Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Brian "Kiddoc" Mackey's 2004 Championship Tournament Report

Disclaimer: The thoughts and ideas expressed in this statement are opinion only. Nothing contained within is factual in any way [Webster’s Dictionary™® defines fact as N: That which is not untrue in so much as it is known by the knower.]. In fact, the only fact in this entire unfactual statement is the fact that there are no facts. The author opines based on his extensive experience as a human being and his various degrees earned [BA, BA, MS, Ph.D], which qualify him as an expert in Nothing™®. He knows as much about miniatures, strategy, and people as he does about the breeding habits of unladen swallows [African or European], non-Newtonian body-fluid discharge, bling bling, and spontaneous chinchilla combustion. These opinions should not be read by anyone, ever. Celebrity voices [and opinions of celebrity voices] are impersonated, poorly. Many animals were harmed in the making of this Tournament Report (particularly wolves and dire lions). If you continue with the inane task of reading this diatribe of pure non-fact, you agree to hold the author harmless, for he wishes you to know that you will all then be dumber for having read it.


My Goals in Writing this:

1. Provide an accurate accounting of what transpired in the D&D Miniatures Championship Tournament (I know it won’t all be accurate and many mistakes, misinterpretations, and typos will be made, bear with it). I feel terrible for those people outside the US that don’t have a chance to compete in this, so I want them to at least be able to read about what it might be like. All the better to prepare them when the time does come.
   
2. To Provide a Comprehensive Strategy Guide. I went into great detail to explain some things in the hopes that parts of this document might be used for the casual player that is hoping to make the transition into a competitive, tournament player. My hope is that you will find no more complete a treatise on strategy in the D&D miniatures game out there in one single location.
   
3. To express my appreciation for my opponents, friends, the judges, game designers, and everyone that made having so much fun possible

Acknowledgements:

First let me thank all of the people that I feel need thanking. The honest truth is, how often are you ever going to get to say that you’re the best there is at what you do? Probably not often… Follow that up with the fact that few of us will get to give recognition on a wide scale to those that deserve it in our lives. Well, I’ve gotten the attention of more than a few people, so while I have an audience, I’m going to begin by thanking the people that deserve my gratitude. I hope you’ll bear with me. If not, you’ll find the full Tournament Report below:

Let me begin by thanking the game designers, Rob, Mike, and everyone on the development team (Okay, I’ll even thank you in advance Shoe;) ). I’m having the time of my life playing this game. In the field of work I’m in, I don’t get a lot of free time, so I take the choices that I get regarding the expenditure of my leisure time pretty seriously. You have made an amazing game. It’s simple to learn, and nearly impossible to master. It offers a limitless amount of variety with possibilities for variation that boggle even my ability to peek into the future. You guys are responsible for a lot of people having fun out there. Seeing you at Gecon made me realize just how seriously you take that responsibility. You were hawking over players, watching games and asking questions of players from the most casual to the most serious. You had notepads out and plenty of questions ready. Perhaps what struck me as most impressive was the way in which you listened. You didn’t hustle anyone away, you sat and listened as players shared their opinions, grievances, or compliments. You shared your own opinions and asked them for theirs with a level of sincerity that showed you care about the future of this game immeasurably. That’s professionalism. I’ve had the pleasure of working with a few big names in my career as a psychologist, but I have to tell you that I’ve never looked forward to working with a group of professionals as much as I look forward to working with the absolute consummate professionals that make up the D&D minis team. I’m in awe of what you guys do, truly.

The Judges for that tournament also deserve a tremendous amount of credit. Chris, Peter, Smiffy, Guy, and everyone else that judged, you guys were impeccable. You worked 18 hours a day without complaint and managed to be friendly, helpful, and 99.9% of the time, dead on with your rulings. You managed hundreds of gamers and their questions and concerns at once. I have never seen such a composed yet motivated officiating crew. At one point during the con, I saw Guy Fullerton actually sprinting (he’s got 4.6—40 speed if I’ve ever seen it) from a question in the 500pt tournament to a league question, over to a ruling in the qualifier. Peter Lee was still answering championship DDM questions while trying to teach 120 brand-new players the Star Wars game. Chris had the unenviable job of being on the microphone making announcements and managed to do it with a candor that was disarming at the worst, and absolutely hilarious at best. Smiffy not only was gracious enough to trade me a dire rat for an autographed nightwalker, but his rulings came with exactly the right amount of wit to make them seem perfectly palatable even when they went against you. Heck of a job guys, you absolutely unequivocally earned the admiration of every player who sat at those tables that week.

I’d also like to thank my local gaming community. Back in January when I came to Bob McCrohan and told him that I had 3 people and I wanted to run sanctioned DDM tournaments, instead of looking at me sideways, he said, "Ok Bri, I’ll get right on it." Well Bob, here’s what you’ve wrought, you got your just desserts my friend. Bob is the paragon of "Customer Services" and I’m grateful that every week, whether I want to play draft, sealed, constructed, or just whip out every piece of Dwarven Forge he owns and smash plastic, he lends us his shop to do it in. Thank you so much Theresa and Jeff, Ian, Dan, John, Maurice, Paul, Trenton, Charlie, Steven, Mike and everyone else that shows up to play. Because of you, I ended up where I am. You forged my skills with the crucible of your competition, and you never let me forget that I needed to stay on top of my game if I wanted to compete. Man have we had a lot of fun.

Let me thank David Smith, my roommate for 4 years of college, who took up his old responsibilities to room with me again at Gencon. I taught him to play in one week, where he qualified for the Championship and managed to finish in the top 20. Hell of a job Dave. Thanks for helping me playtest. Having taught in college for a few years, I recognize that teaching something is the best way to learn it yourself. Most of all, thanks for taking care of me when I thought I was going to die on Friday night from food poisoning. I know you weren’t feeling too great after that dinner either, but you did a hell of a job making sure I had everything I needed to feel comfortable, or at least comfortable enough not to yack on my opponent’s vinyl battlemat. After one day’s rest upon coming back from Kansas by way of Minnesota (*snicker*) you drove 8 hours up to Jersey to fly out of Newark to Indy the next day. We got about 15 hours sleep the whole weekend, including about 2 whole hours on Friday night thanks to my horrifying sounds, and 2 hours Saturday night thanks to my crazy draft tournament. We ate complete junk, got ourselves crushed at magic, disintegrated in Green Regent, and got lost around that city at every possible opportunity, and you never complained once. Thanks man, just Thanks.

Finally, let me thank my wife, Erika. I couldn’t put into words the way I feel (though maybe another medium will do justice) about being married to her. I know other gamers out there have wives that play D&D with them, or game in other ways, and I think that’s awesome. My wife is decidedly not a gamer, which makes it all the more amazing that not only does she let me do things like go and play with little plastic men every week, but she encourages it. That says a lot for a woman who though Dungeons and Dragons was an immature game played by guys that couldn’t get girlfiends (heh, I showed her!) when I first met her. She broke right through that stereotype and was not afraid to let everyone know just what I was going out to Indy for (*insert parenthetical statement preventing this sentence from looking like I just ended it in a preposition* :p). I knew I was in good hands when the last look she gave me the morning before I let (as she traveled off at 8 in the morning to slave in her 99 degree classroom with no AC to prepare it for yet one more round of second graders) was that look that said, "Go get ‘em honey, come back with your shield, or on it!" Yep, even if I never so much as qualified for the tourney or rolled consecutive crits with my Ogre Ravager, I am the luckiest man in the world.

So on with the Tournament Report! Following in the lead of some of the Magic tourney reports that I really enjoy reading, I’ll give you a narrative that gives you some insight into what was going on that week as opposed to just listing warbands and giving the final score. Here goes:

The Prologue:

I qualified for the championship in New Jersey on May 1st. The first qualifier there was. I went undefeated on the day with a band that featured the Drow Cleric of Lolth, 3 Cultist of the Dragons, an Ogre Ravager, a Drow Sergeant, and a handful of Orc Warriors. I faced some crazy stuff, including LDS bands, Double Gauth Bands, Double Gold Champ Bands, Drizzt Bands, and the Orc Horde + 2 Ogre Ravager band. Nobody was really prepared to face a team that went through 22 activations in a turn. I must admit, that time was on my side, as none of us at that point had a great understanding of how time affected metagame play. I should note, that this qualifier came long before Giants of Legend was released, and really didn’t do much in the way of helping me prepare for the eventual post-GoL metagame, which shifted pretty substantially.

Flash forward 3+ months and I find myself in Newark Airport. Dave and I are headed out to Indy on Wizard’s pocketbook and free vacationing has never felt so good. They changed the gate of our flight, but we spotted it without knowing. Somehow, we could just tell which plane was heading out to Indy. Seeing all the people in the lobby of that gate gave me the first sense of what the gaming community would be like at Gencon, the whole plane was headed out to game!

This year was my first trip to Gencon, and I was pretty damned overwhelmed when I got there. The sense of community was awesome, but the sheer number of gamers there was pretty imposing. I never knew there were so many other people out there like me, and I was digging the atmosphere. Thanks to some foresight on my part that I attribute some to being a shrink, and the rest to having a rugby allstar coach that forbid us from playing in or so much as watching any games the week before our big showdowns, I set a rule for myself that I wasn’t going to play minis until Saturday. That said, I fully intended to take advantage of being out there on Wizard’s dime, so I signed up to fill every slot for the entire weekend with the exception of Saturday. We did team 2-Headed-Giant on Thurdsay (Crushed), and a Legacy of the Green Regent Module (Turned to Stone & Disintegrated). Friday, Dave played his tail off to qualify for the championship the next day and we had the "fortuitous" dinner.

Now I’m not going to name any names because I don’t want to face corporate lawyers, but if you’re out eating in Indy, I’d stay the heck away from a certain brewery/restaurant. I’m well-reputed in my circle of friends for having a high pain tolerance (I may or may not have earned this reputation by having the distinguished honor of being the most penalized player in the Virginia Rugby Union in two consecutive years…) and for having a cast iron stomach (you spend 5 years in New Orleans drinking the third-world tapwater, eating bugs from the mud, and spending your summers eating only what you catch from Grand Isle and Lake Ponchartrain because you can’t afford anything else, that’ll boost the immune system a wee bit). So, with that reputation firmly entrenched in my mind, I should have been a little leery after I had enchiladas paired with beer that had been around since July (damnit, I love my IPAs). Hey, I didn’t know that "won the gold medal in July" meant that it was the same keg from that medal winning performance. Anyhow, I felt a little uneasy that night, but I was determined to get back and playtest a little.

