Jerry Damage's Gaming Experiences

Heroclix 700 points 10/30/2010

2010-10-31T04:51:00.000-07:00

DATE PLAYED: 10/30/2010

POINT TOTAL: 700
TEAM:

WOS Bullseye 117

WOS Nightcrawler 86

SI Elektra (Human) 80

CR Nightwing 79

SI Gamora 73

HOT Captain America 72

AA Robin 66

LE Diana Prince 43

BATB Robin 43

AA Question 37

Total: 696

BATTLEFIELD CONDITIONS: None

SPECIAL OBJECTS PLAYED: Black Lantern Object, Eleha'al Vine, Meteorite

WIN/LOSS: 2-0

So I got a chance to play yesterday and wasn't sure what to play. This would be the first chance I'd have to play some of the WOS pieces I wanted to play, like Nightcrawler and Bullseye, so I wanted to play them. I was really impressed with the Brightest Day set as well and wanted to give them a run as well. I ended up bringing 2 teams, the Martial Artists that I played and 700 points of the Brightest Day set. I ended up running the Martial Artists.

Round 1 I got paired with JP. He was running a similar build. He had Nightcrawler, WOS Iron Man, Question, Bullseye, Holiday Killer with Alias and Not So Special, Talia, and WOS Red and Blue Spiderman. We played on the Crater map from the Brightest Day set. I ran out my Stealth pieces first into the crater to serve as decoys. It was careful positioning at first but I managed to draw first blood by BAMFing Talia with Nightcrawler and then bringing her back and putting her right next to Gamora. Gamora was able to finish her off after that. He took out my BATB Robin. I then managed to get a good shot off onto his Bullseye with Captain America. Cap was ok after that until Iron Man critted him and put him on his last click. Nightcrawler would come over and finish off Bullseye. Elektra was BAMFed into the middle of the Crater by his Nightcrawler and she soon died after that. He managed to kill my Bullseye while I managed to get his Spiderman and Holiday Killer. I ended up winning on points. 1-0

Round 2 I played Jeff. Jeff was running the Brightest Day set minus Boomerang. He had Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Deadman, Firestorm, Hawkgirl, and Osirus. We played on the Monument map from the Brightest Day set. Outwit played a big part of this matchup. I put all my Stealth pieces on Objects about halfway up the map. Aquaman came up and based Nightwing and everyone joined him. I had Captain America and Bullseye shoot Deadman quickly to get rid of Mystics and the Summon the White ability. He brought Osirus up and into my backfield to base Bullseye and Captain America. Question outwitted his defense and they both finished Osirus up shortly after that. Nightcrawler BAMFed and brought Hawkgirl over next to Gamora. Gamora took a shot from Hawkgirl and then she was able to finish Hawkgirl off. Manhunter came over to join the fight against Nightcrawler and Gamora. Nightcrawler got hit and then ran to the Vine to heal. Gamora was left to fight for herself and she soon died. I was able to finish off Aquaman and Firestorm leaving just Martian Manhunter. Manhunter finished off Elektra and then soon got KO'ed after that. 2-0

Heroclix 500 Points 08/21/2010

2010-08-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

DATE PLAYED: 08/21/2010

POINT TOTAL: 500

SCENARIO: Which Way to Metropolis? (Every character needs to have a keyword of a city.)

TEAM:
Sinestro Corps Batman 208
+ Stunning Blow 10
+ Inside Information 4
+ Damage Shield 10
Edward Nigma 60
AA Batman 64
BA Alfred 30
AA Robin 66
BATB Robin 43
+ Lunge 5
500 Total

BATTLEFIELD CONDITIONS: None

SPECIAL OBJECTS PLAYED: Black Lantern, Silver Anvil, Eleha'al Vine

WIN/LOSS: 3-0

So, I haven't gotten to play in a few weeks, not since the Gencon Prep tournaments that we were having. I didn't get to make Gencon this year so I missed out on all the fun there. This weekend I got a chance to play, so both my brother and I went to the tournament. I had started thinking about teams and what to play. The first thought I had was to use something like Vet Icons Superman with Fortitude and Edward Nigma. Icons Supes being able to attack every single turn seemd pretty good. However, it seemed a bit like overkill at this level. Once I decided not to run that, I looked at Sinestro Corps Batman. I've had him since March when I got him in a trade and I have never played him. I have been wanting to sell him or trade him off so I figured I'd run him at least once before I did. Given the format, I knew I'd see several Gotham City keywords so Inside Information gave Bats a 13 attack. Stunning Blow seemed like a solid feat for him and Damage Shield seemed fitting for an evil Batman. Edward Nigma seemed like an auto-include. The rest of the team rounded out itself pretty nicely.

Round 1 I got paired with Jeff. Jeff was running BATB Superman + Fortitude, The Dark Knight, AA Robin, R Lackey, V Criminal, and JL Green Arrow. We played on the Bank map. We positioned a bit at first. My BATB Robin was the first to get hit by Superman. I followed that up by shooting Superman with Sinestro Batman. I got a charge off onto the Dark Knight with AA Batman. Jeff did very well about positioning with his Criminal and Lackey and forcing Batman to attack them or try to break away. I got a few more shots in on the Dark Knight and managed to kill his Robin. He then got me in a bad spot and killed Edward Nigma with Superman. After that he got my BATB Robin and AA Batman. I had to move Alfred to base Superman to keep Sinestro Batman safe, which then lead to Alfred's demise. After that I was able to finish off Superman. It then came down to Sinestro Batman against JL Green Arrow and the Dark Knight who was on his last click. He got a shot off onto Batman with the Dark Knight, but he crit missed, which killed the Dark Knight as he was on his last click. After that it was Green Arrow vs Batman and he conceeded. 1-0

Next round I played my brother Michael. Michael was running Batman/Catwoman duo, Crisis Nightwing, Gotham City Police Detective, AA Question, and CD Superman with the Batman Team Ability. We played on the Tank map. He came up with Batman/Catwoman and got off a pounce onto BATB Robin. He got knock back on the 2nd attack and it exposed him. I then moved up and attacked him with Sinestro Batman. Superman then came over with the GCPD to shoot at Batman who I'd exposed in order to shoot Bat/Cats. He needed a 5 and rolled a 4. Next turn I shot at Superman with Batman and it was all downhill from there. He managed to finish off BATB Robin, but I managed to take out everything else after that. 2-0

Last round I played JP. JP was playing Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn duo, Vet Icons Joker, AA Riddler, OOTS Batman, and Holiday Killer. We played on the Crash Site so it was basically meet in the middle and slug it out. I got a shot off early with Sinestro Batman onto Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy. I then managed to kill them a few turns later. After that it was a slugfest in the middle. I had AA Batman, AA Robin, and BATB Robin against Joker, OOTS Batman, and AA Riddler. I managed to hit Joker who masterminded to Riddler, knocking him off Stealth. I then shot and killed Riddler with Sinestro Batman. I took several clicks of Poison from Joker. I then managed to kill OOTS Batman with BATB Robin (which I thought was cool for Damian to lay out his daddy). I couldn't get Joker or Holiday Killer off Stealth so I based Holiday with Sinestro Batman and next turn I manged to finish him off. After that it was everyone against Joker and I managed to take him out for the win. 3-0It was fun to finally get to play Sinestro Batman. During the tournament, he only took 4 clicks of damage, 1 from Edward Nigma's ability, 2 from Pushes without Nigma around in the first game, and 1 from a Crit Miss. I can't wait to try him out in some other games to see how well he does.

Heroclix 500 Points 06/19/2010

2010-06-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

DATE PLAYED: 06/19/2010
POINT TOTAL: 500
SCENARIO: Protect the Boss - 500 pointsAll teams must designate a character with Leadership or a SP that allows the use of leadership and a point cost less than 100 points as the "boss". The "boss" is worth double victory points. All characters must share a keyword with the "boss".
TEAM:
Jimmy Woo 46 (Leader)
HOT Captain America 72
Winter Soldier 70
Ghost Widow 54
Classics Nick Fury 63
BatB Talia 86
SI Iron Fist 70
AA Question 37
Total: 498

BATTLEFIELD CONDITIONS: None
SPECIAL OBJECTS PLAYED: Black Lantern, Tombstone, Eleha'al Vine
WIN/LOSS: 3-0

I've always liked this format. It's fun and it forces semi-themes. When I started building teams, I looked at cheap characters with Leadership that also had a good amount of keywords. I looked at SI Mole Man (Scientist, Monster, and Ruler). I looked at Howard the Duck (Defenders, Martial Artist, Celebrity, and Animal). But I had been wanting to run some Spies for awhile so I went with Jimmy Woo since I could also mix it with Martial Artist. I also had a Gotham City team built around using the CR common Robin, but I opted for this as it had more attackers on it and overall felt like the better team.

Round 1 I played Christian. Christian was playing Gotham City and used AA Penguin as his leader. He also had OOTS Batman, Anarky, AA Robin, AA Riddler, and AA Two-Face. He won map roll so we went on the BatB Graveyard map. The early part was spent positioning. We both had quite a bit of Stealth so no one could see anyone else. I managed to take some shots with Talia and managed to get Question over to Anarky to let them square off. He got a good shot off onto Cap with Batman in order to knock him off his SP. I moved Cap over to the Vine and next to Ghost Widow after that to heal him back up. It was a battle of whittling him down and at the end I ended up getting his whole team while he got the Question. 1-0

Round 2 I played Austin. Austin was running League of Assassins. He had BatB Talia Al Ghul, Ra's Al Ghul, Damian Wayne, The Sensei (leader), 5 League Elites, and 2 League Assassins. He easily won map and we played on the Arkham map. He holed up in his Start area in order to protect his leader. I managed to make my way over to him and started picking off League Elites and League Assassins. I got Ra's al Ghul and he managed to use Lazarus Pit and brought him back towards the end of the game. Captain America could not hit the broad side of a barn in this game. Luckily though, Winter Soldier and Nick Fury couldn't miss and manged to pick up the load. I managed to get his entire team and he took out Question and Iron Fist. 2-0

Round 3 I played Jeff. Jeff was playing V Major Victory (leader), Rocket Raccoon, Bug, Yondu, V Starhawk, and Kid Zoom. He had the ATA on all the Guardians and another feat on Kid Zoom that I can't recall. He won map roll so we went on the Outer Space map from Supernova. This was the first time I ever played on this map. It's fun and unique. We started off with some positioning and I got an early hit in on Rocket and managed to take out Kid Zoom. He came back and got some hits in on Talia and finished her off. Nick Fury was the next to get hit and was the next to fall. I started worrying at this point as it looked to be going in his favor. About this time I got lucky on some rolls and finished off Rocket and got some hits in on Yondu and Starhawk. He got me in a spot where he had some Energy Explosions set to go off on Winter Soldier, Iron Fist, and Ghost Widow. I got lucky and he missed Winter Soldier and I managed to use Super Senses to avoid any damage on Iron Fist or Ghost Widow. I then managed to finish off Major Victory and Bug. After that it was a matter of finishing off Yondu and then Starhawk for the win. 3-0

Overall I really like this format. I think it's alot of fun and I can't wait to play it again. I won the Clark Kent LE for coming in first. Now it's time to start prepping for Gencon so it's going to be 300 points for the next little bit.

Heroclix 200 point Golden Age Constructed

2010-06-06T09:45:00.001-07:00

Here's a tournament report from a 200 point Constructed Heroclix tournament I was able to go to.

DATE PLAYED: 06/05/2010
POINT TOTAL: Golden Age 200 points
TEAM:
Crisis Hal Jordan 157
+ Shellhead 10
Gotham City Police Detective 27
Security Guard Pog 6
Total: 200 points

BATTLEFIELD CONDITIONS: None
SPECIAL OBJECTS PLAYED: Mjolnir, Eleha'al Vine
WIN/LOSS: 1-2

So I got to finally make it over to the local venue for some games today. I had a few armies built and had a hard time trying to figure out what to play. I had a Spy team with Classics Nick Fury, SR Winter Soldier, and Ghost Widow. I had another team of Ultimate Thor and a Paramedic. I had an Avengers team of HOT Captain America, SI Spiderman, SR Jarvis, and SR Scarlet Witch. But on Friday I got in my repainted Green Lantern as a White Lantern, and I was mostly looking to have fun so I decided to play him.

So if it worked out right, I would have Green Lantern shooting at a 12 attack for 5 damage. Stealth would wreck me, but hopefully no one brought much or I would be able to get lucky before it killed me.

Round 1 I get paired with Christian. Christian has been playing for a few months and one of the last tournaments I was able to make it to was actually his first tournament that he'd ever been to. He's gotten pretty good and played this game perfect. He was running SI Spiderman, HOT Venom, and SI Spider-girl. We played on the Crash Site map. I started by moving up everyone with GL and putting the GCPD on Mjolnir. He moved Spiderman and Spider-girl behind some blocking terrain. Next turn I rolled for Mjolnir and missed. He moved up Venom and cleared the Spiders. After that I tried to get LOS but couldn't so repositioned. He then moved up Spiderman and Spider-girl to swarm GL. I tried to break away to use Running Shot and hit them both. But I missed the roll. Next turn he brings up Venom to join the fun and pushes Spidey to flurry me, hitting both attacks. He follows up next turn with Spider-girl hitting me. After that I got to attack and tried to hit Spidey. I missed and Spidey managed to hit me again. I never landed an attack roll and he managed to roll 2 crits on me during the game. GL eventually fell and it was just him finishing off the GCPD and the Secuirty Guard. 0-1

Second round I got paired with Dan. Dan was playing SI Human Elektra, Lightspeed, SR Jarvis, and SR Hawkeye. We played on the Crash Site map. I brought up everyone to Mjolnir and tried to roll for the GCPD again and missed. He positioned everyone for a few rounds. I got an early shot off on Hawkeye to knock him down a few clicks. He then phased over with Lightspeed to bring Elektra over to GL. He missed his first attack and then hit the second with Blades but rolled a 2 on the BCF roll. After that I was able to knock Elektra pretty good with GL. He got another good shot off on GL that put him down towards his last click. I protected him with the Security Guard and GCPD while he made a run over to the Vine. I managed to hold everyone off until GL healed up and was able to finish off Hawkeye and then Jarvis to win the game. 1-1

Round 3 I got paired with Jeff. Jeff was running Gotham City theme with OOTS Batman, CR Nightwing, and BatB Robin. We played on the Bank map. He moved up and positioned in Stealth. I moved up and tried to roll for Mjolnir with GL and missed. He moves Robin over to be adjacent to all 3 of my figures so that he could Quake. I get lucky with a Crit form the GCPD and knock him back out of hindering. I then move back while he moves up everyone else. He finishes off my Security Guard with Batman and knocks down the GCPD with Nightwing. I manage to finish off Robin while he finishes off the GCPD. He gets a shot in on GL and puts him on Pulse Wave. I manage to Pulse both Batman and Nightwing and after that they both base GL so that he can't do that again. Combined they both manage to take down GL before he can do any kind of further damage to either one of them. 1-2

So I went 1-2, which is the first time that I've not finished on the winning side of a tournament in a long long time. But I had a lot of fun and got to use my new White Lantern repaint. I ended up getting Fellowship and the prizes were a Black Lantern and a Violet Lantern. The Violet Lantern went to Dan and for fellowship I got the Black Lantern. Also, a note goes out to how great Venom can be. In the 2nd round, Christian played Jeff and the Batman team. It got down to Robin and Nightwing against Venom. Venom managed to hit 6 Super Senses rolls in a row and managed to finish off both Robin and Nightwing to win the game. One of the craziest things I've ever seen someone roll.

Heroclix 400 points Brave and the Bold Sealed 04/14/2010

2010-05-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for a Heroclix 400 points Sealed Brave and the Bold tournament held on 04/14/2010.

DATE PLAYED: 4/14/10
POINT TOTAL: 400
SCENARIO: Brave and the Bold Sealed
TEAM:
Goodness and Mercy
Goodness and Mercy
Jason Blood
Checkmate Knight Black
Diana Prince
Cave Carson
League Assassin

Not played
Power Girl
The Flashes
Metallo

WIN/LOSS: 2-1

So, last night we had our Release tourney for Brave and the Bold. We had 14 or 16 players for it, which was a pretty good turnout. I thought that it was 300 points sealed and didn't check. It was 400. I wasn't sure which one to go with as I could have used either the 2 Goodness and Mercy or Metallo and then fill out with support pieces after that. I had a hard time building it as I wasn't sure which way to go and ended up building my 300 point team with the 2 Goodness and Mercy. It wasn't until we got started with the first round that I noticed my error and was sure I'd lose, but I managed to win it on points. After that I was able to add another 100 points to my build to bring me up to legal status. Even though I've been playing for 8 years, I have to remember to check the point total for the event to be sure I know what it is. Definately a mistake I won't be making again.

So first round I get to play Mark. Mark is one of the local teenagers that plays and got started with Hammer of Thor. I was playing Goodness and Mercy x 2, Cave Carson, and Jason Blood for this round as I thought it was 300 points instead of 400. Mark was playing Metallo, Braniac, League Assassin, League Elite, and maybe one more figure that I can't recall. I was able to engage Braniac and take him out early to go up on points. After that I tried to hit Metallo, but couldn't touch him. I got the two League members and he managed to get one Goodness and Mercy and Jason Blood. I had to run for the last little bit as I had Cave and the other Goodness and Mercy close to death and a shot from Metallo would kill either of them. I managed to win it by about 50 points or so. Had I known it was 400 points, I would have definately played my own Metallo. Probably him, Goodness and Mercy, and then some of the support pieces. Metallo is a beast and the entire game I only did one damage to him and that was from Mystics when he killed Jason Blood. 1-0

Second round I got paired with Chris. Chris was running Hawkman and Atom, Luthor and Braniac, and Inertia. I managed to get to Luthor and Braniac with both Goodness and Mercy to hit them pretty good. I managed to finish it off while I think he got one of my Goodness and Mercy. I got a few hits onto Hawkman and Atom and then he forgot to use the second attack on a duo attack, which could have possibly killed that one. It was close to death and I broke away from Hawkman and Atom and ran to Diana Prince. I got my Support roll and then rolled a 3 for the heal. I used Prob on it and rolled a 6 to put Goodness and Mercy back onto her good clicks. After that we called it as there wasn't much Hawkman and Atom could do before I finished them off. 2-0

So I was feeling alright. I didn't have the best team in the world and had managed to avoid most of the really good pieces in the set. That was until round 3. I played Patrick who was playing Wizard Shazam, Talia, Madamoiselle Marie, and League Elite. My 0 range wasn't looking so great. So Shazam came up and took a pot shot onto one of the Goodness and Mercys. I then came with both of them and based Shazam. Next turn I went to hit him with CCE attacks from both of my Goodness and Mercys as if they hit , I leave Shazam on his last click. I didn't hit any attack rolls and that's the story of this game. I managed to hit a few attacks but the main ones I needed I missed. Meanwhile Patrick was rolling hot and managed to clean house. Different dice it might have been a different game, but Shazam just beat down my team. I really like Shazam and might put him on my next constructed team. 2-1

So I ended up 2-1 and about 5th or 6th in points as I didn't get any points at all that last round. For the release event everyone got to choose between either the graveyard map or one of the Lanterns from the prize kit. I picked the Orange Lantern and my brother got the Green Lantern for me. So overall not too bad of a night. Despite having a bad blunder on team building, I feel pretty good to still come in at 2-1.

Heroclix 500 points 03/29/2010

2010-05-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from a Heroclix 500 points tournament I played in on 03/29/2010.

DATE PLAYED: 3-29-10
POINT TOTAL: 500
SCENARIO: 150 points has to be from Indy, COH, COV, Hellboy set, or Invincible set
TEAM:
Martial Artist
HOT Captain America 72
-Pym Particles 6
-Inside Information 4
SI Iron Fist 70
- Alias 3
CR Nightwing 79
-Lunge 5
AA Robin 66
AA Question 37
Indy V Shi 47
Indy U Siamese 55
Indy R Tiger Lily 22
Indy R Kabuki 33
Total: 499
WIN/LOSS: 2-1

So tonight's scenario was that 150 of your 500 points had to come from Indy, COV, COH, Invincible, or the Hellboy set. I looked through my collection and combined I only had 132 points of Indy. So I ran by the venue earlier today after I got out of class and grabbed a few boosters. I got a few more Martial Artists so I decided to use that as my theme. I'd recently got in a Captain America from an order so I decided to use him and rounded it out with Iron Fist, Nightwing, Robin, and Question. Nine figures total on my theme team meant I'd probably always get map roll and all three games I played on the Crash Site map. Stealth/Batman Ally /Kabuki love that map as it gives more than enough cover while they are coming up to engage.

So Round 1 I get Chris. Chris is playing R Johnny Alpha, KC Flash, HOT Captain America, Vet Havok, R Destiny, R Con Artist, U Witchblade, and another R Indy figure that started with Perplex but whose name escapes me. So we moved up to engage and his Captain America got a shot off on Kabuki that put her on her last click but didn't kill her. After that, I ended up getting his Havok while I had to trade Iron Fist to do itI. I managed to get Robin next to a pushed Flash and managed to get a successful 4 damage hit on him. Sadly I didn't have enough time to try to finish him off before time was called. He managed to finish off Kabuki before it was over. 0-1

Round 2 I played Dan. Dan was playing SN Thanos, R Johnny Alpha, R Rasputin, E Abby Chase, and HOT Captain America. In the beginning, I could not hit Dan at all. Johnny Alpha made his first 3 Super Senses rolls. Abby was rolling 6's for Danger Girl. And I had a few bad rolls that just missed. Dan's dice didn't fair much better so I was able to hang in there. I got Iron Fist based next to everyone but Darkseid and was able to tie them up. I then started whittling down his team and while I lost Iron Fist, I was able to kill off everyone but Thanos. 1-1

Round 3 I played Rich. Rich is a newer player who has been out to play the last few times. He was playing AA Wonder Woman, U Hectate, R Abby Chase, and V Deadpool. Wonder Woman was a wrecking crew as she managed to get a shot early on Nightwing and one shotted him. I kept feeding her Indyclix while I took out Deadpool, then Hectate, and then Abby. Meanwhile he took out Nightwing, Robin, Tiger Lily, and Kabuki. I then managed to swarm Wonder Woman in order to finish her off. 2-1

Inside Information on Cap was awesome. Having played against him in 2 games, that +2 really helped. Overall it was fun to break out some Indyclix as I hadn't seen most of these figures in nearly 6 or 7 years.

Heroclix 2 Booster Sealed for Fin Fang Foom 03/27/2010

2010-05-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for a Heroclix 300 points Sealed tournament for Fin Fang Foom that I played in on 03/27/2010.

DATE PLAYED: 3-27-10
POINT TOTAL: 300
SCENARIO: 2 Booster sealed tournament for Fin Fang Foom using any combination of Avengers or Secret Invasion boosters
TEAM:
Spider-Man - 50
Dr. Octopus - 69
Lightspeed - 25
Hawkeye - 57
Moloid - 15
Skrull Dum Dum Dugan - 75

Not used
Ringmaster - 68
Spider-Slayer - 39
Triton - 72
Tarantula - 51

Feats: Camouflage and Infiltrate
WIN/LOSS: 2-1

So we had a sealed tourney for Fin Fang Foom. The rules were that you could pick any two Marvel boosters which mainly meant Avengers or Secret Invasion as that's mostly what the venue had. I believe there were some Mutant Mayhem but I don't think anyone opted to use them. I figured that with Secret Invasion you had more options for some filler pieces like Power Pack and also a better shot at pulling a large brick type of figure. I was right as alot of other players opted for 2 Secret Invasion and all around me I saw Dr. Drooms, Super Skrull Avengers, Sentrys, Hercules, Namors, etc. But I failed to pull any piece over 75 points. So I looked at what I had and I had a decent swarm. I used Lightspeed to carry around Spider-Man. I then had Hawkeye for running shot. I then had two outwits in Dr. Octopus and Dum Dum Dugan. Finally I rounded it out with the Moloid as a tie up piece. All three games were played on the bank map.

