Fox Den Strategy

2006 Minnesota Qualifier: Thoughts Plus Report

2006-05-22T14:48:00.000-05:00

At the end of April I decided to get back into the game after a long break of nearly one year. I had 38 days to get myself back into fighting form before the MN qualifier. I began my training by pouring over all of the set lists every other day. I also dug through the forums and read every tournament report I could find. In addition to that research, the Toolkits created by Jesse Dean and Christopher Groves (posted on Maxminis) really went a long way to help me analyze the current metagame. I contacted Jesse and Chris via email and bounced a few warband ideas off of them and asked their opinions on the metagame. This also helped me greatly as they filled in the finer details of how things had been going since I took my break. Thanks a ton for the imput guys!

During my research, I was leaning toward a Marut build but I was second guessing myself because, at the time, no one was really talking about Marut and I wasn't sure if that because it was weak or not. A couple of weeks passed and that changed. Threads about Marut and Marut counters started to appear on the forums. At this point I was looking for a rogue warband that could take on the top contenders yet still fare well against other rogue builds. It wasn't an easy search, as anything that I found that could dominate one or two matchups would fall on its face against other matchups. I didn't want to play an obvious warband because it gives hate bands a large advantage in the metagame but it was quickly looking like I wouldn't have a choice in the matter. Today's metagame is wide open for many concepts and all of the factions. It truly is rock/paper/scissors and the skill of being able to predict your own local metagame is going to be a large factor in anyone's success.

I attended two tournaments here in MN before the qualifier. I needed to assess the local power players (Jason "Newtoncain" Moore, Scott "Gunthar" Trautsch, John Corbett Sr, John Corbet Jr) and what they were playing/what I thought they would play. I new these guys were going to be contenders for the Top 4 so I needed to refamiliarize myself with their warband trends and play styles.

I fielded a Marut band I dubbed "Super Tech":

1 Marut
1 Couatl
1 Cleric of Order
1 Aramil
1 Standard Bearer
1 Warforged Bodyguard
1 Jozan

I wasn't too worried about only having seven activations as I have a lot of experience playing with low activation warbands. Often, Marut bands have to pick and choose their tech. I wanted to see what would happen if I put ALL of the tech into the same warband.

I ended up going 2-2 at that tournament and learned something important about the band. My two losses were against Jason piloting a dual Orc Champ/dual Umberhulk band and John Sr piloting GAS. Speed kills Super Tech. Painfully and without mercy. They were able to get ahead on points and just run away from my Marut. The band needed to somehow pick up some speed and reduce the squishiness of the rest of the warband. I also discovered that the lack of one activation was a hindrance. Better players were able to manipulate it to their advantage and that was something I didn't like at all.

It was about this time that the Utah qualifier reports came in and Robert "Dagni" Hatch had done very well with Sacred Watchers in his Marut build, landing 2nd. Also, Kevin Tatroe piloted a Sacred Watcher swarm band into the top 4th. I had been hearing a few things mentioned about Sacred Watchers but they never really clicked in my mind. I decided to test out the Sacred Watcher Marut build to see how it ran. I lamented the commander zero, as did most people I spoke with locally, but it was necessary to increase the mobility of the warband.

I immediately discovered the power of the Sacred Watchers. They really are a great package deal. When combined, flying, fearless, incorporeal, a decent attack bonus, and a respectable HP total, really were powerful. Doug "Bonepinhimer" Lee was unsure of what he was going to play but was taking a hard look at GAS having been crushed by it in the finals of a tournament a couple weeks prior.

We started running some test games and it was apparent that Marut suffered vs GAS. We moved on to some other matchups looking to find other weaknesses to Marut builds and GAS builds. In particular, we found that anything with a high attack bonus and high damage output blew Maruts out of the water. We came up with a dual Aspect of Kord/Crow Shaman build that soundly stomped on the Marut/Sacred Watcher build. The Kords, however, struggled against Helmed Horrors. GAS also had issues with Helmed Horrors but we knew that Helmed Horrors struggled against Maruts. A vicious circle of rock/paper/scissors was developing and we were wracking our brains trying to find something that trumped the entire metagame.

We attended another tournament the next week. I used the Sacred Marut band and Doug used a five activation, dual Hill Giant Barbarian band. We got there late due to road construction issues so we only got two rounds of play in. For the life of me I cant remember what I faced in the first round (I defeated it whatever it was) but I do remember my second round opposition. It was a Marut/Couatl/Ballista band. We ended up on his Keep of Fallen Kings which would result in my defeat. I was able to base his Ballista with the Marut while only losing Aramil and Mialee in the process but it was a long run to get there. I was spread out across the whole board and his Marut went behind me and started picking off my softer targets. I missed a key attack of opportunity on the the Ballista with my Marut and it tore me apart. In the end, I defeated everything but his Marut and his Jozan which was sitting on his victory area. It was a tough game and valuable information was gained.

I noted the warbands of the other players. Jason was running a single HGB build, John Sr used GAS again, John Jr ran with Marut as opposed to Helmed Horrors the previous week, Scott used a Centaur Hero build, and Devin was running Helmed Horrors again.

With Arcane Ballista now on my mind I was considering my options for the qualifier. I considered sticking the Ballista into my Marut band but on the night before the qualifier I finally decided to go with what I had the most practice with. The Sacred Marut build.

I suspected that Jason and his son would be running Helmed Horrors. They had six between them. I also suspected that John Jr would fall back on Helmed Horrors to counter his father who I was certain was running GAS. With Jason, Devin, and John Jr running Helmed Horror, I was confident they would counter John Sr, Doug, and DJ who were running GAS. My plan was to step in with Marut, and defeat the Helmed Horrors. It was impossible to predict what Scott was going to run because he is always trying something different. I could bet, though, that it wouldn't be CE as he hates that faction with a passion.

I ended up being correct on my predictions. Jason, Devin, and John Jr ran Helmed Horrors. John Sr, Doug and DJ (who I hadn't met before today but I had heard of his GAS exploits) ran GAS. Scott ended up running a dual Justicator band with a Justice Archon, two Sacred Watchers, and a Cleric of Lathander.

tournament Report:

Round 1:

1 Marut
1 Couatl
1 Warpriest of Moradin
1 Cleric of Moradin
1 Dwarf Artificer

We played on Dragon Shrine. My opponent was all about boosting his saves and AC. My activation advantage helped me greatly and his super ACs only mattered on one attack roll. I defeated my opponent without losing a single figure.
1-0

Round 2:

2 Hill Giant Barbarian
1 Orc Warrior
4 Quagoth Slave

He swarmed in fast and I was throwing magic missiles at the quagoths. His slaves missed incorp rolls and didn't get their HP buff. I took down his slaves quickly and a HGB failed its moral save and got off the board. I landed a Ray of Enfeeblement on the remaining HGB. His giant couldn't hit my Marut and I wore him down.
2-0

Round 3:

1 Marut
1 Couatl
1 Aramil
1 Standard Bearer
1 Mialee
3 Sacred Watchers

This was an exact mirror match. We ended up on Fane of the Drow I believe it was. We both inched along, neither wanting to commit to combat. My sacred watchers went about killing his point grabbers. He finally committed to combat but left his Standard Bearer out of range which gave me an advantage in the slugfest. I moved up and landed my two hits with the Marut. In the end, I landed a sonic orb on the Marut for the kill, then chased his Couatl with my Marut and finished it off for the win.
3-0

I found out that my hopes had come true as two GAS bands got paired up against Helmed Horror bands in round three. Much to my shock, though, the GAS bands won. That did not bode well for me at all and it became apparent in my very next match.

Round 4:

4 Githzerai Monk
1 Young Master
1 Hill Dwarf Warrior
1 Eberk

We ended up on Dragonshrine as it was the map we both were running. I knew I was in trouble here because he could get turn one VPs and I couldn't. This would mean he could run around the board playing point denial and there was nothing I could do about it. Melee didn't appear promising either as Unavoidable Strikes would render me impotent.

He moved the bulk of his warband onto his victory area and I blitzed him. My Marut fell to USs as I predicted but he confirmed to me afterward that he was going to use high speed point denial if I didn't come after him.
3-1

I actually felt good about my loss as I was hoping it would pair me up with the Helmed Horror warbands which I could ride into the top 4.

Round 5:

Scott Trautsch
2 Justicator
1 Justice Archon
1 Cleric of Lathander
2 Sacred Watcher
1 Timber Wolf
1 Hill Dwarf Warrior

We were both running Dragon Shrine so that's where we ended up.

Scott's play skill has improved since I played him last year. He did a good job of spotting the right moves to make. He won the first combat important initiative and moved up the Archon and landed 20 damage on my Marut. It was the right move to make as I was going to step up and crush it if I had won init. I eliminated his JA with the Marut and Couatl. My Aramil was under attack but I had thwarted his Wolf's attempt to eliminate the piece but he got a sacred watcher in there to take over. He killed Aramil but I killed his watcher in response.

Legions Undeniable Gravity landed on one of his watchers and one of his Justicators. It helped me because it kept one Justicator out of the game who ended up running off chasing and eliminating Mialee who was grabbing my VPs.

In the end I had an advantage on HP totals but the tables turned as I rolled two 1s with my Marut against his second Justicator who only had 10 hp remaining. I had one final chance to eliminate it using a sacred watcher but it too rolled a 1. I rolled three ones all tournament and they were against Scott heh. Scott played an awesome game and he got it done.
3-2

Round 6:

Jason Moore
3 Helmed Horror
1 Rakshasa
1 Darkmoon Monk
1 Timber Wolf
1 Dire Rat

We ended up on his blood rock which would, in the end, seal my fate. We both inched out not wanting to commit. I was leveraging my 8th activation against him and finally he just stopped progressing forward, opting to use the ranged attacks of his Helmed Horrors. Tiring of the war of attrition, I bolted the Marut and Couatl forward, landing both attacks while keeping the Couatl out of sight of the Rakshasa.

The slugfest ensued and I made a choice that may have been a mistake. A Helmed Horror sat at 5 HP and I chose to rely on two Sacred Watcher to finish it off as I didn't want to waste my Marut's attack on it. Both attacks ended up missing and that Helmed Horror landed 20 more damage on my Marut. That was probably the turning point of the match.

He eliminated my Marut but only had one Helmed Horror Remaining. I landed a sonic orb on it and the Watchers swarmed it. I was hitting well and wearing it down. My fate was sealed then, as the Helmed Horror rolled back to back 19s, resulting in two crits on my Couatl, killing it. Jason would win at the end of the round due to VPs putting him at 200 points. I didn't have time to kill the Horror with my fresh Watchers. I believe the Horror had 20-35 HP left on it.
3-3

Thus ended my qualifier hopes heh. It was a good run and I had a definite chance to qualify but a combination of bad matchups and bad luck turned the tables on me. I had a great time regardless. Congratulations to those who qualified!

2006 Utah Qualifier Results

2006-05-06T17:30:00.000-05:00

Attendance: 26

Top 4

1st Eric Cleaver (doranur)
2 Hill Giant Barbarian
1 Drow Sergeant
1 Orc Wardrummer
3 Orc Warrior
Map: Dragon Shrine

2nd: Robert Hatch (Dagni)
1 Marut
1 Standardbearer
1 Aramil, Adventurer
1 Couatl
3 Sacred Watcher
1 Mialee, Elf Wizard
Map: Drow Outpost

3rd-4th Jacob Lujin (Felagund)
1 Couatl
1 Aspect of Kord
1 Jozan, Cleric of Pelor
1 Cleric of Order
1 Arcane Ballista
1 Warforged Scout
1 Man at Arms
1 Mialee, Elf Wizard
Map: Broken Demongate

3rd-4th Kevin Tatroe (ktatroe)
1 Sword Archon
5 Sacred Watcher
1 Dwarf Artificer
1 Timber Wolf
Map: Dragon Shrine

Top 4 Lawful Evil: 0 (0%)
Top 4 Chaotic Evil: 1 (25%)
Top 4 Lawful Good: 3 (75%)
Top 4 Chaotic Good: 0 (0%)

Total Lawful Good Warbands: 10 (39%)
Total Lawful Evil Warbands: 6 (23%)
Total Chaotic Evil Warbands: 5 (19%)
Total Chaotic Good Warbands: 5 (19%)

Archtypes:
Sword Archon/Sacred Watcher: 3
Mixed Lawful Evil Beater: 3
Inspired CG Beaters: 3
Marut: 3
Ballista/Kord: 2
Tri/Quad Helmed Horror: 2
Archmage: 2
Dual HGB: 1
Rogue Lawful Evil: 1
Ryld + Beaters (Chaotic Evil): 1
Death Slaad: 1
Balor: 1
Lawful Good Justicator: 1
Chaotic Evil Quad Beater: 1
Aspect of Moradin + Marut: 1

Single Figure Spotlight: Aramil, Adventurer

2006-05-05T06:05:00.000-05:00

Aramil, Adventurer
#9/72; Uncommon; LG/CG; 13 pts
LVL 3; SPD 6; AC 13; HP 20
Melee Attack: +1 (5)
Ranged Attack: +5 (5)
Type: Humanoid (Elf)
Special Abilities: Unique.
Spells: Sorcerer Spells: 1st-[][][] mage armor (Self; +4 AC), magic missle (sight; 5 damage), ray of enfeeblement (range 6; attack -2, damage -5 [minimum 5])

Aramil has been seeing an increased amount of use since last year's qualifier season. This is mainly due to the metagame's shift away from chaotic factions that deal an amount of damage that isn't greatly affected by Ray of Enfeeblement (25+ damage). As this shift occurs, we are seeing a greater amount of figures being used that deal 15 damage or less which are impacted more by the effects of the Ray.

The good factions have enjoyed the use of Ray of Enfeeblement exclusively until the Night Hag came along for Lawful Evil in Wardrums. At 43 points though, it is much harder to fit the Night Hag into your warband without sacrificing the integrity of your effectiveness. At the low cost of 13 points, Aramil is much more prolific and can fit into many more themes then the Night Hag. Thus, we are most likely going to continue seeing the good faction's monopoly on this spell.

There are several different spells/abilities in the game that mimic Ray of Enfeeblement. Such as the Half-Elf Hexblade's Hexblade's Curse or the Weakening Breath of a Gold Dragon. These figures suffer the same problem as the Night Hag though. They have a higher point cost that makes the figure consume points that could take away from your core.

Again we see the true power of Aramil isn't Ray of Enfeeblement alone but the fact that Aramil possesses three castings of this spell at a thirteen point cost.

Spells:

Aramil possesses the versatility of Sorcerer Spells.

Mage Armor: This spell is usually not worth casting. Your turns are much better spent setting up your other abilities. Mage armor could be a significant edge if a fodder war occurs though. Use your own personal judgment as to when this spell might be worth casting as different situations occur game to game. For example, your opponent might be running a warband with two titans and you don't need to cast three Rays. This allows you to consider casting mage armor and going after your opponents point grabbers and other weak figures.

Magic missile: This spell is much more useful then mage armor but still tends to take a back seat to Ray of Enfeeblement. There are situations though that casting a Magic missile could be the right play to make. If one of your opponent's important figures is sitting at a critical hit point total, such as five points away from death or a morale save, it is much more productive to use Magic missile.

I was watching a vassle game between an Inspired Frenzy variant and a Marut/Couatl/Bodyguard variant the other day. After a timely Grant Move Action from the Inspiring Marshal, and the slaying of the Cleric of Order by a Frenzied Berserker, Aramil got into position and fired off a Magic missile on the Warforged Bodyguard which forced a morale save. The Bodyguard failed its save and the band was hunkered down close enough to the exit area of the Dragon Shrine that it got off the board. That was a huge play from just a lowly 5 damage spell.

Ray of Enfeeblement: This is the bread and butter of Aramil's tactical usefulness. It effectively gives your warband +2 AC and unavoidable damage reduction vs the targets of the Ray. Generally, it is less effective on units with very high attack bonuses and damage output. Your primary targets should be units that deal damage in the 10-20 point range. This can greatly alter the number of attacks your opponent needs to make in order to force morale saves and kill your units.

Special Abilities:

Unique: Limiting Aramil to one per warband is a good thing. The effects of ray of enfeeblement would be tremendous if your opponent had to worry about two sources and six castings of the spell if you were to double up on Aramil.

Instead of being a limiting factor, Unique can actually be a powerful effect when teamed with Drizzt, Drow Ranger. Drizzt's commander effect gives unique followers +3 attack, +3 save, and +5 damage. Aramil can climb to +4 Melee Attack and +8 Ranged Attack, both for 10 damage each. Aramil's save also doubles to six. Those are respectable numbers for a 13 point unit that also has utility outside of its melee and ranged attack capabilities.

Regdar, Adventurer also provides synergy with Aramil. His commander effect is less powerful then Drizzt's and only offers +2 to attacks and saves. Generally, Regdar doesn't see play because he doesn't provide enough benefits for his cost. If he added damage to unique figures like Drizzt does, and provided benefits outside of his commander effect, he might see more play.

Tactics:

Your primary goal with Aramil should be to land as many Rays of Enfeeblement as you can. Aramil is going to have a big target on his back so you need to be careful where you place him. Often, its safe practice to only single move Aramil a couple of times and let your hitters engage your opponents key figures before you try to land a ray.

Maps that provide cover like King's Road can go a long way to improve the effectiveness of Aramil. On a map such as this it is no longer good enough for your opponent to double move figures and base Aramil. He can just step away and cast a Ray. Your opponent is going to have a much more difficult time getting to and killing Aramil without having a Ray cast upon them. The psychological advantage of this mere thirteen point unit can be tremendous and could open up your opponent to several mistakes that could cost him the game.