I had seen the Lich Necromancer + Clay Golem team in action on Friday in the qualifiers and it earned my respect. Even though I hand’t played a sanctioned game since the first week in June, I had a pretty good feeling about most of my matchups with the exception of that one. So we played a few games until I could figure out just how to work the band where I wanted it.

By the time I felt comfortable with the matchup it was about 1am, and my stomach was feeling like someone crammed it full of lead caltrops. I figured it was just nerves, so I turned in for the evening. I was awakened at about 4 by the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. I swore someone had shot me straight through the gut. I’ll spare you the details, but from 4-7am, I did not stop vomiting and I could not uncurl myself from the fetal position from the pain.

Dave, my roommate, would later remark that he wasn’t so sure getting food poisoning was such a bad thing. He claims it helped me keep my mind off winning and kept my expectations to a minimum. I’m not sure I disagree, but I’ll tell you what it did do for me. Lying awake heaving up your guts for 3+ hours and being in too much pain to sleep gave me some time to think. Naturally, if I was going to be awake anyhow, I figured I should turn my attention to what I’d be doing the next day, if I lived (and I swear at one point I thought I was going to die from the pain). I pondered a couple of variations in the warband that I had been testing since the first week that Giants of Legend came out.

The Warband:

(Note, I use BAB, to loosely refer to Base Attack Bonus of the mini as printed on the DDM stat card, I know it’s not the same as a true BAB in the D&D game, but it’s a good acronym, and in the shrink field, we can’t get enough of acronyms)

My original version was to be: Red Samurai, Orc Champion, Ogre Ravager, Drider Sorcerer, Tiefling Captain, Drow Sergeant, and 5 Orc Warriors. I called it Blurry Trifecta (*best Jamaican Redstripe-beer-guy-voice* Hooooray Horseracing!), and for the first day that the Vassal GoL patch was released, I debuted it widely and it grabbed the attention of a lot of people. Around that time, a lot of players were realizing just how good the Drider was, and they were keeping it mostly to themselves. But I figured with 2+ months to go, it would all be out eventually, and I’d rather test it now and test it against the big bands than try to keep it as "secret" tech.

I was right, the Drider was all over Vassal within another 2 weeks. It don’t take a genius to figure out that the six-legged-shocker is, perhaps, the most efficiently costed figure in the CE faction. Originally, like many of my peers, I was under the impression that blurring my low-AC CE figures made the Drider absolutely essential in some matchups and damned impressive in others. Eventually, however, I learned to the true power of the Drider. With the errata to the baleful transposition spell, the Drider became the single most unpredictable - to your opponents I mean - support piece in the game behind the Evermeet Wizard, the main difference between the two being that the Drider can swap in super-fast moving figs that hit for 25+ damage (with options like cleave, smite, and breath weapons) and have a ton of hitpoints.

Some people think that conceal and lightning bolts make the Drider and that transposition is occasionally useful. I think that transposition is the clincher. When I looked among all my pieces, introspecting on the best band to play, I looked exclusively for the most FLEXIBLE warband I could play. I was likely to have to face a large variety of warbands, with a huge variation in playskill and tactics. Now that’s all a given in this game, but DDM, in my opinion, is more a game of strategy. Tactics is the plan you have going in to a game, the way you deploy your forces, your plan of attack, the aggregation of your strengths and weaknesses into a coherent set of actions. Strategy is how you deal with real board situations. Your Orc Warriors got nuked by a Red Sam, the opponent put his heavy hitter out of command, the LSD is being aggressive, the LSD is being passive, I routed the Eye, he paralyzed my Ravager. These situations require strategy, flexible, on-the-spot decision making. The kind of thing that requires the careful analysis of every possible variable and the execution of a decisive set of idiographic actions. That is why I so valued a flexible warband. You never know what is going to happen. Hey your LSD might fail that morale save, or your Eye might fail to hit an Orc Druid every time; That Abyssal Maw might make his morale save, and your Snig the Axe might beat that Sword of Hieronious on initiative every time. I knew I needed a warband that would offer me the greatest number of options in such situations and here’s why I opted for each fig:

Red Samurai: Hits hard, has good HP, fire resistance, and decent saves. His breath weapon is why he is in here though. In my games leading up to the championship, I was able to win many a game with a last minute breath weapon, or an early breath weapon that cleared out a lot of their activations. On the downside, he’s mostly terrible against LRD’s, Azers, or anything else with fire resistance/immunity, his AC is crud, and his damage and HP are 5 less than the Orc Champ, who costs 1 less. Still the ability to move 16, paired with the Drider’s transposition made him a serious danger to any group of eggs that wasn’t fire resistant.

Orc Champion: A must in any CE band in my opinion. His BAB and cleave ability make him good, his speed makes him great. I can’t tell you how many times my opponents suddenly became math impaired when it came to counting numbers over 16 (hexadecimal what?). This guy can threaten the entire board on turn 2, that’s powerful. It’s powerful because it forces your opponent to consider his moves VERY carefully and paired with cleave, it generally helps keep his eggs back a bit. The Orc Champ has crap for saves, and I always expect to lose him first, because he’ll be in combat first, but if he makes that morale save he’s an absolute killer.

Ogre Ravager: Players in my local area learned to fear this piece thanks to the outstanding play of a guy named Mike Keogh. Mike, despite being somewhat over-competitive, took this piece to new levels by pairing it with a horde of fast moving orcs and always keeping it within 6 of a Tiefling. He wasn’t the first, or even the originator of the idea, but he played the hell out of it. Beating that 2x Ravager, Eye, Tiefling, 2x Orc Raider + orc filler band in the finals of the qualifier with a summoner band (Hoooooray Abyssal Maws!) was a definite highlight of my DDM career. You can say nothing negative about the Ravager with the exception of commenting that his BAB could be higher. Sure 10 isn’t great, but it kills CE dead. One hit can force the morale save from almost ALL of the CE heavy hitters (okay, not the golem). In my estimation, behind the drider, this is the best piece in the band. Fire resistance 10 coupled with great saves means that you can walk him right up to that Red Wizard, Gauth, Red Sam, or LRD and not worry too much about it. You know, I did computer-generated efficiency testing for game pieces (2 pieces go toe-to-toe, it calculates the results) back in May before GoL came out, and the Ogre Ravager, even when he went second, could stand up to any other piece in the game with a similar cost and come out ahead. Also, I did not overlook the power of melee reach 2, which is exceptionally useful against CE (you’ve got cover with your AC 11, who cares, take 40?) and the Aura of Fear is just icing on the cake against the already flagging saves of CE. Once piece in particular, the Eye of Gruumsh, gets trashed by the Ravager. The Ravager generally kills the Eye in one turn and is his absolute mortal enemy, I swear the game designers planned it this way, but I thank them for making the Eye appealing enough that he is, for some unknown reason, played over the Ravager.

Tiefling Captain: Let me just insert a tirade from another thread here: "If you really asked me, and pressed me to answer, I'd say the Tiefling is a figure that truly allows CE to do a little more than it should. Forget the commander effect, which is still great, but to allow a commander 4 with 30HP, conceal, and elemental resistances with a not-terrible AC and okay damage for 21 points is really pushing the power curve. The Tiefling makes things like running 2 Ravagers, an Orc Champ, and a Drider Sorcerer possible while still allowing you to make critical morale saves and be competitive with other factions in initiative. Perhaps I'm crazy, but it seams to me that the Tiefling is a pretty similar fig to the Drow Fighter who is 10 points. The Tiefling has 5 more hp, a slightly lower AC, a better BaB, has blind-fight and conceal 6 in place of spell resistance, and has elemental resistances. I think the Drow Fighter might be 1 point too expensive, so let's assume that he's 9 points for the sake of argument.

Then let's figure in how huge his commander rating of 4 is. The next highest commander is the Drow Cleric of Lolth, who at 42 points is basically a different version (albiet a much different and much less efficient version) of a Drider (similar base stats, 3 spells can deal 10 damage no matter what). Then look at how much 1 command point costs the Eye of Gruumsh. The Eye has a higher attack, but the same damage as the Orc Champ. He's got a lower AC, but more HP and a better BAB, he also has slightly better saves--though is marginally slower. The Orc Champ has cleave, which is HUGE I'd wager a guess that at 44 vs. 39 points, that one commander point costs 5 points. I fail to see how the Eye is a better bargain otherwise (particularly with the AC and Vicious Weapon drawbacks). So, I figure that at least in CE, 1 commander rating point is worth roughly 4-5 figure cost points. To make a Drow Fighter (our 9 point version, arguably less durable than the Tiefling) a commander 4, that'd cost at the very least 26, and perhaps as much as 30. I'd say at 26-30 points, particularly with his devastating command effect, the Tiefling would still see plenty of play. Of course, that would mean that you couldn't do things like run 2 Ravagers, a Drider and an Orc Champ, a decent second commander and a horde of filler and still reach 12 figures in under 200 points. In fact raising his cost by even as much as 6 cuts your activations down by a minimum of 2. I saw a variety of CE commanders run (Cleric of Lolth, Necromancer, Eye of Gruumsh, Orc Druid), but in all of the top 3 bands, the Tiefling was present. He was present because he is, perhaps, the most aggressively costed fig in the CE faction. Again, just a very humble bit of opining from me, but that's how I see things." Yeah, I think that about sums it up, right?

Drow Sergeant: I could spell out "underrated" for you, but I wouldn’t want to insult your intelligence. You already realized, I’m certain, that an AC 19, BAB of +6 (that’s more than 50% of the Ravagers!), conceal, spell resistance, commander 2, a move of 7 (hells yes!), and a great commander effect made this the second most efficient CE commander behind the Tiefling right? Yeah, I knew you had.