First round I played Rich. This was Rich's first tournament as he recently started buying Heroclix. He was playing Skrull Ms. Marvel and Super Skrull X-Men. I got some early shots on SSXM while Ms. Marvel moved up to kill what she should one-shot which meant Lightspeed was the first to fall. Next turn, with her pushed, I based her with Spidey. She cleared and then I pushed Spidey to flurry her, hitting both attacks. After that it was a matter of getting what shots I could on them and eventually they both died. 1-0

Second round I played Matt. Matt was using Dr. Doom and Stature. We started by moving up and positioning. I then pushed Lightspeed to base both Doom and Stature and position Spidey next to Stature. I outwitted Doom's phasing so that I could line up a series of shots on him next round. Stature hit Lightspeed with an object to killer her and Doom ran away. Next turn Spidey hit Stature and Dum Dum finished her off. After that it was chasing after Doom. I managed to get my shots on him, but my dice failed me and I wasn't able to hit him at all. I tried to keep Doom tied up so that I could shoot with Hawkeye and Dum Dum, but he managed to get Spidey, Doc Ock, and Moloid. Had my dice been working it might have been different, but rolling 3s and 4s when you need 7s and 8s won't win you the game. 1-1

So, with a total of 14 people in the tourney, my loss knocked me out for Fin Fang Foom. But I figured I'd finish it out. My last game was against Jeremy. He was playing Molecule Man, Spider-Man, Human Elektra, and Atlantean Warrior. I managed to swarm Molecule Man early, but after a flurry from Spider-Man, I knocked him onto his 19 def click. I managed to eventually get him but it took a few shots. After that, it was a matter of whittling down Human Elektra and then Spider-Man and the Atlantean Warrior. He managed to get the Moloid and Hawkeye. 2-1

So overall it was fun. The Dr. Doom player from the second round went on to play Sentry, Spider-Girl, and another figure in the finals. The range ended up winning it for Doom.

Heroclix 400 points 02/22/2010

2010-05-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for a Heroclix 400 points tournament that I went to on 02/22/2010.

DATE PLAYED: 2/22/10
POINT TOTAL: 400
SCENARIO: Protect the Boss - 400 pointsAll teams must designate a character with Leadership or a SP that allows the use of leadership and a point cost less than 100 points as the "boss". The "boss" is worth double victory points. All characters must share a keyword with the "boss".
TEAM:
OOTS Batman 75
CR Robin 79
CR Nightwing 79
CR Robin 35 (Leader)
AA Robin 66
AA Question 37
AA Gotham City Detective 27
Total: 398
WIN/LOSS: 3-0

So this was a fun format. I sat down Monday afternoon and wasn't sure that I had a good figure that could be the Boss for my team. I've been playing alot of Justice League of America keyword as I love to use the CR Green Lantern and wanted to play that but I didn't have the proper boss (HT Vet Aquaman). So I looked at who had leadership and would qualify. I had this team built awhile back but never got to play it so I pulled it out and put it in my case to see how it did. Turns out, lots of stealth isn't a bad thing afterall.

First round I played Mark. Mark has been playing for a few months and was playing Gotham City keyword as well. He was playing Vet Icons Joker, AA Comm. Gordon (the Boss), AA Riddler, Batman Alpha Catwoman, and AA Hitman. I think he was under points as he had put a figure or two on there that weren't Gotham City keyword and he took them off. We played on the Crash Site map and that meant it was lots of stealth for both of us so no one would be shooting anyone. I got Catwoman early by putting Question and Batman on her. After that I managed to start attacking Riddler who masterminded to Hitman. Hitman fell and then Riddler started taking some damage too. At the end I got everyone but Joker and he got Question, Gotham City Detective, and AA Robin. 1-0

Second round I played Christian. This was Christian's first tournament. He was playing an Ultron team that one of the other players loaned him. His team was Ultron, Vet. Red Tornado, M-11, Phalanx Soldier, and one other Robot that I don't remember. He also had a Lian Harper and a few other pogs as Mastermind fodder. We played on the Crash Site map again. I started marching up the middle so that everyone was in stealth. He TK'ed out Ultron and put him right in the middle of my army. I took down Ultron pretty quickly after that. He managed to get Batman and CR Robin (not the boss) and I managed to get the rest of his team. 2-0

Last round I played Patrick. Patrick was playing HOT Captain America, 7 HOT Hand Ninjas, and a host of pogs. We played on the Bank map. I was very worried about the lack of Hindering on this map and the fact that what I could occupy could kill me pretty quick with the Hand Ninjas. Add onto that Cap shooting at will and it wasn't looking pretty. I took Nightwing, CR Robin (non boss), and AA Robin around the wall to try to corner cap. I managed to get him away from the Hand Ninjas. A critical point came after I surrounded Cap and he went to make a Break Away roll to running shot me and get away from me. He rolled and missed, used a them team prob to hit it, and I then used a theme team prob to put it to a miss. That was pretty big as it kept Cap there and I was able to get him down before he did too much damage. I managed to get Cap and several of the pogs. He managed to get CR Robin and Gotham City Detective I think. 3-0

We had a total of 14 players so while I went 3-0, I ended up in 2nd by about 9 points or so. Oh well. Anytime you go undefeated though I still consider it a good day.

Heroclix 600 points 05/24/2008

2010-05-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for a Heroclix 600 points tournament that I played in on 05/24/2008.

DATE PLAYED: 5/24/08
POINT TOTAL: 600 Points
SCENARIO: Week 11 Crisis Events for Supergirl Event Dial
TEAM:
I spent the night before building teams. I had a Green Lantern team ready that would have been fun to play. Then I also had a Warbound team with Green Scar ready to go. But since I don't get to play as often as I'd like and I decided to keep my KC Supes, I wanted to play him. So I built 2 teams with him. First was a Justice League team of him, CR Hal Jordan, OOTS Batman, and Red Arrow. But then I decided to go with Future instead as I could get better support for Supes. So my team was:
KC Supes 238 - Fortitude 25
Cosmic Boy 70
Lightning Lad 70
Dream Girl 50
Bishop 100- Endruance 5
Phantom Girl 40
Total: 598
BATTLEFIELD CONDITIONS: Deep Shadows, Antimatter Universe, Ordinary Day
WIN/LOSS: 3-0

Round 1
I got to play my brother. He was playing Darkseid with Fortitude, OOTS Batman, Rampaging Hulk, Justice League Flash, Marvel Girl. First turn I got in position and got Superman 2 heavy objects. Darkseid got moved up so that he was in Superman's charge range after a TK. So I chose to go ahead and strike early while I could. I positioned Dream Girl so she was able to see Superman after he was TKed. Supes charged up and swung at Darkseid and he rolled a 6 on his impervious. No worries I have another thanks to flurry so I swing and hit, and he rolled a 5 on his impervious. Darkseid chose to try to attack Superman and forgot to make it penetrating, so he rolls and hits and I roll a 6 on my impervious check. Hulk and Batman came up for the fun and both missed Supes. I move up Lightning Lad to tryto take a shot at his Flash and miss. Lightning Lad is soon crippled. Supes is able to eventually finish off Darkseid and weaken Batman. Bishop gets up there and helps to finish off Batman and then take some shots at the Flash to help Superman finish him off. He got Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Phantom Girl and I got his whole team.

Round 2
I got paired with Michael, who was playing 286 point Thor, Ares, and a 10 point pog. He had Protected on Thor and Contin. Plan on Ares. He played High Gravity and I played Deep Shadows. I then used my Theme team cancellation to cancell High Gravity. So first turn we both move up into position. I had misplaced Supes so if he pushed he could have gotten 2 shots off onto me. So, I chose to push Supes and go for a charge onto Ares. I moved Dream Girl so she could see me and then Tked Supes up for a flurry/charge. I hit both to weaken Ares pretty good. Then I moved up Phantom Girl, who was carrying Bishop, so they could stay next to Thor and at least force a break away roll if he tried to go for Supes. His turn he clears everyone. I move up Lightning Lad to shoot his pog and then let Bishop hit Thor for 1. His turn he hits Bishop pretty good with Thor and hits Supes with Ares, putting Supes on his Hypersonic clicks. My turn Supes finishes off Ares and grabs the last heavy and moves so he can go and attack Thor. I let Bishop and Lightning Lad hurt Thor some before moving up and finishing him off with Supes. He got nothing of mine and I got his whole team.

Round 3
I got paired with Patrick who was playing Darkseid with Protected, Marvel Girl, Batman ability 211 pt. Superman, Merlyn, and OOTS Batman. We both played Ordinary Day as our BFC. He is first so he gets first shot on me. He gets a shot at Cosmic Boy with Darkseid and chooses to make sure he can hit rather than do more damage. He puts Cosmic Boy on his last click of TK. I then TK up Superman and get off my Charge/Flurry. He uses Protected on the last one. But I then am able to move up Lightning Lad and hit Darkseid for another few. He then goes to hit Superman with Darkseid and misses. His Superman goes up for a big shot on my Superman and misses as well. Bishop and Phantom Girl have Merlyn tied up and are taking care of him. Superman cleared and when he activates he's able to take care of Darkseid and finish him off. Then his Superman keeps missing mine I believe. However mine doesn't miss his. With Bishop and Lightning Lad's help they are able to help finish everything off.

So, I played Theme thinking several other people would have and ended up I was the only one who did. It helped some but I'd rather have played a more maximized army. Oh well though, it was fun and I got lucky in the right spots so that Supes never really took alot of damage all day. And it helped me walk away with the Supergirl Event Dial.

Heroclix 300 points 02/09/2008

2010-05-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for a Heroclix 300 point tournament I played in on 02/09/2008.

DATE PLAYED: 2-9-08
POINT TOTAL:298
TEAM:
Brood 49
Brood 49
Brood 49
Korg 82+ Lucky Break 5
Miek 60+ Inside Information 4
BATTLEFIELD CONDITIONS: Shrunk and Deep Shadows
WIN/LOSS: 2-1

So, after winning fellowship the previous night for the Planet Hulk dial, I was out to have some fun. I had originally wanted to play the 6 Brood team that someone played a few weeks ago, but I only had 3 Brood. So I then looked at what I could do with still using them. And I of course were able to do a Warbound keyword using 2 of our other Warbound keyword friends, Miek and Korg. The basic premise was to rush up and just swarm someone as fast as you could. On the NYC map, I was usually able to get something based with pretty much my entire team by the 2nd round. The third round was then spent with attacking with Miek and Korg. Rounds after that were spent with the Brood taking turns and pushing when necessary. It was very fitting to play a Warbound keyword (without the feat) team for the Planet Hulk dial.

So I was out to have fun and first round I play Michael. Michael is playing Iron Widow and Hulkbuster. I know I have to get past his Invuln/Imperv and if I can do that I can take them down. Second round I look and I'm able to base both of them with my entire army if I push my Brood. I do and that's where it starts. We go back and forth and I struggle to hit for most of the game. At one point I had Miek on Flurry and 2 Broods on Flurry, getting off 6 attacks a round onto Iron Widow or Hulkbuster. The odds were in my favor to eventually roll high enough to take them down. I managed to crack Iron Widow. But after that I just couldn't roll high enough to crack Hulkbuster. Despite me rolling an ungodly amount of attack rolls, I only managed 1 crit and Hulkbuster was able to take his time and finish off my entire army. 0-1

Second round I play Chris who is playing Psychic keyword, Professor X, Emma Frost, and Esme Cuckoo. I know if I can separate them one at a time I can have a shot at them. I manage to get Emma separated on a building and swarm her on the 2nd round. Positioning kept Esme from doing much and Professor X rolled around outwitting what he could to help out. However, she wasn't able to stand up to the Brood/Korg assault. After that I swarmed Professor X and Esme and was able to finish both of them off. I believe I lost 1 Brood in the process of the fight. 1-1

Last round I play Patrick. Patrick is 2-0 and I still have a shot at winning if can win pretty big against him. Patrick is playing a Future Keyword, Bishop, Ahab, and Ultra Boy. I try to swarm Ultra Boy early. He missed an early attack onto Korg but Korg didn't miss him back. I weakened him, but only knocked him onto Hypersonic. After that I had to concentrate on the rest of his army as I couldn't catch him. I was able to attack and weaken Ahab. Then I got a swarm in on Bishop. Bishop was the next to fall. After that it was 2 Brood, Korg, and Miek against Ultra Boy. After all was said and done, I ended up losing both of the Brood, but Korg was able to finish off Ultra Boy. Final 2-1

It came down to points between me and Patrick. Patrick beat me by around 100 points or so total. Overall though this army was very mobile and was alot of fun to play. I definately had a blast playing this.

Heroclix 300 points 02/08/2008

2010-05-18T06:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from a Heroclix 300 point tournament I played in on 02/08/2008.

DATE PLAYED: 2-8-08
POINT TOTAL: 300
TEAM:
Danger 124
Superman Robot 100 + Protected 8
Ahab 68
BATTLEFIELD CONDITIONS: Ordinary Day, and I don't remember what my other one was.
SPECIAL OBJECTS PLAYED: Tombstone
WIN/LOSS: 2-1

So it was the first local tourney for the Planet Hulk Dial. I knew other people were bringing competitive teams so I had planned a few different teams. I debated between a spy army and between this robot one. I really like playing Danger so in the end I went with her.

First round I played Michael who was playing Monster keyword, Rampaging Hulk, ZZaxxx, and M&M Zombie Spiderman. We battled a bit back and forth. My dice were cold the first few rounds and then they got hot and I started hitting attacks. Michael's dice completely abandoned him at that point of the game and he began to roll really low. He ended up killing Danger, but not long after that Superman Robot and Ahab were able to finish off Hulk and then make short work of Spidey for the win. 1-0

Second round I played Chris who was playing Gambit, FC Marvel Girl, Storm, X-23, and Avengers Scarlet Witch. This game was very back and forth. Chris got an early shot on Ahab to weaken him. After that I had a combined Superman Robot attack and Danger psychic blast that killed Gambit on the 3rd turn. Then it was mainly dealing with Storm. Storm proved to be alot more dangerous as she was able to kill Robot Superman. Ahab followed soon after. I then got into a spot where I was able to base Storm out of hindering with Danger so that she wouldn't be granted stealth later in her dial. Marvel Girl and Scarlet Witch joined in on the fight. I think I really had a shot at that point. However Scarlet Witch ended up critting me, which knocked me back away from Storm long enough for her to do her dirty work from range. 1-1

Third round I played a guy who's name I forget but he had traveled a bit to come out and play. He was playing M&M Zombie Wolverine, OOTS Batman, and Winter Soldier. He made an early move to try to weaken Ahab. As he did that, I concentrated on Winter Soldier and got a Hypersonic attack onto him with Robot Superman, which knocked him off of stealth. After that Danger shot him to pretty much finish him off. Then Superman stayed there to work on Batman. Batman took a risk with a push and crit missed. After that Superman Robot was able to take him. While that battle was going on, Danger and Ahab were able to weaken and eventually kill Zombie Wolverine. 2-1

We then did the roll off for fellowship Bob Barker style, highest roll with out going over. I never seem to get these rolls but the dice gods smiled on me as I rolled an 8 and managed to get fellowship. It was good to be able to win it Friday night as I was able to then have fun the rest of the weekend.

DDM Epic Constructed 500 points 07/22/2006

2010-05-17T14:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from a DDM Epic Constructed 500 point tournament that we had on 07/22/2006. The original thread can be found here:

http://www.maxminis.com/Forums/tabid/104/aff/66/aft/448747/afv/topic/Default.aspx

We had an epic tourny this week for our sanctioned tourny. Having tried to play Tiamat last time and subsequently losing my #1 epic ranking in the state because of it, I chose to play something for fun. I played SUPER BAHAMUT:

Aspect of Bahamut
Couatl x 2
Eberk Adventurer
Dwarf Artificer
Village Priest
Redgar Adventurer
Nebin Gnome Illusionist
on King's Road

With Titan builds, I figure that that's your sole beater and have always buffed and pumped them up as much as I could. This is a take off an old Huge Gold Dragon army I built. Before I had the Cleric of Dol Arrah in it, but with Bahamut's Comm. 8 I left him out of this build. With this build, I've got the 2 Couatls for Snake SWiftness, Eberk for Divine Protection, the Artificer for Greater Magic Weapon and Legions Sheild of Faith, the Village Priest for Bless, Redgar to bring in Nebin, and Nebin to casts Blur. King's road is a great map for this type of band as Bahamut's F12 allows him to move with ease while most other pieces struggle with the trees.

First round I get paired with Jim McKinney. Jim came prepared for a 200 point tourny and had to throw together an Epic Army. He played Elminster, Archmage, Mordenkidin, Frenzy, Wand Expert, Greenfang Druid, Centaur Hero, Graycloak w/ wolf. I won my map so we played on King's Road. We dance for a few rounds before I rush Bahamut over to him. I had set up a perfect cone that would have caught Elminster, the Greenfang, the Wand Expert, and Mordy in it. Then I lost that init and he slapped me with 2 of Mordy's Swords. He tried a 3rd one but luckily Spell Resistance held up on it. Then I played beat the clock. Bahamut tried to take out as many spellcasters as he could, but he just couldn't get enough of them killed before he finally fell to the 2 Swords. Had I won that init for the cone it could have been a different game, but Jim played a really great game and the barrage of spellcasters was too tough for Bahamut. 0-1

Second round I play Allan who's using a Dual Purple Worm, Blackspawn, Redspawn, Tiefling Blademaster + Fodder band. Allan's dice really didn't like him during this game. He did not make 1 save on any breath weapons or any morale checks. He moves up everything towards Bahamut and I move up and fire my line at him. It catches both Worms and both Spawn. Everything fails to take 60. Then both Spawn fail their morale checks. Next round the spawn flee and he brings 1 worm over to me and tries to bring the other around the other side. Between Bahamut's full attack and the SS from the Couatls I take out the worm. Next round I move up and he's got his Tiefling, some fodder, and the other Worm by the central A/B Victory Area. I have Redgar who's there collecting VP. I breath my cone and lose Redgar to it, but it kills the fodder, the Tiefling and routes the Worm for game. It could have been alot different but failing all those saves hurt. 1-1

Last match I get the one match I didn't want. I'm playing Ken McCutchen who's playing a Triple Bluespawn Godslayer band, with Cleric of Nerull, Diseased Dire Rat, and 3 Kobold Miners. I get my map once again and it proved to be a big thing as the BSGS had a hard time going through the trees. With their large bases and the trees I was able to almost single out the slayers one by one and luckily he missed Bahamut several times. He got me down to 75 hps and CRITTED. However, God bless Nebin as he then rolled a 5 on the blur check. That allowed me to unload on the final slayer and then next round I was able to finish it off before it could finish me off. I definately did not expect to beat a Triple Godslayer band as it's got Bahamut Bane written all over it. 2-1

I ended up in 3rd after tie breaks. We drafted from 2 WODQ boosters and prizes were a Large Fang Dragon and War Weaver with Displacer Beast Pack Lord and Mountain Troll as the huges/rares. I got the War Weaver for placing 3rd which isn't bad. I really like Bahamut alot as well. Having Bahamut with a 30 AC, +25/+20/+20 attack, and with Conceal 6 is just nasty. Odds are that I may play this army again. It depends on if my 2-1 can get me back to the top of my Epic rankings. If not then I may try my Quint Beholders army.

DDM Epic Constructed 500 points 07/08/2006

2010-05-17T14:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for a DDM Epic Constructed 500 points tournament that we had on 07/08/2006. The original thread can be found here:

http://www.maxminis.com/Forums/tabid/104/aff/66/aft/447820/afv/topic/Default.aspx

Today we ran an epic for our weekly sanctioned tourny. I went to the store and picked up my 14 boosters that I'd preordered and was very happy with the results. Out of the 2 cases I pulled Tiamat, Bahamut, Tiamat, Bahamut, and a Dracolich. I said to myself before I went that if I pulled a Tiamat I would play her. So having fulfilled the first part, I ran her. My army was:

Aspect of Tiamat
Helmed Horror x 3
Dire Rat
Kobold Miner x 3
Tomb of Queen Perigne

I realized how fragile the AOT was so I put it with the HH who can help out with flanking and also taking out other targets as need be. They actually served their purpose with her.

First round I got paired up with Ken McCutchen. Ken was running Dual Aspect of Moradins with Eberk, Dwarf Artificer, Aramil, and 3 Men at Arms. We play on my map and we juggle around for a few rounds. I manage to isolate an AOM, Eberk, and Aramil and move up and get off a breath weapon on them to take out Eberk and Aramil and damage the AOM. Next round I unload on that same AOM. He moves up his other AOM and the damaged one attacks me. I miss a few attacks on the AOM as he buffed the AC up to 30. He manages to kill AOT before she can kill an AOM. The HH then try to finish off that one as he was down to 10 hps but he would end the game at 5 hps left as they just couldn't get it done. 0-1

Second round I play William who's running a King Snure, Formorian, Mountain Troll, Kobold Sorcerer, 3 Kobold Zombies army. We play on the Tomb again. Position around for a few rounds and then he moves up the Troll to attack Tiamet and damages her. Tiamet unloads on the Troll and forces morale which he makes. I move up the HH as well to attack the Troll and wear him down further. Snure and the Fomorian attack the HH to get them down. Next round I finish off the Troll before it can activate. After that I have the HH attack the Fomorian while the Fomorian gets off an attack on AOT. Snure also sets up for a charge next round. Next round I force a morale on the Fomorian who fails it and runs. Snure comes over and I start to wear him down. He checks and also fails and runs. Next round he saves both of them and I move up and further wear down Snure. Round after that I finish off Snure and that's game. 1-1

Third round I play Keith who's running a Drizzt, Epic Guen, Dragon Totem Hero, Bluespawn Godslayer, Aramil, Eberk, Mailee, and Wand Expert. We play on my map again. I realize that the Barney is the biggest target and if I get it down the AOT will easily finish off everything else. That was the plan at least. We position for a few rounds and I then unload everything on the Bluespawn. He had cast blur on it with the Wand Expert. I quickly killed off the Expert after that, but that blur turned out to be game changing. Tiamat got off 2 full rounds of attacks on it and did no damage thanks to blur. I missed every single one of those attacks due to conceal 6. Meanwhile he was abusing the poor AOT. Finally I start to hit and finish him off. But by then Epic Guen came up and joined the fun and she was able to finish off AOT. After that Drizzt killed a HH and with his victory points it was game. Had I made some of those attacks and rolled higher than a 5 on any of those conceal rolls it would have been different. But Keith's warband was tight and he played it well. Overall 1-2.

We drafted for prizes with two WODQ boosters. Rares were Fang Dragon and War Weaver with Bluespawn Godslayer and Huge Fiendish Spider.

DDM Constructed 200 points 06/24/2006

2010-05-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from a DDM Constructed 200 points tournament that we had on 06/24/2006. The original thread can be found here:

http://www.maxminis.com/Forums/tabid/104/aff/66/aft/447303/afv/topic/Default.aspx
We had our 200 point tourny this weekend and had 7 people show up. Almost as many as Syracuse did. I chose to go with SWarm as it's my new favorite army. I've been playing the 6 SW variant since the week after Utah. I felt that the Dwarf Artificer didn't add enough to the mix and I'd rather have that 6th SW there instead. It also allowed for a little better support so I went with the Warforged Scout as my other piece. My final band was:

Sword Archon
Sacred Watcher x 6
Warforged Scout
on Drow Outpost

First round, I got the bye. I watched the other first round matches. The other warbands were Ragnarok playing a Dual HGB band, Jim McKinney playing his CG variant band that went 7-1 at our qualifier, Ken playing a Triple Frenzy/no commander band, Troy playing a LE Quad, James running an all Warforged band, and William running Couatl/Dual Maruts. William was running the Ballista band but borrowed another Marut before the tourny. The Ballista band I can handle, but Dual Maruts are just a horrible matchup for SWarm as they just can't pile the damage on the maruts fast enough.

Second round I get to go against Jim. I played Jim at the Qualifier when I was running my Triple HH band and wondered how it would have went had I played SWarm. We roll for map and he got his map, Dragon Shrine, I got side and set up on the fire side. First 2 rounds we dance around with me trying to avoid his Frenzy and him not exposing too much. He got a few shots off with his Graycloaks and did about 10 damage to 2 SW. Finally I move up and we start to engage. He brings his Rikka up to get rid of my Scout. I then give him a free shot with the FB on a SW and he makes the Incorp. After she's exposed I pounce on her with all my SW and my SA to get her down to 10 damage. He brings up the rest of his army and takes out another SW. Next round I get rid of the FB and he takes out a few more SW. I also get in some shots on the Greenfang. I bring my SA around and use Melee reach to get the Wand Expert and take it out before it can hit anyone. Rikka charges in and hits the Sword Archon. Next round I pile some more damage on the Greenfang and then hit Rikka. Rikka hits the SA. The greenfang checks and makes Morale and I'm now down to 1 SW and the SA who has 30 hps left. I win the next init and hit Rikka, she checks and fails morale and runs off the board. I then bring the SA over to the Greenfang. Next round the Greenfang dies and that's game. A really good game that could have went either way as Jim missed some incorp rolls that would have taken down the SW earlier.