If Aramil survives long enough to use all of its spells, it might be the right time to set up a flank with another figure. Usually though, Aramil is better off being used for his ranged attack, picking off opposing fodder units. Aramil could hunker down on a victory area while doing so, thus optimizing his use after his spells are depleted.

Conclusion:

As you can see, there is a lot of potential wrapped up in this figure. Its hard to find a figure in this point cost range that can have such a tremendous impact on a game like Aramil can. A good comparison is the Orc Wardrummer which changes the face of a game for only 19 points. I hope you enjoyed this writing and as always, thank you for reading.

2006 European Championship Results

2006-05-02T05:36:00.000-05:00

Attendance: 55

Top 8

1st: Cesare Carini (Orion)
2 Frenzied Berserker
2 Inspiring Marshal
2 Graycloak Ranger
2 Wolf (Minions)
1 Timber Wolf
1 Xeph Warrior
Map: Dragon Shrine

2nd: Marco Moretto (Nike)
3 Helmed horror
1 Dark Naga
1 Snig, The Ax
3 Goblin Skirmisher (Minions)
1 Dire Rat
Map: Drow Outpost

3rd-4th: Tino Frey (Yerf)
3 Helmed Horror
1 Mindflayer
1 Darkmoon Monk
1 Azer Raider
1 Timber Wolf
1 Blue
Map: Drow Outpost

3rd-4th: David Scott (Gritbone)
5 Duergar Champion
1 Cleric of Nerull
1 Duergar Warrior
1 Kobold Miner
Map: Drow Outpost

5th-8th: Nikola Todorovic (Sammael)
1 Helmed Horror
1 Zakya Rakshasa
1 Rakshasa
2 Duergar Champion
2 Kobold Miner
1 Timber Wolf
Map: Drow Outpost

5th-8th: Benjamin Thiel (Avraice)
1 Marut
1 Arcane Ballista
1 Couatl
1 Cleric of Order
1 Timber Wolf
1 Jozan, Cleric of Pelor
1 Man at Arms
Map: Kings Road

5th-8th: Martin Zimdars (Adkainen)
1 Elf Pyromancer
2 Goliath Barbarian
1 Inspiring Marshal
1 Rikka, Angelic Avenger
3 Graycloak Ranger
1 Wolf (Minion)
2 Timber Wolf (Minions)
Map: Keep of Fallen Kings 1

5th-8th: Roger Witte (Janos M.)
2 Wemic Barbarian
1 Elf Pyromancer
1 Inspiring Marshal
2 Graycloak Ranger
2 Timber Wolf (Minions)
1 Xeph Warrior
Map: Keep of Fallen Kings 1

Top 8 Lawful Evil: 4 (50%)
Top 8 Chaotic Good: 3 (38%)
Top 8 Lawful Good: 1 (12%)
Top 8 Chaotic Evil: 0 (0%)

Total Lawful Evil Warbands: 16 (30%)
Total Lawful Good Warbands: 15 (27%)
Total Chaotic Good Warbands: 13 (23%)
Total Chaotic Evil Warbands: 11 (20%)

Marut: 6
Lawful Evil Mixed Beaters: 6
Chaotic Evil Quad Beaters: 6
Inspired Chaotic Good Beaters: 5
Tripple/Quad Helmed Horror: 5
Greenfang/Dire Bear: 4
Rogue Chaotic Good: 3
Rogue Lawful Good: 3
Rogue Chaotic Evil: 3
GAS: 3
Justice Archon: 2
Quad/Quint Duergar Champion: 2
Hill Giant Barbarian Builds: 1
Sword Archon/Sacred Watcher: 1
Rogue Lawful Evil: 1
Beholder: 1
Chrall: 1
Archmage: 1

Single Figure Spotlight: Drow Wizard

2005-06-11T02:03:00.000-05:00

Drow Wizard
#50/60; Dragoneye; Uncommon; CE; 29 pts
Commander 2LVL 4; SPD 6; AC 13; HP 20
Melee Attack: +1(5)
Type: Humanoid (Elf)
Commander Effect: Damage +5 when making attacks of opportunity.
Special Abilities: Conceal 6; Spell ResistanceSpells: 1st-magic missile [] (sight; 5 damage); magic weapon [][] (touch; attack +1, ignore DR); 2nd-SnillocÂs snowball swarm [][][] (sight; radius 2; 10 cold damage; DC 14)

I wouldn't classify Drow Wizard as a "Tier 1" figure but it does have some unique abilitiess and roles to play within the Chaotic Evil (CE) faction.

Spells

Magic Weapon
Currently, it is one of only two figures in CE that can cast magic weapon (the other being the Drow Cleric of Lolth which costs 13 more points then the wizard). This alone is a large factor to warrant it's use. It combos very well with the likes of the Ogre Ravager and Large Red Dragon (LRD), allowing them to overcome damage reduction (it's a real pain having the LRD's second and third attacks reduced to 5 damage). It also gives figures that need it a slight boost in attack bonus. This can be a real boon for the Ogre Ravager and other low attack bonus figures. Even the LRD enjoys the boost from +9 to +10 on its second and third attacks.

Magic Missile
The single use of magic missile is versatile. You can pick off a fodder unit or deal that last 5 points of damage to that stubborn figure that just wont die. Guaranteed damage, even just a lowly 5 damage, can come in very handy in many situations.

Snilloc's Snowballl Swarm
The Snowball Swarm is a great spell and allows the Drow Wizard to play some important offensive roles instead of just sitting there and being a commander. Radius 2 at range sight can allow you to clear annoying fodder units that are swarming your hitters (if you chose to target your own hitter with the spell). Again, this is 5 guaranteed damage but at radius 2 and with the potential to be 10 damage on all it hits if they fail their saves.

One time (no, not at band camp) I had my LRD based by two halfling rangers. After I spent the LRD's breath weapon, both had only 5 hit points remaining. There's nothing like the feeling of dropping that snilloc's and picking up a guaranteed 46 points. I've even managed to squeak out first turn Snowball Swarms on my opponent's assembly tile. Not devastating, but annoying none the less.

Special Abilities

Conceal 6 and Spell Resistance give this figure a tad more survivability then it would normally enjoy. I've had my Drow Wizard based by two Orc Warriors and a Wolf and I risked the attack of opportunity (2 attacks missed the AC and one missed conceal) to move six squares and drop a snowball swarm on them, killing the orcs and forcing morale on the wolf (who failed the spell save and then it's morale save). Lucky, but very fun!

Commander Rating and Effect

With a commander rating of two, don't expect to win all of your initiatives. It's adequate and it does it's job. The Drow Wizard's commander effect is nothing to write home about either but it's nice to pick up the extra damage when something that is surrounded by your figures fails a morale save. That is, if you risk the wizard's life by having it that close to combat.

Minnesota Qualifier: Thoughts and tournament Report

2005-06-04T05:56:00.000-05:00

The Minnesota metagame is a strange one. The majority of the players here refuse to conform to the standard "Tier 1" metagame. Because of this, a lot of the standard "Tier 1" strategies stand a strong chance of coming up against spoiler warbands that aren't usually planned for and that can just ruin their day. A lot of people also refuse to play the same warband twice. This leads to a near infinite parade of obscure warband compositions. As a result of these practices we see a lot of cool warbands that usually don't see the light of day in other metagames. Minnesota definitely does not have a stagnant metagame.

Doug (Bonepinhimer) and I had decided back in March that we would not participate in any tournaments here until the qualifier and take our meta by surprise when we showed up after such a long absence. This allowed us to keep our strategies in reserve and forced our meta to forget about our playstyles and warband trends. Our ratings did suffer because of this. Doug slipped from 3rd to 5th and I moved from 2nd to 3rd just recently.

I was originally planning on playing the 15 activation Inspired Frenzy warband (we dubbed it "Act 15") at the qualifier but when the Drider Sorcerer was banned I took another look at Chaotic Evil to see what new things could emerge from the faction now that one of its key pieces was gone. I was hoping to capitalize on the "chaos" that was caused by the banning and slip a non conventional CE warband under everyone's' radar.

I recognized the potential of the Zombie White Dragon (ZWD) as soon as I saw it's spoiler. It was a prime canidate for a "tech" piece now that the Drider was gone. 130 fearless HP for 37 points was the perfect piece for our chaotic metagame. It shuts down all of the odd ranged attacks and spells that show up here. As I've said before in many posts to various forums the ZWD acts as an armored transport for the CE hitters thus allowing them to shoot out from behind it and base those pesky ranged attackers when the time is right. So I started forming my warband around the ZWD.

Pieces So Far:
1 Zombie White Dragon

I wanted to go for as much versatility as I could while maintaining a steady stream of hurt. The Orc Champ is pretty much a given for most any CE warband so I threw one in for the "hurt" part of the formula. I am big fan of the Red Samurai's breath weapon and have employed it to much success in the past so I added him for the "versatile hurt".

Pieces So Far:
1 Zombie White Dragon
1 Orc Champion
1 Red Samurai

I had my "tech" and I had two beaters. At this point I wanted to make sure I had room for a good commander. The Tiefling Captain needs no explanation as to why it is good. I threw him in there for my first commander slot.

Pieces So Far:
1 Zombie White Dragon
1 Orc Champion
1 Red Samurai
1 Tiefling Captain

This left me with 63 points. I wanted to fit another beater in there but I also felt I needed a second commander for safety. At this point it was getting pretty tight and I started flipping through my binder looking for options. Enter the Eye of Gruumsh. He's taken some flak in the past for his drawbacks and point cost but he worked perfectly for my warband. He was a beater (one that could cause problems for an LSD), he was my second commander, AND he synergized with my Orc Champ and the no doubt numerous Orc Warriors I was going to put in.

Pieces So Far:
1 Zombie White Dragon
1 Orc Champion
1 Red Samurai
1 Tiefling Captain
1 Eye of Gruumsh

Now It came time for the fodder. Six Orc Warriors fit in there putting me at 199 points and 11 activations. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't hit 12 activations but I felt it would work just fine regardless.

Final Warband:
1 Zombie White Dragon
1 Orc Champion
1 Red Samurai
1 Tiefling Captain
1 Eye of Gruumsh
6 Orc Warrior

I started running some games with it and was very pleased with how it performed. It did everything I wanted it to and on top of that it messed with Inspired Frenzy big time. It wasn't a favorable matchup, but it had at least a decent shot of beating it barring bad luck.

So two weeks before the Georgia Qualifier I had my plan and my warband. I was anxiously awaiting the results of the qualifier as the first one would set the trend for how the national meta was going to shape up.

Much to my delight, then later disappointment, the concept I had developed ended up taking 1st and 2nd. I was happy to see that my concept was successful, especially with the perceived invincibility of Inspired Frenzy. But I was then bummed out because now my concept was out there for the masses to analyze and prepare for and right out of the gate no less. While it might be great to have a late qualifier to see what everyone is fielding, it also prepares everyone for what to expect and can be a detriment.

So now my warband was out there and I wasn't sure what I was going to field. I decided I would wait it out and see what rolled in from the other qualifiers and hopefully I could find a weakness in the metagame to exploit.

The next weekend came and I was chomping at the bit to see what turned up in Florida Colorado, and Illinois. Sure enough, a ZWD + Beater band took first in both tournaments. Colorado's employed the Lich Necromancer and dual Ogre Ravagers for the beatdown. Florida's used the Ravager/Champ duo. The concept's power was evident and many people were realizing it independently.

Then Illinois' results started trickling in and Large Red Dragons (one build in particular) had stomped all over the meta there. Later to be dubbed "Lare Red Beatings" it showed a tremendously strong performance and presented a very difficult challenge for Inspired Frenzy warbands. Being fans of the LRD we were happy to see it succeed. Doug immediately started testing the band (LRD is his favorite figure).

The warbands I was considering at this point were my ZWD build, a Ryld/dual Champ/Red Samurai band, and a Lich Necromancer plus beaters band. Ryld plus beaters had a respectable showing at several qualifiers and its always been a band sitting on the back burner for me. I love the initiative bonus and he has great synergy with humanoid beaters. The Lich Necromancer is one of my favorite figures and I gave him a few test runs against the LRD band Doug was testing to see how well he could do (this would prove to be tremedously valuable experience). The Lich definitely was underpowered versus dragons. If he met one all of his paralysis abilities were null and void. So I scrapped my Lich band and focused on my Ryld band. I started to consider that ranged attacks had a high possibility of showing up with several of the better players still fielding Half Elf Bow Initiate bands and doing well. ZWD didn't fit too well with what I wanted to do with Ryld and I was again at a loss.

I had been keeping up with the MN tournament reports and I saw that Scott Trautsch (Gunthar) was having a successful string of wins using the Elf Pyromancer and dive bombing for the first turn fireball. I also considered the natures of the MN meta and suspected several people would be running Gauths. So I finally broke down and decided I was going to field "Large Red Beatings".

The band did everything I wanted to do. The LRD could be used as a pseudo ZWD, taking a few arrow shots here and there and was a great archer killer. It shut down the Gauth bands I suspected would show up. It shut down the Pyromancer that I suspected Scott was going to field. The LRD is even similar to the Large Silver Dragon in some ways. There are a lot of figures in mid to low cost range that just can deal with the beefy red dragon. Also, the breath weapon is tremendously powerful and I had tons of experience to tap regarding optimal uses.

"Large Red Beatings":

1 Large Red Dragon
1 Ogre Ravager
1 Orc Champion
1 Drow Sergeant
8 Orc Warrior

Tiles:
Treasure Room
Shrine
Corridor
Assembly 4

Tournament Report

This report will be done from memory as I didn't invest any time in taking detailed notes. I wanted to focus all of my time and energy on trying to end games before time if I could.

Round 1

Opponents band:
1 Gauth
1 Rakshasa
1 Thaskor
1 Blue
1 Snig
--3 Goblin Skirmisher (Minions)
2 Mongrelfolk

Going with the LRD paid off in my very first match. My plan was to ignore the Thaskor and blitz the Rakshasa and Gauth. I used the LRD to incinerate Snig and the skirmishers gaining a quick lead on points. The Thaskor approached my LRD and stopped at reach landing his attack. He really should have based the LRD because I proceeded to fly over it and base the Rakshasa, landing so it was between the LRD and the Thaskor. The Thaskor moved and stunned my Ravager.

I took a few risks to go for a quick win and they didn't pan out. I was missing attacks on the Rakshasa (with the LRD and Champ both), and was failing stun and paralysis saves on my champ. My die struggled to keep me in the game and finally I was able to get the kill shot on the Rakshasa giving me an insurmountable lead on points and I won when time was called. The Thaskor only made one attack the entire game and ignoring it proved to be a viable tactic.

1-0

Round 2 vs Scott Trautsch (Gunthar)

Opponent's Band:

1 Halfling Ranger
1 Elf Pyromancer
1 Greenfang Druid
1 Frenzied Berserker
2 Greycloak Ranger
--2 Timber Wolf (Minion)
1 Ialdabode
2 Elf Warrior

I definitely made the right warband choice. My second round matchup was against non other then the "PyroMaster" himself. Just as I suspected he was packing the pyromancer. I was able to block 99.9% of his possible first turn fireball options. I realized with his placement of his mushroom tangle near my assembly he could scout his Halfling Ranger and get a glancing blow of a fireball if he single moved his pyromancer but I was sure he wouldn't be crazy enough to risk the points on the gamble of bypassing the Drow Sergeants spell resistance. Well I was horribly wrong.

We spent a LARGE amount of time scrutinizing every possible corner he could see and what his best fireball was. He finally found his best option and stepped the halfling up 4 squares then single moved the pyromancer and dropped the fireball. He was taking a very large risk but if it paid off I would be commanderless on my assembly which may or may not have led to a win for him based on what he did after the fireball. He was able to hit three orc warriors, my ogre ravager, and my drow sergeant. The ravager made his save and took zero. The orc warriors vaporized. And the drow sergeant shrugged off the fireball with spell resistance. Scott was in trouble now. He took a big risk and it didn't pan out. The ranger went belly up with my whole band right there and several activations later his pyromancer went kamikaze to scorching ray my sergeant causing it to rout. Our warbands moved closer to the center and not much of anything happened.

I was surprised that he moved his pyromancer into kill range. I stepped up with my ravager and picked up 32 more points. Because of the huge time investment in scrutinizing the fireball options we only got two initiatives complete. I won on points by a large margin.

2-0

Round 3 vs "DJ Chuckles"

Opponents Band:
1 Eye of Gruumsh
1 Ogre Ravager
2 Orc Champion
1 Tiefling Captain
1 Troglodyte
X Orc Warriors

I didn't like the looks of this band at all. This kind of band just wins. I played conservatively and single moved my stuff toward the center and he double moved toward the center. I created a crescent moon shape with my warband and stepped up with the LRD to breath on the eye and one champ. Both saved. He obliged me by moving his stuff up into the crescent o' death and I was able to full attack with my hitters (saving them for last due to my activation advantage) and routed his eye and champ. His ravager double moved to base the LRD taking 20 damage from orc warriors to do so. Next initiative I stepped up with my champ and hit then unloaded with my LRD killing the ravager. He was out of heavies at that point and conceded.

3-0

Round 4 vs Doug Lee (Bonepinhimer)

We didn't want to get paired up this early but alas, the random pairing machine hates us and lets us know it every tourney we go to. We decided to take a risk and draw. We agreed that we were both going to make it or we both were going home empty handed. We needed to win our next matches to make top 4. We also wanted to both qualify so we didnt have to play in the open qualifier at gencon.