Seriously, people simply do not realize the power of this figure. Probably because they look at it in isolation… Saying something like, "Yeah, but I can have a Bugbear footpad or 2 Orc Brutes for 1 Drow Sergeant" is akin to saying "I can have 2 drow rogues for my 1 Ogre Ravager," or "I can get 2 dwarven werebears for this one PDK"… Yeah. You’re talking apples and oranges here. You don’t take the Drow Sarge because you need an extra activation or one more melee combatant. You take him (her?) because it gives you an amazing amount of flexibility and a viable 4th threat.

I don’t know about you, but I consider 5-6 orc warriors under Drow Sarge command (that’s 75-90 damage waiting folks) to be a threat. So when I go to feint with an Orc Champ, or tank with an Ogre Ravager, and you forget about my figs that deal 15 damage for only 3 points each, you will pay. Either that, or you’re forced to divert attention over to the orc horde, in which case, you’ve probably expended the action of 30-40 points worth of figures to deal with 15 or so.

I’ll let you in on the real secret though, as I’m sure you saw that potential in the Sarge already: The real kicker here is not the commander effect with Orc Warriors, Brutes, and Barbarian Mercs, but the movement. That Drow Sarge can keep pace with Red Sam’s, Orc Champs, and Eye’s. Having a fast second commander allows you to keep your primary protected while still trying to put an aggressive fox into the henhouse (more on this technique later). Yup, I had more people ask me to recount the Sarge’s movement than any other question all weekend. Being able to split a warband with 4 huge threats is powerful.

Here’s the last major benefit: You will fail morale saves playing CE. Get used to it. If you’re smart, you’ll plan for it, and get their damage out first, or arrange terrain accordinging. But having a commander that can keep pace with a fleeing Orc Champ or Red Sam can make all the day. And even if rallying might not seem important in terms of being able to get back in the fight, think about how important not having those crucial victory points go off the board is. Yeah, Drow Sarge, hotness.

Orc Warriors: Find a more efficient figure for 3 points. Great synergy with the Drow Sarge, with Eyes of Gruumsh, and with winning in general. Think about how highly regarded Abyssal Maws are, now remember that for every 2 Abyssal Maws, I get 3.3 Orc Warriors. Hoooray damage overage.

The players among you will no doubt realize that games are heavily influenced by the number of activations a player possesses. The truly erudite among you will realize that it isn’t truly activations that are important, but the efficiency of those activation. No creature affords you more efficient activations. If you asked me after the Drow Sarge and Eye were printed, these guys are undercosted by 1 point.

*********

Now flashback (forgive me) to my grueling penance to the porcelain god, where I’m reflecting on what I’ve seen over the last day in the qualifier. CE bands still dominate, though other bands are present. LSD fails horribly, but LRD’s do quite well, even a couple of surprising LE bands qualify. While I’m mostly incapacitated, drooling onto the floor, I am also frantically searching for a last-minute way to use what I saw.

And then it hits me: How to I want to win? That’s the question. But I already know the answer. Do I want to win on the off chance that I nip 3 points on a breath weapon on the last activation after time is called? Do I really want to do that? In my state, I’m thinking that I’ll be lucky if I live until the morning, much less play. No, if I compete tomorrow, I want to give people the most challenging, not the most cheesy, games of their life. I’m not saying the Red Sam is cheesy, but I just—all of a sudden—had this strong feeling that I didn’t want to win that way with it. And the solution came to me. Replace it with the Ravager.

The Ravager provides answers while asking plenty of questions. Ravager’s answer: Yes, I make my save (morale, paralysis, breath weapon, stun): Yes, I resist fire damage. Yes I can survive 75 points of damage in a round. Ravager’s questions: Can you handle being threatened from 13 spaces away (hooray reach)? Can you handle having your saves lowered by 2?; Can you handle 70 points of damage in one round from one fig? Can you afford to concentrate all your figs on one that costs 38 points?

The Ravager is the perfect combatant against CE bands. With two of them in the band, Eyes of Gruumsh and Orc Champs will cower in fear, even LSDs won’t be real happy, and Red Dragons don’t stand a chance.

Hell, the biggest disadvantage of the Ravager is his large size, yet most opponents won’t even bother trying to lock you down with one-square increments so that you can’t take AoO’s to pass. So somewhere around 5:30 in the morning, in between baleful second glances at venomous enchiladas, I made the decision: If I won a game (and I wasn’t convinced I’d win even one), I’d win with authority, by forcing my opponent into a mistake (even if that mistake was taking a fig that was less efficient than mine, or hedging a bet on a spell save, morale save, or initiative check), and I’d metagame strongly against the CE bands that I was sure I’d face.

Here was the Final Band:
Trifecta, take 2:
Orc Champion
2x Ogre Ravager
Drider Sorcerer
Tiefling Captain
Drow Sergeant
6x Orc Warrior
12 Activations, 3 heavy hitters, 2 commanders, 6 eggs, and the best utility piece in the faction. Not bad…

Tactics:

Yeah, as much as I feel DDM is a game of strategy, you have to have a set of tactics. Being completely reactive as opposed to being somewhat proactive will ruin you. So here was my strategy for playing the band: Play the Treasure Room, Statue Room, and Abattoir. I could launch into my 2nd dissertation on why these are the right terrain tiles to choose for this band, but I’ll give it a brief overview.

There is no more controlling tile than the treasure room. Plain and simple. I can control the flow of the game 90% of the time even when I place second. It is incredible at blocking lines of sight, controlling key board areas, and for hosing non-CE (i.e., slower) and bands with only a single commander (Bands without good speed or with only one commander often find the treasure room to be a major disadvantage, since enemies can bifurcate around it, forcing some really critical strategic decisions).

The treasure room doesn’t just block lines of sight to my guys, it can block lines of sight from enemy commanders to their troops, particularly the routing ones. Most of the time if I won, I’d try to command the center of the board, with the room entrances facing me. Nobody is going to toe it out with 2 Ravagers and win, and I’m not going to be stupid enough to cram the rest of my team inside so you can bolt/fireball/breathweapon them. If I lost terrain init, I’d try and place it to control the strategic center of the board.

Don’t know what this is? The center of the board is only a geographic/mathematical static location. The strategic center is the area that both pieces can reach on the 2nd turn. It’s a dynamic location that changes as the game state changes, which you’ll notice might be different than the true center. More often, from a psychological perspective, it’s the area that you’ll choose to duke it out.

If I could, I’d locate the Treasure Room squarely in the middle of the strategic center, with room on both sides so that I could force the fox into the henhouse from behind.

The statue room is basically a weaker version of the treasure room, but it’s incredible at blocking lines of sight, while appearing to your sense of perception as being a solid block.

The Abattoir provides a huge advantage for swarm bands as it really is just a nifty looking funnel with some areas of cover for commanders. The Abattoir most frequently served as a patch to block the path of my routing figs, an inward funnel for enemy troops to come through, or an outward funnel for my horde to swarm around. If I had to choose a piece to go, I’d cut the Abattoir, probably in favor of a Corridor.

I have 4 basic goals for terrain placement when I play this warband: 1) Control the strategic center of the board; 2) Block lines of sight to the strategic center from the opponents end; 3) Create narrow choke-points that are easier for me to go end-around than my enemy; 4) Block lines of sight in the enemy backfield in such a way that forces them to keep their troops and their commander close together.

The Setup:

I’ll use the rubble assembly, and unless I made the horrifying mistake (which I never did) of giving someone first or second turn Line-of-sight to my assembly tile, I’ll generally assemble it the following way:

(If you hold the Rubble assembly up, with the exit corner pointing to the right. Imagine that the top columns are lettered A through H, while the rows, starting from the left are numbered 1-5. A-1 would be the top left corner, H-5 would be the bottom right corner—the one that says "Exit Corner").

I’ll stick one Ogre Ravager in the 4 spaces at A4 & 5 and B4&5 with the Drider in the spaces immediately behind (C&D 4&5) and the other Ravager immediately behind it in E&F 4 and 5. The Tiefling would go in A3, assuring LoS and 6-space command behind the wall. I’d generally put the Orc Champion in A1 so that he could threaten nearly any space on the board beginning on the second turn. The Orc Warriors would get sprinkled around the outside edge, with the Drow Sarge generally the furthest back at F or G 1.

The First Turn:

Ah the all important first turn. My tactics for turn 1 often varied greatly depending on what band I was facing, but I’ll give a general overview of the pre-game-assessment plan.

I’d generally begin by blurring the forward-most Ravager (and, of course, moving the Drider out 6). This move has several advantages and has a very clear purpose. Most people think the purpose is to make the Ravager 25% harder to hit. That would be a mistake. The purpose is to make that Ravager a centerpiece in your mind.

You know how I play against blur? The same way I play against pieces without it. But most of my opponents really keep a blurred Ogre Ravager at the forefront of their strategic decision-making. It’s there to catch the eye and to force you into holding back just a tad, or maneuvering around.

So, I’d move the first blurred Ravager up the full 12 spaces toward the strategic center. I’d follow this by moving the second Ravager past the Drider by exactly 6 spaces. This is to be sure that I can blur the next Ravager while still advancing my full move on the following turn. My Orc Champion would quickly sprint out to prepare for the Fox in the Henhouse maneuver, while my Orc Warriors + Drow Sarge would branch out to pursue a slightly different path around or toward the strategic center. The Tiefling would bring up the rear, with the key caveat that, between he and the Drow Sarge, they had to be able to provide clear LoS to my 2nd and 3rd turn maneuvers.

The Battle Plans:

Fox in the Henhouse: Absolutely the best trick I have in my book. Foxing an opponent simply means you’re going to take a very dangerous piece and send it in an end-around right into the safety zone. Players very carefully differentiate between dangerous board areas and safe board areas, sometimes by saying, "that piece can’t reach here," more often by saying, "He wouldn’t be dumb enough to move that piece here." So, the idea is to take a fast, resilient piece that’s very dangerous, and move it into position to be in the safety zone where you threaten his commander, spellcasters, or perhaps some other vulnerable figure.

Generally, foxing your opponent will result in 3 responses from them, all of which are desirable:

1) They ignore the Fox. If this happens, you’re in good shape, because chances are, you’ll be dining on hens the next round, big fat ones. Nothing amuses me more than sending the Orc Champ in to fox and then transposing him out for a blurred Ravager with a full activation left. People have a hard time with that one because they often don’t see that my Fox is closing the hammer and anvil gap and could conceivably be within 6 of the Drider again in no time.