Final round I play against William and the Dual Maruts. I got my map so we played on Outpost rather than his map, King's Road. He marches up both Maruts and uses LUG on the SW. I pass 4 of the 6 SW checks amazingly. Next round I dogpile the Maruts and send over 2 Watchers to attack the Couatl. I try to keep the Archon as far back as I can. He misses several attacks on the SW due to incorp. I get the Couatl down to morale and it passes. At this point he start hitting incorp and kills some SW. I then bring the SA over to finish off the Couatl. The uphill battle I was waging took a bad turn and I see that I probably can't finish off both Maruts with my SA and 2 SW. Next round I crit the Couatl with my SA to finish it off. Both Maruts come over and finish off the SA. And that's game.

Finished in second with 2-1 with 1 win being a bye. Opened 2 boosters and pulled out a Marut and a Dragon Totem Hero.

DDM Epic Constructed 500 points 06/17/2006

2010-05-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from a DDM Epic Constructed 500 point tournament we had on 06/17/2006. The original thread can be found here:

http://www.maxminis.com/Forums/tabid/104/aff/66/aft/446811/afv/topic/Default.aspx

Yesterday was our weekly sanctioned tourny and we ran an Epic this week. We had 8 people show up. I decided to run my Behold Hextor band as it hadn't lost yet so I figured I'd try my luck with it again. My band is:

Beholder x 3

Aspect of Hextor x 2 (non-epic)

Dark Naga

Human Blackguard

Wolf Skeleton

Map: Tomb of Queen Perigne

First round I got paired up with Troy. Troy was running an Epic Justicator, Epic Aspect of Moradin, Justice Archon, Warforged Scout, Warforged Bodyguard, Eberk, Dwarf Artificer, and Aramil on Teleport Temple. Rolled for map and he won so we were on the Teleports. I won side and set up in the room closest to all the teleports, putting him and his slow speed so that he could only reach one the first round. First turn I managed to get both Aspects and my wolf skeleton on teleports and had my beholders to where they could easily get to a teleport and then eye ray something next round. Second round I bring up both Aspects to him and then flood in the Beholders to start with the eye rays. He lands some good shots on the Aspects but I bring up my Blackguard before he checks. Next round it's more melee with me getting some good shots in with the Beholders eye rays and turning the Justice Archon to stone. I started getting hot on some rolls with my eye rays and managed to take out the Justicator. He got rid of both Aspects and 1 Beholder but they'd done their damage to everything else and I was able to finish off Moradin before it was over.

Second round I got paired with Tony. Tony's ranked #1 in the state in constructed but hasn't played alot lately due to a hectic work schedule. He brought a Drizzt, Epic Guen, Epic Rikka, Rask, Aramil, Lidda, Eberk, and maybe one more piece that escapes me on King's Road. I win map init and easily choose mine rather than try to eye ray through the trees. We spend a few rounds dancing around and he waylays in Rikka. I get some damage on her and then roll a lucky disentegrate on her and get her down on some hit points. He brings the rest of the crew over and it's time to party. I got both Aspects onto Drizzt and managed to get him down to 30 hps, but either missed my attacks on him or missed due to conceal. Drizzt and Rask tag teamed the Aspects and managed to kill both of them. The 3 Beholders were busy with Rikka and he'd brought Guen over. Here's where the game changed. When he placed Guen, it was 1 square off of Drizzt's commander effect. He didn't realize it until after he'd done it. I got a few rolls on Guen and managed to roll for a flesh to stone. With her outside of Drizzt's help, I tried it and Guen rolled 1 off and was a statue. After that I was able to finish off Rikka and get a good point lead. Time was called on us and I won on points being up by about 120 or so. Great game and had he not placed Guen 1 square off it would have been completely different.

Final round was against Kenwig. Ken's a good player and brought out a Dual Epic Aspect of Moradin, Dwarf Artificer, Dwarf Wizard, Man at Arms, and 3 Timber Wolves army on Tomb of Queen Perigne. Having 2 Epic AOM's I knew It'd be tough to get through all those hit points. We spent a few rounds dancing around trying to get the other to engage. I killed and routed a wolf or two and got off an eye ray onto the Man at Arms, giving me a slight activation advantage. Next round I used that to try to get him to come to me and when he didn't I went to him and hoped for initiave. I got the init and wasn't able to hit the AOM's with my Aspects. Add to that that I was rolling low for my eye rays and that when I did roll well the AOM's had a save of +15, it didn't go well after we engaged. I did manage to roll some disentegrates on him, but rolling at least 7 slides really hurt. Had I rolled a 5 on those though that still wouldnt' have helped alot though as I don't think it would have killed either of the Aspects. In the end Kenwig killed off my entire army and won.

I finished 2-1 and came in 3rd due to tie breakers. We opened 2 boosters for prizes and they were both Arcane Ballistas. Not a bad day though as I did roll 11 Disentegrates and did turn 3 or 4 pieces to stone. I also am about to get my 5th Beholder so I plan on running Quint Beholders next time that Epic comes around.

DDM Epic Constructed 500 points 06/03/2006

2010-05-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report we had from a DDM Epic Constructed 500 points tournament on 06/03/2006. The original thread can be found here:

http://www.maxminis.com/Forums/tabid/104/aff/66/aft/446106/afv/topic/Default.aspx
We had an Epic tourny this past Saturday at Warlords Unlimited in Richmond, KY. I played around with a few ideas and as per normal I let my love for the Beholder really show in Epic play. The army I've been playing is now 7-0 in Epic play and I'll admit that part of that is due to the dice going my way on some rolls. My army was:

Behold Hextor
Beholder x 3
Dark Naga
Human Blackguard
Aspect of Hextor x 2 (non-epic)
Wolf Skeleton
on Tomb of Queen Perigne

Basic idea is to run both AOH out and then let the Beholders come in as backup and wear down things with the eye rays. The AOH work well for this as they've got enough hp to stay around for a few rounds and with the HBG they are basically fearless. Beholders are always iffy to run as they are high variance and always depend upon your dice rolls. I've ran Beholders for along time and feel that I have mastered them. To anyone who differs, ask the locals and I'm sure they'll share their hate for Beholders, which I'm proud to say I'm to blame for.

Round 1
I play our FLGS owner Keith. Keith is running a King Snure, 2 War Troll (1 Epic and 1 non-epic), Skeletal Legionaire, Gauth, and Terror Wight on Field of Ruin. He wins map init and we play on his map. First 2 rounds are spent positioning with him using the central area for blocking to keep my Beholders out of LOS of him. Third round we get it on and I am able to get my Beholders to see through the central victory area. During I think this round I start to wear down 1 War Troll and turn the other one to Stone. I believe I got the non epic stoned. He takes a gamble and runs Snurre up on the other side hoping to kill the Naga. Only problem is he's now fully exposed to my other 2 Beholders who have not activated yet. A disentegrate and 3 inflict wounds later, Snurre failed a morale check and ran, but wasn't off the board. Next round the AOHs finish off the War Troll they were fighting. His Gauth managed to get in a lucky LOS and paralyzed 1 of my Beholders. I activate it and manage to unparalyze it. He had moved up his Skeletal Legionaire hoping to use it as some Beholder bane. I moved the HBG over and killed it. After that Snurre rallied but he conceded since I still had my entire army vs his 1/2 Snurre.

2nd Round
I played Ragnarok who is playing a great army. I really like Mike's army and this is a rematch of the last time we played Epic. Mike and I played in the finals of that tourny and it was very close. Mike's army is Epic Justicator, Epic Rikka, non-epic Aspect of Moradin, Mailee, Aramil, Couatl, Eberk, and Dwarf Artificer. We roll for map and I get it so I take my map. First round I use my activation control on him to use the Beholders last and get some shots off on the Justicator to get him for about 30 points with some inflict wounds. Second round he Waylays in Rikka right next to my entire warband and moves on the HBG, hitting him for 30. The rest of his army is too far away to move and attack so they end up moving down to within striking distance next round. This round though I had both AOH and all 3 Beholders on Rikka. I got lucky with a few disentegrates and some bad rolls on Mike's part and by the end of the round she was at 10hps. Next round I managed to finish off Rikka and get the Justicator down to 10hps. Round after that I finish off the Justicator and either get the AOM down to no hps or possibly turn him to stone. After that round we called it game though.

3rd Round
Once again this band made it to the finals. I get paired up against William. William is a local who's young (not yet in high school), but is a quick learner. He's learned alot from us in the short amount of time he's been playing and is now actually able to give us a run for our money. Given the amount of talent in Richmond, that's saying quite a bit. He was running a Huge Gold Dragon, Trumpet Archon, Warpriest of Moradin, Dwarf Artificer, Timber Wolf x 2. His strategy was to bring the Dragon over and block you into your starting area on the first turn. Second turn he would breath on your army and then sound the Trumpet's peel and try to get you to route. I knew this so I prepared for it. I told him before we started that his dragon would make a pretty statue. First turn he brought over the dragon and I got some shots in on it with the Beholders, knocking it down by 50 points or so. Second round starts and I win init. I have my Beholders so that if they fail their checks, only 1 can get off the board. The one that can get off the board I use and fire 2 times on the HGD. One is an inflict and the other is a low roll that lets me slide it back so it's based by an AOH. He then goes and breathes with the dragon. I make all my saves except on 1 Beholder who can see the HBG and makes his morale. He sounds the trumpet and I make all my saves. I then unleash the fury of the Beholders on him and get off 2 rolls that are high enough to be flesh to stone. He makes the first one and the second one he rolls a 1 on. Big Golden Statue. He wants to still play it out though so he brings up the Archon and goes after the HBG. I base it with both AOH. He starts to bring up his Artificer and WOM. I get some shots off onto the Artificer and after 3 inflicts he's dead. I then start on the WOM and get off 1 inflict on him. Next round he attacks the HBG. I am then able to unleash the AOH's on him and between that and some good Beholder inflicts I take care of the Trumpet Archon. After that it's short work of the Warpriest and that's game.

Final record has me 3-0 and down as the winner. We drafted 2 boosters of Wardrums for prizes and I picked a War Troll. William came in 2nd and picked an Ogre War Hulk.

DDM Constructed 200 points 02/04/2006

2010-05-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Here's an old tourney report where I finally won with my Dual Beholder band. The original link can be found here:

http://www.maxminis.com/Forums/tabid/104/aff/66/aft/440182/afv/topic/Default.aspx

First I've been playing a dual Beholder band since last summer. It's had off and on success with most of it being matchups (no undead, constructs, or evade damage) and what I rolled with my eye rays and they rolled for saves. As of late I've been bringing them out as there wasn't alot of their bad matchups being played locally.

So today we had a 200 point tourny and I looked around the room to see what was being played. I've got several warbands that I carry with me and if I see alot of bad matchups for the Beholders, there's no point in playing them as it's only going to be a bad day for me. So, having seen that there wasn't alot of bad matchups for me out there today I chose to go with them.

We had 10 people show up and first round I got paired up against Troy. Troy's a newer player who's been playing for probably a little over a month. He's starting to get more expierience though and is showing potential with each tourny. He played a LE beater band with Justicator, Duegar Champ, and Orog Warlord as the commander. We are still using tiles so we set up the board and I got a good position for some first turn eye rays. I fire and disentegrate his Chraal. The Chraal failed his save and then also failed his morale save and routed off the board. The game went along the same way with me rolling a total of 3 or 4 disentegrates on stuff. He failed quite a few saves and I only took 15 damage on each Beholder.

Next round I got paired up with one of my bad matchups. I played Tony (visage on here I think) who was playing a dual Death Slaad, Orc Champ, Tiefling, and filler band. He got a good setup on the board and had me blocked in so I couldn't get off alot of eye rays on him until he was ready. He got off 1 Chaos Hammer and I made all my saves on it thankfully. After that he swarmed a Beholder and I got hot with some rolls and was able to disentegrate a Death Slaad and make it rout, disentegrate the Orc Champ to finish it off, and turn the other Death Slaad to stone when it was at full hp. A tough matchup that went my way due to some good rolls on my part and some bad rolls on Tony's.

Third round I played Keith (Thorsdad on here I think) who was playing a 3 Orc Champ, Eye of Gruumish, Tiefling, and filler band. Definately a bad matchup. Once again however my opponent rolled horribly and out of over 9 attacks, he hit once. I rolled pretty well during this one as well and ended up going 3-0 at this point.

Fourth round I played Ken who was playing a 3 Duegar Champ, Gauth, Dark Naga, and filler band. He got a great set up on the board against me and I had no line of sight at all hardly on him. I got off a few eyes rays as he advanced, but I rolled pretty low on them so they weren't able to do anything. After that he was able to do some damage with the Naga's lightning bolt and the Gauth's eye ray. One Beholder fell and after that he wore down my other one. I did roll back to back disentegrates, but it was too little too late and I lost the match. 3-1 total for the day.

After that it was up to DCI and I had the best win percentage to emerge as champion for the day. Beholders aren't tier 1, but they are still a dangerous band.

DDM Richmond KY Constructed Qualifier

2010-05-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from the first Qualifier I went to for DDM. The original link can be found here:

http://www.maxminis.com/Forums/tabid/104/aff/66/aft/445377/afv/topic/Default.aspx

Well, first off I'd like to say that this tournament was a great time. It was well ran and from what I could see there weren't any major things that happened. Since March I started playtesting with warbands for the qualifier and had wanted to play a Quad Horror. I playtested with it against everything in lots of matches over the last 2 and a half months and felt good about everything except it's matchup against Marut/Couatl. Then lo and behold that they became popular to play. HH have a hard time with that build. It's not an impossible matchup by any means, but it is a hard one to win and one that you need luck on your side to pull off. So this last Tuesday I decided to try taking out 1 HH and replacing it with a Rakshasa. I added in the Dark Moon Monk for MW and then at least stood a chance against Marut/Couatl. My final band was:

Rakshasa
HH x 3
Dark Moon Monk
Kobold Miners x 3
on Drow Outpost

I played it alot on Vassal over the last several days to get used to placement and get used to playing it in general. Going into this morning I wasn't 100% sure of it, but I did know the band quite well and knew switching the day of was never a good idea so I stuck with the Rasta Horror band.

My first matchup was against George Estill. George was playing a Triple HH build with a Flameskull, Dark Moon Monk, Large Duergar, Azer Raider, and Timber wolf. Can't remember who won map but we played on mine. During playtesting I kept getting put on Side A which alot of people don't like. I personally have learned to play and have my positions figured out from that spot so it's the one I usually go to if I've got a choice. Before we started George mentioned that with mirror matches like these, it comes down to the dice. He was right. I didn't roll well, but I rolled better than George. He didn't make alot of errors as far as strategy, but the 6 1's he rolled really hurt him. He managed to get 1 HH, the Flameskull, and the Large Deurgar all on my Rakshasa and the Rak managed to survive for at least 3-4 rounds after that because he kept missing attacks. I managed to kill 1 of his HH and then from there it was just that I hit most of my attacks while George missed alot of his. This would be George's only loss of the day. So after round 1, I was 1-0.

Second round I played a Dual War Troll band with Urthok, 2 Timber Wolves, and a Dark Moon Monk. Ended up on his map, Dragon Shrine. I was lucky enough in this match to crit him 3 times with my HH and once with my DMM. He also failed 3 of the 4 Slapping Hands. He killed 1 HH on the 2nd round of engagement but right after that I managed to kill one of his War Trolls. The remaining War Troll wasn't able to do enough damange to the remaining HHs before they killed him. Not alot of errors on his part, just some bad die rolls. So after round 2, I was 2-0.

Third round, I got paired against James Prather who has been a good player in our state for a long time. He was ranked #1 in KY for awhile and I was looking forward to getting a chance to play him. He was playing a CE Quad with 2 Ogre Ravs, 2 Orc Champs, a Tiefling, OWD, and 1 or 2 Orc Warriors. In this matchup I knew that if I was going to win, he had to miss me with some attacks. Well he hit me, alot. The HH just weren't able to keep up with his damage output. Add that into him winning some big inits and that was pretty much game for him. So after round 3 I was 2-1.

Fourth round came and I got paired with another local, Ken McCuthen, who was playing a Dark Flames band with Dark Naga, 3 Duergar Champs, a Gauth, Snig and Sniglets. I was careful how I engaged him and waited til he put 1 Champ out there as bait. When he did I put all my HH on it and then got off a Slapping hands. He brought up the rest of his champs and the Gauth as well as the Naga. The dice went my way after that as he missed some attacks on me and also missed 2 morale checks on the Champs. So after the 4th round I was 3-1.

Fifth round came and after seeing who all was 3-1 I hoped for 1 matchup that I thought was my best chance. I got paired up with them. Steve Johnson (Myth Master Jr.) was playing an Orog, 1 HH, 2 Chraals, 2 Orc Savages, and 4 Goblin Skirmishers. We played on his map, Fane of Lolth. My game plan was to go after the Orog, but to Steve's credit he did an excellent job of just keeping him out of reach for me. I killed 1 Chraal quickly and then ganged up on the HH. Once we engaged, Steve did not win a single init. After I got rid of the HH, I was left with 1 wounded HH and the Rakshasa. Steve was left with a full Chraal and his Orog at 50. I hit the Orog and it runs. Next round I chase it down and he saves it. I win the next init and charge into flanking with the Rak and hit. Two attacks with the HH while the Orog is at 25. I hit the first attack, and CRIT on the second to kill the Orog. Anything but a crit and he probably would have killed the HH on his next activation. But after the crit the Orog and Chraal go and I won the game at that point. Steve played a good game and just got some bad die rolls. So after round 5 I was 4-1.

At this point my tiebreakers are pretty strong. Pairings come out and I get paired with the only undefeated player, Jim McKinney, who's playing his CG Variety Pack of Green Fang Druid, Rikka, FB, 2 Greycloaks with 2 wolves, Wand Expert, and an Elf Warrior. We played on my map, the Outpost. I made 1 mistake against Jim and that was that I hesitated to engage until I could get a good placement and get off a full round of attacks and a Bigbys. That round probably hurt in my opinion just because I took some damge from the Wand Expert and the Graycloaks. I engage him and manage to roll a few crits to get rid of the Greenfang very quickly. I go over and get some hits on the FB while she hits back. One of my HH dies at this point due to the FB and the Expert. I get rid of the Frenzy and attack the Expert. It needs a 14 to make morale and he rolls a 15. I move over the Rakshasa and casts my last Bigby's on it and he rolls a 19 on the save. After that he was able to finish off that last HH and between that and tile points Jim got it. So I finished 4-2 overall.

Now at this point I knew I had strong tiebreakers and just hoped they were better than Johnny Quests were. The wait seemed forever and when it came out, I placed 5th behind Quest by an opponent win % of 5.5%. Very very close. I'll admit that to come that close to qualifying and lose by 5.5% does sting a bit. But on the other hand I played very well throughout the day and walk away very proud to have placed as high as I did in a solid field of players. So, at this point I've got possibly GA if I can talk a group of guys into going and if not then it's always onto the Grinder.On another note, I'd like to proudly proclaim that HH are NOT dead as previousely rumored. ;)

WOW Minis Teldrassil Realms 11/14-11/15/2009

2010-05-17T07:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from the Teldrassil Realms held near Cincinnati OH on 11/14 - 11/15/2009. The original link can be found here:

http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/wow/community/forums/thread/1858652.aspx
So, not having local tournaments and only having a few other friends that play this game, I don't get to play it alot. Every 2 or 3 weeks we'll get together and play a few games but that's about the extent of the playing I get to do. The only tournament I've been to at this point was Nashville Realms back in May. I finished 13th out of 18 for Day 2. Not horrible, but out of Top 8 and not as good of a showing as I'd have liked. So I set out to improve upon my placing this time and I'm happy to say that I did.

Leading up to the event, I looked at several different armies. Amalars looked fun and after playtesting them some, they had alot of raw killing power. Ice Block was pretty good and if you did everything right you could lock your way onto the hill. I wasn't sure I liked either of those. I had just done a trade for 3 Morts so I was pretty high on getting to use them. I practiced them a few times but something was missing. After looking everything over I realized the answer was Death Coil and Pitzog. Death Coil is obvious for moving someone off the hill. Pitzog seemed vital in alot of matches to make Morts up to 10 health and also to occupy the hill so no one else could get up to it. After some playtesting, I liked it, but I wasn't sold on it yet. The problem I saw was with Ice Block. I knew that I could win that matchup with Morts, but I wasn't 100% certain I could win the matchup and didn't have a solid answer to it. Triple Harukas then became the answer I was looking for. I playtested it against Triple Iranas and if Haruka packed Earth Shocks and Purges, you wrecked them. Maybe a bit too specialized ABC list for the field, but my concern was going up against Triple Amalar and being able to get through his armor to bring him down before he killed my Harukas. In short, I had no idea what I was going to play when I left.

We left Southern Kentucky about 9:00 am or so on Saturday. We got to the Holiday Inn at a little after 11:00 and found the convention room where the event was being held. We got a room later on that was right down the hall on the first floor so we were pretty close for everything. We had a total of 12 people for Day 1 with one guy who was in the TCG main event buying into the last qualifier to get in. So we had a total of 13 for Day 2.

We started Day 1 at Noon on Saturday with Sealed. Instead of doing 1 Core and 1 Spoils, we ended up with 2 Spoils because they didn't receive enough Core to run the event with it. We opened our boosters, wrote down what was in them, and then passed them back to the T.O. He then randomely passed the boosters back out. My first boosters had a Kael'thas, Daxin, Elizabetha that I would have loved to have played. The boosters I got had Vigor, Aluna, Marlowe, Hulok, Harnum, and Chancelor Velora. Vigor and Aluna were auto includes. I then decided to go with Marlowe for the Pitzog hill trick. That also would put a Vigor in Bear Form up to 11 health. I would learn that that trick only worked as long as Marlowe didn't die, which he was always the first one to die.

Round 1
I got paired with Bin Chin. Bin and I talked some before the event and he had driven up from Georgia. He was running Sethekk Talon Lord, Elanna Starbreeze, and Ixamos the Redeemed. Not a bad game, but the combination of Aluna and Vigor proved to be a bit too much. Especially when a Bear Formed Vigor takes the hill and you have to kill him to get him off. 1-0

Round 2
I got paired with Jimmy. Jimmy was running Vindicator Kaustron, Elanna Starbreeze, and Raazani Nexus Stalker. I started off Tick 1 by shooting the Stalker and bringing it down to 2 health. Tick 2 it jumped to the VP. I move Vigor to finish it off and he Ice Blocked it. I thought I was screwed as I had no answer to Ice Block. He took an early lead but the Ice Block came off at Tick 10 before he could ready it again. I was able to finish it off with Vigor and then take the hill to take control of the game. 2-0

Round 3
I got paired with my buddy Tony who was running Jaina, Vindicator Kaustron, and Marlowe. Had we played it out, I'm not sure I could have won. He had a better army than I did. He was on a roll after a few good games, had qualified with his 2-0 and conceded to me. 3-0

So after making it in on Sealed, it was time to narrow down what I wanted to play. I was looking at either Morts or Triple Harukas. My buddy Jason didn't qualify during Sealed so he wanted to run Triple Iranas. I didn't have enough Counterspells or I would have probably ended up running that as well. I opted to play Morts. I wanted to get some use out of them and if they bombed then I knew I could switch to something else for Day 2. My ABCs were:

Death Coil

Curse of Agony x 2

Corruption x 2

Summon Pitzog

Summon Jhuroon x 3

I wasn't sold on having 3 Jhuroons but I couldn't figure out what else to replace it with so I left it in there. I can only think of 1 game during the weekend that I should have subbed it in.

Round 1
I got paired with Jimmy again. Jimmy didn't make it in during Sealed so I conceded the game but we played most of it out. He was running Aluna, Wilton, Wilton. It was close when we called the game, 4-4 but I could have gotten at least 1 more Wilton to pull ahead and get the game as they were both close to death. 0-1

Round 2
I got paired with Woody who was running Arugal, Bleakheart, and Sethekk Talon Lord. This was pretty much all Morts. He had some points from the hill, but failed to kill any Morts. Morts won it at the end with a final kill on the Talon Lord I think. 1-1

Round 3
I got paired with my buddy Tony again. Tony was running Amalar, Amalar, Thrall. He decided he'd rather not play Morts so he conceded. 2-1

After that they ran the last qualifier with the 3 people who weren't qualified buying in. We had a players meeting after that and discussed how to do Day 2 with the amount of people we had. Options were to run 1 round of playoff tonight to get the Top 8 and then only the Top 8 come back in the morning, running 2 rounds of swiss and then a cut to the top 8, running 3 rounds of swiss and then a cut to top 4, or running 5 rounds of swiss with final standings being where you placed. After some discussion the decision was made to run 5 rounds of swiss as it gave everyone the best chance.