3-0-1

Round 5 (I didn't get my opponent's name)

Opponents Band:

1 Large Red Dragon
1 Red Samurai
1 Drow Sergeant
1 Cursed Spirit
1 Abyssal Maw
2 Orc Warrior
1 Orc Champion

I had a large activation advantage in this match and it would win me the game. I moved up toward the center as did he but he left his LRD out of command so it could only move 4 on its first activation. I stepped up my LRD and breathed on his sergeant, vaporizing it. He stepped up with his hitters and I was able to unload full attacks on him on my next activation. He was able to force morale on my LRD with his LRD (it was able to rush finally). I killed everything except the cursed spirit and only lost 3 orc warriors in the process.

4-0-1

TOP FOUR:

Mike Sixle (Zaukrie)
John Corbet Jr.
Doug Lee (Bonepinhimer)
Jason Phillips (Shadow Fox)

Round 1

Mike vs John
Doug vs Jason

I didn't care about the money at this point (the pack prizes had been split between those who didn't qualify) so I conceded to Doug. I was tired as all heck and I knew Doug still had the energy to bring it home.

Mike and John slugged it out and Mike was able to eat up Johns hitters. I didn't catch most of the match.

Final Match:

Doug vs Mike

Doug's Warband:

1 LRD
1 Ogre Ravager
1 Orc Champion
1 Drow Sergeant
8 Orc warrior

Mike's Warband:

1 LRD
1 Eye of Gruumsh
1 Orc Champion
1 Gravehound
1 Kenku Sneak
4 Orc Warrior
1 Abyssal Maw

I didn't watch much of this matchup as I was talking with our judge (Gadzooks) about all kinds of minis related stuff. Its the first time we got to hang out for a while!

Mike suffered from several 1's and made a key mistake in thinking a treasure room was positioned with the openings against the edge of the map but they were infact pointing toward the interior of the map and he didn't catch on to this. Doug was able to sneak in behind him and take out his eye and champ because of it. In the end Doug comes out on top and wins the qualifier.

Pictures of the event will be showing up on The Fox Den soon!

Florida Qualifier Report by Bill Baldwin aka "Wizo_Snark"

2005-05-16T04:49:00.000-05:00

Okay, here is my take on the events.

The Pre-tournament Metagame

Last year I came to the qualifier with a Warband I had never played prior to going but still did well, going 4-2 and coming in tied for 6th out of a field of 24. This year I decided I was going to try harder and at least make it to the Championships. A month or so before the qualifier, Jesse invited me over to test out potential Warbands for the qualifier with C.J. and my daughter. Jesse had decided he wanted to take his Couatl-Skulls band and had been testing it furiously with satisfactory results. And he wanted to prove that LG doesn’t suck. I still had no idea what I wanted to play so I created a variety of Warbands that were considered tier 1 or 2 to see what struck my fancy and so Jesse and C.J. could test their Zombie Ravager and Couatl-Skulls against them. We all played several games with Jesse and I doing our usual 50-50 split on the victories with both C.J. and Jesse beating my first attempt at running an IF band. I then beat Jesse’s Couatl-Skulls band with a GFD/Dire Bear/Griffon band (but only barely with some well timed crits) and I beat C.J.’s Beholder-Soth band with a Beholder-Gauth band thanks to the Gauth paralyzing one of his Goblin Skirmishers in just the right spot to prevent the Beholder from healing Soth.

After playing all those games I decided I liked the concept of IF, but both bands I went against showed definite weaknesses in IF I wanted to plug. That and my desire to play something different just to be different had me come up with the Go-Go-Goliaths band I took to the qualifier. Jesse keeps complaining that even though the rankings don’t show it, I am a better player than him. I suppose there might be some truth in this since even though our victories are about as damn close to 50-50 as you can get, I have a much greater tendency to play experimental/sub-optimal bands than him. Never-the-less, when push comes to shove, that’s not what the rankings say. So I suppose if I really want to be #1, I am going to have to put aside that desire to just be different. And if you think about it, at the upper-levels of DDM play ability, where the levels of skill are all so close to the upper end of the curve, its little things like this that really do make the difference.

A few weeks later, Siener from the boards was in town, and Jesse and he came over to my house so that I could now test out my build. I beat Siener’s ZWD build and Jesse playing an LSD band handily enough that I was satisfied with Go-Go-Goliaths (though I was starting to get an inkling of this band’s major weakness), but I wasn’t the only one who noticed the band’s potential. Jesse saw how well Go-Go-Goliaths would do against Couatl-Skulls. Given that he knew he would eventually have to face me at the tournament because…well…we always do (we are #1 and #2 in the state for a reason), Jesse decided to abandon his own desire to be different and went with the Zombie Trifecta instead. By the time I had found out what band he was going to take and that he had been practicing online with some top players against my build, it was really too late for me to make any changes and test them out enough to feel comfortable with it at the qualifier. So when it came to the pre-tournament Metagame, Jesse had won this round.

Pre-game

I had deliberately tried to get to bed early the night before so I had plenty of rest on the day of the tournament. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized how much I was beginning to want to beat Jesse, and my anxiety over my own band’s weaknesses to his build and the knowledge that I would invariably play him kept me up most of the night. To make matters worse, I had woken my daughter up to get ready to go Saturday morning but she went back to sleep and I ended up leaving late. All that plus the hour and half drive gave me the beginnings of a stress headache, and I knew the day was just going to get more stressful. I normally take a case of assorted pills in my minis box, just in case, but when I looked in the box, I only had 1 Advil left, enough to stave off the headache getting worse for a while, but not enough to make it go away.

We got to the mall the qualifier was at about 20 minutes after registration was supposed to begin, but the tournament organizers hadn’t shown up yet. I went to the restroom to take my 1 Advil and when I got back, Jesse had gotten a phone call from the organizers saying that the guy who was going to run the event had a family emergency and they were going to have to reschedule the event. This, I realized, was unacceptable. Many people had made special plans to come here and even though the organizers had offered to let everyone who showed up get in free to the rescheduled qualifier, with the price of gas, this didn’t come close to covering most people’s travel expenses. As the WizO onsite, I was duly appointed to do something about it, so Jesse and I trundled off to see the manager of the game store in the mall that was co-sponsoring the event and see what options I had available before I broke down and tried to contact Ian for advice. Fortunately, Jesse gets another call on the way there and the organizers have found a solution and someone was on the way. The qualifier would start an hour late, but it would be today.

Round 1

The first round was against a newb who made classic newb mistakes like not realizing Commander Effects only extend 6 squares and Reach doesn’t extend your threat area. This is a mixed blessing. The first game in a tournament is usually one of my worst as I seem to take the first game to get my gamer mind really in gear. So having an easy match the first game is good for me. But I also know that when it comes to tie breakers in tournaments, you would much rather have beaten players with good records than bad ones. His band is:

Vampire Aristocrat
Vampire Spawn
Ettin Skirmisher
Chuul
2x Timber Wolf
Quasit

He wins tile initiative, but I finagle enough of a gap in tile placement to give me my HEBI a shot at his starting tile. I win first round initiative and route both his Timber Wolves off the board and put an arrow into the Ettin. My opponent is so green that I find myself giving pointers. In hind sight this was pretty stupid since the last time I did this, at a limited tournament, the newb ended up beating me. At any rate, my archers chew up his vampires using sacred circles and I downed the Ettin before it had a chance to do a number on my Goliaths. I then GMAed to surround the Chuul and dropped it down to 15 HP. The next round he won initiative and paralyzed my flanking Goliath. And even though I moved an Elf Warrior in to recreate the flank, my other 2 Goliath’s failed to connect even with re-roll and the paralyzed one remained paralyzed. Fortunately, even though he won initiative again the next round, he made the mistake of finishing off the paralyzed Goliath rather than paralyzing another one. I quickly mopped up after that, but that inkling I had previously gotten about Go-Go-Goliath’s major weakness was starting to become clearer. The Goliath’s mediocre saves and speed, combined with my band’s desire to stay near the starting tile and entrap opponents meant that, while it did great as long as you had average to good luck, a run of bad luck was far more disastrous to this band than it would be to others.

About the same time I am coming to this realization, Jesse comes over and announces he lost his first game against a triple Gauth band. I am not looking forward to a triple Gauth band with my Warband, especially against someone who can beat Jesse with it, but at least this means I might not actually have to face Jesse.

Originally Posted by doubtofbuddha:
"With my defeat during the first round I was convinced there was no way I could qualify now. It seemed pretty hopless, and I felt bad especially considering how much I had been practicing for the tournament, but I eventually convinced myself that I still had a chance."

I seem to remember this part differently as I swear it was I who convinced you that you still had a chance if you won all the rest of your matches and beat the right people. Considering the end result, I once again blew a chance to win at the metagame level by giving you a pep talk. See if that happens again. :p

Score: 1-0

Round 2

This round is against an LG band:

PDK
Dwarven Defender
Warforged Hero
Gnome Fighter
Stonechild
Eberk
Formian Warrior
Githzarai
Barbarian Mercenary

Again he places tiles first and again I finagle some shots at his starting tile but all my shots miss his adjusted 27+ ACs (22+Eberk+cover). I run my wolf up to grab a tile and he runs his Formian up to grab another one. Round two I unleash the full fury of my archers and only succeed in having the HEBI do 10 points to his Warforged. This isn’t looking good. Next round gets more success from the archers and the Warforged has to make a moral check, but saves. I use an Elf Warrior to lure his Formian out into the open (I think he did this deliberately to lure my Goliaths forward and away from the main battle location, but he underestimated the speed of the Goliaths). Another Elf Warrior plugs the Formian for 5 and a charge from one of my Goliaths finishes it off. In retaliation, he hits the Goliath with Spiritual Weapon (which eventually does 20 pts) and double moves the Barbarian Merc to base it. The next round goes even better. I win initiative, slag the Merc with my Goliath and retreat with the other Goliaths to a safe spot near where the battle will obviously come to a head. The HEBI kills the Stone Child and sends the Gnome Fighter running and an Elf Warrior kills his Githzarai. It is now that my opponent makes his biggest mistake of the game. My biggest worry is the PDK using its Fear cone on the Goliaths near my starting tile. But instead of moving him up with the rest of the troops, he sends the PDK in to take care of the Elf Warrior and Wolf that are grabbing my tile points. Next round he wins initiative and advances on my archers, killing 2 elf warriors, basing a third and forcing my Graycloak to withdraw to a safe location. But the trap is now set. I activate my GMA. First the based Elf Warrior moves away from the Dwarf Defender and he takes the bait and kills it with the one AoO he can take during my GMA. I then safely move in 2 Goliaths to flank the Dwarf (with one on a sacred circle) and the other bases the Warforged while also in the sacred circle. The Warforged goes down and the Dwarf is hit twice. I win initiative, finish off the Dwarf and charged the PDK. It kills the wolf and hits a Goliath, but my HEBI, Graycloak and Goliaths finish it off handily.

Score: 2-0

Round 3

This time it’s CG:

Moon Elf Fighter
2x HEBI
4x Graycloak Ranger
4x Wolf Minions
Elf Warrior

Stronger ranged bands are one of Go-Go-Goliath’s weaknesses, plus I had never seen this particular configuration before and it proved to be one of the best ranged Warbands I have ever faced. Its ability to shred anything that leaves itself vulnerable is incredible. But I had a plan for dealing with ranged bands and I was able to put the Treasure Room in the middle of the board on his side just like I planned and did not let him get LOS to my starting tile. Still, this turned out to be the toughest fight I had other than my final battle with Jesse. I advanced swiftly using cover to block LOS and gather my forces in the Treasure Room. He takes up position on the nearby Shrine of Justice. I deliberately leave some of my Elf Archers and HEBI vulnerable and he takes the bait, using Tactics to activate all of his archers and take out my Elf Archers and put some hurt on the HEBI. This allows me to GMA into a position that I can then safely base and attack his archers with my 3 Goliaths and wolf, and my HEBI and Graycloak manage kill 2 wolves and put some hurt on the Moonelf Fighter. I force a morale check on one of the HEBIs and two Graycloaks, but only 1 of the Graycloaks routes. Next round he wins initiate. He uses tactics brilliantly to kill my wolf, freeing up another graycloak to attack, then forcing a morale check on the Goliath basing the HEBIs. The Goliath routes and the HEBIs now have free reign on the next Goliath, but he makes his morale check. With what’s left, I finish off the wounded HEBI, a wolf and two Graycloaks. Next round I win initiative kill off his remaining Graycloak and force a moral check on his HEBI. It fails, but he kills one of my Goliaths and the routing one runs off the board. The last round is announced and my opponent makes his fatal mistake. We are close on points but instead of moving his Commander into a position to rally his HEBI, he elects to try to take out my last Goliath. He fails and his HEBI routes off the board, giving me the win without me having to route or kill his wounded Commander with the Goliath’s counter-attacks.

Score: 3-0

Round 4

This one is against C.J. and his Zombie Trifecta band. Its good I get to practice against Zombie Trifecta before the final round, but bad because C.J. is a good player and Zombie Trifecta was partially designed with my band in mind. C.J. knows what I can do and plays very cautiously. Tile placement takes forever and the turns creep due to cautious play, but he overextends his ZWD just a touch too far and a constant barrage of arrows combined with the Goliaths take it and an Orc Warrior out by the end of turn 3 with no losses on my side. But that maneuver has put my Goliaths within striking range of his beatsticks and the next initiative is going to be a big one. I have the advantage but a little luck on C.J.’s part could turn the game around. I reach for the die to roll initiative but suddenly remember I forgot to mark off the 2 Rerolls I had used on my Goliaths. I quickly marked the Rerolls and reached for the die again…and time was called. I win by 40 points, but what a cheap victory. Not only is this very frustrating for C.J. but I now feel guilty that I teased him earlier in the game after I had killed his Orc Warrior by pretending to blatantly stall for a couple of seconds. The couple of seconds it would have taken me to grab the die, roll for initiative and start the next round before time was called. That sucks because I didn't want to win that way. Sorry, Dude.

Score: 4-0

Round 5

Another CG ranged band.

Valinar Commander
Cleric of Corellon Larethian
HEBI
2 Gnome Recruits
Catfolk Wilder
4 Graycloaks
4 Minion Wolfs

Setup ends up similar to the last ranged band I faced but he places the Mushroom Tangle to keep me from taking full advantage of GMAing out of the Treasure Room. Never-the-less I speed straight towards it. On turn 2 after double moving the previous turn, my Graycloak is able to move into a position to pick off one of his Gnome Recruits for first blood but he is now in a bad position to effect the rest of the battle. My opponent moves his archers into a position on the other side of the Mushroom Tangle and tries to bait my HEBI into staying in the open by putting his Catfolk Wilder up front as a target. I realize it’s a trap, but I have fought Wilder’s before and the mediocre saves of my Goliaths had me worried. I took the bait and routed the Catfolk off the board, but elected to counter bait him with a bunch of Elf Warriors for his Graycloaks to pick off instead of risking my HEBI. I lose a bunch of points and activations, but my HEBI is still intact. Next round I take a pot shot at one of his wolves and move the HEBI to safety before he can take much damage while double moving the Graycloak back into firing position. But now my Goliaths are where I want them and I GMA. The Mushroom Tangle stops me from immediately basing all but one Graycloak and a wolf, but I use my remaining move to base and attack his HEBI with one of my Goliaths. I survive the counter attack and take out his wolf and Graycloak, then move the other Goliath into a flanking position against the HEBI and force a morale check. He rolls a 4. I am elated until I realize that, with his Cleric of Corellon within 6 squares the HEBI has a +16 to his morale save. The next round I win initiative and the blood bath begins. I finish off the HEBI and move to base his remaining Graycloaks, I survive the counter attack from the Valenar and the second Hold Person attempt from his Cleric of Corellon. The HEBI and Graycloak are now in position to do some damage and combined with my remaining Goliath, succeed in killing or routing much of what was left. He concedes shortly after the beginning of the next round.

Around the 3rd round of this game, Jesse tells me that as long as we both win, he will make it to the final round. This brings up the rather odd situation that if I lose this game, I will still make it to the final round, but not have to face Jesse. But I am not cutthroat or dishonest enough to throw the game to accomplish this, so I toss away another chance to beat Jesse at the Metagame level.

Score: 5-0

FINALS

Round 1

This time I am up against an LSD band.

Large Silver Dragon
Cleric of Order
Mialee, Elf Wizard
Aramil, Adventurer
5x Hill Dwarf Warriors
2x Man-at-Arms
Barbarian Mercenary

Goliath’s are weak when it comes to the combination of high AC/high saves, but I have tried out this band against Jesse using an LSD and I know that I can make sure only 2 of my Goliaths will be caught in the paralysis breath, and as long as I can make at least 1 of their next 4 saves, I still have a fighting chance. Unfortunately, the single Advil has long since worn off and my headache is back with a massive vengeance. My opponent wins terrain initiative and just as in previous games, I am able to force a small opening in the cover. There is a very tiny corridor that I can see his fodder, but not his LSD who would otherwise be the closest enemy. I win initiative and my HEBI routes one dwarf warrior and kills a third while my Graycloak forces a morale check on his Barbarian who miraculously saves. He buffs his LSD, but then starts advancing with his grunts, letting my Elf Warriors do further damage. His terrain placement, however, kept my wolf from grabbing a tile the first round and Aramil magic missiles it. I spread out my troops as much as possible to avoid the inevitable breath weapons, but I am forced to double move my Inspiring Marshal into a position that leaves the HEBI and Graycloak out of command so that I can make sure he cannot breath on the Marshal the next turn. Turn 2 he moves up the LSD and takes out 4 Elf Warriors with his Cold Breath, then routes the wolf with a magic missile from Mialee. He routes past the LSD and dies. I am now seriously down activations, but it doesn’t matter. He has over extended the LSD and the rest of his troops can’t possible reach me that round. I move the HEBI up to be in command of the Marshal and miss the LSD with a Ranged Precision attack, then GMA. I surround the LSD, flanking it with the Goliaths and move the HEBI into a clear firing position. My Goliaths start laying into the LSD and score 3 hits. He wins the next initiative and catches 2 of my Goliaths in his paralysis breath. Only one fails his save. I activate my paralyzed Goliath and he saves before the backup can arrive and finish him off, then my HEBI gets a crit and succeeds in scoring 40 points on the LSD. It makes its morale check and my Goliaths put another 20 on it. It is now down to 30 HP. My Marshal moves to intercept the support troops, killing his wounded Barbarian, while my Graycloak fruitlessly shoots arrows at the LSD. Next round he wins initiative again and lays into an already damage Goliath, but I succeed with my morale check. My HEBI makes up for the crit from last round by missing the LSD all 3 times, but my Goliaths manage to finish it off by using the last of their Rerolls and my opponent concedes.

