knights before going down, which was enough to make me feel pretty comfortable.

The rest of the game was predictable WTFing of the advancing knights. Nelson got the knights on top of me pretty quickly so I only made it up to the first plateau outside of my startzone with the minutemen; never over the middle. I concentrated my fire mostly on the knights to try to limit the number of attacks he could muster on this very long map. I won with Drake and most of two squads remaining.

The coolest thing that happened in this game, and one of the coolest things that happened all weekend, was my conversation with Rob Daviau; see the story here.

1-0

ROUND 2
Opponent: Hendal (10th x5, Marcus, Zelrig)
Map: Flash Fire

Welp, I figured I was going to have to beat at least one of the Z-Bomb/10th piles in order to win, so here we go. This was my second game against Hendal at Gencon this year, and our second game on Flash Fire. I was looking to stretch my lifetime record against him to 4-0.

Because of the Zelrig factor, I couldn’t lead with Nilf as usual. I put my first few markers on the 4th so I could scatter my units. Fortunately I won opening init, which allowed me to spread enough to limit the opening OM majestic fires losses to 3. I kept spreading, and pinging Zelrig as I could. I lost another 3 minutemen on the next OM before Zelrig whiffed on the third shot. Luckily for me, Zelrig whiffed again on his next shot in round 2, and then Nilf brought him down.

With Zelrig’s tally limited to only 6 minutemen and a wound on Nilf, I felt very good about my chances. Nilf didn’t roll great defense but nearly matched Zelrig, taking out 5 of the 10th before getting WTFed to death. After that, it played out like Jexik says. It was down to Marcus against a couple squads of 4th and Drake when time was called.

2-0

ROUND 3
Opponent: FilmCriticFrog (Knights of Weston x5, Gilbert, Denrick, Eldgrim, Sam Brown)
Map: Vestige (Wannok, Healer)

My second opposing knight army, and I saw at least one other that had been doing well. I think I might have been running the only minuteman army, actually - they normally dominate Jandar but I think most people shied away from the non-valiant build in favor of the knights..

I went back to my usual Nilf Kamikaze. I had wanted to bounce around and burn healer but due to the way things played out I didn’t end up out in that direction. Nilf didn’t earn his points back, but he took out about two squads worth, which I figured should be enough.

Brendan played things pretty conservatively, keeping Gilbert back and slow-rolling for a bit, before pushing up the wannok side of the map. I got out of my startzone, but only far enough to manage mostly level shots. It was usual WTF funtimes for most of the match, but I won out in the war of attrition, in no small part because Drake absorbed four Wannok hits for me. Eventually I did take Wannok and the two hills for myself, and finished off the heroes to end the match.

3-0

ROUND 4
Opponent: Cleon (Deathreavers x3, Ornak, Hydra x3, Marro Warriors, Marcu, Isamu)
Map: Flash Fire (move and d20)

With all the commons and Zelrigs in play, it was no surprise to see a Deathreaver army doing well. I figured it would be up to the WTF squads to take down some hydras after Nilf thinned the rats out.

As it happened, things went very sideways in the early going. Nilf missed his first six Ice Shard attempts as Cleon slow-rolled a combination of Hydras and rats. I was pretty worried I was going to get overwhelmed by Hydras and lose Nilf with nothing to show for it, but then Nilf got very hot. My next shard attempt, on a Hydra, was a 4/4, with a 0/6 defense roll taking down the Hydra in short order. One round later Nilf was dead, but somehow he took down two Hydras, put a wound on a third... and killed just 1 rat. Not at all what I expected, but I’ll take it!

The rats predictably restricted me quite a bit, but I did manage to take down the third Hydra while only losing about a squad of minutemen. The Marro Warriors stepped up and made life difficult for me, but I was able to get just enough minutemen clear of the rat infestation to pare back their numbers.

My free minutemen were trying to chase down the last Marro Warrior when time was called. I won with 10 minutemen and Drake against 9 rats, Ornak/Marcu/Isamu, and the last Marro Warrior. By points it was actually still a very close game, but barring some extreme Marro Warrior luck I felt like I had things in hand.

4-0

ROUND 5
Opponent: Major Q23 (PK x4, Mezzodemons x4, Hydra)
Map: Quasatch Playground (Wannok, Valda)

There were actually three 4-0 players left when the round started, but the two of us were far ahead of William099 in point differential, so for all practical purposes this was the championship game. (William099 is Mike, Major Q23 is William. It’s confusing.)

Major Q23’s army was a really smart “meta the meta” army, so I wasn’t surprised to see it do well. I knew I would need Nilfheim to do some really good work on the squads, particularly the Phantom Knights, in order for me to pull things out.

Sadly, it was not to be. Nilfheim missed most of his early shards, and William grabbed the move glyph and advanced his Hydra into (Valda-enabled) threat range of Nilfheim.