Jason, Tony, and I playtested alot that night. Jason was set on Triple Iranas and I was pretty sure I wanted to do Morts as I felt good about them after the Constructed Qualifier. Tony was thinking Triple Amalar but he wasn't sure on the third Amalar as he had no answer for Ice Blocks. We playtested Illiana but she wasn't the answer he was looking for. After a few games, he settled on Champion Shadowsun. We watched the UFC PPV and then got some sleep. We got up around 8:00 or so the next morning, got a few playtest games in at the last minute and then went over to the event room about 10:30. Everyone showed up and we got started around 11:00.

Round 1
I got paired with Steve. Steve was running Nathressa, Beren, and Timmo. This wasn't a bad game for Steve, but he wasn't able to kill any of the Morts. I was able to get through his 1 and 2 resist pretty easily and on Tick 15 I was at 16 points with 3 Morts attacking Timmo. It took all 3 attacks to do it, but I managed to kill Timmo for the win. 1-0

Round 2
I got paired with Woody. Woody was running Parvink, Filet, and Ruby. All Gnomes. Like the previous game, I didn't lose a Mort. I had 2 Morts that should have died. The dice were horrible to Woody in this match though, and I had some really hot dice at the end that pulled out the win for me. 2-0

Round 3
I got paired with Audis (Johnny Draco). He was running Crushridge, Boulderfist, and Dagg'um. All Ogres. My dice were horrible at the start of it. It took me 5 attacks from Morts and I think 2 attacks from Jhuroons to kill Dagg'um. That rough start was too much to overcome and despite me trying to rally, it just wasn't in the cards for me to pull it out. 2-1

Round 4
I got paired with Brian Wilson. He was running Haruka, Morova, and Morganis. He managed to kill one Mort, but I got some lucky dice and got some luck on his defensive rolls that let me get some damage in on Morova and Haruka so that Corruptions could kill them. I moved a Mort over to the VP to get the last 2 points I needed for the win. 3-1

So I wasn't sure how it'd work out. Looking at the 3-1s, I had played Johnny Draco and Woody and the only other one was my buddy Jason running Triple Iranas. You had Bin Chin at 4-0 and I knew I'd either get paired up or get paired against Jason. I got paired up against Bin for the Mort mirror match.

Round 5 it was Morts vs Morts. We were running similar action bar cards and I think this is where I made a mistake. After thinking about it today and reflecting on the game, I should have subbed out Pitzog for that 3rd Jhuroon. That probably would have done enough damage early on to have let me pull out the win. Outside of possibly switching that out, it was a great game between us. It went to time so we went to the Overtime ticks after that. I then managed to get a kill to tie us at 4. Bin had beat me to the hill with a full health Mortimer so he had 4 VP points to my 0. The kill tied us and sent it to Double Overtime. I knew I had 1 chance to win it because at the end of the next tick he'd get the last VP he needed to win. I had a shot at a 5 health Mortimer. If I kill it, I win, if I don't, Bin wins. I roll and get 4 successes and the crit for 5 damage. I need him to miss all 3 rolls. He rolls and misses 2 but blocks 1 point of damage to put him at 1 health. That's game. It was by far the closest WOW Minis game I've ever played. As it turns out the winner of this game was the winner of the tournament as well as had I been 4-1 I think my tiebreakers would have put me into 1st.

After all was said and done I came in at 3rd. Bin was 1st and Johnny Draco was 2nd. Brian Wilson rounded out the Top 4. My goal was to hopefully place 3rd or 4th and get the PS3 as I'd been wanting one for awhile. First would have been nice too as we had Thrall as the first shot mini and it looked SWEET! But I got what I mainly wanted and that's the Spectral Tiger and PS3. I'd been thinking about getting out of the game as there's nothing going on locally with it. Heroclix is back and we've been having good showings for it lately so I'm switching back over to that. Before I got out, I wanted to get a Tiger as it would then easily cover what I'd spent on the game. I've done that and can now leave on a good note. I'll probably put my stuff up on Ebay or sell it to a few online stores later on this week.

I want to thank everyone that I played over the weekend for some good games. I want to thank Acme Games for hosting it and also the Holiday Inn for being a great place to hold it. Great times and I'll be seeing some of you guys for the Spring Realms.

WOW Minis Nashville Realms 05/16-05/17/2009

2010-05-17T05:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from my first WOW Minis tournament, the Nashville Realms held in Nashville TN on 05/16/2009 and 05/17/2009. The original link can be found here:

http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/WOW/COMMUNITY/forums/thread/1755495.aspx

So, Realms Champs for me was a blast. I’ve played in a lot of other minis games over the years but this is the first one that I haven’t had a local tournament scene for. My gaming for WoW Minis is either on Vassal or with my 2 friends locally. So, not having a local scene this would be my first tournament for WoW Minis. I was pretty excited for it and had been doing a lot of playtesting to get ready for it. I tried out 3MC and loved it at first, but soon we found that Marlowe just died too much. Plus if you saw any healing or priests on the other side of the board it wasn’t a lot of fun to be playing Marlowes. So I started looking at other things and wouldn’t decide what I’d play until Sunday morning.

Our trip started out early Saturday morning about 7:30 am. We drove down to Nashville and got there about an hour before registration started. We talked with several other players there and hung out. The game store was pretty good. I’d visited it a few times before when I was in Nashville but this was the first event I’d attended there. I think they did a good job, but it was a bit hectic with 3 events going on at the same time. Some of the start times were slow and the times of the rounds didn’t seem to run as smooth as they could have, but all in all I think they did a good job and any hiccups that occurred were more or less from having the 3 events running at the same time.

So we sit down for the first qualifier and they had enough product to do 1 Spoils of War and 1 Core set. I wouldn’t have minded 2 Spoils of War, but 1 of each made for a fun sealed event. My first booster had Jaina, Ryno, a third figure that I don’t remember, and a Foam Sword Rack. So win or lose any other matches I was happy with that. My second booster had Leeroy Jenkins, Graccus, and Amon in it. I ended up with Jaina, Ryno, and Graccus. I had some good ABCs since I had pulled 2 paladins and 2 warlocks. I ended up going with Jaina, Ryno, and Graccus. I had Summon Greater Water Elemental and Arcane Blast on Jaina, Corruption, Curse of Agony, and Summon Jhuroon on Ryno, and Avenger’s Shield, Flash of Light, Hammer of Justice, and Hammer of Wrath on Graccus. Having the extra ABCs helped a lot I think.

Round 1 I get paired with one of my friends that I rode down with, Jason. Jason had a good team of Filet, Champion Shadowsun, and a third figure that I don’t recall. I was able to get both pets out and then surround the VP so that he wasn’t able to get to Jaina and she could fire with Graccus soaking up her damage and healing her. The score was 24-3 at the end of the round. 1-0

Round 2 I got paired with Daniel Asbell. He was running Elendril, and 2 other figures that I don’t recall. He had some bad dice and low resist that the sealed petting zoo was able to get through. Score ended up 24-0. 2-0.

Round 3 I got paired against Ariel Levi who had Thrall, Omedeus, and Wilton Thorne with Felsteel Boomstick on him. This was incredible close and came down to literally 1 dice roll. We went back and forth with kills, me getting Thrall once and I believe he got Jaina once as well. The end of the game saw us both 1 kill away from victory. I had Omedeus down to 2 health and the only character close enough to attack was Graccus. If Graccus misses, next tick Thrall comes over and kills Ryno for his win. Graccus came over and used Hammer of Wrath. I rolled 3 hits, one of which I had to reroll due to it being Omedeus. I rolled it into a crit for the guaranteed kill and the win. Had it been almost anything else it would have been his game. 3-0

Round 4 I got paired with Christin. When we got paired he came over and said he had to go as he was graduating from high school later. He had Jaina, Ixamos, and a third figure that I don’t recall. Since he had already qualified and had to go, he conceded the match to me, which put me at 4-0.

For my first tournament, I was very happy with how it turned out. I know that having a great pull helped, but after having just played at home since the game came out, it was good to see that I could win some games and be competitive. I then went and signed up for the first constructed qualifier. I wasn’t sure what to play so I was just going to play 3MC to see how it’d do. First round of that I got paired with Old Bones who was running the Petting Zoo. He had also already qualified so we just rolled to see who got the win and it went to him. Second round I got paired with a friend who was still trying to get in so I conceded to him as well. Then at 0-2 technically I dropped from the tournament. I then hung around and watched some games and watched all the Petting Zoo armies. I just think it’s cool that I almost pulled their army in my sealed pull.

The third constructed got started later and as it’d already been a pretty long day we went ahead and went to dinner and called it a night. My friend Jason got in while my friend Tony had some bad luck with his dice and wasn’t able to pull out the third win. We went to dinner with Ariel Levi and then got some last minute playtesting in before we called it a night. At that time I had worked on a few Petting Zoo builds that weren’t exactly what I saw but were combinations of what I liked from each build. By the time I woke up in the morning I’d decided against going with Jaina as I wasn’t really fond of running a band I’d only tried the concept of in sealed. So I sat down and looked at what I could run and since I’d ran a lot of HTH against my friends locally, I decided to try HTM as it wasn’t that far of a stretch from what I’d played before. I tried to go for a lot of healing in the team, just incase anyone went with any 3MC armies or any other locks. My final party was:

Haruka
Grounding Totem
Healing Stream Totem
Healing Wave
Purge

Thangal
Rejuvenation
Cat Form

Morova
Rejuvenation
Moonkin Form
Mark of the Wild
In hindsight, that was the wrong ABC selection as it never really worked out like I’d planned. Generally whoever I put Rejuvenation on at the start, one of the 2 died by tick 5 and never got the healing. Mark of the Wild on 2 figures would have been much better. Morova also could have been replaced by another Haruka. I know she was the safer bet, but most of the time when I rolled a crit it was with an actual 10. But with this being my first tournament, I learned a lot from it. Here’s a recap of my matches.

Round 1 I got paired with Matt who was running a Haruka, Thangal, and Morova as well. This was a very close game. Early on he had some good rolls on defense and I thought he was going to take the game because I couldn’t get any damage on him. After him taking an early lead I was able to catch up and start a come back. The end came down to time with me getting the final kill to put me ahead on points. Final score was 18-14. 1-0

Round 2 I got paired with Drew. Drew was running Haruka, Daxin, and Azarak. This was another very close game that came down to some dice. He was able to pull out the win, 22-17. 1-1

Round 3 I got paired with Allen who was running the Jaina, Ryno, Vindicator Petting Zoo team that was around the event. Somehow I only got paired against it this one time. I had a shot to put some hurt on Jaina as I was eventually able to get a cat formed Thangal over to her. Even with the crit he only managed to put through 1 or 2 points of damage on her as he rolled pretty bad with the attack. We went to time but there was no way for me to catch up to him. Final score was 16-4. 1-2

At this point I figured I was out of it due to tiebreakers if nothing else. I would have had to win my next to 2 games to even have a shot as we were going 5 rounds instead of 4. Round 4 I got paired with Billy Tillman. He was running Lady Vashj, Crushridge Ogre, and Rethligore. This was a pretty even match. I wasn’t able to catch Vashj and mainly concentrated on taking down the other 2 figures. I got more VP than he did and I managed to get 2 VPs late in the game that put me ahead 17 to 16. I then pulled back and Vashj wasn’t able to catch me before time was over. Final score was 17-16. I have to also say that this was probably the most fun game that I played all weekend. 2-2

So at the end of Round 4 they posted standings and I was in 9th. I had pretty bad tiebreakers and I had to win my next one to even have a shot at making Top 8. For Round 5, I got paired with Daniel Asbell. I had played Daniel on Saturday during the sealed qualifier. He was running Vi’gor, Magdeline, and Tinker. This game was all about Tinker and Arcane Flux. I think he only missed 1 or 2 rolls where he didn’t crit. Everytime Tinker attacked, the first attack had several misses so he’d reroll into 5 or 6 hits with the crit. When Tinker’s dice are on fire it’s hard to overcome that. I focused on taking down Vigor and Magdeline and took an early lead. But the little cannon known as Tinker wore down my figures and I wasn’t able to take him out before he was able to start netting some kills that evened out the score. Daniel then pulled ahead and got the final kill to put him to 21 and give him the win. Final score was 21-16. 2-3

I ended up at 13th I think. Even had I won my last one, I had horrible tiebreakers and I think I would have ended up 9th or so and probably missed Top 8. All in all I was happy with how I did for my first tournament for WoW Minis. I had a blast the entire weekend and I look forward to seeing some of the same people at the Fall Realms.

DDM 2.0 Constructed Qualifier Bloomington IN 06/14/2008

2010-05-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from the DDM 2.0 Constructed Qualifier in Bloomington IN on 06/14/2008. Here's the link to the original thread:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=151935&viewPage=0#151935

So after the TN Qualifier, I was unsure if I would be making the trip up as I was already qualified. But my buddy, Visage, said he wanted to go to try to qualify. So we planned to go up Friday night and get a hotel room and then drive over to the store early Saturday morning. I had hoped to get off work early, but that didn't work and we didn't leave southern KY until almost 7 for the 5 hour drive up. We ran into some heavy rain for part of the trip, but outside of that it wasn't a bad trip. We got up there about 11:30 that night, checked into the hotel room, and was entertained by all 2 channels that the Motel 6 had. After a good night's sleep, we got up early Saturday morning and drove over to the Game Preserve. After getting there we hung out with Johnny Quest, Aesoph, XXX_Buzz_XXX, Matt Lee, and a few others. It was good to get to see everyone.

I had been toying with the idea of running Exarchs. I liked them but just wasn't able to get in any practice time. So I decided to go with something I knew how to play and went with the Liches again. I ran:

Mind Flayer Lich x 2
Large Shadow Dragon
Ravenous Ghoul
Darkmantle x 3
Map: Blue Dragon's Lair

Round 1
I play Will. Will is running Death Knight x 2, Raistlin, Wild Mage, Bodyguard, Farmer x 2 on Ratfang. He got map so Rat Fang it was. He got an early Stun off on one of the Liches and it stayed that way for awhile. I also kept missing his Death Knights with the Liches. During this time the Large Shadow and the Darkmanltes were going after Raistlin and the Wild Mage. Once Raistlin and the Wild Mage were killed, the Large Shadow came back over to help the Liches out. One Lich was dead and the other was getting closed in on by the Death Knights. It was very back and forth, but I was able to get one Death Knight confused and finish it off. After that it was getting some lucky inits and hitting my attacks on the remaining Death Knight to finish it off. 1-0

Round 2
I got paired with I think Cliff. He was running EB, Wulfgar, Wild Mage, Werewolf Champion, Merchant Guard, Kobold Trapmaker, Farmer x 2 on Flooded Ruins. He got map so we played on Flooded Ruins. After I had set up, he set up the Wild Mage so it could get a first turn blast off onto my Liches. I won the init instead though and confused the Wild Mage with one of my Liches. After that I was able to get up on activations with the Darkmantles by taking out most of the Farmers. I then got Wulfgar confused. After that the Large Shadow went after his EB, Werewolf Champ, and the confused Wulfgar. He had a really bad streak of luck here with the Large Shadow where he just couldn't hit it, either because of it's AC or conceal. That added with the Mind Flayers just staying back and shooting things put me up. It came down to the Werewolf Champ against the Large Shadow, who was at 10 hps, and 2 full MFLs. He wasn't able to hit the Large Shadow and the Liches were able to finish it off. 2-0

Round 3
I got paired up with Johnny Quest. JQ and I have only played one other time, and that was at the Cincy Qualifier. JQ is a great player and he beat me pretty soundly that day. So I knew I was in for a hard fought game. JQ was running Merc General, Human Sellsword x 5 (I think), Yuan Ti Malison x 2, Halfling Paladin, Raistlin. I ended up winning map init, which was the first time that that has happened to me in both tournies that I've played Liches in. First round JQ tries for a sleep on the Liches with Raistlin. He missed them both but moved up the Merc General to bodyguard anything that might hit him. I shot with the Liches and managed to confuse the Merc General. We positioned some more first round. Second round I won the init and brought up the Large Shadow to get a breath off on the Merc General, Raistlin, and both Yuan Ti. Horrible breath weapon though as I only hit one of the Yuan Ti. The Sellswords attacked the Large Shadow, but they had a hard time bringing it down. While they were having a hard time with it, the Liches just stayed back and were shooting whatever they could. The Large Shadow eventually fell, but the Liches were able to do too much damage before the Sellswords could get to them. 3-0

Round 4
I got paired against John Stevens. He was running Large Gold, Merchant Guard x 5, Elf Archer x 4. I got map again and we played on Blue Dragon's Lair. He went after the Darkmantles and the Ravenous Ghoul early. I got some shots off with the Large Shadow and the Liches. He came after the Shadow with the Gold and was able to bodyguard most of my attacks. The Large Shadow eventually fell and it was down to the Liches against the Dragon and a few Guards and Elf Archers. I missed several attacks against the Gold. However, John was able to get control of the Dragon every time it was confused. He was able to eventually get the Liches to fall for the win. 3-1

Round 5
I got paired up with Dagaron. He was running EB, Wulfgar, Pony, Wild Mage, Raistlin, Merchant Guard, Kobold Archer, Farmer x 2 on Market Square. He won map so we played on Market Square. He went for an early shot at the Liches and missed with the Wild Mage. I then was able to confuse her. After that I sent the Large Shadow up there to try to take out the Wild Mage, Raistlin, and the Guard. He got 2 of the 3, but Raistlin was tougher than he looked. I put all 3 Darkmantles on him and they just did not hit him. He went after the Liches with Wulfgar/Pony, and the EB. I got a crit on Wulfgar with one of the Liches to confuse him and dismount him. After that though, the Liches just weren't able to stand up to the EB who mounted up on the Pony. The Shadow came back over to help out the Liches and to hopefully finish off Wulfgar, but he rolled low and missed him. The Darkmantles spent probably 8 or so attacks on Raistlin before finally killing him. By that time, he'd done enough damage to the remaining Lich so that it was killed off. The Shadow just couldn't hold his own against the EB. After that and some VP, Tony was able to pull out the win. 3-2

I knew it'd be close for 4th place between me and Dan. And it was with Dan pulling ahead of me for 4th place again. Everyone looked at the standing after Swiss and since Pozsgay and Dagaron were paired up, no one dropped so that Pozsgay could scoop him in. Since there were no drops I decided to hang around a bit more and grabbed a bite to eat and watched the final game of Dan vs John where John and the Dragon were able to pull it out for the win. Overall, it was a pretty fun trip. I think thanks have to be given to our great judges, Aesoph and Matt Lee. And to the Game Preserve for holding a great tournament as always.

DDM 2.0 Constructed Qualier Dickson TN 05/17/2008

2010-05-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for the DDM 2.0 Constructed Qualifier in Dickson TN on 05/17/2008. The original link can be found here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=146772&viewPage=0#146772

So when I started to think about what I wanted to play for this qualifier, I looked at alot of stuff. I thought about Whips but they seemed to be on the way out. Alot of anti-Whip stuff started showing and people seemed to be on the look out for them in general so I decided not to go with them. I looked at some EB/Wulfgar builds. But having already ran that at Cincinnati and it being all the rage now, I decided I wanted to run something else. Then I started looking at some Death Knight builds. I considered Death Knight, EB, Mind Flayer for a little while.

But I kept coming back to Dual MFL. I kept looking at it and thought that it was a good matchup against the multitude of EB/Wulfgar bands that kept showing up. It has a tough matchup in some things but overall I thought it was still strong.

So Saturday my buddy Tony (Visage) drove over to pick me up at Somerset, KY. We then made our way to Bowling Green, KY to meet up with our buddy Kenwig. Kenwig took me and Tony out for some Japanese food which was something new for us. We spent the rest of the day hanging out, painting figures, and playtesting our warbands. Tony and I played 3 games that night. He originally had an EB, Wulfgar, Wild Mage, Raistlin band. Our first game he got too aggressive with his Wild Mage and lost her on Turn 2 of Round 1. We reset the game after I got Wulfgar and tried it again. This was alot closer but the Liches managed to pull it out in the end.

So then we went and got online to check what happened and saw Aesoph's Jarl band. Tony wanted to give that a try and got a Jarl from Kenwig. We played it on Hellspike and Tony absolutely spanked me. I mean he beat me BAD. I started thinking about it and realized it's probably about an 80/90 matchup in his favor on that map.

Sunday morning we get up and head down to Dickson, TN. We get at the store a little early and Brig and Ninjapimp showed up not long after we did. We set around and talked for a little bit. We were wondering how many we would have and until close to start time we only had 7. However Kris Blais showed up and that made our 8th for the tournament.

Round 1
I got paired up with Clint McGill (Ninjapimp). He was running his same band from the GA Qualifier (Dwarf Battlemaster, Dol Dorn x 3, Harpy). He got map which meant we played on Hellspike. It was a good matchup playing back and forth. Clint had some very bad die rolls at key points and by the time he was able to engage the MFLs it was too late. 1-0

Round 2
I got paired with my buddy Tony who was running the Jarl band that Aesoph played in Bloomington. We rolled for map and he got it. I pretty much considered it an auto loss, but that's why we play the game. I played a different strategy this time and managed to get up on activations and points on him. This forced his Jarl and EB to come out of hiding in the smoke. And at that point I was able to take some shots on the Jarl. I got luckier this time than I did the previous night though and got some of the rolls. It came down to the Jarl at 10 hps against my Shadow at 25 and one MFL at full. Tony won the last init and went for an attack on the Shadow so he could cleave. He missed the attack roll. I moved up the MFL to flank with the Shadow and hit to kill the Jarl. 2-0

Round 3
I got paired with the only other undefeated Shayne Linderman (Brig). Brig was running his same band as from GA (Large Shadow Dragon x 2, Digester, Babau, Darkmantle x 6). He got map roll so we went on Fane of Lolth. We went Darkmantle on Darkmantle early on and he was able to win the battle. After going up on activations for me he jumped in with both dragons. I was able to get one of them but by that time the Babau and Digester joined the party and it was too much for the rest of my force to overcome. 2-1

Round 4
I got paired up with Kris Blais. Kris and I had actually met back at the 2006 Limited Qualifier in Richmond, KY where I played Kris in the last round of Swiss and in the Finals of it. Kris was running EB, Astral Stalker, Oni, Wild Mage, Kobold Archer x 5, Farmer. He got map roll and picked my map Blue Dragon's Lair. First round he gets a shot off with the Wild Mage. I move up and I think I rolled a 1 to miss her in a shot from one of my MFL. He got another shot off with his Astral Stalker onto the other MFL. And then that was the only shots he got off on the MFLs. I finally got a shot off on the Wild Mage and confused her. I had some bad rolls mid game, 1's and 2's when I needed a 3. But that was overcome by Kris failing several Confusion saves. I was able to get the Wild Mage eventually and the Oni. Kris conceded after I got the Astral stalker confused. 3-1

So after Swiss we looked at the standings and Kenwig was in 4th. At Gencon Ken runs games for Goodman Games and has other commitments so he wouldn't be able to play in the Champs if he made Top 2. So he dropped which allowed Visage to get in at 4th place. I got a rematch against Kris Blais and Tony played Brig.

SemiFinals
This time Kris picked his map, Caves of Chaos. We went back and forth with some shots. I got a cone off with the Large Shadow onto 3 Kobolds and the Wild Mage and I missed the Wild Mage which was the real target. His Astral Stalker came after the Shadow which it had hate against. It came down to his Stalker getting a shot off on the Large Shadow that was at 20 hps left. He missed on the conceal check and retreated with the Stalker. I shadow jumped and got off a monstrous breath weapon. It hit his Wild Mage, hit the Astral Stalker, and then critted the EB for 45 damage. After that I moved the Ravenous Ghoul over to the Oni and managed to stagger it. After I killed the Wild Mage and started shooting some other stuff Kris conceded.

In the finals I had discussed a prize split with Shane. I had plans to drive up already and Shayne will actually use the plane ticket. So I came in 2nd officially but most importantly I qualified. I have to give thanks to Tony for playtesting with me. Big thanks to Kenwig for repainting one of my MFLs http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=146776&viewPage=0#146814.
Thanks to all my teammates in Team Mini. And of course thanks to Blackstone Game Center for hosting us. A great store that I hope to see later this year for a Limited Qualifier.