Score: 6-0

Final Round

This is the inevitable battle I have been dreading for a week. I knew Jesse has already beaten me at the Metagame level, and he wanted this victory bad (Ah, to be single again and be able to focus that much time and energy.) On top of that, I had won the last game we had played together and it was Jesse’s turn to win (Yes, our games really do work out like that. I have no idea why.) And to make matters worse, my 11-year-old daughter (who had placed a respectable 12th out a field of 24) now had the DDM bug and was begging me to win so I could affordably take her to GenCon with the $250.00 in travel money. That plus my already bad headache made my brain feel like it was trying to leap out of my skull. Never-the-less, I had beaten this very same band before and I was determined not to give up. I would just have to hope Jesse would make one of his rare mistakes or get a little lucky. Unfortunately, I was now the one feeling very bad and it was more likely I would be the one to make mistakes. In all my previous match-ups against non-ranged bands I had lost terrain initiative and it worked in my favor because I was able to exploit a minor mistake and get ranged attacks starting on turn 1. So when I won terrain initiative, I elected to give it to Jesse, but I should have realized counting on Jesse to make even a minor mistake was not a winning formula. Terrain setup isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. I will avoid most of the details here since Jesse has gone over them already, but I will add in where there were some gaps. On round 2 I made my second bad decision. I had the choice of either taking advantage of Jesse’s mistake of leaving his Ogre Ravager vulnerable to attacks from my Graycloak and Elf Archers, or shifting the battle to the side of the board opposite my starting tile. I elected to exploit his mistake, but paid for this later. The rest pretty much played out as Jesse said. My Goliaths, HEBI and Inspiring Marshal all routed off the board because of my closeness to the starting tile and my brief run of bad luck spelled doom to Go-Go-Goliaths. It was a close, intense game that took us well into the 90 minutes they gave to finish it because of the chess-like movements of the competitors. But in the end, Jesse simply wanted it more. I probably didn’t come across as a very gracious loser due my killer headache, so congrats, Dude!

As an additional note, while Go-Go-Goliaths proved to be pretty successful, it highlighted why Ranged bands will probably never be top tier. Their need to stay near their starting tile in order to maximize the number of ranged attacks they get means that when their opponents route, they have plenty of time to rally, but when the archers route, they are gone.

Washington Qualifier Report by "orpheus21"

2005-05-15T07:54:00.000-05:00

I and 3 other friends took the four-hour drive to the qualifier from Vancouver Canada area. We were all excited about the next day and even showed up at 11:30pm at the "Game Matrix" to see how many people had pre-registered. We retired to our hotel rooms after a midnight run for food and spent the remainder of Friday night (until 2:30am) circled around the magnetic board that Neon Knight had put together just practicing terrain placement.

The first detail of the tourney was only 10 players showed up, MUCH less than what I was expecting. Second detail is that almost all the battles did go to time, but it seamed like all of them went 5 to 8 rounds. Maybe because the drider is gone, maybe because there was only one Inspiring Marshal/FB warband (but even his games went longer than 3 or 4 rounds).

I ran a high activation Large Silver Dragon warband with a Couatl, Cleric of Yondalla, Hill Dwarf and 6 Men at Arms for 200pts and 10 activations, Assembly 4, Treasure Room, Torture Room, Mushroom Tangle. With ten people, the tourney only went 4 rounds.

Round 1

My first challenge was "The Nameless" on maxmins, or better know and just "Joe". He ran a Zombie White dragon flavored Trifecta. I didn't take exact notes for all my battles so the first one I can only sum up. It was a tuff fight, and in our local Meta game, I've never beaten Joe before, so I knew this was a clutch time for me to beat him. Terrain didn't come into play much in this match and neither did assault points. I wasn’t based by his two orc champs until after turn three or four, as they were directed at cleaving my M@A and hill dwarf fodder near my assembly tile.

(A little side bar from the main thread on tactics and the big advantage the LSD can get. I managed to win 3 out of 4 of my games because the other player attacked my LSD/couatl with only 1 or 2 of his big hitters with the plan of brining up the rest in the next turn instead of using all three or four at once. In my final battle, the other player did this on purpose because he was afraid of my paralysis and cold breath weapons. I do understand this worry, but I’m far more afraid of 3 big hitters basing my dragon, such as two champs and an eye, and then having a fairly good chance of doing at least 85 pts of damage and killing it in two turns.)

By turn 4 the champs were coming after my dragon and couatl. On turn 4 my dragon managed to paralyze his eye, and put a “snake swiftness” on the dragon from my couatl. I won the next round with a roll of 17 to his roll of 5 and put a snake swiftness on my dragon again from my couatl to take his eye down to 30pts and then finished it with my main attack. My Couatl had moved after the second snake swiftness was cast and the dragon followed it up to block any path to it. Both turtled in a treasure room on his side of the board that was placed as close as possible to his assembly tile and against the outside of the map so that only one door was open and facing away from his assembly tile. Without much damage on my dragon and with me still getting tile points, there wasn’t much Joe could do. 1-0

Round 2

I met what I thought was my LSD warband’s worst enemy. Beholder/Lord Soth. Lord Soth won init and got his mushroom tile down first in the middle of the board. I put my torture chamber four squares from my side and adjacent to the middle of the board so it was legal for assault. He put a spiked stone cave tile two squares away from my assembly tile with the long edge of the tile against the short edge of the map. I put my treasure room as close as possible to his assembly tile with the short edge of the tile against the long edge of the map. He placed his last tile in the corner of the map on my side. I placed my mushroom tile, my last, between my torture chamber and treasure room.

Have to say…. I didn’t see it coming, I didn’t practice as much as I should’ve, because he place his first mongrel folk on his tile in the corner, and his other mongrel folk on the tile right near my assembly tile. I place my warband hidden from any direct LoS to protect it from Lord Soth’s “Abyssal Blast”, or so I thought. I won init and let him move first, and he did. He moved his closest mongrel toward my assembly tile and tried to target it with Lord S to drop his AB. Unfortunately, he absent mindedly place a skeleton to close to Lord S and couldn’t target his mongrel folk because he has LoS to the closer skeleton. That saved my behind!!! He moved his skeleton away and then my turn. I cast magic weapon onto the dragon from the cleric and cast sonic orb on his mongrel to make sure it was dead. After that, I managed to keep my dragon and couatl out of the way of his beholder’s eyes and away from Lord S for the next 2 turns. I moved my couatl immediately toward his mongrel to killed it on the second round. I copied my move from last game and turtled in the treasure room by the 3rd turn. He decided to move his whole warband around the far side of the map and marched around the torture chamber. This unfortunately didn’t give him any LoS to what remained of my warband for a few turns. Although he had the point lead early on by taking out most of my Man at arms that I had been using to protect my couatl and dragon from any high rolls that he might get while using the beholder, it didn’t last. He wasn’t getting any more tile points starting from the second round on and I closed the gap. The game went on and I ended up with a fourteen-point lead. He finally got three skeletons to reach my assembly tile and started getting tile points again and also started attacking yondalla with two skeletons. This brought me out to kill one of his skeletons if needed so I’d win by 3 pts. The game ended a few turns later with some drama. Lord S started hitting my dragon and I paralyzed his beholder, but neither side lost any more points and I won again. 2-0

Round 3

“Once again to the breach my friends”. Hmmm, once again… another chaotic evil trifecta with a Large Red Dragon flavor. (LRD, 2 Orc Champ, Tiefling filler) I had never met the player in the second round (perhaps someone reading this report and post his name please), but round 3 would be against my main practicing partner Neon Knight. He was adding up his warband with only minutes to go before the tourney started, going back and forth between a greenfang/ dire bear, or a poisoned based band with the yuan-ti/forest trolls/wyvern. He decided on a CE melee band and gave me a major run for my money. I kept away from his main body of his warband, and he did the same. His strategy was to kill as much of my fodder as possible while protecting his, then move onto my assembly tile and turtle. My strategy was to not stick my LSD’s neck out and get it lobbed off by a big retaliation from his main body.

He eventually went after my couatl with one of his champs at the end of the round. This is of course after he charged with a orc warrior and rolled crit for 20pts of damage on my dragon. I won init and responded to his champ with a sonic orb from my couatl and cold breath weapon from my dragon. This wasn’t the most efficient use of my cone of cold but I needed to do as much damage as possible to his isolated champ. He failed his save and then with 30 hit points left, failed his MC and fled 18 squares. (leaving me cursing under my breath that I should’ve use the paralysis). He rallied his orc champ when the tiefling took a few steps back to get it into command, and continued his march toward my assembly tile and cleaned up all the fodder that didn’t get away (leaving one M@A and my cleric left). Turn 5 started and he won init, his wounded champ rejoined his warband within range of my assembly tile. I activated my last two pieces to try to lesson any attacks on my dragon, then on my next turn moved my dragon eighteen squares toward his wounded champ, and follow up with the couatl.

I was based and was hit with a crit for a second time by one of his orc warriors. Then lost init again and got a crit on against my dragon for a third time from one of his orc warriors in turn 6. His dragon went after my couatl and I was charged at and hit by both orc champs. I killed his wounded orc champ and started pounding on all the little flanking orcs. Time was called next round, I was hit again once by his orc champ and once by his red dragon for a grand total of 145pts. Then …………………….. time was called. Wow it doesn’t get any more closer. 3-0

Round 4

“Didn’t we just leave this party” - - Han Solo in “Empire Strikes Back”. Now comes the third run-in with the big CE melee band. (Ryld / Orc Champ / Eye of G / Red Sam / filler). I have to thank the players on vassal for helping me in this skirmish. Practice with guys like Dagni proved to be so important. I wish I knew the name of the guy I played in the final round here ( I suck with names, so please post a reply with your name) but I don’t think I’ll ever have such a heart pounding match again. Maybe it was because we were playing for first in a major tourney, but what a match.

He won init and went right after the tile denial. He placing his torture chamber on his half of the map. With the short hard edge of the tile toward the long edge of the map, four squares up from the long edge of the map and four squares away from the centre, there wasn’t going to be much of a chance for me to get my assault tile points in the first round. I’ve learned the hard way on vassal that the only response to this is to mirror a tile denial attack and that’s what I did, with the torture chamber’s soft edges facing diagonally toward my assembly tile. He then placed broken wall with the short edge two squares away from his first tiles hard edge, and five squares away from the long edge of the board (basically 8 squares from my assembly tile). This put the tile 2 into his side of the board, I’m not sure why he did this. I dropped a mushroom tangle in the middle of the open area that was developing. It was right along the edge on his side with its long edge. Its short edge was 2 squares away from the long edge. He placed his last tile on my side of the board in the corner, and I followed up with my treasure room as close as possible to his assembly tile with the open short edge of the treasure room against the long edge of the map.

The round began with me some how winning init with my cleric’s +3 vs ryld’s +8, so I made him move first. Round one ended with him moving the eye and champ along the short edge of the map on his side so they could see my assembly tile. The rest of his warband basically moved to the centre of the map. With me moving last, I could’ve dropped my dragon on the mushroom tile I placed on his side and stole a early ten points had I setup my dragon as close as possible, but I didn’t think I’d be winning the first two rounds of init to get away with that so it didn’t happen. My warband ended its movement between his treasure room in the corner and my torture chamber. In round two, we moved most of our fodder first and then he charged or just based and attack some of my fodder, the bottom side of the broken wall with his eye and champ. I ended my turn with four fodder, the cleric of yondalla following behind and the couatl between my torture chamber and the edge of the map and my dragon on the mushroom tile for ten points because I felt the eye and champ were to far away to get to my dragon.

In round three the real action began. He finally won init and went right after my couatl with his Red Samurai with his DC 14, 20 pts of fire breath weapon. I think that he didn’t practice enough against LG warbands because he had forgotten the couatl’s resistances. A save of 20pts of damage is only 10, but the couatl gives resist 10, so that reduces the damage to zero for all who save. 2 of my men and the couatl save. Can’t remember what his second activation was, but my turn went couatl moves to make room for the dragon and casts sonic orb for 15 on red sam. ( I needed it to be on the edge of the board where the couatl was to be sure it couldn’t be attacked by either the eye or the champ who were getting closer to the battle at this point. Once the room was created the dragon moved next to the red sam and swung with a crit. ( I think this is some dice going in my favor after last battle). That crit took the red sam down to 30 hitpoints and it needed to make a moral check. My opponent commented during the break before our battle that he’d made save after save versus his third round opponent to win, well that ended here when he rolled a 1 and ran 16 to be one activation away from going off the board (His third round opponent played a 2 X Zombie White D / Minotaur Skeleton / Lich Necro / Filler). The third round ended with his eye and champ getting within basing range of my dragon and Ryld having to take a couple steps back to get the red sam in LoS so he could rally him next turn.

In round four, with him winning init and moving some of his filler to kill some of my filler and I did the same. Now it came down to my dragon. I had the choice of moving my dragon 9 and getting his red sam in a cone of cold breath weapon to kill it before it could come back and make some trouble for me. I’ve had my dragon’s head killed to many times to park it in the middle of the mushroom tile by it self and wasn’t going to do it here. So if the Red Sam rallied, it would have to come back at me sometime and I’d use my breath weapon then. I move my Couatl and LSD back a few squares to avoid getting charged and to stay back ten from his champ. He move his champ up to charge next turn and swung his eye around the back of my torture chamber, based my couatl and hit for 25. He then rolled for his red sam and got a 2. Big break for me because at that stage I think I was behind by a few points.

In round five, with my dragon and couatl still between my torture chamber and the edge of the map. He started his first activation which was the eye by hitting my couatl again, it failed the MC and ran… thank god, then the champ charged my dragon and hit for 30. I started the turn by moving my cleric to put my dragon under command so it could move. I wanted to keep backing away from his big hitters and didn’t want to get based by his eye next turn, giving flank, and perhaps by Ryld would base as well so I took the champs AoO but he missed. The eye was sitting with it’s corner right next to the corner of my torture chamber and the champ was 5 squares away from the eye, so the LSD move between the torture chamber and his treasure room and based the eye. It used it's paralysis cone and got both the eye and champ in the effect. Both made their DC 21 saves. Now it was down to my couatl’s MC, or it was going off the board. SAVES…., I guess the dice wanted everyone to be saved on the 5th round. The round ended with Ryld getting closer to the dragon, a orc warrior attacking my couatl and missing near my assembly tile and that’s about it.

In round 56.. I mean 6, I stole init with a lucky roll and breathed my cone of cold on both the eye and champ. This time they both failed. With two hits on the couatl and now a 35 pt breath weapon, the eye was down to 45 of 90. He succeeded with his MC and my LSD ran 9 again leaving my bewildered cleric of yondalla behind. The dragon landed next to the short soft edge of my torture chamber. His eye got a AoO but once again missed. Although not perfect, thing were going my way. My couatl killed his orc warrior and moved a few squares behind the dragon onto his broken wall tile. His orc champ moved and killed my cleric for 14 pts and his eye went after my dragon and hit, knocking him down to 40 pts and my dragon down to 90.

The final two rounds ended with his champ missing my couatl 3 times, Ryld missing the couatl twice. I dropped a full round attack on his eye to knock him down to 5 hitpoints left with my dragon and his eye’s eye closed for good. I think that if he'd hit the couatl that with points I was still going to win but it would've been close but as it was I ended a very successfull 4-0.

I won 6 boosters and shared one each with my 3 friends. None of us pulled anything amazing, but I did pick up my second skullclan hunter and a ZWD. I spent 20 minutes trying to fill out the Tax form that wizards requires because I won the $250.00 cash. As a canadian, I must say, the IRS can.. well never mind. We had a non eventfull trip back home. And my wife has already planned on how she's going to spend my cash... hmmm, why did I go again??

PS Two wizard Reps were onhand from Seatle and mentioned that LE is dominating now in the "In-House" constructed games. Doesn't sound like the next two sets are giving much power to LG?!?

Florida Qualifier Report by Jesse Dean

2005-05-15T04:07:00.000-05:00

So around the release of Death Knell I started to think in depth about what sort of band I wanted to run for the next Qualifier. I ran a dual Gold Champion band at the Qualifier last year and had gained a solid, but slightly disappointing third place. I ran a Lich Necromancer/dual Orc Champion/Drider/Maws build at Nationals and was quite surprised to make it to the final rounds, and had been playing around with an IM/HEBI/FB variant that kiddoc named Guerilla Warfare since the release of Aberrations. My heart was still with LG though, and both the Couatl and the Skullclan Hunters screamed with potential to me, and I began to mess around with them.