2) They maneuver defensively or avoid the Fox. Another great thing to see if you’re playing this band. If I cause you to maneuver someplace you don’t want to be, I have defined the strategic center of the board, and I’ve gained a major advantage. I will often follow this by pressing the anvil up with the Ravagers, and try and set up for a lightning bolt. Chances are, if you’ve maneuvered to avoid my fox, you’re going to present me with a line somewhere, especially if you have a lot of figs in your band. Or the third option

3) They go aggressive against your Fox. This one can have mixed results. Usually it works in your favor, but if you opponent is really smart, he can hurt you here. Generally what an opponent will do is to overreact, and to send in the cavalry. Usually this means diverting several key figures, usually heavy hitters, away from the rest of your force, or just shifting your entire force in the direction of the fox. Shifting your entire force to deal with the fox is ideal for me, because it forces you to give up your ability to optimize activations. If I’m really clever, you’ve had to move 4 or 5 pieces (generally my fox position will force you to move your commander to keep the fox-chasers under command) to deal with one of mine. I fully concede that by aggressing against my fox, you might just kill him. When I send him over, I fully plan on losing 39 points. The question is, when my Ravagers and Drider pin you where I want you, how many points will you lose? My Orc Champ will probably get off at least two shots before he goes down, and my Ogre Ravagers will be right there to follow up. You know what’s interesting, 25 + 25 + 30 is 80. That’s a very magical number against CE.

How to beat the fox: If I get foxed, I generally respond 1 of 3 ways, depending on what kind of team I’m facing and how things are playing out:

1) Respond with efficiency. The key to avoiding the danger of the fox is not to overreact. Figure out exactly how many points and activations you need to handle that fox, and make it so. For my team, which most often got foxed by Orc Champs and Red Samurais, 1 Ogre Ravager was generally a sufficient fox deterrent or fox exterminator. He’s got great matchups one-on-one against both of these guys, and reach just makes it all the more sweet.

2) Egg the fox. I don’t always recommend this one, particularly against Red Sam’s, because it can result in an inefficient use of activations. However, 6 orc warriors hitting for 15 damage each are more than capable of taking down an Orc Champ or Red Sam. Just make sure that with the Orc Champ, you egg him one at a time until he’s activated, and then keep them 2 spaces apart so that he can’t cleave, but he also can’t walk past. Remember, If you lose your Red Sam, you’re down 40 points, if I lose all my Orc Warriors, I’m down 18. That’s a trade I’d make quite a any day.

3) The third technique is the Counter-Fox. I do not recommend this, ever, to the casual player. If you cannot glance at the board and see the field of movement and potential options for every piece without thinking about it, don’t bother trying it. When it succeeds, the counter-fox appears to be a sort of standoff, "You whack my commander, I’ll whack yours." I’ve seen many players, including very good ones, make the mistake of thinking it comes down to who wins initiative first or who rolls better on the d20. Simply not true. Okay, I counter fox, your Orc Champ is on my commander, mine is on yours. You win initiative and you whack my commander and then move another heavy up and take a cut at somebody else. The question becomes do I now whack your commander?

The answer is almost always, "No," but damn have I seen a lot of people choose poorly on that one. I’d much rather take the AoO to walk away from you commander now, and target the nearest heavy hitter that hasn’t gone, if I can kill him in one turn. If not, then time to transpose in a Ravager and take two cuts for 70 points of damage. Then the fox can take the AoO and come in and finish the rest. The final score in these games generally looks like he’s scored a Tiefling and a smattering of Orc Warriors, and I’ve killed an Eye, or Red Sam, or PDK, or Cleric of Order + fodder. I seriously don’t recommend Counter-Fox though unless you are absolutely 100% certain you can outthink your opponent in every situation.

Hammer and Anvil: Been around since the beginning of time, probably won’t change. This strategy is based on the fact that point-for-point, very few miniatures can match up with an Ogre Ravager, much less a pair of them. So if I’m facing a band with a more inexperienced pilot, or a band that has a terrible matchup against me, I will simply push the Ravagers forward as the anvil and let them do their thing. When the time comes, I’ll go for a later-game Fox, more similar to a flanking maneuver (since I don’t care what your reaction is, as I’ve already gotten you based with my Ravagers). I’ll probably use some transposition to get my initial hits in, and lightning-bolt right over my own ravagers if necessary to clean anything else up. By the time the hammer comes from the back, it’s usually almost already over. I had a number of games where the strength of the Ravagers alone allowed me to push them up and engage in this fashion. Tanking at its best, simple, yet very efficient.

The Reach Around: Heh. You heard it hear first, the Kid-doc gave his opponents the reach around… No seriously, I can’t tell you how many times this one worked. Generally when I go for this tactic, I’m facing a pretty grim melee matchup. Like 2 Clay Golems, or a Drizzt and a Clay, or another pair of Ravagers. The idea here is to get myself to a choke point where I can block a 2-square entry way, but have access to 3 or 4 squares of attack thanks to reach. You’d be surprised at how awesome the open corners of the Treasure Room are for using the ol’ Reach Around ;) The goal is to pin creatures into have to come in one at a time, where I have a 2 on 1 matchup with my Ravagers. I can generally set up terrain to create this effect, even when I lose terrain init, but I can’t always trick opponents into coming at me the way I want. Generally a lightning bolt or two will do the trick, that or picking off one of their Orc Warriors, goblins, or Abyssal Maws with your Drider’s longbow will get them moving along.

The Egg and Switch: Anyone who has played with the Drider long enough knows this strategy. Surround your (non-cleaving) opponent with enough eggs, than use transposition to move in a heavy hitter. This absolutely destroys low AC figs like the Eye, Orc Champ, Red Samurai, Gith Fighter, and is still pretty solid against Moon Elf Fighters, Red Dragons, Human Blackguards and PDK’s. The real trick here, the one that separates the players who know their stuff from the ones that don’t, is knowing when to use that transposition. Use it too early and your heavy may end up egged, or surrounded and pounded, use it too late, and your opponent may spot it and maneuver around it, or clear out your eggs. Generally my orc warriors will have peppered the Orc Champ, or Eye a bit first, hopefully getting in one or two hits, which means they are down to 60 or so. At that point, the Ravager is almost a sure bet to force the morale check (at a -2 to boot!), and if not, 2 attacks will likely finish the job. Smart money says you throw the Ravager in one space away from their heavies and take 2 attacks, so they have to move to get to you. More often than not, in a Drider band, the quality and timing of your egg’n’switches will determine who wins.

The Fling: One of my all-time favorite moves with the Drider. Basically Baleful Transposition really reads: Give any of your pieces an extra double move this turn.

Did you know that if you have a vertically positioned treasure room, with the Drider Sorcerer at the bottom left corner, you can essentially move an Ogre Ravager from behind the bottom right corner all the way up and around the top left corner? How many people do you think see that one coming until it’s too late?

I also found 2 other very excellent uses for flinging things: 1) It’s a great way to keep that routing Orc Champion on the board for an extra shot at rallying. Just fling him back 12 spaces and save those victory points before he gets to the exit 2) It’s a great way to get your very wounded men out of combat late, to avoid losing those victory points.

Consider this: It’s the end of the last round, you have 2 activations, your opponent has 2 activations, and it’s your turn. You are winning 51 points to 39 points. You have an Ogre Ravager based by his Orc Champion, you also have several Orc Warriors on his Champion. Your Ogre Ravager has 10 HP left, his Orc Champ has 50 HP. The pieces you have left to activate are your Drider and an Orc Warrior, he has an Orc Warrior and his Orc Champion. What are the odds that with Orc Warriors around to cleave onto, his Orc Champ is going to miss your Ravager on both attacks? And he still has the Orc Warrior left to try with. I had this very situation happen to me, and I simply used my last transposition to swap out the Ravager, guaranteeing that I wouldn’t be beaten on points.

The Feint: Another oldie but goodie. The Feint can work with any set of tactics you think your opponent can recognize. My personal favorite is bluffing the Fox. With a movement of 9, it’s pretty easy to recover from the bluff and be back with your team if needed, or if he decides to call, rush in and show him what for. I’d say about 50 percent of the time I set up for a Fox, my opponent took the bait, and I was able to draw it out better as a Feint, rejoining the Orc Champ with the rest of the group as their heavy hitter was drawn away.

So had enough of all this strategy schmategy stuff? I thought as much. I guess we should get started on the actual tournament report then…

The Championship Tourney:

I manage to pick myself up from the bathroom floor, and shuffle down to the tournament area around 8:15, where I spend the next hour and a half attempting to nibble at one half of a very dry, overpriced bagel. I try and politely inform Guy of my predicament, hoping that he will not summarily execute me if I need to hop up from the game table and go make a prayer offering to the porcelain deity. He understands, and hopes he doesn’t have to make a ruling on what happens when a player vomits on a battlemat in the middle of a game (play on, play on! *shudder*). Nothing started on time all weekend, so I wasn’t surprised when, despite the advertised start time of 9am, we didn’t get our first round pairings until 9:45. I was grateful for the extra time to slump against the table though.

So pairings go up for the first round… Now out of almost 70 players, 3 of us are from New Jersey, what’re the odds that we get paired up in the first round? Sure enough, I got paired up with Paul Heaver, the guy who’s LSD band I just managed to squeak by in qualifiers to get into the finals. I apologize to Paul that he had to come all this way just to beat up on me, he said he understood, some sacrifices were worth making ;)

Psychological note that may interest only me: We shrinks are funny people, while we spend a ton of time analyzing human behavior, we like simplicity. I figured that between being at the highest level of competition ever for the game, and feeling so damned obliterated by food poisoning, I owed it to myself to have a lot less to worry about. I decided before hand that my opponents and I would use the same die during our matches. I got some strange questions about it, like, "Do you really think people have loaded dice?" "You doing this to psych me out?" and "You think I’m going to try and cheat?" I tried to be as diplomatic about it as possible, explaining that it kept variables to a minimum, and kept people from blaming the dice overly much. Most everyone seemed to understand. Despite the reputation gamers have for being protective of their dice, no one objected to me using their die, and never once did someone suggest that we use one of mine instead of theirs.