DDM 2.0 Constructed Qualifier Cincinnati Oho 04/12/2008

2010-05-16T13:44:00.000-07:00

Here's the tournament report from the DDM 2.0 Constructed Qualifier in Cincinnati Ohio on 04/12/2008. The original link can be found here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=141741&viewPage=0#141741

So shortly after Gencon last year, I wasn't really happy with most of the rules changes that 2.0 was going to bring. To me they sounded alot like SWM and I wasn't exactly thrilled at that. However, after a long hiatus from DDM, I got with some friends to go to the DOD2 Prerelease 2 weeks ago. I had fun and the rules didn't seem that bad. Then we found out about the Cincy Qualifier that was to be held this week. And since it was the first one of the season, I and another local, Visage, decided to travel up from Southern KY for it.

Since we were going I had to think about what to play. I looked over all the stats and the pdfs of Night Below and DOD1. And I at first was really high on the Large Gold. I had a point farm band with him. However I wasn't sold on it. Friday night I got together with Visage and we playtested 2 games. The first I tried my Large Gold/Cleric of Pelor build. It won the game but it was a little too high variance for my taste. So after that initial game I sat down and redesigned a warband. The band I came up with was:

Eternal Blade x 2
Wulfgar
Warhorse
Kobold Archer x 2
Farmer x 3
Map: Hellspike

Visage and I playtested that and while it lost to Visage's band, I liked how it felt alot better. So I then had a band that I felt comfortable with. I should point out that last year I was more competitive than I felt going into this Qualifier. With this one, having played only 5 games of 2.0, 3 at the Prerelease and 2 practicing with Visage, I was mainly going to see some friends that I don't get to see alot and just hang out and have fun. With that mindset I think I was able to play a little more freely and had less pressure on myself. Whatever it was, it worked.

So we head out that morning and get to the shop a little after 9:40 or so. We were the first ones there but within a little bit other people started showing up. We spent the first little bit hanging out with some old friends, Johnny Quest, Aesoph, Rakshaka, and some others. More Indiana guys rolled in and we had a total of 14 by the time it was ready to start at 11.

Round 1
I got paired up with Johnny Quest. I've played in several tournaments with JQ over the last 3 years or so. However I've never ever gotten to actually play him. So I knew it was going to be a good game against a good opponent. JQ was running an EB, Champ of Dol Dorn, Thundertusk Boar, Wild Mage x 2 band. He got map and we went on his map. JQ basically outplayed me this match. I made an early mistake not calling Human for the EB's champ power. By doing that the Mages were able to pile up the damage on me. Then by the time I was able to engage his EB and Dol Dorn, I couldn't hit them back so that pretty much sealed it. 0-1

Round 2
I got paired up with Dan (Rakashaka). Dan was running Mind Flayer Lich, Large Shadow Dragon, Shadow x 3, Spectral Mage Lord, and some Darkmantles as filler. I got my map, Hellspike. Round 1 Dan made a mistake on placement and I was able to use Bounding Assault with both EBs to get hits off onto the Mind Flayer. One missed but the other critted. I was able to take out the Mind Flayer out the next round with a hit from an EB and then with Wulfgar's hammer. After that I was able to take down a few Shadows and then the Mage Lord. The Shadow Dragon fell after that. Dan was able to get both EBs, but Wulfgar was able to finish off the last few Shadows.1-1

Round 3
I got paired up with a nice guy named Nick. He was running Astral Stalker x 2, Shadow Dragon x 2 and some fodder. I had activations on him so I activated most of my fodder first letting him use up all his activations before I activated any of my main pieces. He moved up one Stalker too close. I Bounded Assault over to it and critted. After that Wulfgar rode over on the horse and finished it off. Next round I had to eat a few BWs from the Shadows. I sent the EBs over to one of them and was able to get it. Wulfgar went after the other Astral Stalker. The remaining Shadow and the Astral Stalker were able to take down Wulfgar but the EBs were able to take out the Shadow. Then they finished off the Stalker to end the game.2-1

Round 4
I got paired with Matthew. He was running Quad Arcadian Avengers, Cleric of Pelor, Militia Archer, Delver Sgt., Merchant Bodyguard, and a Farmer or 2. Both of us had Hellspike so that was an easy map decision. This was a good slug it out. I had high damage beaters and he had auto hits. Second round we got engaged. I had not killed anything as to not set up the wrath. I then set up a charge from Wulfgar and the horse. Wulfgar did his part, but the horse proved to not be worthy of his rider and failed to follow up for the kill. So I used Wulfgar's hammer to finish off the Avenger that I charged and also the Bodyguard. Wulfgar shortly bit it thereafter. I then Bounded Assault over to the Cleric and was able to finish him off with a crit. After that though I missed a series of attacks on the remaining Avenges while they didn't miss me. 2-2

Round 5
I got paired up with Aesoph Darkfable. Aesoph was running Mind Flayer Lich x 2, Nightmare, Darkmantle x 5 or 6. I got map so we played on Hellspike. This was a very good game. Aesoph set up some shots with the Liches very well, but his dice went extremely cold on him. He was able to take down 1 of the EBs, but Wulfgar and the other EB were able to finish off the Liches.3-2

So then I had to wait a little bit to see who was in Top 4. I had played some people with good records so I felt like I'd either be in or close to it. The Top 4 was announced and I had slid in as number 4. This meant I got a rematch against Matthew and his Quad Arcadian Avengers.

Top 4
So we played on Hellspike again. He and I knew it could go either way. The setup was very similar. I think in this game though I played smarter and was able to set up my attacks and things better. The problem was that my dice just wasn't happening. I had a chance to move up with an EB and hit, then use Wulfgar's Champ power to finish it off. Then I charged in with Wulfgar and the horse. And like before, Wulfgar hit and the horse missed. Then I went to attack and finish off the Avenger that was at 10 from Wulfgar's attack, and rolled a 1. And after that I wasn't able to recover enough to take the game. Final record 3-3

So while I am a little dissapointed to get close but not make the final 2 to qualify, I am very happy with how I did. To have only played a handful of games, only 2 of which were constructed, and then go up against the level of competition that we had there and to come out with making Top 4, makes me a very happy guy. At Gencon I said I wasn't playing 2.0, but just when you think you're out, they come and pull you back in.

DDM Night Below Prerelease 06/30/2007

2010-05-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for the DDM Night Below Prerelease that was held in Frankfort KY on 06/30/2007. The original link can be found here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=89427&viewPage=0#89427

So today I went to the Frankfort KY Prerelease. We had a total of 8 players show up, meaning that we'd go 4 rounds. My pulls were:

Shadowbane Inquisitor
Orc Banebreak Rider
Hobgoblin Marshal
Greyhawk City Militia Sergeant
Greater Bargest x 2 (one was the repaint we got)
Warpriest of Vandria
Large Chaos Beast
Gnoll Claw Fighter x 2
Halfling Tombseeker
Greenspawn Zealot
Carnage Demon x 2
Deep Legionnaire x 2
Krenshar

My final warband ended up being:

Greyhawk City Militia Sergeant
Shadowbane Inquisitor
Greater Barghest x 2
Gnoll Claw Fighter x 2
Halfling Tombseeker
Krenshar

When we showed up they told us we'd be playing on the Drow Outpost for all our games. Everyone was fine with this and it turned out to be a pretty good map for me.

Round 1 I got paired up with Ron. Ron was running a Dracotaur Ranger and Brass Golem band. This was a good back and forth match. I managed to kill the Dracotaur and then get him down to just the Brass Golem and his commander. I won on tile points before Ron could kill enough stuff with the Golem to go over 200.

Round 2 I got paired with Phil. This was an incredibly close game. Phil was running a Champion of Dol Dorn, Bodyguard, Shadowbane Inquisitor, and Arcadian Avenger band. It was a tough back and forth matchup. I accidentally plugged up the bridge with one of my Barghest so I was using just it to hold off his forces for a few rounds. Finally it went down and I was able to put everything on his remaining pieces. I got a Cause of Fear off on his commander and routed him. Then I got rid of the Bodyguard and it was just the Champion of Dol Dorn and the Shadowbane. Final round Phil was at 176 and I was at 150. Phil won the init to go first and was based with the last Gnoll Claw Fighter who was at 20 and the Shadowbane who was at 35 or 45 I think. He miscounted how many points he needed to win and fully attacked the Shadowbane. The Shadowbane survived and between Tile Points and killing the Champion I won.

Round 3 I got paired with Dale (Khellandros). Dale was running a Dread Wraith, Dracotaur Ranger, Greater Bargest band. I managed to go all in on the Dracotaur early and got it to route. From there I was able to get the Barghest and stay on Tile Points. I ended up going over 200 before I could finish off the Wraith.

Round 4 I played Marcus. Marcus is a newer player who was running Large White, Dread Wraith, and Brass Golem band. I managed to get up to the Large White early and get it out of the way. From there I pounced on the Shadow Wraith and got it taken out. Marcus got both my Gnoll Claw Fighters but I was able to route his commander to go over 200.

4-0 so I get into the Top 4. I get a rematch with Phil from earlier. We both pretty much start off exactly the same. He managed to keep his commander hidden from the Krenshar for a bit longer this time. He made a placement mistake and I was able to flank the Arcadian Avenger with the Halfling Tombseeker and a Barghest. After that I was able to move up and get Cause of Fear off onto his commander who failed the save and routed. After that I got the Bodyguard and was then able to finish off the Shadowbane to go over 200. Phil had some bad rolls this game that hurt him pretty bad.

Go to the finals and it's me and Dale. We'd played in Round 3 and I asked Dale if he wanted to prize split and us both take 4 boosters. He agreed and dropped to me, letting me go 6-0 for the day. Between prize boosters and some trading I ended up with 10 rares for the day. My rares were Large Gold Dragon, Raistlin, Noble Salamander, Mind Flayer Lich, Orc Banebreak Rider, Dracotaur Ranger, Lifeleech Otyugh, Clawborn Scorrow, Shadowbane Inquisitor, and Guardian Naga. Overall not a bad day. :)

DDM Constructed Qualifier Cincinati Ohio 06/02/2007

2010-05-16T13:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from a DDM Constructed Qualifier in Cincinnati Ohio on 06/02/2007. The original link can be found here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?viewPage=1&post_id=79850

So my day started early again as I got up and drove from Southern KY up to Cincinnati for the Qualifier. Not nearly as early as when I got up for Bloomington though so that was a plus. On my way there I took one wrong turn and went East when I should have went West. Hard to drive and look at MapQuest directions when you're getting off the rampway and it's splitting right in front of you. So, once again something simple like that actually appears to have played a part in how I placed.

I got to the store about 10:45 or so. I talked with JQ and a few others for a few minutes then went to register. Aesoph came in and while in line I stopped to talk to a local and Aesoph registered while I was talking. I fully expected him to beat me by registration time in some twisted irony. But I hung out for awhile and batted back and forth which one to run, Ultroforge or SWarm. I really wasn't comfortable with Ultroforge due to having some maps that were tough for it to play on. Where to as with SWarm I know how to run it on the maps that are bad for Ultroforge. So rather than give myself a hard time due to a map for a matchup. I went with SWarm again. I realize it's becoming a bit of a crutch though and I think after today it's time to retire it. Also it's my last big tourny before Night Below comes out so next big tourny I go to I"ll have some new toys to play with.

Pairings are put up and since he registered right in front of me, I got paired up with Aesoph who was running Storm, Shadowdancer x 4, Graycloak with Timber Wolf, Bat tied to Storm, and Wild Elf Warsinger on Dragonshrine. He got map and I got side and set up on the Fire side. We moved up and I tried to keep as many SWs around the Archon as I could. Second round he got off a few jump charges onto a SW or 2 and I got some damage on one of the Dancers. He used the bat to heal it. Next round we ended up trading Storm for the Sword Archon. That wouldn't have been that bad had I then been able to do some damgae to the Dancers to force some Morale Checks. But some low rolls later and some good incorp rolls from Aesoph got him over 200 for the win. 0-1

Looking around after round 1, I saw at least 4 Vlaakith bands. And I saw most of them join me in the loser's bracket. I really hoped for one of them and I got my wish when I got paired up with Dan. Dan was running Vlaakith, Thrall, Vampire Dire Wolf, Cursed Spirit x 2, Timber Wolf, and Orc Warrior I think. I got map so we played on Ratfang. The match went pretty much as expected. Dan got me down to I think 2 Watchers and the Archon who was only down 5 hps from a Cursed Spirit swing. I was able to kill Vlaakith and the Vampire Dire Wolf and then get the Spirits and other things to go over 200 I think. I don't think I killed the Thrall but I might have and that could have been what put me over 200. It was a long day and I don't really remember the specifics of what happened in our match. 1-1

Third round I knew there was 1 band I didn't want to face due to me having a hard time with it. And guess what, I got it. I played Chris who was running Cadaver Collector, Ultroloth, Timber Wolf, Large Deurgar, Archeron Goblin, and Graypeak Goblin Archer. I got map again so we played on Ratfang. I knew it would be tough so I dogpiled the Cadaver Collector. I used the Archon to use Melee Reach 2 and do a hit and run attack on the Cadaver Collector (hit and then move away, next turn move back in and hit after the CC had activated, then repeat). Chris used the Ultroloth to shoot scorching rays at the Watchers trying to take them down. The CC struggled with Incorp and that's what I needed to keep him occupied while the Archon did his drive by attacks. As it turns out I don't think I touched him except for with maybe 1 attack by a Watcher. Other than that 1 attack, the CC was taken down completely by the Archon. After that I took out the rest of his fodder while the Ultroloth tried to man it out himself. But I got on a victory area to go over 200 for the game. 2-1

Round 4 I got a rematch from Bloomington as I got paired with Sam. Sam was running his same band from Bloomington, Tiefling Captain, LBD x 2, Umber Hulk, Cursed Spirit, Thrall, Orc Warrior and Hyena on Mushroom Cavern. Sam got map so it wouldnt' be a rematch on Ratfang like last time. We spent the first few rounds positioning. Second round he got off 1 BW that hit the Archon and 3 SWs. I think 1 was hit by it and took full damge from it. After that I got a few attacks in on that Dragon. Round 3 I got off a few attacks on him to put him at 40 and MC. He rolled a 2 and flew off the board. I put the other watchers on his other dragon after that. He got me down to 3 Watchers and the Archon. I ended up getting the other LBD and most of his fodder. He based the Archon and got him to 40 hps. Last round he had a chance to kill him if both of his attacks hit with the Thrall. The 2nd one missed and I was able to avoid the Umber Hulk critting me in order to stay up on points and take the game. 3-1

Next round I played Bryan K. Bryan was running the Storm, Elf Dragonkith, Shadowdancer, CWW band that ended up winning it all. He got map so we played on Magma Keep. First round we spent moving up and I tried to spread out my watchers and hide them as best I could. Once it came time to engage I think I was too cautious of the Dragonkith and tried to get the felldrake so I could engage him. I spent too many attacks trying to do that when I should have just dogpiled and SWarmed the Dragonkith. But me being cautious allowed him to get 2 Watchers and weaken several others before we fully engaged. He went after the Archon with the Dragonkith and got me down to 10 hps before he died. The Dancer then jumped in and finished him off. From there it was a matter of me getting caught up on points and I just couldn't do it with the Watchers I had left. 3-2

Last round I knew I had to win in order to have a shot. I got paired with a guy who's name escapes me at the moment. He was the other guy from Detroit I believe and was running Storm, CWW x3, VC, Bat, Mailee, and Xeph on Drow Outpost. He won map and I won side and set up in the cave side. This was a very close matchup. I tried to hide my Watchers and things first round. Second round I came out and tried ot just base the CWW and the VC. I moved the Archon up to base the VC and a CWW. From there it was a matter of me being able to hit him on AOOs as he moved away to cast a spell and him not being able to hit Incorp. He got me down to the Archon at 5 hps and to 2 SWs who were full. By the end of the game he had Storm and I was running from her with the Archon and keeping her occupied with the 2 remaining SWs. Very very very close game that I can easily see having gone a different way with just a few different rolls. 4-2 final record

So we looked and there were going to be 3 4-2s to get in after JQ dropped. I knew I was close to being 4th but I wasn't sure how close. Standings got called and I was in 5th. They posted the standings and when we looked Dan who was in 4th had the same tiebreakers as I did, and it came down to them beating me there due to me taking the wrong turn off the exit. Oh well. That's how she goes sometimes I guess. I'm still already qualified though so I guess it could have been worse. However coming in 5th TWICE due to having the exact same tiebreakers as the 4th place guy does tend to sting a bit. Congrats to everyone who qualified and a big thanks to Yottaquest for running a good tournament as always.

DDM Constructed Qualifier Bloomington, IN 05/19/2007

2010-05-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from the DDM 200 point Constructed Qualifier in Bloomington, IN held on 05/19/2007. The link to the original post can be found here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=79487&viewPage=0#79487

So, after qualifying at XP, I had a choice to make. Do I play in more Qualifiers or do I sit out and not play during the season? Then what if I went to a Qual and did well, would I drop and let someone else qualify or would I try for the free passes to Gencon? Well I debated back and forth over which to do. I thought about judging for a Qual to help out but then I finally decided to just play and have fun. Earlier last week I decided for sure that I'd make the trip to Bloomington for their Qualifier. I had been playtesting and running Ultroforge pretty heavily. However with having 3 maps that were tough to play on (Thieves Quarters, Dragondown Grotto, and Ratfang Sewers) I decided to switch to something else. I'd been thinking about SWarm again as with the rise of CG and CE I thought it was a good counter to it again. So, over the last week I practiced against Black Dragons and got ready for those matchups.

The weekend started Friday night when I drove up to Richmond to meet Visage and another friend Khellandros for some playtesting. Visage's Sune/FB x 2 band got me in both games due to him hitting alot against Incorp and me not being able to hit him while he was invisible. Afterwards we went to Walmart and got some waters and things for the trip up there and then I crashed on Tony's couch so we could get up early and leave. We got up about 5:30/6 and left KY and headed for Bloomington. About 3 1/2 hours or so later we got there. I walked in and looked around and didn't see anyone I immediately knew. A few minutes later Scott (Bleys) walked in and while I didn't think much of it at the time, what would happen next would play a part in how I finshed in the tourny. The parking out front is limited to 2 hours since it's next to the Courthouse so I was advised to move my car around back so I wouldn't get a ticket. I knew that I didn't want to register at the same time as Tony (Visage) because I've seen the pattern of if you register at the same time as the person you rode with, for whatever reason you seem more likely to get paired up together. So I told Tony to register first and I'd go move the car and come back and register separate. I'll get to why that was important later.

So we get down there and chat a bit before the tourny. I see Aesoph, Johnny Quest, Lalato and hang out with them until time for the tourny to start. We sit down for the first round and I go to get out my cards and realize they were still in the car so I had to run and get them. About 5 minutes later I came back in an out of breath fat man and sat down to play my first round.

Round 1 - James Prather (Storm, Virtuous Charger, Bralani, CWW, Bat tied to Storm, Bat tied to VC, Graycloak with Wolf minion, Wild Elf Warsinger, and Xeph Warrior on Graycloak)James got map and side so we set up on Dragondown and he put me on the dead forest side. James won first round init and actually only lost 1 init from what I've got marked. However Incorp proved to be his bane as he lost the incorp battle making 4 or 5 and not making 12 or 13. The 4 or 5 he did make were mainly with the Graycloak for 5 damage shots. Beginning of Round 2 I won and passed it off to him and he moved down the VC to try to take out a SW. He missed the Incorp and I SWarmed it and eliminated it. He tried to get off a Lightning Bolt with the CWW and failed the Incorps. Third round he tried it again with the CWW and again failed the Incorps. I then moved up and SWarmed the Wizard and Storm. I eliminated both of them for game. 1-0

Round 2 - Gary Ploog/xxBuzzxx (Ryld, LBD x 3, Orc Warrior x 2, Gnoll, Hyena on Broken Demongate)Gary won map and side and I set up in the cave part of the Demongate. We maneuevered some early and I chose to try to eliminate Ryld early and SWarmed him. He got off his BWs on 2 Watchers and I think he got them both eventually with the BWs. I moved the Archon over to flank Ryld and with a +21 to attack I roll a 1 to miss him. It was at this time that Gary got a good streak of rolls and managed to start beating down the Archon and my SWs that were left. Next round I had some more bad rolls while trying to kill Ryld and when I finally got him I just didn't have enough HPs to take the dragons down. Gary ended up killing the Archon and got me down to 1 Watcher to get over 200 points. 1-1

Round 3 - Sam Santos/Lalato (Tiefling Captain, LBD x 2, Umber Hulk, Cursed Spirit, Hyena, Thrall of Blackrazor, Orc Warrior on Mushroom Cavern)I finally got map and Sam won side. Ratfang wasn't a good map for Sam as it lowered the already low attacks of his warband. We maneuvered some early and I made sure to run the Scout off the VAs so the Thrall couldn't eat him. Second round I won init but passed it off to Sam. Sam moved the dragons over to use their BWs and I made a placement mistake that he caught and got 4 SWs in both BWs. After the Incorps I had 1 of the 4 undamaged, 2 of the 4 at 5 hps left, and 1 that got hit by both BWs but made both it's saves and was at 10 hps. I then SWarmed one of the dragons and eliminated it. Next round I went and sent a few watchers after the Thrall and got a few hits on him. He took some AOOs to hit the Sword Archon and hit him once to put 20 damage on him. I then moved over a watcher to finish him off. His Umber Hulk and other LBD went to work on the Archon to try to finish him off. He got the Archon and I got the LBD shortly after that. Then it was 4 SWs against the Tiefling and the Umber Hulk. I put 2 Watchers on the Tiefling, 1 on the Umber Hulk, and 1 in a VA. Next round I got the Tiefling and that was game. 2-1

Round 4 - Dan/Rakahaka (Hezerou, LBD, Ogre Ravager, Abysmal Maw, Orc Wardrummer, Cursed Spirit, and Orc Warrior on Hellspike)Dan won map and I won side. During set up he set up the dragon so it was in the small start area not far from my Start area. I spent the first round making sure not to give him a line to more than 2 Watchers. He got the BW off on 2 watchers and I dont' remember if it passed incorp or not. I think one watcher got hit and it missed the other one. Second round I won and passed it off to him. He moved up the Ogre Rav and tried to hit a watcher but missed due to Incorp. The Hezerou did the same thing and missed I think. Dan struggled some with Incorp but he did kill 3 watchers within these first few rounds. After that he struggled with Incorp and I managed to kill the Ogre Rav and the Hezerou. From there it was my 3 SWs and the Archon left to take on the LBD. I got the LBD and that was game. 3-1

Round 5 - Stephen Honeycutt/Thaine (Werewolf Lord x 2, Thrall of Blackrazor, Orc Wardrummer, Quaggoth Slave x 3 on Teleport Temple)I won map so we played on Ratfang. Thaine had played Bleys and his UlmoSWarm the previous round so he wasn't happy to play back to back SWarms. We moved up to each other first round. Second round he took a gamble and went to move the Thrall to the Archon so he could get off 1 attack, use Haste, and then get off a 2nd attack and hopefully put 40 damage on the Archon. He had to take 4 AOOs from Watchers to do it, but he should have had 5 hps when he got to the Archon. However, the AOOs went like this, hit for 15, crit for 25, crit for 25, dead Thrall. I then SWarmed one of the WWLs and flew my Archon over to hit him and critted him for 55 damage total. After that it was a matter of finishing off that WWL and then getting the 2nd one as well. Pooring that much damage on early with the 3 crits really hurt and Thaine wasn't able to get rid of the Watchers fast enough after that. 4-1

Round 6 - Tony Pitman/Visage (Cleric of Sune, Frenzied Berzerker x 2, Gnome Trickster, Wild Elf Warsinger, Devis, Xeph Warrior, Dwarf Battlerager on Mushroom Cavern)Before round 6, I looked at the 4-1s and who I'd like to play. I didn't want to play Scott or Tony as you'd hate to play a friend and possibly knock them out of the running. So I hoped to either get paired up to face JQ or to get paired down to face a 3-2. It didn't happen and I got paired with Tony. Having playtested with Tony the night before I knew what not to do. I tried to engage him the best I could but Tony didn't miss hardly any Incorp. Then I put the Archon over to use Melee Reach on 1 FB and drop her to 30. I hoped to be able to then win init and finish her off and not let her get to him. Well he won the init, slid her over to the Archon with the Trickster and then she managed to finish me off between her 2 attacks and her Deathstrike later that round. After that Tony finished off the 3 Watchers I had left to take the game. 4-2

So after that we looked at who was in. There were 4 5-1s and out of the 4-2s we knew it was either me, Bleys, or Thaine that was getting the 4th spot after Johnny Quest dropped. I admit that I'd like to play as I'd like to win the free pass to Gencon, but I talked to Scott and Stephen and agreed to drop for either one of them if I got it. Turns out that Scott got it because earlier in the day I had not registered when I got there and went to park my car behind the building instead. So, while I would have dropped anyways for Scott, still weird to see it come down to that in a 29 person Qualifier.