First however, I figured it would be a pretty good idea to find a consistent way to defeat Inspiring Frenzy (since it was widely considered to be the top band at the time) and some discussion on maxminis lead me to ultimately come up with a dual ogre ravager build that I named White Ravaging. It ate up Inspiring Frenzy bands alive but I ultimately discarded it in favor of experimenting around with LG some more. For weeks leading up to the qualifier I refined the band and played it to the T before ultimately realizing that, though it could deal with most one-two hitter and LE bands fairly well it ultimately fell down in the face of triple-hitter CE bands. While they seemed to be out of favor at the time (and really were out of favor at our qualifier) it was still a weakness I couldn’t leave myself open for. Around the same time the Drider was banned and chaos followed. CJ had taken up White Ravaging when I abandoned it and, along with Sam (lalato), had been working on refining it. The banning of the Drider was really surprising to him, but it, combined with my movement back in the direction of CE, allowed us to refine the band further into the form that CJ and I both ended up using at the tournament:

Zombie White Dragon
Ogre Ravager
Orc Champion
Eye of Gruumsh
Tiefling Captain
7 Orc Warriors

This was before the rumblings of how good the Zombie White Dragon could be started to arrive, and we were pretty pleased with our “secret tech.” It was pretty solid against most of the metagame, and we figured we would see plenty of archers and beholders at our tournament, and we wanted to be prepared. We had done extensive testing against other CG bands and had been able to pretty consistently beat Inspiring Frenzy and Goliath combinations and did well enough against the rest of the field to feel that this band had a solid chance of bringing us victory. When the results of the Georgia qualifier started rolling in we were kind of worried. There was the definite potential that someone was going to come up with something to counter this particular build, but we figured that a) it was rock solid enough that we could probably deal with most of those counters and b) it wasn’t nearly enough time for those who were previously unaware of the Zombie White Dragon’s potential to really put together something that could counter it.

So the day of the Qualifier came and my sinuses began acting up. While previously I as content to just let them go (I really need to see a doctor about them) I decided it was too important to ignore it for today and went and picked up some Sudafed. They didn’t have water bottles in less than a gallon size at the store I went to, so CJ (who was driving with me) offered to let me use some of his energy drinks. That was my biggest mistake of the day.

Once we got to the mall, I took my two Sudafed and my energy drink. Fortunately, I wasn’t bothered by my sinuses all day. Unfortunately, during my entire first match-up I ended up shaking like a leaf, had difficulty remembering things and played horribly. On top of that I was failing rolls left and right. While rolling numbers would have been okay on attacks against most CG and CE units it didn’t work out too well with my first match-up which was against…

Round 1:
Urthok
2* Sahaugin Ranger
Bugbear Footpad
Hobgoblin Warrior
3 * Gauth

I had assumed that the time of the multi-gauth bands had ended. Apparently I was wrong as there ended up being more gauths at the tournament then most of the other major competitive pieces.

I did pretty well with tile placement for this match, blocking his ability to get easy tile points and preventing him from getting line of site on my warband during the first turn. but my playskill rapidly went downhill from there. I let him get me bottlenecked in a corridor where he could block with Urthok while still unleashing his full barrage of ray attacks. He killed my Zombie White Dragon fairly early on, and was able to successfully paralyze my eye of gruumsh after a failed attack on Urthok (I hit he just made his morale save). This first paralysis check was very indicative of the entire match, as I ended up failing multiple paralysis and stun checks during every round. Eventually it ended in a route, with the only pieces left being my tiefling captain and my orc warrior.

Score: 0-1

With my defeat during the first round I was convinced there was no way I could qualify now. It seemed pretty hopless, and I felt bad especially considering how much I had been practicing for the tournament, but I eventually convinced myself that I still had a chance. Unfortunately my feelings in that respect were destroyed in round two when I played against…

Warpriest of Hextor
2 Skullcrusher Ogres
2 Kruthik Hatchlings
Mindflayer Telepath
Medium Green Dragon

The pilot was a pretty new player and he made a number of mistakes that I am not going to bother repeating. Suffice to say that the battle ended up being resolved in the big open area, and I was able to defeat his band without losing any major hitter. However, after the game he immediately dropped as he had another event to attend. Between that and my loss in the first round I was convinced that there was no way I was going to make tie-breakers.

Score: 1-1

My third round was against Amanda. Amanda is one of the people who run the Lindquist Education Center in Ocala where we drive up for monthly tournaments. She is a nice young lady, and I was really glad that she and some of the rest of the crew were able to make it down for the tournament despite getting lost multiple times.

She doesn’t get to participate in our tournaments since she is the organizer, and mostly likes to run theme bands on her own. She ended up running:

Champion of Yondalla
2 Skullclan Hunters
2 Halfling Veterans
Lidda, Adventurer
Halfling Wizard
Halfling Ranger

The game went pretty well for me, without any major casualties beyond the zombie white dragon. I was able to put it into a pretty strategic choke point where I could go after her pieces at my leisure and she found it difficult to flank my ZWD.

Score: 2-1

In round 4 I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of until it was too late.

I was playing another of the people from the Lindquist Education Gaming center, a guy named TJ. He was running the Guerilla Warfare band that I had been running since Aberrations and ended up doing pretty well with it, having gone 2-1 up to this point. His band consisted of:

Inspiring Marshal
Frenzied Berserker
Half-Elf Bow Initiate
Crow Shaman
Aramil
2 Greycloak Rangers (+ 2 wolves)
Elf Warrior

Unfortunately, he did not have a Gnome Recruit (and didn’t think to ask his brother for one) so he ended up with 197 points and 11 activations.

This round was the first one I had had to think deeply on since the first round (where I was unable to think.) Unfortunately the events of the later rounds are a bit fresher in my memory, but I as able to eliminate his Frenzied Berserker before he was able to pull off a successful GMA. He was able to route my orc champion off the board, but I ended up surrounding his remaining pieces with my remaining pieces and, between the ogre ravager and the eye of gruumsh I was able to gain victory

Score: 3-1

Round 5 was against the first of the local group that I faced. Except for a few practice sessions in the last few weeks, Greg hadn’t played since last year but had still managed to pull of three straight wins on top of the first round loss he received for showing up late. (The other odd man out received a bye). Looking around, I finally came to the realization that if I won this round I was going to make the finals despite my first round loss. There were only four matches that were competitive and as long as Bill Baldwin (who was at this time undefeated) won and I won, that I would make it to the finals.

This was a tough round, that ultimately got decided based on the fact that Greg made the key mistake of focusing too much of his Frenzied Berserkers attention on my Zombie White Dragon from either side of the piece and then withdrawing the FB on the far side away so it could get healed. I was able to concentrate fire from my orc champion, ogre ravager, and misc. other pieces to a degree that I was able to kill one. He GMAed his other one into a position adjacent to the orc champion and ZWD and did 30 damage to the Orc Champ. He needed to win the next initiative to have a fighting chance, and he failed. The Frenzied Berserker died and he conceded pretty soon after that.

Score: 4-1

Looking over at Bill’s game it looked like he had things well in hand. I was filled with relief. I would be able to make it into the finals and win my invitation to Nationals.

After a brief bathroom break, I learned that the other individuals in the top 4 were all people I played pretty regularly. CJ, whose only loss in the Swiss rounds was to Bill in round 4, had one his fifth round and had also made it into the top 4. Jeff (who was playing almost entirely with my pieces and who I had helped a bit in preparing for the qualifier), who had only lost to CJ and had faced the other LG band in the fifth round, had also made it, and Bill, who I get together with every few weeks to play a few games, had also won his fifth straight round of Swiss.

Based on the rankings, Bill was first, CJ was second, I was third, and Jeff was fourth. I was paired with CJ, and Bill was paired with Jeff.

This is the match-up I was least looking forward to. A mirror match-up is always tough, as you have so few opportunities to use the tricks of your warband against your opponent and it comes down to both luck and making less mistakes than your opponent. Fortunately I succeeded in both of those areas. CJ ended up making two major mistakes. The first was that he sent out his Zombie White Dragon early enough in the second round that he could place it where I could swarm it without him pulling off a real retaliation. His second was that he sent his orc champion into an area separate from his forces such that I could eliminate it without facing retaliation in kind before I had used either my tiefling or my in flanking range Eye of Gruumsh.. I won initiative on the third round and was able to kill the orc champion with the tiefling captain and the Eye. After that it was just a matter of using my superior firepower (and better die rolls) to eliminate his remaining hitters and orcs.

CJ had come into the tournament with the goal of qualifying and he had pulled it off, despite having had to face some pretty tough bands. I was really happy for him, though I was slightly happier that I beat him. ;)

Score: 5-1

This was it, the final round, where I was facing the #2 player in Florida Bill Baldwin. Bill and I have known each other since the qualifier last year and we have done pretty equally in our matches since then, having a pretty consistently even win record. Fortunately (for me), it seems that I tend to win when it matters most. Still, Bill was a great player and I had been expecting him to be my toughest opponent at the Qualifier. I was correct in that expectation.

I only have a spotty picture of the board, as I forgot to take a picture while were playing but got part of it afterwards when I took a picture of Bill and his daughter, Alicia, who was also at the qualifier.

At the beginning of the match, Bill made his first mistake. He won terrain initiative but gave it to me. I imagine that he did this in order to take advantage of lines of sight on my figures with his archers, but this also ensured that I could prevent him from getting a full round of attacks from his archers on my WZD, which testing had taught me was unwise when facing against bands similar to his.

I made up for his mistake by making a few of my own in the first round. I made the mistake of placing my tile grabbing orc warrior in a position where most of his archers could see him after moving. I was thus forced to go first when I won initiative and send my orc warrior over into the (temporary) safety of my torture chamber. I also made a mistake in piece movement and was forced to throw my ogre ravager in front of my zombie white dragon in the hallway between the center treasure chamber and a shrine (unseen in the picture). I paid for this with a hit from his greycloak and an elf warrior at the beginning of the next round.

Round 2 ended up mostly being a fodder exchange as he fell back in the area around the Assembly tile and the center treasure room. I won initiative on the third round and was able to move my ogre ravager up and smite his goliath barbarian. It routed off of the board and I moved my White Zombie Dragon into a position where he would find it difficult to use his GMA to move his troops into positions around my hitters. He waited until I had used up all my activations (he had been pretty effective at using his elf warriors who outflanked me on the other side of the treasure chamber to eliminate some of my elf warriors so he out activated me at this point) and then moves his remaining two Goliaths into position near my orc champion and ogre ravager. I ignored the lure of having my ZWD attack his elf warriors as they moved past and was rewarded with a crit on his goliath barbarian as it moved by. I was also rewarded by him making his second mistake of the game and moving his Inspiring Marshal in range of my Eye of Gruumsh.He was able to crit my ogre ravager and force a morale save and it was destroyed from the attack of opportunity of the other goliath. The other goliath hit my orc champion twice but failed to cause it to route.

The rounds after this unfortunately are a little blurry. I was able to take advantage of his commander’s movement and eliminate it with the Inspiring Marshal and none of his remaining pieces were able to make their morale saves. He was able to make my Eye of Gruumsh route (though it was in part due to illegal movement by the HEBI. He moved three spaces to make the Eye and the WZD into an equal distance which required three spaces. Being out of command he could only legally moved two) but it ended up being not enough. Between the White Zombie Dragon, the Tiefling Captain, and the Orc Champion I was able to eliminate his remaining major pieces and gain victory.

In the end I was able to pull of a solid victory from the jaws of a hopped up on sinus medicine and energy drinks defeat in round one, and win a case, the $250 voucher, and my Gen Con passes. Now hopefully I will be able to be as successful at Gen Con this year as I was last year…

Illinois Qualifier Report by AesophDarkfable

2005-05-14T23:59:00.000-05:00

My Matches
My tiles: Rubble, Scorched Passage, Treasure room, torture chamber
My strategy was of course win init, level in behind ZWD in tight passages if I can, and swing out for the kills. Deathlok nicksles and dimes and takes out fodder

First round vs Jason (Liquidburn)
IM
FBx2
Graycloak x3+wolves
Elf Warrior x4
Gnome Recruit x2

Rubble Assembly
Medusa Chamber
Ancient Temple
Treasure Room

Jason is really good. I place defensively putting scorched passage closer to me giving myself a place to swing out from behind. He puts ancient temple in middle of board, which screws up my hope for tight corridors. This was my first of two fatal mistakes. I win init, not even thinking about his 15, I get over exicted to get going and go first. Not the end of the world, but a mistake none the less. His wolves move to tile points as does my champ.Second round I replece champ with orc warrior for tile points, ZWD gets set up in a good spot, but Jasons LOS skill was top notch and he was able to find spots where his graycloaks couldnt see ZWD and take out legion orc warriors in the long run, 2 in the second round. He GMAs second round, advancing FBs around corner.3rd round- Champ swings, double hits a frenzied after I win init, my notes are a little fuzzy on this part, but I know the FB hits champ twice, he fails save and runs, provoking AoO from other FB and dying. The other Champ hit FB at least once (again notes got fuzzy) I know FB then hit twice and caused Champ to MC, he made it (which I wish he wouldnt of this one as he wouldnt have got an AoO against him). There was some flurry of battle here and it was so exciting my notes got bad at the end (as they tend to do)
but both my Champs end up dead.

4th round. He has his FBs set up so he thinks I cant get Ryld around, but I manage to from another route, Ryld takes out an FB and Deathstrike hits him, it might have not if I had attacked from cover (would have been +13 against 14 ac but I didnt think about it).

5th round- Ryld hits other FB, and on second hit crits and kills. Deathstrike misses!Im up on points now.

6th - Ryld wins init, I hole up for tile points with ZWD in front, but we have about 7 min left so I know if I keep letting ZWD take the shots hell take him out. so I advance ZWD to base some archers. he keeps hitting him. I charge Ryld at IM get the hit for SA dam. he routes, Zombie hits for 10 on AoO (god I wish he had 30 hp I would have won game there). Time is called he gets to finish round and manages to nickle and dime the last 20 HP off of ZWD and wins. The big mistake I should have Rushed Ryld a round earlier and tried for a graycloak.Score was 188-177 me before he killed ZWD- final 214 to 188.Real real close. great game.
Me (0-1)

Second game-Brian (brianr)
LRDx2
Gnoll Sarge

Hall of Heroes
Sun Temple
Assembly 6
Treasure room

I get pretty good tile placement, not perfect but he doesnt have a good shot of getting any tile points.He splits his dragons, I go after the bottomn one. I get tile points every round of 5.2nd round- He gets a nice breat off, kills a deathlok and a warrior, hits Ryld pretty hard (failed by 1)

Rd 3. I miss alot from Champs and Ryld (flanking Dragon) I get 1 hit from 4 swings. Second orc gets two hits. Dragon makes MC.

Rd 4. Champ hits 1 and crits second, dragon dies. He has his other red in now (moved in rd 3) do some damage to second dragonrd

5- he wins init, he neded it, here kill Ryld and hits a champ who routes. Zomb dragon crits Red, and Orc Champ hits twice from flank with Zomb and kills for the win.

216-82(1-1)

John Conner
Same band as first I played basic 15 activation Inspired Frenzy

tiles:Rubble Assem.
Mushroom tangle
Ancient Temple
Treasure room

I get a great set up. Learning from first match I do a center board treasure room long ways, with exit facing down towards me and other facing my side of the board. I get scorched passage below it and to the left (tile points) with the long wall facing the him providing cover. My torture chamber begins in the middle of my treasure room along top edge of map, leaving a 2 passage, hes cant use it as firing from inside the cover there wont hit anything. His only tile points are the mushroom tangle he placed under my treasure room(right of scorched passage) andhis treasure room all the way across the board above my assembly tile.

He never got a tile point, he had a wolf he could have commited at one point, but he made a mistake and he didnt. (My orc would have gone in after him). I clog the corridor between the TR and Scorched passage. Hes on the mushroom tangle so to get tile points they have to kill the ZWD, also the only LOS from the ancient temple goes through him. He uses his GMA second round and then has to move 8 to base and attack. He hits Ryld with one attack, but I swing around a champ to flank, hit for 25, Ryld then hits twice for 40. Orc Warriors get her down to finish the job off in short order.

3rd round I win init and this time go first, take out the FB who deathstrikes Ryld. he makes MC. And then he made his big mistake, he wanted to base ryld to take him out but he cant get his FB over the mushroom tangle to do it, so he double moves and takes two aoos from orc warriors who both hit. Champ swings around to flank again hits for 25 and Ryld doubles up for 40 and kills the FB who deathstrikes and kills Ryld.At this point I clog in behind Zombie, do some odd rushes here or there to take out a stray elf warrior who got to close etc.

Final score 203-70
(2-1)

Fourth matchElliot
LRD
Orc Champ
Ogre Ravager
Drow Seargent
Orc Warriors x8

Assembly 3
Torture chamber
Treasure room
Mushroom tangle

I was growing tired so this one has my crappiest notes by far.we both get first round tile, I decide to go after the dragon instead of wading into the orc horde. We jockey for position, I base his dragon with one champ and get close with the other. I win init, but roll like crap double miss with champ and toss my die across the room. Other one steps up and hits. His dragon takes 3 hits on Champ, hits all for 40 and he fails MC (I trend for champs this game) Ogre Rav takes AoO and kills (he had already been hit once). ZWD takes two AoO from his champ and dragon (both hit puts him at like 60 total damage) this sets up flank. Ryld steps up, crits champ for 35. Dragon goes for ZWD and kills him, this is important as I was going to breath on his 3 orc warriors above me next activation and get 9 points (what I eventually needed to win) I kill his Champ, then my champ hits and then crits dragon for 75. This kills Dragon, here is from memory on out. Warriors nick at Ryld, Ryld takes some out, (3 of which would have died to breath)back and forth. and two big MC checks happen. Ryld is based by two orc warriors, deathlock casts cause fear on orc warrior and warrior rolls nat 20. If he would have failed I would have been able to take one attackwith Ryld and taken out an orc and then moved. But nope so Ryld had to take 2 attacks. He then moves in two orc warriors in their place. AND THE SAME THING HAPPENS He rolls a nat 20 on MC for warrior. Ravager is within reach of him now, I even go as far to roll a 1 and 3 and miss both attacks on Orc warriors (would have put me at 197...) Ravager swings and hits finally (missed the turn before) and kills Ryld for the win

Final score 245-191 (was 191-190 before the Ryld kill)

Good game and this band is mean, I expect to see it alot more this championship series. I dont know if I should have moved Ryld and taken the two AoOs from the Orc warrior, they only had 25% chance to hit, in hindsight I should have done it this way as it was better than the 50% and then 25% chance hit from the Rav, if I could have done that, the 10 tile from next turn would have won it for me. In the long run I think Ive lost a handful of games by not taking an AoO chance when I should have out of fear.