William won the key second round initiative, so instead of getting my Nilf away from the Hydra and sharding three PKs, I got tied down by three PKs. I couldn’t really justify a triple disengage from there, so I just sharded in place. Nilf managed to kill all of 3 PKs, total, before the Hydra brought him down.

At that point I needed a severely misplayed game from MQ23 to have any chance, and I got anything but. He wouldn’t even get baited into a mosh pit with his PKs, instead just sending in a couple while grabbing Wannok and transitioning to Mezzos, content to pick my units off and daring me to advance with the 4th (which would have allowed PKs to attack them with height). I tried to steal Wannok at some point but it was really pretty hopeless. I was reduced to basically grubbing for points to try to limit the margin of my inevitable defeat, which meant attacking Mezzodemons was literally pointless. I took out the Hydra and another squad of PKs while keeping Drake and a good number of 4th intact, so the margin wasn’t too bad.

I was 2-0 lifetime against Major Q23 going into the game, and man, did he ever earn his one. This was probably the best game anyone played against me all weekend. I didn’t have great luck, and the map/glyph/matchup combo was pretty brutal, but William was on point with each OM decision and figure positioning, just not giving me anything to work with all game long. He even made a couple moves which surprised me but made sense after I gamed them out in my head. It’s rare, and impressive, for my opponents to surprise me like that. Just a really great game.

4-1, 3rd overall, Jandar champ
 
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I love reading these battle reports. There's so much to learn about how battles play out with so many different aspects factored in. I enjoyed playing you and can't wait to see you next year!
 
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I love reading these battle reports. There's so much to learn about how battles play out with so many different aspects factored in. I enjoyed playing you and can't wait to see you next year!
Reading dok's reports is like drinking Old Milwaukee - it doesn't get any better than this. ;)
 
GENCON 2017

FLEX

I hadn’t planned to play in the flex event in the weeks leading into Gencon, but I had no other plans for Thursday morning, so I packed an army in case I decided I wanted to play it. When I saw the absurd crowds waiting to get into the dealer hall, I decided that spending a few hours playing ‘scape before hitting the hall was a decent plan.

The format is extremely informal; just find players and play them with your 600 point army. The “goal” is to get to 8 points, where each win is worth 2 points and each loss is worth 1. At the end of the event there’s a drawing for prizes, where each point (up to 8) gets you one chance at prizes.

I was back and forth between elementals and zombies for this format, but I decided on Raelin, Kurrok, Fire Elemental x10, Marro Warriors. I was planning on playing Kurrok and Fire Elementals in the team event with Deroche (although I begged off after coming down with a cold late on Saturday), so I figured a little practice with the elementals couldn’t hurt.

ROUND 1

Opponent: I.S.B.3 (Granite Guardians x5, Warden 816)
Map: Common Ground (Initiative + Move)

My only game against the 2016 main event champ on the weekend, although I had 3 more games against his family (a 2-2 final record against the Ash/Oliver clan).

I put Raelin on height in a spot right next to the ruin where the GGs could not take height, then moved Fire Elementals up around him. I tried as best I could to avoid giving height to the GGs, although I did give it up on occasion. I lost half my elementals early on, but once I had even ground on the height I was able to overwhelm from there.

ROUND 2

Opponent: Mr. Chompie (Romans x3, MDG, Airborne, Captain America)
Map: Highways & Dieways (Initiative + Healer)

I was not very excited to see the Airborne - a first round drop and Kurrok assassination pretty much ruins me. However, the drop waited until round 3, and by then I had Kurrok and Raelin on height, directing the advancing elemental horde.

Captain America was dealing damage, but I managed to burn him to death one OM before he fled to Kelda. Raelin was killed by a combination of Airborne, Cap, and Romans, but Kurrok managed to burn Kelda before dying, and the elementals cleaned up from there.

ROUND 3

Opponent: Jerimiah (Airborne Elite, Romans x1, 4th x1, Marcus, Carr)
Map: Remains of Clionesia (d20 + Unique Attack)

Another Airborne army, and this one did get the R1 drop. However, Jerimiah elected to grenade my startzone, and I was able to engage the airborne on the next OM and squelch the threat. After they were dealt with, the elementals were able to thin out all future threats before they became a problem.

ROUND 4

Opponent: Sawyer aka Son of Chompie (Grimnak, Tornak, Ornak, Heavies x4, sit one heavy)
Map: Zephyr (Valda)

A classic melee vs. Firestorm matchup. Matthias Maccabeus walked by our table, eyed it up, and said to Sawyer “I hope you read the guide.” Of course, I knew what he meant immediately, but Sawyer had never heard of that thread.

Still, Sawyer understood the threat. He tried to limit engagements, and get around towards Kurrok. However, I used the terrain to block things up, and he never really got a chance to cut off the head of the army. I lost some elementals, but the math of the matchup tilted inevitably in my favor.

---

I never revealed a numbered OM on the Marro Warriors the entire event.
 
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