Overall though I had a great time. I got to hang out with my friends Aesoph, Johnny Quest, Bleys, and Lalato again. The Game Preserve did a great job hosting the tourney and Aesoph and James did a great job judging. I look forward to making the trip for some more Qualifiers and things in the future. Now it's back to the drawing board for Cincy in 2 weeks.

DDM Constructed 200 points 04/22/2007

2010-05-16T13:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for a 200 point Constructed DDM tournament that we had on 04/22/2007 at Yottaquest in Cincinnati Ohio. Here's the original link:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=73637&viewPage=0#73637

So yesterday me and 3 other guys from KY (Visage, Kenwig, and Ragnarok) all drove up to Cincinnati to play in one of their 200 point tournaments before their Qualifier on June 2nd. Some of the local guys had drove up there for their Unhallowed Prerelease and liked the store and wanted to make a return trip at some point before the Qualifier. This was my first trip up there but I was impressed by the store. Very nice shop with a good selection of stuff.

So when deciding what to play I figured I'd stick with the band I'd been practicing, Ultroforge. My band was:

Ultroloth
Firegiant Forgepriest
Dragonmark Heir of Deneith
Bat Familiar tied to the Dragonmark
Timber Wolf
Goblin Skirmisher x 3
Map: Keep of Fallen Kings

They had 10 total show up to play. Out of those 10 bands, they had 3 Ultroforge and 1 UltroQuad. I fully expected to have a mirror match at some point but I somehow missed them all and didn't have to face another Ultroloth all day.

Round 1 I got paired with Scott. Scott was running Cleric of Sune, Marid, Centaur Warhulk, Valenar Nomad Charger, and Crow Shaman. I won map. Scott set up in one of the corners and first round we both started moving up. Second round we got positioned and then third round we engaged. I was able to route the Valenar and kill the Centaur before taking any damage on the Firegiant, Ultroloth, or the Dragonmark. Scott's dice really were pretty bad as he'd only had 2 rolls above a 5 at that point. He moved up the Marid to attack a Goblin that was on my VA and he rolled a 1. Scott conceded at that point as his dice just weren't up to the task of taking on the Firegiant. 1-0

Second round I got paired with Sean. Sean was running Tiefling Captain, Redspawn Firebelcher x 2, Maralith, Orc Wardrummer, Timber Wolf, and Twig Blight. I got map again. He set up in the corner and first round we marched up. Second round he got off a belch onto all 3 skirmishers. I had casts immune fire on the Dragonmark so she couldn't be belched on. We engaged and I got a few hits on one of the Firebelchers. He moved up Maralith to hit me. I then tried to Ray of Enfeeble Maralith. I missed the spell resistance but used quick casts to try it again. I passed it the 2nd time and nerfed Maralith. With her nerfed I concentrated on the Firebelcher and was able to kill it. I then went to work on Maralith and the other Firebelcher. He ended up getting the Dragonmark and getting the Firegiant down to a morale check. But with Maralith nerfed he just wasn't able to do enough damage to the Firegiant before the giant was able to get her. 2-0

Third round I got paired with one of KY guys that came up, Visage. Visage was running Cleric of Sune, FB x 2, Gnome Trickster, Elf Warsinger, Dwarf Battlerager, Devis, and Xeph Warrior. I got map again. We both set up in the upper start areas and marched forward. I have played this band a few times and know that positioning with the FGFP, Ultroloth, and Dragonmark are key. With the FB being invisible it's hard to protect the Ultroloth. You have to try to make it so that they won't get a shot off on him and have to go after the FGFP first. Visage got rid of most of my fodder except for the Bat and 1 Goblin that were on my victory area. He put the Dwarf and the Warsinger on them. He then spent a total of 6 attacks over 3 rounds missing them. That was pretty big as it allowed me to keep my position with the Firegiant and not have to come to him to get points. He spent a few rounds waiting for it to happen and it didn't which I was fine with as the FB were taking burnout. When he did engage I think they were down to 70 hps. They both went on the Firegiant and flanked him. One hit and the other missed with a +19. I won the next init and between the Firegiant and the Dragonmark I was able to finish off 1 FB. She missed her deathstrike. The other one fired back at the Forgepriest and hit once I think. He finally finished off my fodder that round. Next round I won init again and finished off the other FB. She hit her Deathstrike but I bodyguarded it. He then put the Battlerager and Warsinger so that they could charge next round. After that it was a matter of taking down what he had left. 3-0

Last round I got paired with Joey. Joey was running Vlakith, Thrall of Blackrazor, Large Black Dragon, Lolth's Sting x 4, and Skeletal Archer. He got map so we played on Mithral Mines. He spread out his army with most of the Sting's going up top towards Victory Areas and his LBD going up there as well. He sent the Thrall and Vlakith down towards me at the bottom. I moved up everyone and put Immune Electricity on the FGFP. Next round he charged in with the Thrall and then used haste to hit again. He then casts a fireball with Vlakith on the Firegiant in hopes to try to get the Dragonmark and Ultroloth in it. He failed Spell Resistance on the Ultroloth so it only hit the Thrall and the Dragonmark. The Thrall took 20 damage and the Dragonmark saved to take 10. I then used 1 attack on the FGFP to hit the Thrall and then used an Ultroloth's Scorching Ray to fnish him off. We had a few fodder battles with me piling everything on the LBD. I got one Skirmisher crit on him and then the TW hit as well. Next round I moved up and put everything on Vlakith. She took an AOO from the FGFP and hit him with a Disentegrate. He made the save. We continued our fodder war with me losing that battle and only having 1 Skirmisher at the end of it. Next round I was able to finish off Vlakith. He then moved his LBD down. I took it on the next round and was able to finish it off. After that I was up 180-60 so I moved onto a VA and his Skeletal Archer and 2 Lolth's Stings that were left werent' able to do anythign to get me off of it. 4-0

We got 3 boosters for prizes. For coming in first I got a booster of Unhallowed and got a Ice Elemental. The other boosters had a Bralani Eladrin and King Obould Many-Arrows in them. I ended up trading the Elemental for my 3rd WWL. Overall it was a very fun day and I was impressed with Yottaquest and can't wait for the return trip up for the Qualifier.

DDM Constructed 200 points 03/17/2007

2010-05-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for a DDM 200 point Constructed tournament we had on 03/17/2007. This tournament was the first one where I ran the archetype of 3 Large Black Dragons and the Werewolf Lord. This would prove to be a dominant band all throughout qualifiers that year. Here's a link to the original thread:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=64169&viewPage=0#64169

Alright, so after the Prereleases and our sealed last week, we had a 200 point tourny this week. Over the course of the week I battled between the choice of what to run. I'd been playtesting Ultroloth/Forgepriest and had horrible dice luck with it. I'd ordered on Ebay a Thrall of Blackrazor for my CE band and it hadn't arrived as of last night so I started looking for alternatives. I did a trade with Sirohk this week and it arrived later in the week to give me my 3rd Black Dragon. I looked at it and built a Triple Black band. Then this morning I toyed with which build to pick and even despite my Thrall showing up in the mail before I left for the tourny, I stuck with the following band.

Werewolf Lord

Large Black Dragon x 3

Timber Wolf

Hyena

Orc Warrior x 2

Map: Fane of Lolth

I suspected some locals to run CG and in the limited playtesting I'd done with the Thrall, he really needed the first engagement initiative or he generally got taken down quickly. I wasn't exactly willing to gamble that on the CR 2 of the Werewolf Lord. And as for why Fane of Lolth, well, I wanted an open map that I could maneuver 4 large bases on. Fane has that so that's why I picked it. There might be a better map however that I'll look into for next time.

So first round I get paired against Mike Smith (Ragnarok). Mike is running Ultroloth, Chraal, Duergar Champ x 2, Cannoloth, Greenspawn Sneak, Skeleton Warrior x 2 on Hellspike. Mike had actually picked one of the other Hellspike maps other than Hellspike itself, but he grabbed the wrong map. Mike won map init so we played on Hellspike. First round we danced around the smoke setting up stuff for the next round. Mike won the next init and moved over the Chraal over to BW 2 Large Blacks and the WWL. I made all the saves on it. He then moved over a DC to base one of the dragons. I used 2 BWs on the Chraal and the DC. The DC failed both saves and then failed morale to run back to the Ultroloth. We traded a few shots with fodder. Mike ran the other DC over to attack one of the dragons that had did their cone. The Ultro moved over and tried to casts Ray of Exhaustion on the WWL but he made the save. I then moved up the WWL to hit the Ultro and moved up the last Large Black to do the same but only the WWL hit. I then won the next init and managed to kill the Ultro with the Large Black and the WWL. That took away the Chraal and also finished off the DC that had failed morale as it wouldnt' get a chance to rally. Mike conceded at that point as he had the Cannoloth and 1 DC against my warband. 1-0

Second round I got paired against Ken (Kenwig) who was running Tiefling Captain, Drow Wizard, Orc Wardrummer, Large Black Dragon, Orc Champion x 2, Timber Wolf, and Hyena on Hailstorm Tower. I think Ken won map init but picked Fane of Lolth over Hailstorm as Hailstorm hadn't worked well for him the previous round. So first round we position with me setting up everything so that it couldn't be based by an Orc Champ. Second round he moves up the Large Black to try to get the BW off on the WWL. The WWL passes and then I manage to put 2 Large Blacks on the dragon and start to do some damage to it. He moves up an Orc Champ to base one of the Large Blacks and get close to the WWL. The large black proceeds to put some hurting on the Orc Champ and then the WWL came in for the kill on it. Next round my other 2 Large Blacks managed to kill his Large Black. He then moved up his last Orc Champ to attack one of the dragons. My Hyena was having a battle with his Timber Wolf and this was a funny series of events. First he got my Hyena down to 5. It rolled a 1 on Morale and ran. It ran next to the last Orc Champ who killed it on the AOO and cleaved into the dragon he had hit before, forcing morale on it. I need a 6, I roll a 3. It flew off the board. I move up my last dragon to attack the Orc Champ and flank him with my other dragon. Ken won next round init and double attacked one of the flanking dragons. He hit both attacks and I morale check. I roll a 2. It too leaves the board. Then I managed to finish it off between the WWL and last Large Black to seal the game. 2-0

Last round I got paired with Tony (Visage). Tony was running a Storm, Skyfire Captain, Virtuous Charger, Assimer Favored Soul, Graycloak Ranger w/ Timber Wolf, Xeph Warrior, Bat, and Elf Warrior on Dragondown Grotto. I of course lost map. Tony set up first and put me on the side with the rocks. Tony does the buffing spells first round, putting the extra attack on the VC, fly, Magic Fang, and Magic Weapon. I think that Xzibit would be proud as Tony accomplished the DDM version of Pimp My Ride. So while he's pimping her out, I moved one dragon to the Central VA, the WWL up and over near the top VA, and 2 dragons down next to where if I won the next init I could get 2 cones off on most of his warband (the core of it at least). Tony had me out activated and moved the VC down to attack one of the dragons. He hit 2 of the 3 attacks to force morale which it made. I won the 2nd round init and had both dragons that were basing the VC. They attack and I manage to get it to a morale check. Tony had made a slight placement error and it was 7 squares away from Storm and could only see the Skyfire Captain. So it rolled for morale and roled a 3, flying off the board. I then move up the dragon that was in the central VA to get off a BW on the core of his warband. Storm saved but everyone else failed and either died or routed off the board. From there it was a matter of time as he had Storm left to take on 3 dragons and the WWL. 3-0

So, while I was iffy on the band it did perform well. I'm stil not totally convinced of the 3rd dragon over the Thrall, but it is definately a possibility. The only thing that scares me about 3 Dragons are their attacks. That's one of the main reasons for the Thrall over them I believe. For prizes we drafted from 2 UH boosters. Rares were a Bone Naga and a Wizard of Tuurmish. I got the Bone Naga as I didn't have it and Tony got the Wizard.

DDM Community Draft DDXP 02/17/2007

2010-05-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

Here's my report for the Community Draft from DDXP 2007. The original link can be found here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=56590&viewPage=0#56590

Alright so I had alot of fun with this and instead of putting it in the Community Draft post, I figured I'd post my own insight into how the Legend of InvisiHammerer was born.

First we were put into the pod with LurkingLidda. She was the first person to open boosters and we all got a good look at the Unhallowed booster. The guy in front of me took the rare which was the Wizard of Turmish. I looked at it and really wanted the Duergar Slaver. But for some reason I zoned out and was still in Blood War mode from the championships so I opted to take the Gnome Trickster instead. It was only Chris Squires took the Deurgar did I realize that I'd passed on all the Unhallowed minis. Next I opted for a CODA that got passed to me. And then I knew I was drafting good aligned. But I didn't get anything good. I kept getting Hammerers passed to me and other than 1 Kolyarut I managed to get, that was the basics of what I had to work with. So my band ended up being the following:

Cleric of Dol Arrah
Gnome Trickster
Kolyarut
Free League Ranger
Hammerer x 3
Wild Elf Raider

So I looked around and realized I had a subpar pull compared to some of the builds that were drafted. But we were only going 3 rounds and maybe, just maybe I could pull out a win or two with my band.

Round 1 I got paired with Richard II. Richard was running Maralith, Doomguard, Orc Wizard, etc. Blindsight was just what I wanted for Invisihammerer. And it went about as expected. The Hammerers did a little damage and then Maralith did her buzzsaw imitation and ate some Hammerers for lunch. 0-1

Round 2 I got paired with Lex who was running Dragon Totem Hero and Warduke. Great....more Blindsight for Invisihammerer. This one was actually close and had the Hammerers actually hit something, it might have been within reach. But it wasn't and Warduke easily ran through my warband. 0-2

Round 3 I got paired with a Dual Hellcat band. And just like the first 2 rounds...I got more Blindsight. I managed to get 1 Hellcat and some more figures but just couldn't pass enough Conceal on the 2nd Hellcat in order for it to matter. 0-3

So, Invisihammerer didn't pan out like I'd hoped. It's miracle wins never came about. I placed 55th out of the 58 people who finished Round 3. And it led me to this conclusion.....whether visible or invisible, Hammerers are never a great idea. :)

DDM DDXP Constructed Qualifier 02/16/2007

2010-05-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

Here is a tournament report for the DDM Constructed Qualifier at DDXP 2007. This was my first national tournament for DDM and I managed to make a pretty good showing at it. Here's the original link:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=56167&viewPage=0#56167

Awhile back I started a thread about SWarm and how I thought it was still viable in the Blood War meta. After playtesting it against the CG Storm bands that were everywhere, I saw that it actually stood up to them pretty well. You had to watch your positioning as to minimize the lines of the Bralanis and Storm, but as long as you did that, you were ok. Firegiants worried me as they can reliably hit the AC and if they pass Incorp can one shot kill a Watcher. Add Cleave into that and it can get ugly quick. But if you play it similar to how you'd play SWarm against the old Marut/Couatl (ignore the Marut and go after everything else) then you stand an ok chance. So after some playtesting I decided it was what I was bringing. I had one of my locals, Kenwig, repaint the warband for me and then as a personal touch to the band, each of the 6 Sacred Watchers have one of the letters to spell out D-A-M-A-G-E if you line them up together. And they also were numbered on the back of each Watcher similar to a sports jersey would be.

So Friday was the day to bring the DAMAGE SWarm to the table. Round 1 I got paired up against Richard II who was running Eye of Gruumish, Orc Champ x 2, Tiefling Captain, Cursed Spirit, Xendrik Champion, Orc Wardrummer, and Hyena I think. His map was Hellspike, which he won and took. We positioned some early and then engaged. I was worried about the Champs with their 30 point cleaves, but Richard struggled with Incorp for most of the game. I was able to get both champs and then get the Eye and finish off the rest of the warband for the win. 1-0

Out of the 40-50 warbands there, there was 1 Tordek. And in Round 2, my SWarm had to face it. Now Tordek isn't bad by any means but I still don't like him. I got paired up against Zach who was running Tordek, Battleplate Marshal, Dwarf Ancester, Dwarf Sniper, Hill Dwarf Warrior x 3, and Man at Arms on Caves of Chaos. I don't remember if he won map or if I did, but we ended up on Caves of Chaos. He took the forest side and marched up along that side of the map towards the caves. I moved over in that direction and he used GMA on the Dwarfs. In about round 2 or 3 we engaged and I let Tordek get over to the Sword Archon. He and the Archon went toe to toe with the Watchers SWarming Tordek. He got a few watchers and eventually I got Tordek. I then went after the Battleplate and got him as well. After that it was the Dwarf Ancester to fall and I was able to hold off the win on tile points. 2-0

Round 3 I got paired against Aron1 and his Storm, Quad Shadowdancers, Gnome Trickster, Xeph x 3 band. I got lucky and got my map so we played on King's Road. This was a great match. Very back and forth. Aron came after the Archon early and I was able to hold him up and keep him alive for several turns due to carefully pulling him away from the battle. He eventually died due to a line from Storm, but that left the Watchers vs Storm, 2 Dancers, and the Trickster. Aron pulled away and went to the central Victory Area. He made a placement mistake and left 1 Shadowdancer out of the forest and I was able to base it with 5 Watchers. She fell after a round or two of combat and I pulled back 1 watcher to get VP. Very close match and I ended up winning the game by just a few points I believe. 3-0

Round 4 I got paired up against Chad the Dragon Lord and his Forgepriest, DC x 2, Urthok band. I got map init and we were on King's Road. I tried to position carefully so that I could try to avoid the cleaves from the Giant if possible. Chad went to the central VA and decided to place most of his figures there. He took out my Scout early and I went up there to engage him. I put my Watchers on both DCs, 1 at a time, and on Urthok. I took out both DCs and got Urthok to half where he failed morale but Rallied to come back. The Firegiant then decided he didn't like ghosts as Chad proceeded to make almost all of his Incorp checks on the Watchers. It came down to the Archon vs Urthok and the Firegiant at 135 points. I moved the Archon so that he could swing on Urthok. Unfortunately this was within reach of the Firegiant. I figured I could take 2 hits, win init, and fly off. Nope. Chad attacked me....first attack hit, second attack Crit to outright kill the Archon. So my killing off everything but the Firegiant idea doesn't quite work out when he doesn't miss Incorp. 3-1

Now Round 5 and 6 I'm confused on what order they were in. I think Round 5 was against CSchroder and his Storm/Archmage build. We rolled for map and he got it so I was off to the Grotto. My main fear was Banishment or him getting a few Mordy Swords off on the Archon. So I hid in the forest first round then just sent the Watchers out on turn 2. Over the next few rounds they killed off fodder and got Charles down on activations. Then Charles put a sword on 2 differnt Watchers. After that I brought out the Archon to play clean up on some pieces. This was a very close match. I got him down to everything but Storm and the Archmage. Once I brought out the Archon, the was able to try Banishment, but I made the save. We went to time and I was up on points by around 20 or so I believe. Great game against Charles and he'd get his revenge later on. 4-1

Round 6 I got to play Jamie Armel who was playing Marut, Couatl, Arcane Ballista, Cleric of Order, Mailee, Men at Arms x 2 on Frostfell. He won map so we were on Frostfell. This was a matchup that I'd played against last year during Qualifier season so I knew how to play it. I slowly brought out the Watchers and left the Archon back. He brought the Marut around one side to the lower bridge to hopefully kill off a few Watchers quick. He struggled with Incorp there though and they hung around for a few more rounds than he wanted. I was able to base the Ballista and then box it in with another Watcher and the Sword Archon. I finished it off, the Cleric of Order, and Mailee. I was up on points at that point so I pulled back. Jamie came after me with Marut/Couatl. I was able to block the Marut on the upper bridge and then Kill the Couatl. After that I pulled back to the central bridge to go over 200 for the win. 5-1

Going into Round 6 I was pretty confident that I'd make top 8 win or lose. I had good tie breakers and having that pressure off was good. I got paired up against Neilasaurus who was running Storm, Valenar x 2, Bralani, and Gnome Trickster. We were both running King's Road so map init was easy. I moved up SWarm towards the central VA and we engaged. Neil got fly off on both Valenar and then we met up around the central VA. He had the Bralani and one Valenar there. The Valenar had 1 square out of the forest so that's where I based it. His other Valenar did the same thing and I put 3 Watchers on it. He started to wear down the Sword Archon. He eventually got him, but I got 1 of the Valenars and the Bralani. I had the other Valenar down to about 15 hps or so. After Neil killed the Archon he pulled everything back and I wasn't able to catch up to him. 5-2

Top 8 got announced and I had finished the first part in 3rd place at the top of the 5-2s. First part of Top 8 I got paired with CSchroder again. This time I got map and while King's Road isn't bad for Archmage, I couldn't let him have Grotto again. This time Charles came up after the Archon, which I expected him to do and not play as defensive as he did the first time. He came up and got 1 Mordy Sword on the Archon. After that I put 4 SW and the Archon on the Archmage. He was down to 15 hps and then I couldn't hit him to finish him off. I had a shot to kill him with the Archon, but rolled a 3 for the attack, missing him by 2 in the forest. After that he pulled back the Archmage. I then put everything on Storm while she was there. I got her down to 15 hps as well. Charles had casts flight on her as well so she flew off as well. I then played Catch-a-mage and tried to corner the Archmage. I did a good job of getting up to him everytime he flew off and was able to set it up so that if I had won the following init I could have gotten off at least 2 attacks on him. But I never won that follow up init and Charles was able to hold me off for the win. Final record 5-3

So, overall I had alot of good games. 2 of my 3 losses could have been very different had a few dice rolls went differently. But I finished up in 7th place overall and got an invite to Gencon. Everyone I played were great and the judges did a great job of judging as well.

DDM Constructed 200 points 01/20/2007

2010-05-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from a DDM 200 point Constructed tournament that we had on 01/20/2007. The original thread can be found below:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=48477&viewPage=0#48477

So today we had a 200 point Constructed for our weekly tournament. I've been playing SWarm as of late and decided to give it another try today. We had 7 people show up. Last 200 point we had there wasn't alot of BW bands that showed up, this time however it was all over the place.

My army was Standard SWarm:

Sword Archon
Sacred Watcher x 6
Warforged Scout
Map: King's Road

Round 1: I got the Bye. So I sat around and answered some rules questions and watched everyone play. Technically 1-0

Round 2: When I showed up there were a few Storm builds and I had hoped I'd get to play at least one of them. So my first actual matchup and I get to play Tony (Visage) who is running Storm, Valenar Nomad Charger, Shadowdancer x 2, Gnome Trickster, Nebin, and Mailee on Teleport Temple. I won map so we played on King's Road. This game was very close. We start out with Tony buffing up the Valenar, putting MW and Fly on it. Then he put Blur on both Shadowdancers over the first 2 rounds. And after all the spellcasting was done, he put Invisibility Sphere on everything. I spread out my SWarm as much as I could, planting the SWs all through the trees and trying to keep them out of a line so as to not get blasted by Storm's Silver Fire. He moved the Valenar back to try to get the Sword Archon, but rather than try to go after the Valenar with the Sword Archon, I played it safe and double moved the Archon to another batch of trees. Next round is engagement with him sending both Shadowdancers after the Archon. I get one Shadowdancer down to Morale but she's within 6 of Storm so she checks. I then moved up the Archon to attack Storm and got her down to 30 by the end of the round. He got several hits on the Archon and killed it at the end of the round due to a Snake Swiftness on Storm from the Trickster. So, Tony took a huge points lead. But Storm was down to 30. Tony won the next init and tried to get rid of the Watchers. He struggled with either their ACs or with the Incorp. After a few rounds I was able to get Storm. After that I got the Valenar down to half and it failed Morale and ran off the board. Tony then started to pull back everything so that I couldn't kill it. I had one Shadowdancer down to 10 hps. Everything else was hidden the trees except her as she was based by 1 SW in Victory Area A. I charged her with another SW and she used her Defensive Roll on it. After that I hit with the other SW that was basing her and went up by 5 points to win at the end of the round, 201 to 196. Very very close game and had a few things went differently it easily could have been Tony's win.