Great time overall. Might go to chicago and try again in July pending funds, or might try the Gencon friday qualifier...

Single Figure Spotlight: Evermeet Wizard

2005-05-14T01:05:00.000-05:00

Evermeet Wizard
#15/60; Archfiends; Uncommon; CG; 39 points
LVL 5; SPD 7; AC 13; HP 20
Melee Attack: +7 (10 electricity)
Ranged Attack: -
Type: Humanoid (Elf)
Spells: 1st-benign transposition [][] (range 6; two allies switch positions), mage armor [] (self; +4 AC) ; 2nd-Melf's acid arrow [][][] (sight; 10 acid damage, ignore Spell Resistance); 3rd-summon monster 3 [][] (Animals or Elementals with total cost 15 or less)

The Evermeet Wizard is an interesting figure. It was the first figure to ever possess a Transposition spell. We all know the power of transposition due to the reign of the Drider Sorcerer but how come the Evermeet Wizard never garnered the same hype? Lets take a look at the pros and cons of the wizard when compared to its closest relative: Drider Sorcerer.

Spells
The Evermeet Wizard has an excellent spell line up. While being a sorcerer is more powerful in the skirmish game, a wizard with the right spell selection can be just as powerful if not more so.

Benign Transposition
Transposition is a powerful effect. It allows you to save endangered figures or pull a fodder unit off of the front line and replace it with a heavy hitter that now does not have to sacrifice it's full attack by moving. This version of Transposition is different then the version that appeared on the Drider Sorcerer. Benign Transposition only allows you to target your allies while Baleful Transposition can be used on enemy units with a DC 14 save. While Baleful Transposition is the better spell on paper due to the fact that you can move enemy units around, this rarely comes into play because the DC of the spell is so low. Only fodder units stand a chance of failing this save consistently and you would almost always want to move your opponent's key figures into unfavorable positions anyway, thus garnering you a low success rate, and a wasted activation if your attemp fails. So both Benign and Baleful Transposition are used in the same manner in all but the most abnormal situations.

This is where being a wizard and not a sorcerer hurts the Evermeet Wizard. With only two uses of this spell you have to be more conservative with the spell's applications. Whereas the Drider Sorcerer has three base uses of it's transposition spell and it can choose to drop any of its three third level spell slots for more uses of this powerful spell.

Mage Armor
This is the least useful spell (and the only spell that is basically useless) on the Evermeet Wizard. Raising the wizard's AC to seventeen from thirteen will not save it from any of the competitive figures in the metagame. Even Orc Warriors, Elf Warriors, and other fodder units have an OK shot at landing their attacks.

Melf's Acid Arrow
Melf's Acid Arrow is a great spell. A 10 damage spell from a rarely resisted energy type that ignores spell resistance and AC and has a range of sight. It's three uses have surprised several of my opponents much to my delight: "She's got THREE acid arrows?!" The three uses of this spell make the Evermeet wizard a decent offensive threat. Anything that gets within 30 HP of a morale save or death seriously needs to consider the wizard's position and ways to counter it.

It is arguable if Melf's Acid Arrow is better or worse then the Lightning Bolt the Drider Sorcerer possesses. Both have three possible uses of their respective direct damage spell but the Drider can pull off 20 damage hits if it's target fails the DC 14 save. Not a hard save to make but it hurts when you do fail it. Also, Lightning bolt has a line area of effect, allowing you to hit any figure within the twelve square long line and possibly wracking up lots of damage spread over several figures. Playing against a skilled opponent you won't usually hit more then two or three of your opponent's units. Both spells are 10 guaranteed damage per use.

The lightning bolt does not ignore spell resistance which could also be a factor in its usefulness. Spell Resistance All shuts it down completely and normal Spell Resistance offers a 50/50 shot of success.

Summon Monster 3
Summoning in general became worse when they ruled that summons and minions would now count for victory points when killed. It was a necessary change but as a draw back all figures that had the summons accounted for in their price were now overcosted.

This spell offers several choices on what to summon. Three Wolves, one Hyena plus one Medium Fire Elemental, and several other combinations of animals and elementals exist. Summon spells only get better with time as more figures of the spells specification are made. Generally I go with the one Hyena plus one Medium Fire Elemental (MFE for short). The MFE is a well rounded figure:

Medium Fire Elemental
#54/60; Archfiends; Uncommon; CE; 11 points
LVL 4; SPD 10; AC 17; HP 25
Melee Attack: +6 (5 + 5 fire)
Ranged Attack: -
Type: Elemental
Special Abilities: Difficult 4. Requires Commander. Immune Fire; Mobility (+4 AC against attacks of opportunity); Vulnerable Cold

This figure can clean up opposing fodder units, use its speed twenty (on a double move) to grab a tile, or land a 10 damage it with its decent for cost +6 attack bonus. If you want to utilize its high speed you will need a commander with a rating of 4 or higher though. It is also good for stopping fire based ranged attacks.

The problem with the Evermeet Wizard's summon spells is not the spells themselves but the Evermeet Wizard's survivability. Do not summon against opponents who possess figures that can use high speeds to get to the EW or figures that can fly right over your front line troops and plop down right next to it. If the EW goes down, all of the figures it summoned go with it, netting your opponent a possible 69 points depending on whether you used all of your summon spells or not. With a paltry AC of thirteen (or seventeen if you had a turn to waste on the mage armor spell) and HP of only 20, it is very easy to take down the EW. Especially since so many figures in the current competitive metagame can hit for twenty or more damage. Beware even orc warriors and other fodder units as a hit for ten damage will result in a morale save.

This is another area where the EW and DS (Drider Sorcerer) are very different. The EW can bring in fodder units for utility and the DS can cast blur on its allies, granting them conceal 6. Each of these spells have different applications and don't compare well to each other as both are useful at different times.

survivability
As I mentioned above, the EW has trouble staying alive. The Drider Sorcerer on the other hand has a base AC of 17 (the EW can have this but must spend a turn casting mage armor), innate conceal 6 (the EW does not posses this or any other ability that allows it to evade damage), and 45 HP (over twice the HP of the EW). While not as beefy as a tank or heavy hitter, the DS has high survivability for a caster. Higher then many other caster figures out there currently.

Cost
The EW costs 39 points. That's a lot of points to spend on a unit that has the potential to grant your opponent 69 points while having a feeble HP of 20. The Drider Sorcerer is generally more useful, more durable, available for a cheaper investment, and gives your opponent only the points you paid for it if it dies.

Synergy
Another major factor for the reduced use of the EW is synergy within its own faction. Up until Aberrations, there were not many good figures that could stand on the front line and duke it out with the big boys of CE or pepper them with strong ranged attacks from the back lines. The Frenzied Berserker, Half Elf Bow Initiate, and Elf Warrior opened up some doors for the use of the Evermeet Wizard. The speed six elf warriors could get out front and serve as prime transposition targets while the Frenzied Berserker and Half Elf Bow Initiate could be swapped into prime positions to unload their powerful attacks. The EW goes very well with the Half Elf Bow Initiate (HEBI) because if your opponent manages to *base the HEBI, you can use a transposition to bail it out of trouble so it can use its powerful ranged attacks. Even now, though these new options exist, the survivability of the EW is the number one issue with its use. Its just too vulnerable and costly currently to provide a Tier One threat in the current metagame.

The Drider Sorcerer had Orc Warriors, Orc Champions, Red Samurai, and other healthy ground pounders to synergize with since its release in Giants of Legend.

Conclusion
The goal of this article was to point out the strengths and weakness of the Evermeet Wizard and through comparison, bring some light as to why it was not/is not used as widely as the Drider Sorcerer even though it is a very similar figure. As a side effect, I have discussed many of the reasons that surely were considered when they decided to ban the Drider Sorcerer from sanctioned play, though their primary reasons were that it slowed down game play and it did not fit the flavor of the CE faction.

*To "base" a figure means to engage in base to base contact with another figure.

Single Figure Spotlight: Zombie White Dragon

2005-05-13T02:37:00.000-05:00

Zombie White Dragon
#60/60; CE; Deathknell; Rare; 37 pts
Lvl 10; Spd F6; AC 15; HP 130
Melee Attack: +18 (10 magic)
Type: Large Undead
Special Abilities: - Breath Weapon [] (cone, 10 cold dmg, DC 14)- Flight- Slow attack- Immune Cold

When I first saw the stats of the Zombie White Dragon I knew it was going to make an impact on the metagame. With Half Elf Bow Initiates still looming in the shadows waiting to make a comeback and the emergence of Greycloak Rangers as a true metagame force, CE players were presented with a solid counter to ranged intensive warbands.

Not only does it counter established power figures but it also hampers a large amount of Tier 2 (and lower) warbands. Beholders, Gauth, and Archers/Spellcasters of all shapes and sizes have the daunting task of eliminating the ZWD's 130 HP before its speedy companions can zip past it and base key figures.

The real question with the ZWD was how would CE players fit it into their warband? What figure could you afford to cut that wouldn't reduce the effectiveness of the warband as a whole? Well CE players had that choice made for them. The Drider Sorcerer was banned from sanctioned play shortly after the release of Deathknell. That freed up 30 points and demanded a retooling of competitive CE warbands across the board.

It is arguable that the Drider Sorcerer was already on its way out primarily due to the emergence of Inspired Frenzy builds employing several Greycloak Rangers that in turn greatly reduced the effectiveness of the Drider's transposition spells by taking away the arachnid arcanist's fodder targets. Drider builds were undergoing changes to adapt to Chaotic Good's newfound power and those changes weren't discussed very much do to the approach of the National Qualifiers. But that's another story for another time.

Now that the Drider Sorcerer was gone, people scrambled to retool their warbands or remake them all together in the case of the people who were playing multi Drider warbands. The obvious support choice to replace the drider was the Orc Druid, who has been quietly sitting in the corner wringing his thick fingered hands and cursing the power of the Drider. Sorry Mr. Druid, not yet! For those who saw the potential of the ZWD the timing couldn't have been more perfect. Greycloak Rangers and Half Elf Bow Initiates emerge as threats with the release of aberrations, Deathknell is released, they ban the Drider Sorcerer, and the ZWD steps up to the plate. And swing the ZWD did.

The Georgia Qualifier was very important as it would set the trend for the national metagame. Sure enough, CE was able to adapt and employ the ZWD to much success, taking 1st and 2nd on May 8th. They overcame several CG bands that employed Greycloak Rangers and/or Half Elf Bow Initiates.

1st Place: Mark Liberman
1 Eye of Gruumsh
1 Red Samurai
1 Orc Champion
1 Zombie White Dragon
1 Tiefling Captain
6 Orc Warrior

2nd Place: Shaunon Drake
1 Eye of Gruumsh
1 Ogre Ravager
1 Orc Champion
1 Zombie White Dragon
1 Orc Sergeant
6 Orc Warrior

The tactic employed when using the ZWD is to send it out front and hopefully plug up the only means of getting to the rest of your warband in a timely manner. The ZWD moves forward, "carrying" the other members of its squad much like an armored transport and soaks up the dangerous hail of arrows and spells that come your way. When you get near the center of the map your speed 8+ guys can rush out and base prime targets.

It will be interesting to see how the players in Colorado, Florida, Utah, Illinois, and Washington adapt to this new incarnation of CE this Saturday. Good luck people!

Stalling for Time (Intentional or Not)

2005-05-12T09:58:00.000-05:00

This writing first appeared on the WotC minis forum, Posted by Michael Derry. Here is a link to the thread where this article is being discussed: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=427231&page=1&pp=30

Caveat: This is my attempt to illuminate what I see as a small but important issue facing the DDM community. Please excuse if my tone is harsh, my goal is to improve the experience we all have.

Situation:
you and I are top players in the DDM scene, we both sit down for a game gating our entry into the top 4, at a qualifier or at the nationals. Based on prior experience with reasonable play speeds, you have constructed your band to achieve a points advantage in 4-5 rounds (2-3 engagement rounds.)

When we see each other's warband, your confidence grows due to your experience telling you my band is unsuited to meeting the challenges your band has. Your confidence is based on playing the same two bands against each other and seeing others play them, with similar results each time, where I loose on points after 4-7 or so turns (3+ turns of engagement.)

This game is different though. You have never played me and I seem very slow. We take a long time to set up the terrain and we roll the first turn initiative roll at the 15:00 minute mark. One the first turn I spend a lot of time writing down both our warbands and talking a lot. I may even seem like a nice guy and/or have interesting stuff to say. Turn one ends uneventfully at the 40:00 minute mark. At this point you realize the trouble you are in. We both have 10 tile points for assault, but my dragon with a breath weapon is poised to breath on your fodder and I have another creature ready to get turn 2 tile points, but who will be pretty far from your band.

On turn 2, toward the end, my dragon breaths on your now scattered chumps and gets 11 points. Score 31-20. Time 58:00. I am very sporting and "give" you another turn to make up the difference in points, by not stalling 2 more minutes. Because this is just a game, because you are not a jerk, or because of some other excuse, you accept the situation and we go to turn 3.

On turn 3, all my creatures are really too far from yours for you to score any real points (even with Grant Move Action), or maybe my dragon can block the make access path, or maybe in an attempt at futile revenge you go for my dragon, hoping for crits that will never occur.

End result, I win the match with 10 or so points more than you. There are no draws, so I have a solid win, and I advance. You bemoan how the tournament environment is not mature and/or how this game sucks.

Your band, like every other competitive band, is structured to win in the 2-3 turns minimum of engagement. Mine is structured to win with only one turn (maybe two turns) of engagement. Unless something happens, any replays of this battle would be the same and we will both have dull and unsatisfying games, but I will win most every time.

Solutions:
At the first hint of slow play, tell your opponent that they need to play faster, and that you will call the judge over shortly to "help" on the time. If terrain setup and the first turn go beyond 25:00 minutes, call a judge over (and possibly earlier.) Explain to the judge that your game is taking a really long time and you want the first caution to be issued immediately. At this point try to be brisk with your turns and let the judge see the large diffential in time you move creatures and the time it takes your opponent.

At the end of turn 2, if the play is slow, have the judge come over during the turn and issue the second caution by the end of turn 2. If you do not get to turn 3, have the warning issued to the slow player, menaing you win the match. If you cannot get to turn 4, make sure the judge has observed you have less than 15:00 minutes of the total match time to play, compared to your opponent's 30:00 minutes or more. If you have had the judge see this, then because they have already cautioned twice, they can just issue a warning and give you the win.

According to the DCI rules, your match can be lengthened by 3:00 minutes for each caution. I am a DCI judge for DDM, and I have never seen that happen.

Conclusion:
You make feel like a jerk getting cheap warnings issued to pressure your opponent, especially when he is a nice guy and is it is absolutely unintentional. If you think like this, you are part of the problem and are helping destroy the game. The DCI rules are mature and can handle thissituation.

I was part of the problem before I read the DCI rules as a DCI judge. I was a jerk, but only because I let our game get damaged. When neither player has a fulfilling and interesting game (for example when under 5 attack rolls are made and a few saving throws for the entire match), we are all poorer.

Just don't take it to the extreme:

(B) A player repeatedly and inappropriately demands to a judge that her opponent receive a penalty.

Get out there and have fun. As a judge, only a couple players have ever had or been close to needing judge intervention. As a player, slow play impacted only a couple of my games ever. I realize that I too am fault for not fixing those games, and not all the blame is with the slow player.

Pertinent Rules:

DCI™ Universal Tournament Rules
Effective June 20, 2004

13. Player Responsibilities
Players are expected to behave in a respectful and sporting manner at alltimes.

Players who argue with or fail to follow the instructions of the head judgeor other tournament officials are subject to the appropriate provisions ofthe DCI Penalty Guidelines.

Players are not permitted to waive penalties on behalf of their opponents.The judge must ensure that appropriate penalties, if any, are imposed.

28. Taking Notes
Players are expected to take their notes in a timely fashion. Players whotake too much time will be subject to the appropriate provisions of the DCIPenalty Guidelines.

43. Slow PlayPlayers must take their turns in a timely fashion regardless of thecomplexity of the play situation. Playing too slowly or stalling for time isnot acceptable. If a judge determines that a player is playing excessivelyslowly at any point during the tournament, the responsible player will besubject to the appropriate provisions of the DCI Penalty Guidelines.

DCI™ Penalty Guidelines
Effective January 20, 20051

40. Slow Play
This section includes penalties for players who unintentionally play slowly.

141. Slow Play—Playing Slowly

Definition
Players who take longer than is reasonably required to complete game actionsare engaging in slow play. If a judge believes a player is intentionallyplaying slowly to take advantage of a time limit, that player is guilty ofCheating—Stalling (section 162).

151. Unsporting Conduct—Minor
Definition
Minor unsporting conduct is defined as behavior that may be disruptive to aperson at the tournament, but has no significant impact on the operation ofthe tournament in any way.

(B) A player repeatedly and inappropriately demands to a judge that heropponent receive a penalty.

162. Cheating—Stalling

Definition
A player intentionally plays slowly in order to take advantage of the timelimit. Refer to section 161 for unintentional slow play.

Example
(A) A player has two lands in his hand, no options available tosignificantly affect the game, and spends several minutes "thinking" aboutwhat to do.