Round 1: Standard

Paul is an outstanding player, and plays LG exclusively. He hates the CE stuff because it’s so ubiquitous, and he’s gotten very good at tanking around with those LG boys. Paul is playing:

2x Gold Champion
Dwarven Defender
Eberk
Cleric of Moradin
Aramil

Needless to say, I know that it’s a winnable matchup, but if the dice fail me, or I make a mistake, Paul is a good enough player that he’s going to make me pay. I should be okay on activations, I just need to preserve my men long enough that I get a chance to take 6-8 swings on the gold champ.

He won terrain init, and started by setting up defensively with his treasure room edging the center, but with entrances toward him. I quickly reacted with my own treasure room and statue room to create choke points accessible to my warband, but not his. I saw that the strategic center was going to be at a blocked corner where the solid side of his horizontal treasure room met the corner of my vertical statue room. Excellent, what a perfect time to play Reach Around. Paul wisely chose to hole up defensively in the treasure room, even though he knew I would eventually have LoS to some areas with my Drider. He kept the Defender centered around his men, and kept Aramil ready to hop out and Ray/Missle anyone he felt was threatening.

I milked my activations until I could get a good command of board position, and set my ravagers up at the corner. Aramil Rayed one of them, while Eberk came out and Spiritual Hammered the other. Things didn’t seem to be going well for me, as the Foxing Orc Champ I walked into the back missed the Cleric of Moradin, my Ogre Ravagers whiffed on the Gold Champs 4 times, and even the spiritual hammer hit me! However, my band is resilient. I knew with the Tiefling close by, I would eventually score the hit I needed if I could take enough swings.

He continued to hit me for 30 a turn with each gold champ, bringing my Ravager down to 20, he critted my other Ravager with the Dwarven Defender in defensive stance (stupid Giant Bane), but then he finally missed on a blur or two with his other Gold Champ. As the last round approached, my Fox finally started eating some Hens, and I landed a shot on Eberk and the Cleric of Moradin. Finally the Ogre Ravager rolled the 19, and in one shot, he lost the Gold Champ, my other softened up the Defender and as I based Aramil with an Orc Warrior, the Drider sent a final bolt through to keep things on the level.

In the end, he had eliminated a handful of Orc Warriors, but I had the Gold Champion sidelined, which proved to be enough for the win. It was a tough match, and Paul did a great job of maximizing his terrain use, including always seeming to be within 6 of that durned Dwarven Defender.

Record 1-0

Round 2: Quickstrike

I’m paired up against Jesse, "Doubt of Buddha" Dean, who I don’t recognize at the time. I see that he’s playing that damned Lich though, which makes me a little nervous. Quickstrike won’t help me on this one. Jesse is playing:
Lich Necromancer
2x Orc Champion
Drider Sorcerer
5x Abyssal Maw
and one lonely Orc Warrior.

I’m glad to see that I’ll have an advantage on activations, but still a little worried about the Drider + Orc Champ potential and the Lich + evil, evil paralysis potential. I won terrain initiative, and set up for what I hoped would be the only way I could win, cutting off lines of sight from his lich to his troops. I cluttered his side of the field, leaving mine pretty open, with my treasure room lording over the strategic center of the board.

I knew that my Orc Warriors would be the key to this win, so I showed an Anvil with the two Ravagers, while I readied an Orc Champ to Fox his way around the Treasure room. The Orcs were only there as shields to soak up hold persons and magic missles, so I walked my Drow Sarge around with the Orc Champ to keep him in command since Jesse had so much clutter on his side of the board.

Jesse got off some good licks early, taking advantage of a couple of bad placements on my part with highly cleavable Orc Warriors. However, he chose to ignore the Fox, and I based that nasty Drider while remaining out of the Lich’s sight. Then I ran up the eggs and started to soften up his Orc Champs.

After he expended his first hold on a poor Orc Warrior, and his 2nd was negated by save +9, I started to do some swapping, I based the Lich with a warrior just to get him to work up a sweat, and then took 4 swings from my ravagers onto an Orc Champ. Blurred or not, he didn’t survive.

Time was called before I had a chance to scuttle the six-legged-monster for good, but I edged out a close one with his Orc Champ going down to my handful of Orc Warriors in terms of points. Jesse showed me by his ability to recover and maneuver those Orc Champs just how good he was, and I was really lucky to have a couple of great rolls go my way on saves, and that I got to the Drider before he could start swapping stuff out. I had to hustle myself out of the match sort of quickly at the end, and didn’t have a chance to ask Jesse some of the things I wanted to know about the Lich/Drider combo thanks to the fact that my half-of-a-bagel had decided that it was not going to stay down. Hoooray intestinal fortitude allowing me to hold that one until the end of the match.

Record 2-0

Round 3: Cave of Pain

I hate Cave of Pain, I really do. It creates some of the worst matchups imaginable, while simultaneously adding nothing to my warband’s abilities. Super. So, why don’t you plan in advance what the worst possible matchup might be for a CE band based around 2 Ogre Ravagers in the Cave of Pain format? Figure it out yet? Go ahead, take all day. Got it now? Great. I bet it involves the words "GreyCloak Ranger"… Heh.

I needed a good humbling, and the second I saw Brian Nowak’s band, I knew I was going to get one, good thing I had gotten that bagel out of me a few minutes before, or it might have made an appearance then. Brian was playing (curse my luck!):
Moon Elf Fighter
Elf Pyromancer
Cleric of Correllon Larathian
Halfling Wizard
3x Greycloak Ranger
3x (free) Wolves
2s Half-Orc Barbarian
Devis

Now if I’ve ever seen a well designed band, it’s that one. Hell of a job Bri. I knew that when I eventually faced off against the Greycloaks it would be an uphill battle. However, facing them in Cave of Pain meant that it would take some kind of colossal error on Brian’s part for me to win.

To make things worse, I manage to lose Terrain initiative, and he starts by making some decent lines of sight. Thankfully, if I have a strength as a player, it’s my ability to place some terrain, so I got to work on doing that, and managed to completely preclude any 1st or 2nd turn fireballs, and shut down any early archery.

It would prove to be far too little though, as Brian showed me just what a Cave of Pain is supposed to feel like. After chewing through a few of the Orc Warriors I was screening with, his first shot on my Ogre Ravager came up a 20. He confirmed the conceal, and hit on his second shot as well, rounding it out for a healthy 35 points of damage from 2 arrows.

He scooted his wolves out early, and ended up nuking a couple of his own in order to fireball a small but threatening group of Orc Warriors. I was forced into hyper-aggressive mode after he cut my activations in half, but thanks to some decent placement, I was able to cut down a Greycloak and a Halfling Wizard in one cleave from my Orc Champ.

As time was called, the game came down to a few activations for me. He had critted my Ogre Ravager again, killing it, leaving me with one Ravager, which he pinned down with a wolf. At this point, I know my 2nd Ravager won’t die, as he’s largely untouched, as is my Orc Champ. He’s eliminated 4 orc warriors and my Ravager, giving him 50 points. I’ve got the Wizard, a barbarian, and the Greycloak for 46 points through being massively aggressive.

He spends a couple of activations getting his guys the heck away from me, and then I try something really gutsy on my next shot. My drider casts baleful transposition on the wolf that has my Ravager pinned down so it can’t move (it was a 3-square gap, so I couldn’t pass by him). The wolf fails the save, and swaps places with my Ravager, who runs up and attempts to smack the Greycloak. I roll something horrifying, miss and pass the turn back to him. He offs another couple of warriors and maneuvers to get the heck away.

Passing the turn back to me, I have 2 men left to go, an Orc Warrior that can do basically nothing, and my Drow Sarge. Brian makes a rare error, miscounting the spaces between his Pyromancer and the Drow Sarge, so I walk the Sarge up and give him the great Cave-of-Pain 10. The Pyromancer is 11 spaces away from the edge of the board, if he fails his morale save, I win, if he makes it, I’m done (Brian still had one more activation I think, but it wasn’t anyone essential). So he throws the die and the Pyromancer makes it, drats.

Brian was really a pleasure to play against, and he was a perfect sportsman even as his archers slaughtered me mercilessly. He made no major mistakes and played a seriously awesome match. I credit him with building a great warband too, it was one of the best CG archer-heavy bands I’ve ever played against. Nice work Bri.

Record 2-1

Round 4: Standard

Here’s where things start to get a little more fuzzy, I wasn’t feeling any better as the day went on, and my head was starting to swim from the thinking. Anyhow, I apologize if I get the name wrong, I believe it was Maurice?? Was playing a LE band featuring:
Human Blackguard
Gauth
2x Thayan Knight
Half-Orc Fighter
Dark Moon Monk
2x Barbarian Mercenary

Apparently he had done pretty well so far, also having a record of 2 and 1. I saw his first game (they were paired up directly to my left when I was playing Paul), where I watched on incredulously as he defeated Robert Hatch (who I consider to be one of the top players in the world) on a failed Aspect of Demogorgon saving throw. I’m not 100% sure on this one, but I think he said his other win was against CE and his loss was against a CG summoning band?

Anyhow, I knew that the Gauth was mostly wasted space against my band, so I went in with the specific idea of blocking 3 Gauth turns worth of line-of-sight to the strategic center while also setting up a good 2nd staging area for my Fox. Even though I—once again—lost terrain init, I managed to execute my plan.

He spent the early rounds using Magic Weapon on his guys and double moving the Gauth. I got the Blur up, as I saw no need to go aggressive until he showed his hand.

In an interesting move, he attempted to Fox me with his Barbarian Mercenaries, who I promptly crisped with a lightning bolt, neither was able to save.

By turn 3 he made a single move with the Gauth and was able to peck 5 points off my Ravager, but after that, it would be moot.

He also made the mistake of splitting up his Thayans. I happen to know that in a one-on-one battle, a Thayan will lose to a Ravager about 85% of the time, so I split up the Ravagers to engage them and then based the Gauth with the Orc Champ. I smacked the Gauth, but he made the morale check.

He won initiative yet again (he won every single round until the last one after I killed his Blackguard) and managed to paralyze my Orc Champ. His Thayan took 20 off of my Ravager, but the Ravager answered back in kind, taking 70 points off of the Thayan, who was eventually finished that turn by a charging Orc Warrior. The Drider moved up and Flung my 2nd Ravager in to finish the Gauth but missed his 2nd swing at the Blackguard. The Orc Champ came through on the paralysis save, but he won initiative yet again.