Round 3: I wanted to face at least 1 Storm band today. However I got a treat and faced 2. I played Mike Smith (Ragnarok) who was playing Storm, Valenar Nomad Charger x 2, Bralani, Gnome Trickster, Wild Elf Raider, and Xeph Warrior on Frostfell. Mike won map so we played on Frostfell. First round I did my normal spreading out of my SWs. Mike casts Fly on one Valenar and then casts Invis on everything. Next round he casts Fly on the other Valenar and moved one of the Valenars over to hit a SW with Bladebearer and get it down to 15. In fairness to Mike, he did have some pretty bad rolls after that. He moved up the 2nd Valenar to go after a SW that I had put on the bridge. He missed it and I was then able to SWarm it. I moved the Archon over to it and was able to do 15 a swing on it due to Storm being left behind. I was able to kill that one. After that the other Valenar moved up and hit the Archon for a crit while using the Bladebearer. That Valenar would die next round when I got it to Morale check and it missed it's Morale and died on the AOOs while leaving. After that it was me putting everything on Storm and the Bralani. Mike had some bad rolls with Incorp here and I was able to hit Storm most of the time. She went down and Mike called it.

So, overall I feel pretty good about how it turned out. I think SWarm still matches up well against most things and can still compete. That was the main thing I was wanting to try to see and I'm glad that today I think I took a few steps towards seeing that I think it can still compete. We drafted prizes out of 2 BW booster packs. Rares were an Air Genasi and a Horned Devil. Tony got 2nd and had passed on a Gith Dragon Knight a few weeks earlier for me so I did the same to him today and took the Air Genasi and let him have the Horned Devil.

DDM Constructed 500 points Epic 01/13/2007

2010-05-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from a DDM 500 point Epic Constructed tournament we had on 01/13/2007. The original thread can be found here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=46471&viewPage=0#46471

So today we held a 500 point Epic tourny. We had 6 players show up. I've had a band ready to go for awhile and finally got a shot to run. I've wanted Tiamat to work for a long time. I tried a few times back when WODQ came out but decided she just wasn't ready yet and was too many points. If you could utilize her 5 BWs, she'd be great, but she often wasn't able to get more than 1 or 2 of them off. So after BW came out I made this band:

Aspect of Tiamat
Dragonmark Heir x 3
Dark Moon Monk
Snig + Sniglets
Greenspawn Sneak
Timber Wolf
Map: Field of Ruin

I playtested this build a few times and with the extra 165 hps that the Dragonmarks give Tiamat, she's now able to stay on the board long enough to actually get her BWs off and to handle almost anything she comes up against. Add in the Dark Moon Monk to get Tiamat up to +20 for all her attacks and Snig for activation control. With 12 activations, it's easy to let Tiamat and the Dragonmarks go last and get them in position for the next round.

First round I got paired against Mike Barnes. Barnes was running Human Blackguard, King Snure, Firegiant Forgepriest x 2, Large Green Dragon x 2, Dark Moon Monk, and Dire Rat. We played on Field of Ruin. We both moved up and second round I sneak around the large central area and catch the Blackguard, Snure, and both Forgepriests in a cold of cone. They all pretty well saved. After that it was engaging against them. The Bodyguards moved up and took quite alot of damage for me. I used some more BWs on them and then started using melee on them to take them out. They weren't able to deal enough damage to her to take her down before she took them down. After taking out Snure and both Forgepriests, I took out the HBG to go over 500 with my tile points. 1-0

Second round I got paired against Tony Pitman (Visage) who was running Epic Vlaakith, Gith Dragon Knight, Orc Wizard, Drow Wizard, Gravehound, Zombie White Dragon, and Abysal Skulker(sp). We ended up playing on Field of Ruin. We spent the first few rounds positioning with me getting closer and closer to Vlaakith. He spent those early rounds taking out some fodder to get me down some on the activation lead. At the end of the 3rd round, I saved Tiamat and the Dragonmarks for last. We were over by the lower Victory Area for A I think. I moved up and shot 1 line of Acid that hit the Zombie White and Vlaakith. I then used by Fire cone to get the Zombie White again and to catch the Orc Wizard in it. I then moved the Dragonmarks so that they would be the closest enemy for Vlaakith's spells. Next round he won init and used the BW of the Zombie White to get all my Dragonmarks down to at least 50 hps. He then moved up Vlaakith and did Whaile of the Banshee. I lost 1 Dragonmark to that. Tiamat then activated and got Vlaakith down to 60 hps. Next round he rolled a 1 for the init and I rolled a 15. Tiamat killed Vlaakith with her 2 activations. He did a few hit and runs on the Dragonmarks with the Gith Dragon Knight, eventually getting them both I think. I was able to finish off the Zombie White and the Gravehound and then moved back to get tile points with my last activation for that round to go over 500. Had Tony won that init where I killed Vlaakith, he could have gotten off his Finger of Death on me and that could have been a completely different ending at that point. 2-0

For Round 3 I played Alan who was running Elminster, Storm Silverhand, Valenar Nomad Charger, Elf Warmage, Epic Storm Archer, Dire Bear x 2, and Graycloak with Timber Wolf. We once again play on Field of Ruin. At the end of the first round I took a gamble. He had set up Storm, the Storm Archer, Elminster, and his Warmage in a perfect cone formation. I looked and with a double move I was able to get up there to where I could move 4 next round and get the cone off. If I won the next init I could then do 90 damage to the main core of his band. That's if I won that init. He rolled a 6 for it, I rolled a 1. So instead I got lit up by the Storm Archer and by Storm's Silver Fire. After that I move up and get Storm and the Warmage in a cone, killing the Warmage. I get another one off and get Elminster, Storm again, and the Archer in that one. They all saved and made any Morale Checks they had to make. He then put everything he could on Tiamat. She got swarmed by both Dire Bears and got hit by a few hit and runs by the Valenar. Next round he won init again and I once again got lit up by the Storm Archer and by one of the Bears. I then moved up my Dragonmarks to finally start bodyguarding some of the damage. I had left them all behind to take the gamble of getting rid of everyone on the 2nd turn. So I finally get them up there, when Tiamat is down to 40 hps! After getting them up there I was able to get off a few more cones or do melee attacks to finish off some stuff. We got another round or two in, which saw him get 2 Dragonmarks and almost the 3rd one, me use all my BWs, and me kill Storm, the Graycloak, 1 Dire Bear, and the Valenar. Time got called on us and I was up on points to win. 3-0

We drafted prizes out of 2 BW boosters. Prizes were a Horned Devil (me) and a Storm Silverhand (Alan).

All in all I was pretty happy with how Tiamat worked. With the Dragonmarks she was able to stay around long enough to deal with anything that got up to her in Melee. It also kept her around long enough to use her BWs and get good use out of them instead of them just sitting on her card. The activation control was great as well because it allowed me to set up everything for the next round. I shouldn't have taken that gamble in the 3rd round, but it was just a bit too tempting for me to say no to. Luckily Tiamat didn't die. Granted she was very, very close though.

DDM Constructed 200 points 01/06/2007

2010-05-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from a 200 point Constructed DDM tournament we had on 01/06/2007. This was the first tournament we had at Heroes Realm in Lexington, KY after our old venue, Warlords Unlimited shut down. The orginal thread can be located here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=44431&viewPage=0#44431

So today we had our first local tourny in about 2 months and I brought SWarm to it to see how it faired. We played 3 rounds and had 7 people show up to it.

First round was against Ken McCutchen who ran Shuluth, Duergar Champ x 4, Kobold Miner x 3 on Field of Ruin. I figured this was a solid test against SWarm for 2 reasons. First you had 4 beaters with cleave who can kill a SW in 2 hits. And second you had Shuluth who's DC 16 Disorienting Presence is horrible due to the Save 5 of the SW. So, we both come up and engage in the 2nd round. I'm able to take out one DC in the 3rd round while he takes out one of my SW. Next round I make it to Shuluth and manage to hurt one or two of the DCs while he manages to get most of the SWs to 15 hps so that they can easily be killed in 1 attack or cleaved into for a kill. After that I'm able to get Shuluth taken out and leave 2 DC who are about to MC. One of the DCs end up running off the board and the Sword Archon manages to kill the other one for the game. 1-0

Second round I get paired up against Mike Smith who is running Maralith, Orc Champ, Doomguard, Orc Wizard, Orc Wardrummer, Timber Wolf x 2, and Orc Archer on Dragonshrine. I got map and went on King's Road. Second round he moves up Maralith to the central batch of trees and parks her there and moves and attacks one of my SWs with the Orc Champ. I hit back with the SW and then move my Sword Archon to hit the Orc Champ forcing Morale. The champ fails and runs off the board. After that I put everything on Maralith, leaving the Sword Archon back to just let them have his Commander Effect. Maralith either missed their AC 25s in the forest or missed due to Incorp. She managed to kill 4 of them before I got her taken out and then won the game. 2-0

Third round I get paired up against Tony (visage) who was running Arcane Ballista, Couatl, War Weaver, Sword of Heironeous, Mailee, Sacred Watcher x 2, and Timber Wolf on Dragondown Grotto. He won map so we played on Grotto. He took the side with the rocks on it. First round I move up and he takes a few shots but misses due to Incorp. Second round it's hot SW on SW action which I'm able to win due to being able to kill them in 2 hits to them killing me in 3. The Ballista does some damage with it's Lightning Sphere. After that it's me making it over to the Ballista and trying to tie down the Couatl. Most of my SW are able to be killed in 1 hit from anything as they have been hit once or twice by either the Ballista or the SW. I move up my Sword Archon to attack the Couatl. Needed a 3, rolled a 2. He takes out 2 SW, making the Sword Archon the nearest target. Next round I try to hit again with the Archon, need a 3, rolled a 1. Then of course the Balista hits him for 35. Next round he wins init and finishes off the Archon. After that he's able to deal with the rest of the SW before they are able to hit finish off anything else. End result 2-1.

We drafted prizes from 2 Bloodwar boosters. Prizes were an Air Genasi Swashbuckler and a Gith Dragon Knight. Tony came in first and took the Air Genasi as he needed one and I came in 2nd and took the Gith Dragon Knight.

DDM Limited Qualifier, Richmond KY 11/18/2006

2010-05-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report from the Limited Qualifier for DDM that was held on 11/18/2006. This was an event that I pulled some bad stuff but played very well and pulled out the win. The original thread is located here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=34788&viewPage=0#34788

So yesterday we had our Limited Qualifier. We had a pretty good turnout of 14 people. I got my 2 boosters and wasn't thrilled with my pulls. After looking at what I had I finally played this warband.

Doomguard
Air Genasi Swashbuckler
Lillend
Bluespawn Stormlizard
Shadowdancer
Hero of Valhalla
Kobold Monk
Fiendish Snake
Map: Keep of Fallen Kings

So with that I knew I had low levels and figured to be routing alot as the day went on. I also wasn't thrilled as I looked around and saw several Solars and Pit Fiends running around. But I knew it was all up to the dice and that we'd play it and see how it went.

Round 1
I got Daniel in the first round. Daniel and his friend Kris had come up from TN for the qualifier. Daniel was playing Solar, Gnome Trickster, Dwarf Scout x 2 on Broken Demongate. He got his map and I sat up on the Demongate side. This was by far one of the best games I've ever played. I brought everything up and he shot the slaying arrow and I think got the Lillend with it but I could be wrong. I was able to get the Solar down to 20 hps and had only my Swashbuckler left basing him, my shadowdancer who was at 10hps and had just rallied, and my Doomguard at 20. He moved the Trickster and slid the Swashbuckler away from the Solar and then ran the Solar back. I chased after him with the Swashbuckler and ran back my Doomguard so that she was near him. Next round I won the init and moved over the Doomguard and then the Swashbuckler to attack the Solar and hit him for 15 thanks to the Doomguards commander effect. The Solar choose to attack next and I used my last retributive strike to finish it off. But this game was far from over. Daniel had 104 points in kills and I had just gotten 105. We spent the next few rounds getting tile points and he had the snipers trained on each one. When time was called I had had to retreat back my Doomguard and my Swashbuckler as another shot from the Snipers would have killed either one of them. Using my last activation I used my Shadowdancer to use her last Shadow Jump and then run to a victory area to stay up by 1 point and win the match. By far this was one of the closest games I have ever played. 1-0

Round 2
I got Ken McCutchen this round. Ken was running Hippogriff, Green Slaad, Mezzoloth, Harmonium Guard, Gnome Tricket, and Hammerer on Fane of Lolth. Ken got his map. We both moved up first round. Second round he moved up the Hippogriff and used Smite Chaos on the Doomguard. She failed her morale check and ran off the board. Next he moved up his Green Slaad and rolled to see that he got a fear cone that he blasted several of my pieces with. My swashbuckler was the only one that didn't run away. After that I had him, the Shadowdancer, the Kobold, and the Hero of Valhalla. I did mount back an offense but it simply wasn't enough after losing all my other pieces.1-1

Round 3
I got Mike Barnes for this one. Mike was running Pit Fiend, Dragonmark Heir, Warmage, and Phoera on Field of Ruin. He got his map. We ended up meeting in the middle victory area and I was able to dogpile the Pit Fiend. He managed to kill the Lillend and Shadowdancer but at the end the Stormlizard got a crit on him for 45 damage, thanks to the Doomguard, and with the Swashbuckler was able to bring him down to win the game. 2-1

Round 4
I got Jeff Lemaster for this round. Jeff was running Chasme, Owlbear, Hero of Valhalla, Warmage, Red Hand War Sorcerer, and Orc Wizard. Jeff hadn't brought a map so we played on mine. I knew that I had to get some of the casters out of the way. He tried to get me to engage near the exit, but my fear of morale checks as low levels kept me from it and we ended up fighting on one of the sides. I got off the Bluespawn's Lightning Bolt and it got the Sorcerer. He failed it but made morale. I then ran back the Lillend and the Shadowdancer and they were able to finish him off. Next round I won init and put them both on the Warmage. She was checked and failed and ran off the board. After that it was just cleaning up with the Bluespawn and Swashbuckler. 3-1

Round 5
So I was thinking I'd get paired down as my tiebreakers weren't great. However one of the other 3-1's tiebreakers were worse after Round 4 so I got paired up to meet another 3-1. I got paired against Kris who along with Daniel had come up from TN. Kris was running Solar, Dragonmark Heir, Skeletal Reaper x 2, Fiendish Snake x 2, and Archon Goblin on Teleport Temple. He got his map. We spent the first round getting teleports and tile points. Second round I had misplaced my Lillend so that he could see her by teleporting to one of the corners. He used his Slaying Arrow and I made the save. He used his 2nd activation to move the Dragonmark next to him. I finished up that round by moving over my Swashbuckler and getting off an attack and then Shadow Jumping over and charging into the Solar and a flank thanks to the Swashbuckler. I won the next init and was able to get rid of the Dragonmark and put some damage on the Solar. He then made the Shadowdancer run. I charged in with the Lilled and hit for 20, thanks to the Doomguard, and then set up a charge with the Bluespawn. Next round I charged in with the Bluespawn but rolled a 1 on it, but between everything else I had I was able to finish off the Solar and then hit 200 by killing one of the Skeletal Reapers. 4-1

So I was in and we thought we were supposed to draft but after checking with our T.O. he said he got an email saying NOT to draft so we kept our warbands and went into Top 4.

Quaterfinals
I got Dale for this one. Dale was running Solar, Orc Wizard, Dwarf Sniper, Kobold Monk, Soldier of Bytopia, and Phoera on Dragondown. He got his map. We spent the first few rounds positioning and I fully expected the Solar to sit in some trees on a cliff and just shoot me until I could get to him. So I knew I had to sacrifice a piece and I put the Lillend up front to take the Slaying Arrow. However Dale figured he could jump down, hit the Lillend and then get away and back to the forrest. I was able to dogpile him while he was landed and was able to eliminate the Solar. After that it was cleaning up his other pieces. He did get the Lillend and the Shadowdancer but the Swashbuckler and Stormlizard were able to handle the Orc Wizard and Sniper to get the game.

Finals
So for the finals I get a rematch against Kris and his Solar band. He gets to choose map and picks mine so we play on Keep of Fallen Kings. I spend the first few rounds moving up and trying to be cautious about how I put my pieces so to try to avoid the slaying arrow. Round 3 is where we engage. I'm able to get off a lightning bolt that hit his Archon Goblin, 1 Skeletal Reaper, and the Dragonmark. I then moved up the Lillend, again expecting to sacrifice her to a Slaying Arrow. The Solar shoots and rolls a 1 on the Slaying Arrow shot. After that I move up my Swashbuckler to base the Solar and then Shadowjump over so that I'm flanking him. After that it was dogpile him again in hopes of taking him down. The Dragonmark wasn't there long thanks to the Lightning Bolt from the Stormlizard and then I was able to start putting damage on him. He managed to route the Shadowdancer and the Lillend. He had some very bad rolls here as he missed the Shadowdancer about 6 times. While that was happening I was putting damage on him and moved up everything to him. He routed the Lillend and then killed the Swashbuckler which left it all up to my Stormlizard to finish him off. The Solar was at 20 hps and I let my Stormlizard attack and needed a 6....rolled a 17 and that was game.

Top Four ended up being
Myself - Jerry Damage
Kris Blais (might have mispelled the last name)
Nathan McKinney
and Dale Irwin

So after a LONG day of playing minis I was lucky enough to end up in first. Winning this Qualifier was very special to me as it's likely to be the last big Wizards event held here in Richmond. I definately am going to WF/XP now and can't wait to get to play some DDM with many of you guys. :)

DDM Prerelease, Richmond KY 10/28/2006

2010-05-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for a Prerelease we had in for the Blood War set for DDM on 10/28/2006. The original post can be found below:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=29062&viewPage=0#29062

So, after drooling over spoilers for much of last week and consulting with other players about the stats, it was time for the prerelease. I took the day off of work for it and hoped I'd at least have a somewhat good pull and even if I didn't do well that I'd at least get something I might use for constructed. I got to the shop early and talked with several players about the set and things. Then noon rolled around and boosters were passed out. Both of mine were light and I was fearing the worst as it probably meant no Fire Giant or Pit Fiend for me, both of which I wanted. However the booster gods were with me as I reach into my first booster and pull out a Maralith. Second booster nets me a Storm Silverhand. Looking through my UC/C, I saw I had a Gnome Trickster and had already picked him to be an almost auto include piece of tech. So after that I had a choice to make. I also pulled an Elf warmage and while she fit with my other pieces, she put me at 199 points and 4 activations. I left her out and built another band with 7 activations, but I just wasn't happy with it and ended up running the 4 activation band. My warband was:

Storm Silverhand
Maralith
Elf Warmage
Gnome Trickster
Map: Drow Outpost

So, with my 4 activation warband, I went into the first round hoping for some luck. I get paired against Carl Wolfe who had a Thundertusk, Eladrin army. It was a very slow game as we only got 3 full rounds in and had started our 4th round with about 2:00 left on the clock. I had done a good amount of damage to his Thundertusk and his Eladrin as well as a few other pieces, but there just wasn't enough time for me to do anything. He finished off my Warmage to go up on points and that was it. 0-1

So, I got paired down where I would stay for the rest of the day. While I feel that had we gotten in another round, I could have won against Carl's army (my warmage was the only figure to take damage), it actually helped me out as I didnt' get paired against any other Maraliths, Pit Fiends, or Solars.

2nd Round I get paired against Mike Wice. Mike is a local player who is about to graduate so he hasn't been out lately but came out to the Prerelease. He was running a Fire Giant, Storm Lizard, Doomguard army. We played on Outpost and moved up. His figures were bunched together and I won the 2nd round initiative. I moved my Elf Warmage over and did a Sudden Empower Blast of Flame to get everything except the Fire Giant and his commander. Everything either failed the spell or made morale and ran off the board. So after my first activation he was down to 2 activations. I was able to concentrate on the Fire Giant at that point and while the Giant killed Maralith, the Elf Warmage walked up right after that and did a Maximized Shocking Grasp to him to finish him off. 1-1

3rd round I get to play Ken McCutchen. Ken is a good local player who's alot of fun to play against. He was playing a Fire Giant (yay another one), Centaur Warhulk, Harmonium Guard band. I had to play somewhat cautiousely because I knew how much damage he could put out with his Warhulk, Fire Giant combo. We play on Outpost and Ken split up the Fire Giant and the Warhulk. As the Warhulk came up I concentrated on it and was able to eliminate it by the time the Fire Giant engaged. I got the Fire Giant to half and he checked and failed morale. The Giant tried to rally and he rolled a 1 and ran off the board for game. Two really bad rolls when Ken needed them in that game. 2-1

4th Round was against Jeff. Jeff is a new DDM player who was running a Thundertusk, Elf Dragonkith combo. He really just didn't have the damage output to compete with the Warmage/Maralith in this one. 3-1

5th round and I get paired with Tony Pitman (visage), who's running a Lord of Blades and Maug combo. I know my tiebreakers aren't good so if I win, I'm in at 4-1 and if I lose I'm out of it. I start off casting my Invisibility Sphere. Maralith sat there for a long time being Invisible. I saved it because I was sure I'd need it for the Lord of Blades/Maug assault. Sure enough the Maug walked up, rolled a 20, then rolled for Conceal because she was still invisible, and missed her. After that Maralith magically appeared and killed him and then went to work on the Lord of Blades before finishing him off next round. 4-1

So with 4-1 I made top 4 coming in at number 4. I get paired against Jim McKinney who's running a Solar/Maralith build. We play on Outpost and he takes the cave side and gets off a first turn Slaying Arrow onto Storm. Luckily Storm passed the save. The dice really weren't with me this game as I either missed some key attacks or was unable to win the imporant initiatives once we enaged. Final result was 4-2. So, while I lost in the first round of Top 4, I still was happy to make Top 4 as it's my best performance at a Prerelease yet. My 2 boosters got me a Fire Giant and an Owlbear. I was excited about the Fire Giant and am working on warbands for him now. :)

DDM Constructed Epic 500 points 09/03/2006

2010-05-16T12:13:00.001-07:00

Here's a tournament report for a DDM Constructed 500 points Epic tournament we had on 09/03/2006. The original thread is located below:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=15106&viewPage=0#15106

So yesterday we ran an Epic for our weekly sanctioned tournament. Before going into this tournament, I was sitting at 1682 in Epic and hoped that with a good showing I could further my goal of reaching 1700 in both Epic and Constructed. So, I looked at what I thought would do well and what I liked to run, and I went with my standard Bahamut band.

Aspect of Bahamut
Couatl x 2
Spellscale Sorcerer
Village Priest
Dwarf Artificer
Eberk, Adventurer
Warforged Scout
on King's Road

So far, this band has done really well. It's only lost about 3 games or so out of 4 tournies worth of games and those games could just have easily been wins had the dice went my way. We had 10 people show up so we ran 4 rounds.