Philosophy
If it is clear that a player is stalling, he or she should face a serious penalty.

Penalty
Cheating—Stalling

All Levels
Disqualification without prize

Example

(A) A player is unsure of which creatures to block with and spends anunreasonable amount of time trying to decide.

(B) A player takes an unreasonable amount of time choosing how to divide thepiles when resolving Fact or Fiction.

(C) A player spends time writing down the contents of an opponent's deckwhen resolving Haunting Echoes.

Philosophy
Slow-play penalties do not require a judge to determine whether a player isintentionally stalling. All players have the responsibility to play quicklyenough so that their opponents are not at a significant disadvantage becauseof the time limit.

Penalty
A three-minute time extension is included with this penalty. If slow playhas significantly affected the result of the match, the judge should upgradethe penalty as appropriate.

Slow Play—Playing Slowly
REL 1 REL 2 REL 3 REL 4 REL 5
CautionCaution Warning Warning Warning

Complete Georgia Qualifier Warband listing by Bill Steinen aka Mister Unfortunate

2005-05-11T00:37:00.000-05:00

Here we go, folks - the long awaited report on the Carrollton, GA qualifier. I meant to get this up earlier, but I got ambushed with work stuff almost as soon as I got home Monday and my internet was out all night last night. Anyway, I'll post the warbands and a few comments about my personal matches; I'm sure other folks who play will chime in. These are all taken from the army registration sheets we used, so if I misspell your name please forgive me and let me know so I can fix it; some of you (you know who you are) have...difficult...handwriting. And I made up names for the warbands that didn't have one attached; again, let me know if you want it changed.

1st Place - MarkDragon's Zombie White Trifecta
Tiefling Captain (21 pts)
Orc Champion (37 pts)
Red Samurai (40 pts)
Eye of Gruumsh (44 pts)
Zombie White Dragon (37 pts)
Orc Warrior x5 (15 pts)

199 pts total
Rubble Assembly, Treasure Room, Torture Chamber, Statue Room

2nd Place - Squid's The Horde
Eye of Gruumsh (44 pts)
Orc Sergeant (24 pts)
Orc Champion (39 pts)
Ogre Ravager (38 pts)
Zombie White Dragon (37 pts)
Orc Warrior x6 (18 pts)

200 pts total
Rubble Assembly, Torture Chamber, Treasure Room, Corridor

3rd Place - Kyle ???'s Inspired Frenzy
Inspiring Marshal (29 pts)
Catfolk x2 (10 pts)
Frenzied Berserker x2 (104 pts)
Crow Shaman (26 pts)
Greycloak Ranger x2 (30 pts)
Wolf x2 (minions)

199 pts total
Assembly Tile 6, Blood Rock Cave, Scorched Passage, Ancint Temple

4th Place - Drashal's Renegade All-Stars!
Renegade Warlock x4 (120 pts)
Ryld Argith (55 pts)
Elf Archer (10 pts)
Greycloak Ranger (15 pts)
Wolf (minion)

200 pts total
Assembly Tile 3, Creeping Tangle, Mushroom Tangle, Ancient Temple

Unfortunately I don't have the finish order for the other warbands, so I'll post them in the order they're stacked in. I can tell you that I finished an appropriately Unfortunate 12th place

Neil Vines - Suicide Bomb (named by me)
Dark Traveller (43 pts)
Frenzied Berserker x3 (156 pts)

199 pts total
Assembly Tile 4, Mushroom Tangle, Hall of Heroes, Torture Chamber

Kraig Logan - Inspired Frenzy
Inspiring Marshal (29 pts)
Frenzied Berserker x2 (104 pts)
Greycloak Ranger x2 (30 pts)
Timber Wolf x2 (minions)
Elf Warrior x2 (8 pts)
Gnome Recruit (3 pts)
Crow Shaman (26 pts)

200 pts total
Rubble Assembly Tile, Treasure Room, Mushroom Tangle, Torture Chamber

Kevin ??? - Berserker's Dog Pack (named by me)
Inspiring Marshal (29 pts)
Frenzied Berserker (52 pts)
Half-Elf Bow Initiate (43 pts)
Gnome Recruit (3 pts)
Crow Shaman (26 pts)
Elf Warrior x2 (8 pts)
Evermeet Wizard (39 pts)
Timber Wolf x4 (summoned)

200 pts total
Rubble Assembly Tile, Burial Chamber, Medusa Chamber, Mushroom Tangle

Devin ??? - Greenfang Horde (named by me)
Greenfang Druid (50 pts)
Dire Bear x2 (88 pts)
Elf Warrior x2 (8 pts)
Greycloak Ranger (15 pts)
Evermeet Wizard (39 pts)
Timber Wolf x 7 (1 minion, 6 summons)

200 pts total
Assembly Tile 6, Aftermath, Scorched Passage, Torture Chamber

Wayne Rogers (sp??) - Burning Trifecta (named by me)
Flind Captain (53 pts)
Red Samurai x2 (80 pts)
Minotaur Skeleton (16 pts)
Yuan-ti Halfblood (28 pts)
Orc Savage x3 (21 pts)

198 pts total
Assembly Tile ??, Aftermath, Medusa Chamber, Spike Stones Cave

Clay Marlow (sp) - Greenfang and Greycloak (named by me)
Greenfang Druid (50 pts)
Dire Bear x2 (88 pts)
Greycloak Ranger x4 (60 pts)
Timber Wolf x4 (minion)

198 pts total
Assembly Tile 4, Mushroom Tangle, Hall of Heroes, Ancient Temple

Thomas Lucas - Skullcrushers
Urthok the Vicious (34 pts)
Large Blue Dragon (68 pts)
Skullcrusher Ogre x3 (93 pts)
Dekanter Goblin (5 pts)

200 pts total
Assembly Tile 4, Abattoir, Scorched Passage, Torture Chamber

Benjaman Burnside (sp??) - LSD
Cleric of Order (24 pts)
Large Silver Dragon (122 pts)
Couatl (42 pts)
Mialee, Elf Wizard (6 pts)
Man-At-Arms x2 (6 pts)

200 pts total
Assembly Tile 1, Aftermath, Tresure Room, Corridor

Dan Rainey (sp??) - Inspired Frenzy
Inspiring Marshal (29 pts)
Frenzied Berserker (104 pts)
Crow Shaman (26 pts)
Nebin (18 pts)
Greycloak Ranger (15 pts)
Wolf (minion)
Elf Warrior x2 (8 pts)

200 pts total
Assembly Tile 6, Blood Rock Cave, Abattoir, Shrine

Bill Steinen (that's me) - Drizzt Sucks (renamed after the tournament...)
Drizzt, Drow Ranger (87 pts)
Rask, Half-Orc Chainfighter (54 pts)
Aramil, Adventurer (13 pts)
Greycloak Ranger x2 (30 pts)
Catfolk (5 pts)
Elf Warrior x3 (12 pts)
Wolf x2 (minions)

Some observations:
Seven of fourteen warbands used Greycloak Rangers.
Only two of the fourteen warbands were Lawful.
Torture Chamber, Treasure Room and Mushroom Tangle are very popular.
Drizzt sucks.

Georgia Qualifier Report by Mark Liberman aka MarkDragon

2005-05-09T21:37:00.000-05:00

Here is my report on the qualifier in Carrollton on Sunday the 8th. I have decided to break it up into three parts: Warband building, Fight Commentary and Miscellaneous notes. So people can skip to the part they are interested in (or ignore completely these ramblings.) As I mentioned elsewhere a complete list of all the bands will (should be) posted by Mr Unfortunate. This is quest the tournament from my point of view.

Warband building (just my perspective)Originally when Deathknell came out I was interested in doing a Couatl with Large Silver Dragon band. So I hunted around and finally was able to trade for a Couatl. But it suffered from a lack of activations and how fragile the LSD is compared to two Frenzied Berserkers or three Chaotic Evil beatsticks. So I decided to go with ‘my version’ of Trifecta. Well I was messy around with various combinations when the Drider was banned. Then I saw the Zombie White Dragon (Ice) and really liked what it could do. It was a moveable wall I could advance behind, a flying unit to base commanders, archers and spell casters and a breath weapon to clear clutter.

Using the Eye of Gruumsh as a commander means I needed a secondary commander. I could have gone with either the Tiefling Captain and 11 activations or Drow Sergeant plus an extra Orc Warrior for 12 activations. I went with the Tiefling to get the extra +2 on command rating since I would still have at least one unit able to do a 6th sequence activation. The next decision was a Red Samurai (Fire) vs. an Ogre Ravager with an Orc Warrior. The Ogre Ravager would be more effective vs. Inspired Frenzy (which I figured as the top band out there). But the Red Samurai gave me more tactical options (smaller, faster and the 20pt breath weapon (enough to force Timber Wolves to roll morale). Last but very important was tiles. I went with three that would give me the best cover and hallways. The position I was trying for was an open courtyard in the middle with a hallway leading to it that the ZWD would fit in. Then the rest of my band would sit behind it until engaged. Ideally I would then wait on activation control to spring out from behind the ZWD to kill a key target. So here is the band I played:

Fire and Ice Trifecta
Tiefling Captain
Eye of Gruumsh
Red Samurai
Orc Champion
Zombie White Dragon
Orc Warriors x6
Rubble Assembly, Torture Chamber, Treasure Room, Statue Room

Fight Commentary
The actual warbands and tiles used by others should be appearing in another post, here is just a brief report of each fight I had. Overrall I was expecting much shorter matches just lasting four rounds before time would run out. But everyone knew their warbands and played quickly so that the games I had went to 6+ rounds before warband disintegrations were complete. That was the point in my matches where I would destroy enough of the enemy warband (including their commanders) so that I could sit on an assault tile out of view and let the assault points accumulate to the victory total.

My first match was against the Large Blue Dragon and three Skullcrusher Ogres warband. The four large pieces got into each others way plus the low activations allow me to concentrate on one ogre at a time to defeat them. 1-0

My second match was against an Inspired Frenzy band with a player (psychotic_marine) who had not seen what the ZWD could do. He eventually finished 3rd overall. I was able to get the ZWD into the entrance to a hallway when both of his FB could beat on it after a Grant Move Action. After one FB did sixty he realized the danger of killing the ZWD as I had my whole warband parked behind it waiting to step up on the corpse of the ZWD and strike. I still had gaps where I would run out OWs to take their shots hitting for 15. Plus getting a crit for 25 put the hurt on one of his FB. In the mean time he archers in the background would kill the OW opening the spot for the next wave to come up and take there swings. By the time the ZWD was actually killed one of his FB was nearly dead. I then used activation control to wait till the end to send in the heavies to finish it off, take a death strike and set up for the next FB next turn. And with my 3 beatsticks still up I was able to finish his last FB off. 2-0

The third match was against a mostly mirror band of mine, played by Squid, except for the Ogre Ravager over the Red Samurai. See below for the details of how this band came to exist. At the start of turn 2 and 3 he needed to get initiative to block my Red Samurai from killing most of his OWs. He got it both times and got his ZWD into the ideal blocking hallway position. I then put my ZWD too far forward allowing him to kill it first. Then I was too timid to engage directly and I let the advantage swing to him. He rolled through my ranks and finished me off. 2-1The fourth match was with the Dire Bears and Greenfang Druid combo. I am not so hot on the Dire Bears because they do not do that much damage a hit. In this fight I got a nice long hallway for him to funnel down with his bears. I ignored the bears as they went to flank me and instead used both breath weapons to clear the Timber Wolves that were summoned so I could get two of my beatsticks on his Druid. The key was activation control to allow him to commit his Bears. Once the Druid was down it was just mop up and avoiding line of sight from the Bears. 3-1

At the conclusion of the first 4 rounds I was 2nd overall with the other Trifecta band in first. The Inspire Frenzy I had played earlier was in 3rd so the first round matchs were to be all rematches for me.

This time my opponent (psychotic_marine) had the experience of what the ZWD was going to do and how my warband was going to work. The big advantage for me this time was after getting into the blocking hallway position (with my warband behind the ZWD) I was able to win initiative and had more activations. I twice had a shot to throw the Red Samurai to breathe on his commander (maybe forcing a morale check) or throwing a beatstick to base his commander hoping to win initiative on the following turn. I decided to pass on both chances and let him come to me. He then made the mistake that turned the match. He split his FB. He moved one and then on the next activation he moved the other with his commander to the other side of the fighting square. I then moved the Red Samurai up to breath on the two of them and then ran the Orc Champion by his FB to kill his Inspiring Marshal. With him out of command I fed OWs to his other FB to give me time to kill his damage FB. I then proceeded to mop up the rest of his band while sacrificing OWs.

The finals were then a rematch of me vs. the other Trifecta (Squid). This match went mostly my way. I set up much further on my side of the board, this put his Ogre Ravager well behind the fight. In fact I do not think the Ravager swung at anything the whole fight except an OW or two. I then sat back while he moved his ZWD into the blocking corridor position followed by moving his Orc Champion up near it, but around a corner. I then flew my ZWD behind his cutting his forces in half. This time I was aggressive and quickly moved the Orc Champion and Eye of Gruumsh up to beat on his ZWD. I kept the Red Samurai lurking on the flank to stop him from concentrating his OWs and to bluff his Ogre Ravager. He then moved his Eye up and with his Orc Champion started to beat on my ZWD. But I had the first swings in so I was able to kill his before he could finish mine off. Then I won initiative and advanced full (Champ and Gruumsh) on his Eye of Grummush and force a morale check on it. It failed and then things started to fall apart for him. I send the Red Samuari around the other flank (using its speed to go from one side to full other side in one move) and take a swing at his Orc Sergeant. I hit and force the morale check which it also failed. Next turn they both failed to rally and ran off the board. I then pulled into cover to accumulate assault points. He was able to close but with all three of my beatsticks up I was able to kill the champion when it approached. I never really used the Red Samurai’s breath weapon during the heart of the match instead I used it as a threat to keep him spread out.

Miscellaneous Notes
When I decided to play the ZWD I did not actually have one. I practiced with a substitute while I checked an ever widening group of friends to see if anyone had one for trade/to borrow. Monday night before the qualifier Sunday I finally decided to get one on Ebay and hope it showed up. Finally on Friday it did right before I went to meet a group of players at a local store (Squid’s group of friends). And of course one of them had an extra ZWD for trade (which I got). The one match I played that night was with Squid who was practicing his Dual Dire Bear/Greenfang Druid for Sunday. I mauled them pretty bad with my band. So he went back and changed up to the Trifecta band which gave me so much trouble during the tournament. Morale of the story, maybe, is to not show your real band right before a tournament?

Commanding Big Red

2005-02-15T20:23:00.000-06:00

By: Douglas Lee

I'm going to be writing a series of articles on dual LRD builds. Why? Because Dual LRDs are my favorite type of band, and I wanted to try my hand at writing articles, so I figured I would give this a shot. As a bonus I hope that LRD will have a larger showing at events. Now that this little intro is out of the way, on to the article!

Dual LRD builds don't leave a lot of room outside of the LRDs themselves for commanders and filler. However, even with only 34 points to work with, Chaotic Evil still has many commanders that can fit into the band. The best ones that will fit with a pair of LRDs are the Drow Wizard, Gnoll Sergeant, Tiefling Captain, Drow Sergeant, and Cleric of Gruumsh. I'll give my opinion on each.

Drow Wizard; CE; Commander 2; 29 points
LVL: 4 SPD: 6 AC:13 HP:20
Melee Attack: +1 (5)
Type: Humanoid (Elf)
Commander Effect: +5 damage when making AoO.
SA: Conceal 6; Spell Resistance
Spells: Magic missile []; Magic Weapon [][]; Snilloc's Snowball Swarm [][][]

This is the commander I feel is the best fit for a pair of LRDs. She has a Magic Weapon to put on each dragon, and that removes what I consider the largest weakness of the LRD. In addition to changing their damage to magic, the Magic Weapon increases their somewhat low attack bonuses. While this may not be all that major of an increase, and the increase may not matter against frenzied Berserker or Trifecta like CE builds, it does slightly help in the LSD match up. Also, the Wizard brings four range sight damage dealing spells to the table. These spells are quite effective at clearing out tile grabbing fodder or, in the case of the Snowball Swarm, simply killing multiple fodder units to even up the activation field. The only disadvantage to the Wizard is that her commander effect is rarely going to come into play. Usually you will want to keep the fragile Wizard back away from combat, so most of the time she won't be lending her commander effect to the LRDs. The remaining 5 points is perfect for either an Abyssal Maw or a Gnoll Skeleton.

Gnoll Sergeant; CE; Commander 2; 33 points
LVL: 5 SPD: 7 AC: 18 HP: 50
Melee Attack: +9 (15 magic)
Type: Humanoid (Gnoll)
Commander Effect: Followers gain +5 damage against wounded creatures.
SA: Hyenamaster 9

With 5 more AC and more then twice the HP the Gnoll is much more durable then the Wizard. However, I still feel that he isn't durable enough to be a lone commander when he need to be as close to combat as he does. A single successful attack from a CE heavy hitter or from a Frenzied Berserker causes a moral save for the Gnoll, and since he needs to be within 6 squares in order for the LRDs to cancel out DR, your opponent will have a much easier time to get at him to assassinate him. If you opponent is able to take out the Gnoll he gets to take away your counter to DR. This isn't true if you run the Wizard. Another drawback of the Gnoll is that you are stuck at three activations. With only three activations you have you activate one of your dragons on the first activation of the initiative. However, I'm not saying that the Gnoll Sergeant is useless. He can quite useful against creatures that don't have DR as you are adding a potential 15 damage per living LRD. I'm just saying that in my opinion he doesn't fit as well in a double LRD band as the Drow Wizard does.