He couldn’t manage enough damage with his Thayan or his Blackguard despite sneak attacking me, and after he spent his heavy hitters, I swapped the 2nd Ravager in, who got a hit on the Blackguard, the other Ravager and Orc Champ finished him off, while Orc Warriors took down his Monk and Fighter. I won the last initiative and finished the remaining enemeies with an Orc Champ and a lightning bolt. It was the only game all day that I would win before time (44 minutes on this one) or by completely wiping out the other band. I think my opponent played really well, and even though I question the Barbarian Mercenaries, he knew how to use his Gauth and Blackguard. Resist Fire 10 is good, no?

Record 3-1

I was glad to have finished early. Despite the fact that my stomach still felt as if I was being eviscerated by a rusty meat hook, I decided that I should probably try and scrounge up some bread. I paid 10 bucks to eat the top piece of bread from an Italian sandwich with a cup of flat coke, which would stay down for one round.

Round 5: Quickstrike
I had seen Jason Myatt crushing opponents all day at the first table, and I had good cause to fear his warband, which was:
Lich Necromancer
2x Clay Golem
Huge Pile of Filler.

I can’t remember if he went with Orc Warriors or Abyssal Maws, I’m pretty sure it was some combination of them as filler, but I know that Ogre Ravagers HATE Clay Golems. My hope here was that maybe I’d be able to force him into making some bad decisions with some off-kilter plays (the back up plan was fire and brimstone from the gods, or to offer to buy him lunch from the place I’d eaten the night before), but I had my doubts about that, since I had watched him pick apart great warbands with the solidness of his playskill. This one was going to be brutal.

I won terrain initiative, which proved to be the key to the match. I suspected I might be able to create some decent choke points, but I was shocked when after I seized control of the center with my treasure room, rather than using one of him more open pieces to forge some LoS points and block my attempt to make chokes, he instead used it to block off my assembly tile. Hrm.

Well, I felt pretty decent about the kill-zone I had made after I created the coveted Reach-around setup at the open edge of the treasure room sealed off with his own broken wall tile, excellent. Now all I’d have to do is convince him to bring it to me at that point.

I spent the early rounds buffing (okay, now blur can really be critical in this slugfest matchup) and telling him how much I feared the Ravager vs Golem matchup (true) how wicked I thought Paralysis + Golem damage was (true), and how frustrating his big 3 could be against my Drider (okay, not true).

Luckily, he had it in his head (maybe it was the two Dire Apes cheering him on) to get aggressive with me, and did a lot of double moving with those golems. We met up right where I predicted we would, and I put out some Orcs as bait. The Necromancer was happy to oblige, whacking one with a missle, but forcing him to take a single move instead, excellent.

Now I set up for the Fox with the Orc Champ, and he obliged me by shifting all his filler around to meet him. He scored the win on init, and used his Clay baby to bash the crap out of my Ravager, who made his morale save.

Thankfully, because of the bottleneck, he couldn’t get both of his Golems in to attack whereas I could get both of my Ravagers to reach over and smack his Golem. I ran an Orc Warrior end around to get closest to the Lich, and then moved my Orc Champ up and waded through his filler.

By the end of time, I still had 1 Ravager to go, but I had him by a lot of points as he had only managed a pair of Orc Warriors, whereas I had chewed through most all of his filler. I might have been able to off the golem as well, but there wasn’t any point with Jason being out of activations, and I had to run out immediately to find a rest room (so much for the 10 dollar sandwich and coke).

Jason was a great sport for answering my questions about his band, and I was particularly interested in how he chose which undead to summon (against me he would go for skeleton warriors for their high AC), and where he would place his Lich under ideal conditions (i.e., do you go for the sandwich formation, or keep him set off to the back). He played a really solid game, I just think I got really lucky that he didn’t see that choke point during terrain placement when he could have blocked it. I didn’t get him to miss as many conceal rolls as I had hoped, but he did whiff on some pretty crucial attacks by his filler on my Orc Champ. It was a great battle though.

Record 4-1

Round 6: Cave of Pain, and the last round before the cut for the top 8.

I’m pretty much convinced I need to win this one to get in, and I’m not reassured any when Jesse Dean shows up every 2 minutes to ask me how I’m doing. Apparently he needed my tiebreaks to get in, that and Mike Dougan, the player I was matched up against crushed him for the win several games back ;) So Mike was playing:
Eye of Gruumsh
Orc Champion
Ogre Ravager
Drider Sorerer
Tiefling Captain
2x Cursed Spirit
and a pair of Orc Warriors

At first I really questioned the inclusion of those Cursed Spirits, but let me tell you, after seeing Mike use them, I understand all too well why they’re in the band, he’s an absolute assassin with them.

Anyhow, I managed to win terrain init, and tried to control the center with a vertical treasure room. Mike got a few pieces in to clutter my approach, and did a great job of making the strategic center of the board as unclear as possible. He spent his early rounds dropping blurs on his Eye and Orc Champ, while I blurred my Ravagers.

We both assembled near the middle of the board, and I started edging up to Fox him, though I was a little reluctant, as his Ravager (the first I faced all day) would have been more than a match for my Champ. We kept dancing around, jockeying for position, and both Mike and I were getting more frustrated. I was feeling sicker by the minute, and he just wanted to be done with this and go eat (at this point we had been playing almost 10 hours with only 1 half-hour break). So he finally said to me, "How about we just get to this"… I was so refreshingly shocked, I agreed immediately.

It was obvious we were both outstanding players, waiting for the other to make a mistake, but how about we force the issue? Awesome! Being the one that suggested the idea, he immediately showed me what he meant by walking his heavies up to mine. We toed it out for a few rounds, and we both lost a heavy, he the Eye, me the Champ, but it was those damned Cursed Spirits that did it to me. He flew them right through the treasure room, sent one among my Orcs and the other at my commander, and just proceeded to pulverize me with them.

None of my Orcs were making incorporeal checks, and then he routed the Tiefling (or maybe it was the Drow Sarge, but it was a commander none-the-less. By the end of the match he had just soundly beaten me. Not by a ton of points, but it was damned decisive in his favor.

Mike was a tremendous amount of fun to play. His competitive skills were unmatched on the day, but his friendly banter and willingness to joke around with me made it the most fun game of my day, in spite of the outcome. Much to my dismay, I learned he was The Dark Knight, who once playfully ribbed me for not revealing my qualifier warband on the boards. Of course, I misinterpreted it, and somebody must have whizzed in my cheerios that day, because I went off on him like an idiot. I apologized profusely to him and was mortified that I had been such a jerk online to such a decent guy. Attesting to his personality, he said it was no problem and that he had done the same before. What a stand-up guy, I didn’t mind being crushed by him at all.

Record 4-2

At this point, I was mostly sure that I wouldn’t make it into the finals. Having seen glimpses of the competition around me that day, I was sure that plenty of the other 4 and 2’s had better tiebreakers. So I flopped onto the floor for a minute, really enjoying not having to sit with my stomach cramped. It took them about 15 minutes to post the pairings, and for the first 5 I couldn’t bring myself to look at them.

Finally I remembered why I was there, to have fun, and that I really shouldn’t have any expectations. My playgroup is usually pretty small, and sure I’m good at beating up on them from playing every week, but these are the best players in the world here. Besides, I hadn’t played a sanctioned match since the beginning of June. No expectations to be had. So I got up and took a peek at the sheet while everyone else was filling out of the room or getting seated against their opponents. Heh, 7th place, great. Well, getting in was pretty decent, I thought, though having a 7th place ranking means I’d probably be paired against the 2nd place overall competitor, which should make my day go a lot faster.

The Finals, Round 1: Standard

I knew I was in trouble as soon as I saw my opponents name: The infamous Brad Shugg. Bshugg from the boards has a reputation for being an unbeatable competitor and an insanely skilled warband builder. He plays, a lot, and really knows his stuff. I have no idea what his record is going in , but I suspect he was either 5-1 or 6-0. Brad was playing "The Band" (or maybe "The One Band"):

Eye of Gruumsh
Red Samurai
Ogre Ravager
Drider Sorcerer
Orc Druid
7x Orc Warrior

Right… The Orc Druid spells trouble here, he’s insane against CE bands, particularly with the Drider. However, I did see one small advantage going into my game with Brad… The dice (or rather, his die) would probably go my way. It may not seem like the Tiefling adds that much more, but those 2 points can make a HUGE difference, not to mention that the Tiefling is more durable.

I can’t argue with the devastating power of Snake’s Swiftness, particularly when paired with the Drider, but if I was clinging to one hope, it was that Brad probably wouldn’t make many morale saves.

I won terrain initiative and went with the vertical treasure room in the center, with the entrance towards me. Brad countered beautifully with a shrine tile right under the bottom entrance to my treasure room, assuring line of sight into my holding area for him, and no real choke point for me. I then made a huge mistake placing my Abattoir too close to his assembly tile, instead of opting to clutter LoS just behind the treasure room. I hoped it wouldn’t prove to be a fatal mistake.

As the game started, Brad pushed forward aggressively, while I again made the mistake of holding back a little.

I knew that the Druid had to die if I was to have any chance, but I had to find a way to get that Ravager away from him. When I pushed my Ravager and a small horde of Orc Warriors forward, Brad was happy to oblige me, sending his Ravager off to meet my team.

I regrouped, readying Ravager #2 for transposition if need be, while setting up for the Fox with my Orc Champ. Brad then went really aggressive after I passed initiative to him, and pushed the Samurai up way past the strategic center to breath weapon a pair of Orc Warriors and my Ogre Ravager. Needless to say, he got the orcs, but the Ravager took no damage.

The most interesting thing was that the area he moved into was essential a 4x6 room of empty space, completely enclosed by the edge of the map to the south, the statue room to the west, the shrine wall to the east, and my treasure room to the north.

Rather than rush my Ravager in and attack, I simply moved him forward 2 spaces and pinned the samurai in the room. He couldn’t get past the size-large Ravager without taking the AoO, and with reach, I could simply dispose of him at my leisure.

Now Brad and I were making pleasant conversation through the whole match, he has a really keen wit and a perceptive intellect to match, so his sense of humor was great, but I think we both got a little too intense at this point. Brad had the final activations for the turn, and then called for initiative, which I won with a handy 17, said I’d go first, and then went for a huge move with my Fox.