First round I got paired with William. William was running Huge Fire Elemental x 2, Greenfang Druid, Wand Expert, Bonded Fire Summoner, Magma Hurler on Teleport Temple. First round we both spread out so we are on teleports. I win the next initiative and take a gamble. He'd bunched up most of his pieces near a teleporter. I teleport over and move 12 and can get almost everything in a cone. The line however worked better as it only left out 1 huge fire elemental and it was damage they all couldn't avoid like my cold cone would have been. So on my first activation of the 2nd round, I managed to kill everything but both Huge Fires and the Greenfang. And 1 Huge Fire was now down 60 hps. Over the next few rounds Bahamut ripped apart the Huge Fires and ended the game with taking no damage. 1-0

Second round I got paired against Allan. Allan was running a CE grabbag. He was running Sorcerer on Black Dragon, Yuanti Sorcerer, Redspawn Firebelcher, Fiendish Gorillian, Large Fang Dragon, Blackspawn Exterminator, and a few other pieces that escape me. We ended up playing on King's Road. We started out positioning the first few rounds. After that he brought the Sorcerer on Black over and I was able to base it with Bahamut and from there I got it and then it was taking apart creatures here and there. 2-0

Third round I get Tony (visage) who is running Elminster, Archmage x 2, Wand Expert, Couatl, Rask, Elf Pyromancer, and another piece that escapes me. We played on King's Road. First round was positioning with me setting up for a hopeful 2nd round cone onto both Archmages. I win init and get the BW off on both Archmages. They both fail and 1 Archmage can't see El due to the forest and runs off the board. The other can see El and makes his MC. And after that I get 2 MS on me for my troubles. I move up a Couatl and use a Sonic Orb on the Archmage to finish him off. Third round I move up and base El and fire off my Line to get El and kill the Wand Expert. El makes his MC but after a SS he's not able to move and take the AOO. He uses Cure Serious on himself and moves away. Next round he gets another MS on me so I've got 3 but I move up a Couatl and finish El off with a Sonic Orb. After that it was back and forth with me trying to beat the clock. Last round I finish move and finish off the CODA to put me at 498. Bahamut is at 30 hps. He moves up his Elf Pyro and does a Scorching Ray which passes SR for 15 and moves up his Couatl to Sonic Orb Bahamut for the last 15. Now on the last round I costed myself the game due to 2 mistakes I made. First, when i moved to kill the Cleric, I should have moved further away so that another figure would have been the closest for the Elf Pyro. Secondly, I had 1 counterspell left that I hadn't used. So, I got to 498 points and then lost the game due to two errors on my part. 2-1

Last round I played Mike who was running Dual Bluespawn Godslayers, Wand Expert, Dragon Totem Hero, Melphling Pyromancer, Crow Shaman, and a few other figures that escape my mind. We played on King's Road. First round I casts LUG with both Couatls and get 1 Bluespawn to not fly. Second round we finish buffing everything with him getting Blur, Cat's Grace, and Flight on both of them, even though only 1 could fly. Third round we engage and this is where my dice decided to do some gamer hatin. I failed at least 7 conceal rolls if not more. I got 1 Bluespawn down to 20hps and could cleave into the other one. I win init and then it takes all my attacks to just kill that 1 Bluespawn as I missed conceal everytime. After that I could have killed the other bluespawn, but my conceal problems continued and needless to say, Bahamut died. 2-2

So, other than a few mistakes and some bad dice rolls I had an alright day. Unfortunately, I'll probably lose some points for the day, but hopefully I'll regain them at our next epic.

DDM Constructed 200 point 08/26/2006

2010-05-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a tournament report for a 200 point Constructed DDM tournament we had on 08/26/2006. This was a tournement where I won a near auto-loss matchup of Triple Large Green Dragons against Tony's Arcane Ballista build. The original thread is located here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=13176&viewPage=0#13176

So today was our local sanctioned tourny for the week. Earlier this week I had debated to run either Quad Belchers or 3 Dragon Ante. Well, with my Belchers still not here from ebay, it made it an easy decision. So I ran the following:

3 Dragon Ante
LGD x 3
Urthok the Vicious
Dire Rat
Kobold Miners x 3
on Drow Outpost

The past few 200 point tournies that I've ran 3DA in, it was always very close to winning, usually with a missed morale or a crit from someone swinging it in the other direction. So far it's done very well and I'm surprised to have a pretty good record with it.

First round I draw Dale. Dale is running a Tordek, Warpriest of Moradin, War Weaver band. We end up playing on his map, Dungeon of Blood. First round we position a bit with Tordek basing a Dragon. Second round I damage Tordek up a bit with a few breath weapons and some attacks while he wears down the dragon he'd based. Next round he wins init and further wears down the Dragon he had injured and then crits it with a Snake Swiftness from the War Weaver to kill it. I was then able to take Tordek down a few rounds later. After that it was cleaning up the remnants of his army. 1-0

Second round I get Hope. Hope is a local's girlfriend who's been playing for a little while. She was running Couatl, Justice Archon x 3, Rikka, Cleric of Order, and filler. We played on my map, the Outpost. First round we move up. Second round I get off all 3 BWs and catch the Couatl and all 3 Justice Archons in them. The Justice Archons make all their saves except for 3 of them. With a 6 save she was rolling high. So after that it was back and forth with me getting some lucky breaks on a few Justice Archons and her hitting me on a pretty regular basis. Rikka joined the party in Round 4 I think and after that I was able to eventually get up on points and kill off the Cleric to put me over 200.2-0

Third round I run into the band I wanted to avoid. Tony (Visage) was running Coautl, War Weaver, Arcane Ballista, Sword of Heironeious, Mailee, Sacred Watcher x 2 on Dragondown. I needed 2 rolls to go my way, Map and Side. We roll and I get Map so we're on the Outpost. Then I beat him by 1 on the Side roll so I go for the outpost side. First round we position a bit with him coming down along the cave side next to his Exit. Second round I move up and base the Ballista with 2 Dragons. He Dimension hops out of it and lights up one Dragon, putting him at 5 after an attack and a SS. Even without seeing Urthok I passed morale. That Dragon lights up the Sword who he was based with. I then use my BWs to do some damage to the Ballista, Couatl, and War Weaver. After that it's positioning between us. I get him cornered so that he can't move without touching a Dragon and get rid of the Ballista. A second dragon checks and once again makes morale without Urthok. After that I got the Couatl to half with both Dragons on it and it failed to give me the game. 3-0

Fourth round I get another Tordek build. Allen was playing Tordek, Village Priest, Dwarf Artificer, Merc. Sargent, and Dire Bear. We play on my map. I get the cave side and first round we move up with me denying him tile points. Second round he clears out a few kobold miners and moves Tordek in for an attack on a Dragon. After that I light up Tordek and the Dire Bear with some BWs. The Dire Bear fails them and routes off the board. Tordek gets down to 55. Next round he gets a Dragon to half and I roll a 1 on it for the morale check and it runs off the board. I move over another Dragon and give Tordek some love and with a crit in there, I get him down to 5 hps. Next round I get Tordek and then it's clean up as I get the rest of his army with my Dragons and get over 200 with Tile points. 4-0

So, the Dragons finally pulled it out. After a few tries they finally win a tournament. We had 10 people so we drafted from 2 WODQ boosters. The rares were a BGON and Golden Protector with a Mountain Troll and BlueSpawn GodSlayer as the huges. I took first and got the BGON. Three Dragon Ante, it's got potential. :D

DDM Constructed 200 point 08/19/2006

2010-05-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a tourney report from a 200 point Constructed DDM tournament we had on 08/19/2006. The original post is located here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=11714&viewPage=0#11714

So today we had our weekly sanctioned tournament. I had a playtesting session earlier in the week with another local and he was testing a Greenfang CG variant of Triple Belchers. I tested Korducopia and just wasn't confident on that matchup. We played 2 games and split them, but I wasn't confident that Kordu could handle some of the off the wall stuff that we see. Also, having on played it twice I didn't want to take a chance with it until I got more practice in. So, knowing that another player was bringing Belchers, I then asked what would work good against them. I started to bring Quad Belchers myself, but unfortunately the Belchers I ordered off Ebay hadn't come in yet. So I then went back to my old Triple LGD. My band was:

LGD x 3
Urthok the Vicious
Dire Rat
Kobold Miner x 3
on Drow Outpost

First round I get paired up against James. James is about 13 or so and has been playing for a few months. He makes his share of mistakes, but given time he could be an alright player once he learns more about the game. He was running a CODA, Arcane Ballista, Tordek, Village Priest, Arcanix Guard x 3. We play on the Outpost with me taking the Outpost side. First round I move up and had gotten good placement on my Miners as they all 3 ended up on Victory Area B. I let him go first and then saved 2 miners to run up and base the Ballista. Next turn he moved Tordek to the 2 Miners and cleaved through them to free the Ballista. After that I move up and base the Ballista with a Dragon and get off a BW. I move up another dragon and do the same, catching the CODA, Tordek, and the Ballista in both cones. After that I was able to take down the CODA, the Ballista, and Tordek. The Ballista never fired a shot at me and at the end of the game I had all 3 dragons left. 1-0

Second round I got paired against Tony. Tony was running the Greenfang CG variant of Triple Belchers. His band was Greenfang, Belchers x 3, Hunting Cougars x 3, Devis on Outpost. He sat up on the Outpost side. First round we both had excellent position to minimize the other's damage should we lose the next init. Second round is where it gets fun. We traded a few activations before getting to the Belchers and the Dragons. I saw a spot where I was able to move and get off a BW getting 2 Belchers as the 3rd had went around to flank me. I move up an injured dragon (the flanking belcher hit him for 20 and then a hunting cougar hit him once on an attack and once on the aoo to put him down 30) and get off the BW. He puts another 20 on that Dragon and I check it and roll a 3, putting it's save a 19 and it flies off the board. I then am able to get off my other 2 BW and hit both Belchers again. Through healing and Greater Vigor, they both were 1 hit away from checking. I win the 3rd round init and check both of them. They both fail morale and run off the board. His 3rd Belcher comes up to assault on Urthok and I move up both dragons and Urthok to get it. His Greenfang charge in for a pounce and DOUBLE CRITS on 1 dragon putting it down to 20 hps. From there what seemed like my game slowly slipped out of my grasp as the belcher was able to belch on the injured dragon and kill it. After that his Greenfang was able to pounce Urthok for the kill. That left 1 dragon at 75 hps vs his Greenfang and 1 hunting Cougar. He was able to run up and Crit again on that dragon, where I rolled a 4 on the morale check and without Urthok around that failed and the dragon flew off the board. It was a great game and one that could have went either way. Some lucky dice on his part though pulled it up ahead for him and he pulled it out. 1-1

Third round I play Ken who's running Quad Monk. We play on Fane of Lolth. So first round we both move up and position our pieces. Second round we trade a few fodder back and forth. Then he moved up and used 2 Unavoidable strikes on one Dragon who checked and made morale and passed both it's stun saves. I wouldn't miss a stun save all game. He was only able to get off 3 that round as one Monk was too far away to get in on the action. I was able to get off my BWs on 3 of the 4 monks. Then after that between missing morale checks or failing the BW saves, I was able to eliminate those 3 monks. Next round he moves up and uses his last Unavoidable on the injured dragon to finish it off. I move up and flank his YM with my 2 remaining dragons. He's now down to just the YM and the Monk. The YM checks and runs off the board. I then get to flank on the Monk. The monk makes his morale check but between the flanking and Urthok's CE, I'm able to drop him as well for game. 2-1

Fourth game I get paired with Jim McKinney. With the championships over, Jim was back to playing some test bands and having fun. He was running Greenfang, 2 Griffons, 2 Dragonnes, 2 Celestial Dire Badgers, and a Hyena. We play on Outpost. I take the cave side. First few rounds we both play cautiousely. I know that the Dragonnes could cause some trouble with their Roars and Pounces. Jim moved up a Griffon towards the cave side and I took advantage of that and put my 3 Dragons on it. They got it down pretty low and then it checked. He then moved up both Dragonnes to the pit near the opening where one got off a Roar that caught two of my Dragons. He got the next init and was able to pounce in on a Dragon with a Dragonne. Only 1 attack hit however and that Dragon retaliated by doing a BW that caught both Dragonnes in it, which both failed. Next another one of my Dragons did their BW and was able to kill the Griffin and route the Dragonne that had pounced. My third Dragon then came up and did his BW on the other Dragonne by itself. After that it was a combination of attacks from the Dragons that dropped the Dragonne and then eliminated the other Griffon. After that and some tile points I was able to win it. 3-1

After that we got some DCI goodness as Tony, myself, and Ken had 3-1 records having played nearly all the same opponents. Ken ended up in first, Tony in 2nd, and me in 3rd. Tony and I had identical records but he was put in earlier. We had 10 people show up so we got 2 WODQ boosters as prize support. Prizes were a Aspect of Bahamut (Ken), Redspawn Firebelcher (Tony), and Blackguard on Nightmare (me). I then worked out a deal with another local to trade away the BGON for a deal that included another Redspawn and then worked out a deal with Tony for a Sorcerer on Black Dragon. So overall it was a great tourny that I had alot of fun at.

KY Open Tournament Report DDM 07/29/2006

2010-05-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

This is a report of the KY Open which was held on 07/29/2006 for DDM 1.0 at Warlords Unlimited in Richmond Ky. The link to the original thread is located here:

http://www.hordelings.com/forums/postView.php?post_id=7767&viewPage=0#7767

So today we held our KY Open in order to let those going to Gencon get some preparation in. Our more than generous shopkeep at Warlords Unlimited put up a case of WODQ and boosters for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th for the tourny, all for a FREE entry into the tourny. We also had donated alternate paint trophies made by Ken McCutchen of the Bluespawn Godslayer (1st), Blackscale Lizardfolk (2nd), and Tavern Brawler (3rd). For just showing up to play it was definatly worth the drive up.

We had 12 people and ended up cutting to top 8 after 4 rounds because we had 4th - 8th within only a few percentage points of each other. Had there been a clear cut top 4, we would have cut to it, but it was really very close.

I was unsure of what to run. We have a wacky metagame here in KY that follows it's own rules and most of what make up the National Meta I won't see here. I'm highly unlikely to see a GAS, Kordicopia, Quad Firebelcher, etc. here. I'm more likely to see some Cadaver Collector, CG, and LE Quads. Given that I was batting back and forth between SWarm (a band I know and love and have done well with here) and my new band of Triple LGD. Triple LGD has done well for me and Tuesday I went and playtested with a few locals to get ready for today and a shot at a free case of WODQ and the top prize in the Open. I tried SWarm out against a CC band, and got decimated. I then tried my Triple LGD out and it in turn proved to be alot better. So, not able to get past my SWarms demise at the hands of the CC and knowing I'd see a few others out there today, I went with the better matchup and ran Triple LGD. My warband was:

LGD x 3
Urthok
Dire Rat
Kobold Miner x 3
on Drow Outpost

The speed of the dragons make them great on outpost where they have room to flank and bottle hitters in on the bridge as well.

So first round I draw Troy. Troy is running Inspired Lt., DC x 2, AOH, Kobold Miner x 2, and Timber wolf. I could be wrong on a fodder or two. His map was Mushroom Cavern. He won map and we played on the Cavern. First round we have a war with the Kobolds that he wins and puts me at an activation shortage. I move up a dragon and misplace it a bit too far up as he bases it with a DC and the AOH. The other 2 dragons get in BW range and he moves up his other other DC and Inspired Lt. Next round I roll low for init and he rolls a 19. He goes with the DC and the AOH on the dragon thats based. He hits all his attacks and crits me which kills the dragon outright. After that it's the 2 dragons trying to get the 3 beaters and it just didn't happen. Losing a dragon at the beginning of the 2nd round was tough to overcome and I wasn't able to do it. 0-1

Second round and I knew if I was to make the cut I needed to run the gauntlet to ensure it. I get paired up with our Keith who's running his favorite CE Quad. Keith is running Eye of Gruumish, Orc Champ x 3, Orc Wardrummer, Quagoth Slave, and another fodder piece. We roll for map and I win so we go on the Outpost. I go with the Outpost side and first turn I move up my dragons to the bridge and he moves up his Orcs so they aren't too far out in the open of the cave. I win the next init and manage to get them in 2 BWs. He dishes out a little bit of damage, but misses on most of his attacks. I get off my other BW and do alot of damage to the group. He keeps missing some attacks on me as I clean up the Orcs. I don't think I lost one dragon before I was able to get the Eye gone and then route the remaining Champ. 1-1

Third match was against Ken McCutchen. Ken's a great guy to play and as one of the other players noted, playing Ken is always fun and no matter what point of the tournament it is, it's never a stressful game. Ken was running Urthok, BGB x 2, Snig and Sniglets, DC x 2, and TW on Dragondown Grotto. He won map init so we were playing on the Grotto. First turn we move out into the center. Second round I start off with a cone on the BGBs. They really don't like anything with a save. They failed both of them and then I swarmed one with some Kobolds. Kobolds can hit that AC 8. He brought both DCs down to hit one dragon and got some bad luck as only 1 hit. I managed to kill off one BGB that failed it's save and was attacked by the Kobolds. The other Dragon came over and used it's BW on the DCs. I got one to check and it ran. It wouldn't rally and would run off the board. To finish off the round his Urthok comes over and flanks with the BGB on one dragon. Next round, he starts off with a crit by the BGB to put that dragon at 5. Urthok then follows up by missing both his attacks to finish off the dragon. That dragon finished off the BGB. I then was able to finish off the other DC and move my 3rd dragon over to drop Urthok to half. Urthok failed his morale check and wouldn't rally. 2-1

Fourth match I knew I was on the bubble. I drew Tony Pitman (Visage) who was running CC, DC, Rakshasa, Snig + Sniglets, and Kobold Miner on Outpost. I ended up taking the Outpost side. First turn I move up so I'm at the Bridge with my 3 dragons but aren't by the pits so I can't get slid in. He moves up and comes just outside of the cave. Next turn he moves up and I'm able to burn a few activations until I can catch the CC, the DC, and the Rak in all 3 cones. He has some bad luck and I get everthing down pretty easily with the BWs. Next turn he a few times with the CC and I finish off the DC. The dragons then finish off the Duergar before moving onto the Rakshasa for the game. The BWs were huge as it got the CC and DC down to where I was able to finish them before they really got alot of attacks off. 3-1

At this point, the standings after 4 rounds were very close after top 3. There weren't many Opponent Win % points separating 4th - 8th. So the decision was made to cut to top 8.

My first round in top 8 was against Nathan McKinney. Nathan was running Sword Archon, Medium Silver Dragon x 2, Man at Arms x 4. I got my map and he sat up on the cave side. I realize at this point that the MSDs are Immune Acid. I'm thinking great, I could catch them in BWs and it'd do nothing. First round I come up to the bridge and he moves up to just outside the cave. He wins init and breathes cold with both MSDs catching 2 LGDs in both cones. They both make their saves. I then move up and start wailing on 1 MSD at a time with my dragons. The first one I get to half and he fails his morale. I then move back and base his Archon. His Archon takes the AOO and gets LOS to the MSD, but it's moot as he rolls a 1 on the MC. I then start on the other MSD and wear him down. Round after that I get rid of the MSD and it's 3 slightly wounded dragons VS the Sword Archon. I get 2 dragons basing him with the other within melee reach 2. Next round he wins init and can kill 1 dragon who's at 10 or hit the 3rd dragon who was at 65 and get him to check. He goes for the one at 65 and he makes his MC. The one with 10 moves up and hits the Archon to drop him to 40hps. That gives flanking to both of the other Dragons. My 2nd dragon activates, hit, hit, and CRIT to kill the Archon for game. 4-1

Second round of single elimination was against Mike Wise. Mike's a good player who was out of the tourny scene for awhile due to school but has started coming out again since WODQ. He was running Rakshasa, DC x 2, Zakya, HH, TW, and 2 Goblin Skirmishers. We play on Outpost. Dance for the first turn. Second round I start my BW and make alot out of them. I drop one DC down to 30, the Zakya to 5, and the HH to 35. Should be clean up after that I figure. Well after that, it went wrong. I missed alot of attacks after that and took wayyy too long to finish off pieces. At the end I had several chances to win it by killing off the last DC who was at 10 and his HH. I missed at least 7 out of 9 attacks on them. Meanwhile Mike wasn't missing me back and got the dragons before they could finish off the HH. Final record 4-2

So I finished 4-2 and ended up 3rd. I got my prize booster for coming in 3rd and pulled an Aspect of Tiamat and a Cadaver Collector. I also netted a sweet Tavern Brawler alternate paint that Ken painted. It was a great tournament and was not only really well ran, but something I encourage everyone who can to come out for next time we have them.

2004 Heroclix Premiere Event 11/27/2004

2010-05-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

Here's my tournament report from the 2004 Heroclix Premiere event in Masillon/Canton Ohio. This was posted on HCRealms on 11/28/2004. Out of all the events I've played, I think the last 2 games of this tournament are the best that I've ever played. The link to the original thread is:

http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=115762

I just got back from the Masillon, Ohio Premiere Event and had a blast playing. Here's a rundown of what happened. It was a 300 point Constructed and Restricted event. There was about 30 people there and we played 4 rounds with Top 8 playing in a single elimination playoff after that. My team was:

Ultimate Thor 186
LE Jane Foster 16
R Jean Grey 31
R Destiny 20
R Con Artist 112
E DEO Agents 36
Total = 300 points

First round I played a Captain America/Johnny Alpha team. It wasn't a bad team, but it wasn't built to handle Thor and by the time he started making some offense, Thor was in prime to start finishing pieces off. Thor finished off Johnny Alpha and that was it.

Second round I had to play my buddy that I came up there with. We traveled 5 and a half hours to get up there so I knew that it could be a long car ride home if it went bad. We let the dice decide it and it was close. He was playing a very good Amazo army that worked really well. Second turn I tked out Thor and took out his Jean Grey. After that it was a matter of picking at Amazo and taking out one of his support pieces when I could. He took out my 3 perplexers and I ended up taking out Amazo due to some bad die rolls on his part. Had he hit his die rolls it could have been different but Thor was on a roll.

Third round I played what I considered to be the most original army in the tournament. He was playing a Green Lantern/Pog/Mastermind army. It was primarily focused on him having R John Stewart Green Lantern and R Livewire to carry around all the pogs and other pieces that he had. By the time I figured out what his army could do he had me trapped and it was over. I tried to push Thor to do a break away to Jane Foster for a heal but missed both attempts at it with Destiny there to probability control it. After that he finished off Thor and it was picking off my support pieces after that. I definately gave the guy props on what I considered an original build and something that Thor just had a really hard time with taking out.

Fourth round, I knew that I had to win big in order to have a chance at the Top 8 playoffs. I played a Moondragon/Spiral army supported by R Ultimate Doc Ock, a R Punisher, and a V Punisher. I failed to roll below a 9 that game and rolled 3 crit hits total during it. I didn't lose anything and ended up winning with what I had to.

After that I made Top 8, placing in at 7th I think. First round of it I played a pretty good team with V Human Torch carrying around R Psylocke for Enhancement, V Bullseye, LE Elektra Ninja, a R Jean Grey for TK, and some other support pieces. He came out strong and tried to take out my TK I think and rolled a 3 on it. After that Thor took out Torch and then it was picking at pieces until I got them. He did come up strong though and I have to say he was one of the nicest guys I played that day.

Semi-Finals for the Top 8, I played a Double TK/V Ult. Hawkeye/well supported army. This was probably the one game in the tournament that I had to play just right or he would have gotten me. Second turn I tked up Thor and killed his V Hawkeye. After that it was mainly him trying to kill me with the Madame Hydra LE. I came up with a strategy where I would running shot with Thor and then put a pieces around him to block line of fire. After picked at pieces and taking out his support I finally got a solid hit in on Madame Hydra that he didn't have anyone to mastermind to and then from there it was game. The guy had a solid team though and had I not taken out Hawkeye it would have been completely different.

Then the finals came and out of the 4 Thor armies there, mine and this one made it to the finals. His was built different than mine with Thor supported by R Invis. Girl, R Lobster Johnson, LE Elektra Ninja, and LE Jane Foster. I did my strategy of shooting with Thor and then closing him in again and it worked out really well with me taking out the Elektra and knocking Lobster out of Outwit on my first attack. After that he took a shot and put my Con Artist and one of my DEO Agents on their last clicks but didn't kill them due to how he split up his 5 damage. Next turn I took out his R Invisible girl and then covered back up Thor. At this point I started making some miracle healing rolls and I needed to keep Thor healthy. Destiny also played a huge part as she was making her Super Senses rolls and avoiding all damage to her. Next turn I running shot with Thor and took out Jane Foster. Then I tked up my R Con Artist in order to block line of fire from his Thor to mine and to tie up his Thor. He broke away and double targeted Destiny and the R Con Artist but Destiny made her super senses roll. After that my Thor shot and killed Lobster and then I moved Jean Grey to block line of fire and tie up his Thor. He cleared as I had pushed Jean and I couldn't get Thor a line of fire on his Thor. Next turn he killed Jean and then I hit with my Thor. He tried to duel target Thor and Destiny next and hit but I made him reroll and he crit missed. After that Thor pushed to kill his and win the game and tournament.

I have to say that it was a great time and I was happy with just making Top 8. The Masterpiece Magneto is awesome and winning it was easily the biggest thing that I've done in the game. I met alot of nice people up there and look forward to making the trip again. Almost everyone that I played were great and made the games and the atmosphere that much more enjoyable. To anyone who was on the fence about going, I strongly encourage going to them as for me it was one of the funnest tournaments that I have ever been to and just want to say thanks to Gacy'sClown, the other judges, and Gamer's Quest for holding the event.

Welcome!

2010-05-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

So I have had alot of gaming experiences in the last 8 years that I've been gaming. I have them spread out over the course of several different forums for several different games. The purpose of this is to be a place where I combine all those memories into one spot. It's a place where I can relive some of the tournaments that I've played in. It's more or less for my own purposes, but if anyone else out there reads them and enjoys them then it's an added bonus.