Tiefling Captain; CE; Commander 4; 21 points
LVL: 3 SPD: 6 AC: 16 HP: 30
Melee Attack: +6 (10)
Type: Outsider
Commander Effect: Score critical hits with melee attacks on a roll of 19 or 20.
SA: Blind-Fight; Conceal 6; Resist 5 Cold, Electricity, Fire.

The Tiefling suffers from the same problem as the Gnoll does. His main draw is his commander effect, and he is too fragile to be up in combat and be the only leader. Also, the Tiefling has no solution to DR issue. On the other hand, out of the four options the Tiefling has the highest commander rating and has the second most room for filler. With the Tiefling, the LRDs only need a 3 to pass their moral saves, and you get to add 4 Orc Warriors for filler bringing your total activations up to 7. However, if your looking for a higher number of activations I would go with the Drow Sergeant.

Drow Sergeant; CE; Commander 2; 16 points
LVL: 2 SPD: 7 AC: 19 HP: 20
Melee Attack: +6 (5)
Type: Humanoid (Elf)
Commander Effect: Level 1 followers gain +5 melee damage.
SA: Conceal 6; Spell Resistance

I admit, for me the Drow Sergeant didn't exactly spring to mind as a commander for Dual LRD bands. I believe it was Zardnaar on the MaxMinis boards that first brought the idea to my attention. With the Drow Sergeant you have 18 points left over for filler, and that conveniently translates into exactly 6 Orc Warriors. With the 6 Orc warriors your total activations get up to 9, and if your careful with your Orc Warriors you may actually get the activation advantage over your opponent after a couple of breath weapons. While the Drow Sergeant doesn't supply a solution to DR it does give you the greatest number of activations possible with a Dual LRD build. With the extra Orc Warriors you will be able to absorb some HEBI fire or possibly land an extra 10, maybe even 15 or 20 in Cave of Pain, damage onto their heavy hitter. In a meta where you don't expect to see any DR at all, this may be the way to go.

Cleric of Gruumsh; CE; Commander 3; 21 points
LVL: 4 SPD: 4 AC: 16 HP: 20
Melee Attack: +6 (10)
Type: Humanoid (Orc)
Commander Effect: Followers gain Cleave. Warband Building: Orcs and Half-Orcs
Spells: Doom [][][]; Inflict Moderate Wounds [][]; Bear's Endurance []

The Cleric of Gruumsh doesn't bring much to the table for the LRDs. The Doom spells are too low of a DC to effect many of the heavy hitters, even the CE ones, and giving a LRD 10 more HP isn't going to be earth shattering. Also, with such a low speed it won't be able to keep up with the LRDs to give them its commander effect. If you wanted to go with a cheap commander I would go with either the Tiefling Captain or the Drow Sergeant.

In conclusion, in a meta where DR exists I think that the Drow Wizard is the commander of choice for dual LRD builds. The Magic Weapon spells are simply too valuable. However, if you don't expect any DR creatures to show up Drow Sergeant with a hoard of Orc Warriors may be a viable option. In later articles I'll be sure to cover perspectives from both variations of dual LRD builds.

Terrain: One Player's Perspective

2005-02-11T11:10:00.000-06:00

Issues involving terrain choice and placement are among the most difficult topics to relate in text as it is a very visual subject. Nevertheless, in this article I'm going to discuss what tiles I personally use and why I use them. The opinions expressed in this article are just that. Opinions. Everyone is welcome to draw their own conclusions and agree or disagree with me as they see fit. What I want to relate in this article is how I view things and why I think they are good/bad, thus the title: "One Player's Perspective".

This article is not meant to be the end all be all of terrain use. There are many facets to this subject that cannot be covered in the size of the article I intend to write and this installment may end up helping some people more then others. Whether you need help on this subject or not, please feel free to read this through and get someone else's viewpoint. Who knows, you may just discover something new you haven't considered before. Now that the explanations are out of the way, lets cut to the chase, and as always, thank you for reading.

Assembly Tiles
Statue Assembly
Rubble Assembly
Assembly 4

Statue Assembly (referred to as Assembly 1 from here onward)

I used this tile exclusively for a long time. It offers a decent amount of cover and allows you to stick your 2-3 heavies (if your band has that number) on the front line. I played lower activation bands for quite a while and this tile works well for that type of band. But with the advent of the Mushroom Tangle, I grew to like this tile less and less as its only exit (only three squares wide and on the map edge) can be hampered a great deal by the rough terrain. While Rubble Room could attempt the same annoyance as the Mushroom Tangle, it couldn't accomplish it nearly as effectively, as large creatures only need to touch two squares of rough terrain to escape and other sized figures easily ignored it. Rubble Room was not enough to make me stop using this tile at that time. But these days, due to Mushroom Tangle, the advent of better assembly tiles, and tile points, I no longer use Assembly 1 as my assembly of choice.

Rubble Assembly (referred to as Assembly 2 from here onward)

I use this tile for my range based bands usually. With the wall set one square into the edge of the tile, you really get the opportunity to spread your band out and hopefully take advantage of line of sight that your opponent wasn't aware of. Its very good for your chances to win if you can nab even just a fodder unit or two off your opponents assembly tile on turn one.
The wall on this tile can provide a decent amount of line of sight obstruction if you need protection from an area of effect or superior ranged power. Another great feature of this tile is that it has two exits. This has two benefits:

1) A Mushroom Tangle (or similar tile) is no longer reliable in slowing you down as you always have a back up exit when you need it.

2) Regardless if you win or lose terrain initiative, you will always have a straight shot out of your assembly tile to your opponents half of the map. This helps out tile grabbing a lot as many of the other assembly tiles are biased in regards to which position they would rather be in (as in they have one position that is a substantially more direct rout to the middle of the map then its other position).

Assembly 4

I use this tile for my bands that are less focused on ranged attacks. It keeps the concepts I liked about Assembly 1 and takes away a lot of the weaknesses. This tile has 5 unblocked squares on its front line and still keeps some wall structure for blocking line of sight to the rear of your band. Mushroom Tangle is still annoying but lessened in power a great deal as you can ignore much of the tile. The main benefit is that it lets you get more tile grabbers on the front line to reach the desired tiles sooner. Granted, its usually only a one or two square improvement, but that could very well be the deciding factor between tile points for the turn or not.

Feature Tiles
Ranged Set
Creeping Tangle
Ancient Temple
Mushroom Tangle

Creeping Tangle

This tile works very well for ranged bands. It's wide open, has rough terrain to stop charges and slow pursuers, and has a statue for hiding creatures. The single wall can be an annoyance at times as well as the single strip of squares on the one side. Due to these two factors I usually place this tile deep into my opponents half of the map to prevent or disrupt line of sight blocks. I usually end up placing it with the wall closer to me (both players sitting on the long sides of the map) and the open part closer to my opponent and near his assembly, eliminating any cover placement near the front of his assembly. This placement really cuts down on the options your opponent has for his first stage of cover and will punish slower bands as now their best option is to rush toward the center of the map to gain cover. A placement like this has the potential to unnerve some opponents and force them into a "panic mode" in an attempt to gain any kind of cover. This favors you a great deal because you need all your wits about you when facing a range based band and may allow you to end the game much more quickly then normal.

Ancient Temple

This tile is very similar to the Creeping Tangle in function but does have some major differences for me. Having the wall on the very edge of the tile allows me to place it directly against the map edge when I need to (usually straight out from my assembly, with the circles being within a single move of my archers). Single moving to the magic circles do two things:

1) The single move may allow you to get a shot off on your opponents assembly through an obscure line of sight your opponent was not aware of.

2) You get to take this shot at +2 (cutting the cover bonus, which the creature most likely has, in half) and ignore DR for those archers that don't have magic damage. If your archer has hide you will most likely negate your targets cover bonus entirely due to the +2 from the circle and the +2 from hide.

The Ancient Temple is also a good tile to place right on the centerline, just on your opponents half of the board, making it viable for tile points while also getting the circle bonuses. I only recommend this against slower bands though as moving toward the center of the map against speedy hitters is akin to suicide and your doing a lot of your opponents work for you.

Mushroom Tangle

This tile is great for ranged based bands because it has no wall structure at all. I usually place this right in the center of the map, straddling the center line. This does two things:

1) It controls the center of the board. The best cover placement, in my opinion, is to place a tile like the Treasure Room or Torture Chamber along the centerline on your opponents half of the map, right in the center of the map. This blocks a substantial amount of line of sight and makes said tile viable for tile points, most likely of the first turn variety. The mushroom tangle prevents this when placed in the manner I stated. This relies a great deal on winning terrain initiative so if you wish to employ this tactic make sure you have a high commander rating in your band.

2) If the Mushroom Tangle is not surrounded by other tiles it could very likely force your opponent to burn a few extra squares just to go around it. Even just one or two squares can mean the difference between life and death for an archer.

Non Ranged Set
Treasure Room
Torture Chamber
Corridor

Treasure Room

This is the best tile for blocking line of sight in my opinion. The wall structure on all sides of this tile can really hamper range based bands and can help create alley ways (in conjunction with other wall intensive tiles) for large figures to hole up in and turtle. The way wall intensive tiles are set up usually dictates where the major clash of the game will take place and this can allow you to force your opponent into unfavorable situations based on their skill to spot such a ruse.

The two small openings in this tile make it great for spring boarding off of. You get in and then get out. Placed in the center of the board, as stated earlier, can provide you with tile points and cover against those dreaded HEBI and Gauth bands while putting you that much closer to basing and eliminating ranged threats.

Torture Chamber

This tile is less powerful then the Treasure room (but not by much) due to the wider opening on one side granting less cover. It's still a great tile for blocking line of sight and has almost all of the same benefits of the Treasure Room. The two small openings on one long side make it more accessible for a straight on shot for tile points unlike the Treasure Room where you may have to move a couple more squares to land on it.
A center-of-the-map Treasure Room usually works better (I have found) with its short sides parallel with the long sides of the map and a center-of-the-map Torture Chamber usually works better with its long sides parallel with the long sides of the map due to its difference in opening sizes and number. I hope that makes sense lol.

Corridor

Another great tile for blocking line of sight. This tile can let you hide and spring board better then a Treasure Room or Torture Chamber because there are far more options for entering and exiting but there are more options for line of sight to reach into it depending on how you use the tile. The single row of squares on the one side can allow you to get the Corridor one square closer to the edge of the map then a heavily walled tile usually can go. The two square cubby hole is great for fodder pieces to hide in while getting tile points.

Conclusion

I hope this article was informative and helped you see some of the finer points of tile placement such as warband interaction. As I stated before this is a very large subject and I know I only scratched the surface of some concepts but my goal was to explain what I used and how I used it. In the future I plan on tackling the colossal task of investigating tiles, tile placement and warband interaction.

Is the 100 point metagame broken?

2005-01-28T03:54:00.000-06:00

Much debate has occured regarding if Orc Champion, Ogre Ravager, or Red Samurai are "broken" for the 200 point game and if special action needs to be taken to curb their power. While I personally feel that these figures are not the end all be all of the 200 point metagame, can the same be said about the 100 point metagame? Today I would like to take a look at the effects of these three figures on 100 point games.

Ogre Ravager 38 points
Lvl 9, SPD 6, AC 17, HP 80
Melee Atk +10/+5 (30)
SA: Aura of Fear 2, Melee Reach 2, Resist fire 10, Smite +10 []

Red Samurai 40 points
Lvl 9, SPD 8, AC 14, HP 75
Melee Atk +14/+9 (15 magic + 5 Fire)
SA: Breath Weapon: DC 14 Fire Cone 20 damage

Orc Champion 39 points
Lvl 7, SPD 8, AC 15, HP 80
Melee Atk +13/+8 (25 magic)
SA: Cleave

These figures are notorious for their power. Fortunately enough, there are figures that can be fielded in the 200 point metagame to rival the power of these three figures. Large Red Dragons, Large Silver Dragons, Frenzied Berserkers, and Half Elf Bow Initiates are just a few examples of answers for these CE staples. But in the 100 point metagame things greatly change. Suddenly the dragons cannot be fielded, and no more then 1 FB or HEBI can be fieled without sacrificing warband integerity or passing the 100 point limit. The agressive cost of the three CE figures really comes into play for 100 point games, allowing two of these massive hitters to be fielded while still having room for the ultra efficient Tiefling Captain.

Tiefling Captain 21 points
Lvl 3, SPD 6, AC 16, HP 30, Commander 4
Melee Atk +6 (10)
SA: Blindfight, Conceal 6, Resist 5 Cold; Electricity; Fire
Commander Effect: Followers score critical hits on a 19 or 20.

Being able to combine the heavy melee power of these figures and give them a commander 4 rating along with a doubled chance of scoring a critical hit for massive amounts of damage (most likely killing the defending figure outright) is severely powerful and there isnt much in the other factions that can stand up to this lethal combination.

Seeking an answer to this conundrum, my friend and fellow team mate, Doug Lee (Bonepinhimer), constructed several bands in an attempt to dethrone the potent CE tripple threat bands. Between the samurai, ravager, and champion, we felt that it was best to team the champion with the samurai. The Champion hits for magic damage, cleaves, moves faster, and has a better attack bonus then the ravager. The samurai's breath weapon can decimate weaker fodder pieces under the right circumstances and it moves faster then the ogre ravager on top of having the best attack bonuses out of the three.

Tripple Threat CE (piloted by Doug Lee):
1 Red Samurai
1 Orc Champion
1 Tiefling Captain

First Opponent (piloted by myself):
1 Lich Necromancer
5 Abyssal Maw
1 Cursed Spirit

The idea behind this first opponent is to attack the low AC of the Orc and Samurai with the agressive Abyssal maws (hit for 15 damage and only cost 5 points) while hoping for a failed Hold Monster save with the help of the Cursed Spirit.

Matchup:
I started out by spreading my maws out in the hopes to swarm and overcome his leading figure. We meet in the middle and he uses the best breath weapon he can manage with the samurai (one maw and the spirit). The maw makes the save then takes zero due to resist 10 fire. The Samurai fails the Incorporeal check on the spirit. A fruitless activation. When I use my first hold monster on the samurai he passes the save. The maws proceed to land many attacks on the samurai's low AC. The champ manages to take out one maw and the tiefling lurks.

He wins the next initiative and clears out 3 maws with the champ. The Samurai manages to eliminate the cursed spirit, passing incorporeal on its second attack, but then falls to my abyssal maws. The Tiefling moves up and kills a maw. I attempt my second and last hold monster on the champion and he passes the save. He wins the next initiative and charges the lich and lands the hit. At this point Im pretty much out of luck. I attack the champ with the lich and hit but he passes the paralysis check. He then proceeds to finish me off with a full attack from the champ next init.

Conclusion:
This Lich band relies too much on failed paralysis saves and failed morale saves to win.

Opponent #2(piloted by myself):
5 Greycloak Ranger
---5 Wolf Minions
1 Cleric of Corellon Larethian

The goal of this band is obvious. Assault as much as possible with ranged attacks while using wolves to disrupt and block.

Doug and I are both adept at tile placement and it shows in our very neutral set up. But with the high speed of the samurai and champion, they are able to double move to cover in a corridor and still be within striking distance next initiative. I am able to disrupt him with several stun attacks, negating his Tiefling and champion for one activation. Long story short, I am able to eliminate the champion but not before he kills a large amount of wolves/rangers. The samurai kills his fair shair as well and the game goes to Doug handily.

Conclusion:
Greycloaks do not deal the damage nessecary to curb the beefy champion and samurai. They would fair much better against the larger, slower Ogre Ravagers (on top of having giant foe).

Opponent #3 (piloted by myself)
1 Purple Dragon Knight
2 Warforged Fighters
1 Man at Arms
5 Hill Dwarf Warriors

The goal of this band is to outactivate the samurai/champion and whittle away at them with fodder while using the warforged and PDK to finish them off. This game can swing greatly depending on the fear cone.

Doug brings the fight to me due to my low speed and begins clearing out my fodder in single hits. I choose his samurai as my first target and swarm him as best as I can. He never gives me a good use of my fear cone but I never give him a good use of his fire cone. He decides to ignore my fodder and go for my beef when they engage in the fight. His champion moves taking a couple of attacks of oppertunity to flank a warforged with the samurai.

I win the next activation and swing with both warforged (on the samurai) and land both hits. He then activates his orc champ, hitting the flanked warforged for 25 and it fails its morale. Its finished off by the samurais attack of oppertunity. He then uses his champions second attack to force morale on the second warforged and it too fails morale and shares the same fate as its twin as the samurai finishes it off with the attack of oppertunity. Chosing to ignore my fodder and go for the lucky win, I blow my fear cone hitting the champ, samurai, and two of my dwarves. All figures pass their morale saves.

I win the next init, charge my PDK in, and land a crit on the samurai, reducing it to 15 HP and he passes morale. The champ (70 hp remaining) moves and swings for 25. His captain moves in and fights with a hill dwarf.

He wins the next init and drops my PDK after it makes its morale save. Game over as only my fodder remains.

Conclusion:
Not enough fire power in this band to take on the high HP and fire power of CE. Too reliant of failed morale saves.

At this point we cant come up with any other band that doesnt do what our three test bands did and do it better so we call it quits.

Overall Conclusion
In the 100 point metagame it is incredibly hard to defeat the orc champion, red samurai, and the ogre ravager (although we didnt field it, and the greycloak band seems a good counter, many of the same principles apply to it). The only real chance of beating these figures is reducing the chance they pass their morale save as much as possible. If their morale saves are failed it can be very easy to defeat this band. Hopefully Death Knell will offer us some different solutions to combate these powerful CE figures in 100 point games. The Large Blue Dragon may do well as it has been confirmed in DK Preview 6 that it is playable in 100. Until then, the Red Ravager and Red Champion bands seem to be on top of the 100 point metagame without much, if any, competition.