As I was showing my hand, he realized that he hadn’t moved his last piece, and wanted me to take my move back. I was sort of shocked by that, but he was absolutely right, he hadn’t moved that last piece. I was tired of people shouting for judges and bickering over minor points, and I knew that if I won or lost to Brad, it wasn’t going to be over some obscure technical point.

So we decided to take the move back, but he didn’t think I should keep my excellent initiative roll (can’t win ‘em all). Of course I lost initiative when we rolled for it again (really can’t win ‘em all), and things got off to a big start. He started funneling in the Orcs to get to work on Transposing them and setting up for the deadly "Transposition for a Heavy, Take 2 Attacks, Cast Snakes Swiftness, Crush your Entire Warband" routine.

When he passed the turn back to me, I made a huge gamble. I knew that if I could eliminate the Druid, not only would he be out 27 points, but he’d be out his best commander and a very potent weapon (yeah heavy hitters, you stay at 1 activation each, damnit!). So I went for it all, based the Druid with my Champ, and halberded the snot out of him. Of course he routed, and when Brad activated him again, he went right off the board. Mission accomplished, force a waste of 27 points, now I just have to survive, right? Yeah, that wasn’t in the cards for me, apparently.

Brad savagely returned the favor in kind, absolutely annihilating my Orc Champion, who I was wishing had failed his morale save instead, so that he could have run away. Time was called, and we were instructed to finish our rounds, but there were still a few pieces left to activate. I took my 2nd Ravager out of harms way, while clearing a path for what would be my only chance at victory: routing the Red Samurai.

Had Brad used the Red Sam before I got to him, he would have won the game, since he couldn’t rout off the board trapped in the corner as he was in one activation. However, I saw it as my only chance to win, and I took it.

The Ravager had no problem laying the smiting smack down on the Sam, who promptly did one half of what I needed him to do, by routing (not a great chance of him staying, based with the Ravager and out of command, he needed a 13). We activated all that was left of our men, with the exception of Brad’s Samurai.

As the score stood, I had whacked the Orc Druid and a few Orc Warriors. He had most of my Warriors and my Orc Champ. The Red Sam was now under the Eye’s command, but only 12ish spaces from the edge of the board. If he failed the Rally, I win, if he succeeds, he wins. Neither Brad nor I could believe it had come to this, and you could cut the tension with a knife. He did exactly what I’d have done in the situation, Put his hand over his eyes, closed them tight, and dropped die onto the table. Before he saw what it was, being an outstanding competitor and sportsman, he extended his hand and shook mine, then looked down at the die, which read: 6…

A Tiefling 2 shy of him winning the game. He was pretty incredulous, but still had that smile of his, he knew it had been a tough game, and that he had probably played it better, but he also knew that sometimes, just sometimes, it’s better to be lucky, than good.

Whew.
Record: 5-2

The Finals, Round 2: Quickstrike

Finishing the game with Brad the way we had did something very strange to me, it somehow really and truly lifted all my expectations for the next game, and it made me want to gamble. My stomach was feeling slightly better, but I had a moment of lucidity that really influenced the way I would play this game. I was paired up against Alex, who’s last name I feel horrible for not remembering.

He was on the hottest streak of the tournament, having gone undefeated in qualifiers the day before, and undefeated up until this match, I think that made him something like 13-0 over two days. I had watched him play in the next-to-last round of the qualifier, and saw just how good he was, but I also had a chance to make very careful observations about the way he played his band. Alex was playing:

Eye of Gruumsh
Red Samurai
2x Drider Sorcerer
Tiefling Captain
Troglodyte
5x Abyssal Maw
Orc Warrior

Now Alex and I probably got off on the wrong foot, as I was being a little goofy about marking activations. He had the unusual habit of marking his activations by turning his pieces to his right. They all appeared to be facing the same direction when he started, but after he moved a few pieces, I couldn’t really well enough to tell what was what. I mean, I never met anyone that didn’t tap their cards or flip them over to show activation, and—I don’t know about you—but I was having a real hard time telling the right side of an Abyssal Maw from the left side.

I figured, at the very least, in the semifinals at this level of competition, it would give us less housekeeping and nitpicking to worry about, and allow us to concentrate more on playing a great game. Mike Donais, who sat down to watch the entire match, was in agreement with me, and suggested that Alex turn his cards sideways. It took a little practice, but he seemed to manage without a problem after that.

Alex won terrain initiative, but I didn’t immediately recognize his placement strategy and I didn’t see it until it was too late. Not having tested with or against the double Driders, I was unsure of how they played out. And when it was already too late, I saw it. The Driders were there to win the game all by themselves.

Maneuver and shift and scurry until you could get one or two pieces of fodder in your sight and blast them, use the Eye and the Red Sam as bodyguards, or edge the Red Sam up to score points, and then protect with the Driders.

Now, I’m positive not all double Drider bands play this way, but after the first few turns, it was absolutely clear this is what was going on. So I knew right away what I was going to do: Smack him with everything I had, as quickly as possible. I knew the Red Sam and the Eye couldn’t stand up to my Ravagers, and that left 2 Driders to try and mop up what was left of the Ravagers while fending off a healthy Orc Champ, not a good prospect. He would beat me however, on time, or if I was forced to bring the battle to him on his terms late in the game.

I am extremely grateful, in retrospect, that I rushed up all my pieces, forgoing even the opportunity for a second blur, in favor of getting in threat range, because positioning his maws was eating a tremendous amount of time off the clock. I got into quick position for a Fox with my Orc Champ, but I showed only a 1 Ravager anvil, keeping my other back far, far away, completely on the opposite side of the treasure room, in fact.

As I pushed up aggressively, he seemed surprised to see this type of strategy used against him. I think I really forced him to think about it, so much so that he earned himself a game warning for taking 3 activations in one turn. Seeing that I had a slight advantage I decided to press the attack, and man did I press it. I threw everything I had at his Eye and his Samurai, and at the end of the turn, they were both down below 20 HP.

He had one activation left, which he seemed to be taking a very, very long time to think about. Then, as his watch beeped, he launched a lightning bolt down a tough line of sight, killing 1 of my Orc Warriors. He seemed quite pleases as he asked, "Time, right?" Mike Donais just shook his head and Alex looked somewhat puzzled. About 10 seconds later, Guy Fullerton announced "One minute remaining" and Mike instructed us to roll for initiative and complete our activations.

I won initiative, flung the Ravager all the way from the back right corner of the treasure room around to the top left on the opposite side and then absolutely massacred his team. Both his Eye and the Samurai went down, while I rushed Orcs up to provide the nearest target for the Driders.

He made the mistake of putting one of his Driders out of command as well, which pretty much negated it for a turn. He had no heavy hitters left, but did a credible job of getting my Orc Champ and my Ogre Ravager down pretty low. The Champ was at 30, while the Ravager was at 40.

As the activations ticked away, he decided that in order to win, he’d have to kill the Ravager, who would be the most difficult, and then worry about the weaker, non-blurred Orc Champ. So he threw all of his maws at the Ravager, but several of them just missed, and another failed a blur check.

After that, my remaining Orcs came in to mop up his Maws and his Trog. At the end of the game, he had 2 untouched Driders, a trio of Maws, and his Tiefling. Alex conceded the match when he saw he could no longer win on points, rather than dragging it out, and was a great sportsman about shaking my hand and congratulating me. He did seem upset that his watch somehow had a different time than the official time clock, but both Guy and Mike informed him that only their time was official.

I didn’t pay attention to anything but the 1 minute warning in the game, and never glanced at my watch once, so intent was I on the game, so I have no idea what the deal was with that. I do know that I simply played on until I was told to stop, and that I probably played my 2nd best game of the night against a player of amazing skill.

Record: 6-2

The Championship Match: Cave of Pain

Wow, I had made it. No matter what, I was going to take home some modicum of respect for our small playgroup from New Jersey and for my local shop, outstanding. They told me immediately that I’d be paired against none other than Mike Dougan for the championship.

I had mixed feelings about that announcement. I was ecstatic, because Mike was such an amazing competitor and such a fun guy to play against. I knew we’d put on a great show with no bickering or petty squabbles. Then I was a bit disheartened, because Mike had handed me my only crushing defeat of the day in the last round of swiss play. But hey, if you’re going to get crushed by someone, it should be by the best player there, who also happens to be one of the nicest guys there.

They graciously gave us about 15 minutes before the start of the match to get ourselves together and to relax. I passed Mike, who had been out of the room at the time, on my way to the restroom, and he gave me a knowing smile and asked me how I did. "Terrible, " I replied, "I’m facing some guy named Mike Dougan in the finals…" He laughed and right then I knew it was going to be an amazing game to watch.

When I returned, I was amazed to see the size of the crowd that had gathered. I mean, I think we had 4 or 5 people standing around watching the semifinal matches, but it seemed like there were at least 20 people there ready to hover around that board.

I sat down and started to lay my warband out when a sudden panic hit me, my Drow Sergeant was missing. I searched everywhere, but I kept all my warband in the same little ziplock bag, and everything else was there, including the statcard. I was really getting panicked at this point, but luckily someone had the foresight to ask Alex to look through his things. Thankfully, he had accidentally scooped the Sarge up, and we were able to get back to the game.

Mike won terrain initiative, and lorded over the center of the board with his treasure room. I countered with my horizontal treasure room just south of it along the bottom edge of the board, giving me a great choke point, and some flexibility in movement. Mike must have seen the aggression in my eyes, or knew after hearing about the previous game what my plan of attack had changed to, so in a different move than our previous match, he hemmed in my assembly tile using his Corridor and Medusa’s Chamber. I spent my placements wiping out any hopes of line of sight from the strategic center to his assembly tile, and breaking it up enough that routing figs would have a damned hard time of rallying.

As we rolled for initiative to begin the match, Mike and I shook hands, "let’s give them what they want to see," I said to him, "Hell yes," he replied. This was going to be an awesome display of gaming. As a reminder, Mike was playing:

Eye of Gruumsh
Orc Champion
Ogre Ravager
Drider Sorerer
Tiefling Captain
2x Cursed Spirit
and a pair of Orc Warriors

Before the game got underway, Mike Donais and Rob Heinsoo brought over the Trophy, and two miniatures. The two minis are a completely hand-repainted Huge Red Dragon, with gems and coins in his treasure pile (including a magic sword with humanoid arm still attached) and an alternate hand-paint of King Snurre. They inform us that the HRD goes to the winner and the King Snurre to the runner up. Mike has a good laugh at my expense as I groan, King Snurre is the only piece I need to complete my Giants of Legend set. He graciously offers to allow me to concede and take home the King Snurre, which I had to pass on. "You already have the Warmachine National Championship trophy Mike," I quip, "somebody has to save you some room in your luggage"…

As the game opened up, I knew what my plan of attack would be. None of the dancing around that I had done in the swiss matches earlier, I was going to go straight for it and pound it out, toe to toe.

His terrain placement hampered me enough that he reached his treasure room easily, but then I gave him something serious to think about when I set up for a Fox down a long line of sight corridor on his side of the board.

He piled his men into his Treasure Room, and I piled my men into mine. Then he sent his Ravager and Orc Champ around the back side to Fox me (A foxing Ravager, I never heard such a thing, they’re too…….large……..and……slow…!). He brought the Eye up behind them to keep them in command, not really committing Big-One-Eye to one side of that Treasure Room or the other. Then he went with his aggressive move, he flew both Cursed Spirits right through that wall and based my Tiefling with them.

Well, the Orc Warrior bodyguards surrounding my Tiefling (in the event of just such an occurrence) were none to happy about that, so they took their shots at the spirits. The Orcs took their swings and made the incorporeal check both times. "15 right?" asked Mike, "Nope, 20, adios bad spirits" said I.

At this point, even Guy Fullerton had to come over to take a look. "Oh yeah, Drow Sergeant’s commander effect, don’t see that one too much," Guy remarked.

Just like that I had 22 points, and it forced Mike’s hand for the next round. I won initiative, and decided that I’d better deal with those Foxes creeping up on my back door, so I sent in the ultimate fox hunters, Orc Warriors. Now my Orc Warriors must have eaten at a certain brewery just prior to this match, because they really didn’t seem to care if they died, they just wanted to get things over with.

So, throwing caution to the wind, they charged at the savage looking Orc Champion. First one hit and made the conceal for 20, ouch. The second one runs up and, holy cow is that a 20? Made the conceal and smacked that hulking Fox for 30. The Champ made the morale save, but hey, 6 points worth of activations, for 50 points worth of damage, now that’s efficiency.

He promptly decided that Orc Warriors were not the Fox’s meat of choice, cleaved through both of those brave souls, and then went into full retreat! The Ogre Ravager also changed his mind and decided to go around with them.

So, having gotten 2 of this 3 heavies to move, I make the move with my Fox, basing the Drider with my Orc Champ, and taking a hefty 30 out of his hitpoints. The Drider failed the morale check and headed for the hills. Of course, I’m not so fortunate when the Eye goes and smashes my Orc Champ for 30.

His pair of Orc Warriors ganged up on my Champ as well, forcing him to make a morale check, which he succeeded at. Then I started sending in my big guns. The Ravagers came in and starting pounding things. Then I send my Drider over to launch a bolt at his Eye (I think?).

This battle is tremendously intense as all of our heavies are slugging it out at this point, and the next couple of turns will be critical. I win initiative, and take out the Drider with my Champ, cleaving on to the Eye and hitting. I swing for my second attack, but fail the blur. At this point the Eye is at 55, and the Ravager can finish him in 2 hits, so I take my chance early, hoping that the Orc Champ might live if I can splat the Eye. I declare my smite, and roll a …..20 Kablam, and then for my conceal roll a…..5 #$@!

You should have heard the crowd when I rolled that crit, the collective wince sent an adrenaline rush up through me, which was promptly deflated when they all groaned at the missed conceal check. It was great to hear everyone getting so into it though.

The Rav did succeed on his next attack, bringing the Eye down to 15 or so. Then he used his Eye to finish off my Orc Champ and put 30 damage on the Ravager, but, this leaves him at 5 life thanks to the Vicious weapon.

Next his Orc Champ goes, but fails to convert on a conceal and only gets my Ravager for 30. At this point, I know he’s not going to take any AoO’s with his Eye, so I walk some Orc Warriors up to flank the Orc Champ and try and tangle with his up coming Ravager.

Finally, recovering form getting left behind in a failed fox attempt, his Ravager huffs it over, but still can’t make it in range to swing on anything. We finish the round up and he wins initiative. As he readies to make his first move, the Judges clock next to us goes off, and time is called. They instruct us to finish the round. Crud, this is intense, but fun!

Mike does what he needs to do, and crushes my foremost Ravager with the Eye. And while the Eye dies from his own hit, my Ravager fails the morale save and turns tail. His Orc Champ then sinks another 30 into my Ravager after cleaving through an Orc Warrior, but he isn’t able to finish the Ravager (Ravager aces his morale save), as he rolls a 1 on his attack. I respond by swinging twice with the Ravager, attempting to murder that Orc Champ, but miss my first thanks to blur and my second thanks to rolling a 5.

Of course, that means I can’t move my Ravager now, having had to attack twice. My non-routing Ravager is at 20 and now at the front of the battle and suddenly chargable by his Ravager thanks to him wiping out his own Eye who was in the way. Meanwhile, his Drider rallies, so there’s 30 points I won’t be getting.

I quickly add up the points. He’s killed an Orc Champ and all but two of my Orc Warriors for 51 points, I’ve killed 2 Cursed Spirits, 2 Orc Warriors, and an Eye for 72 points. If he kills my Ravager with his, who is about to charge in, he will likely win on points.

So as I’m thinking of how best to handle the situation, it hits me, and I simply transpose my Ogre Ravager a solid 12 spaces away from his, and well out of his charge path. Now all I have left is a couple of Orc Warriors for him to beat on. Mike spends a couple of minutes looking at the board, counts out the spaces from my fleeing Ogre Ravager to the edge of the board.

Thanks to his blocking off my assembly tile with his Corridor, it’s well over 12 for the Rav if he fails to rally. He studies the board a little more and extends his hand to me. "Great game," he said before I could get it out first. That it was, probably my best played game of the night, what an awesome finals match to watch. Just for fun he asks me to make the rally check on the Ravager, which I fail miserably, and we have a good laugh at it.

Record: 7-2

Epilogue

And that, my friends, is that. I got a hearty clap on the back from Rob Heinsoo, who was standing over our shoulders the whole time, while Mike Donais and Guy Fullerton presented me with the trophy. The trophy, which reads:

Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures 2004 Championship Series:
CHAMPION
GenCon Indy 2004

It currently sits over my shoulder on the computer shelf, but tomorrow it leaves for display at my FLGS.

snapped a couple of pictures with Rob and Mike (Mine didn’t come out well at all *sob* anyone have one that did?) and then glanced at my watch: 11:15pm. What kind of person sits around playing miniatures for almost 15 hours? Strangely, though my stomach was still in knots, I didn’t feel tired. I chatted with a bunch of people for another few minutes, then decided that if we were ever going to play at all, I’d better run and get the 1st Annual Maxminis Draft started.

The Draft was awesome, we had 12 people show up. Despite my condition, which was rapidly improving, we stayed up until about 5am. A lot of good bands were drafted and a ton of fun was had. Rob Heinsoo even showed up, going undefeated with his band on the evening.

Well, that’s about it. Before I go, I’ll apologize for any errors, inaccuracies, or assumptions that I made—please feel free to point them out, I won’t bother defending them ;) I’ll also hand out a few Props and Slops, just for kicks.

Props:

The Game Designers: You’ve made an awesome contribution to the gaming and miniatures community. Oh and you hinted that you’d be supported draft more next year. C’mon, let’s see a draft event for the top 8 at next year’s tourney!

The level of competition: I survived 6 years of grad school, which I provided me with some of the toughest and most sobering experiences of my life. But that competition on Saturday was, by far, the most mentally grueling challenge I have ever undertaken. 15 hours of being at the top of your game, always trying to make the right decision, and avoiding even the tiniest mistake that could cost you the game. There were just a ton of amazing players there, and I’m humbled to have had the opportunity to learn from them.

People with a great sense of humor: Yep, it’s just a game. Playing people with a great sense of humor reminds us of that, and of the fact that we’re here to have fun.

The guys that kept me gaming all these years: Justin, Biffo, Dave, Chris, Merce, Leigh, and Bob.

The city of Indianapolis: Clean, not too big, nice wide streets, (mostly) decent food, and very friendly people. Reminded me of being back home in the South, except without the oppressive humidity.

Getting a chance to meet all the guys from the boards: What an experience, it was a thrill to get a chance to finally meet the people that make up our community: Chris Tulach, Mark VanScoy, Peter Lee, Guy Fullerton, Robert Hatch, The brothers Tatroe, Sam (lalato), Oni, Mike Dougan, Brian Nowak, Jesse Dean and Jesse Kindwall, Manny Vega, Brad Shugg, Pat Ellis and Sean Banks (well, I met you guys before, but you deserve some recognition anyhow), Michael Derry, Apterix, Fenris, and anyone else I’m forgetting in my senility.

Slops:

People who argue with the judges: Those guys busted their tails out there so that we could come and play. Nobody loves a complainer, get over it.

Food Poisoning: I have newfound respect for the comfort of the tile floors in the Hyatt Regency.

16 hour tournament formats: Way. Too. Long.

1 Hour Game Time Limits: Way. Too. Short. I think this and the above complaint may be mutually exclusive, I have no idea how to fix it, this is probably why I am not on the development team ;)

The Guy Who Stole My PDA and Star Wars Booster. Yep, during the final match, somebody walked away with both of them. I looked at the pictures, and at the beginning of the final match, both of them are to my right, during the trophy presentation, they’re gone. I didn’t even get to open that starwars booster pack, it was probably slave girl princess Leia. *grumble* On a better note, some great guy found my PDA in an area of the con where I had never even been, and was awesome enough to send it back to me. Gamers kick @$$! Except the ones that steal…

Hey Guess What?
"It’s Over!"

-- Kiddoc

Comments:

You should have post it as a link..

# posted by  Anonymous : 11:12 pm

 

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