This turned out to be a very memorable trip for me and the Central Cal crew of two others. It was such a roller coaster ride, but Stumanchu, Tom, and I had an absolute wonderful time! The car trip was a whole memory in itself :). Thanks to everyone running the event, I hope to come out again sometime.
As for the tournament, I came out in the end 5-2 for the day and took 7th. I was incredibly proud for this place being that this was my first real constructed tournament. Stu and I had played an Angelfire prelease awhile back, but that's it really. The field consisted of 36 players I believe, and mostly everyone was having a good time--though the competition was intense. I played a LE quad mix of Chraal,HBG,Zak,DCx2,miner,Warrior Skeleton,and the wonderful Gravehound on Field of Ruin.
Note: I tried to take notes of actions,moves,etc., but I was pretty overwelmed by the speed of the tournament environment which led me to my biggest mistake of the tourney, which I'll mention later.
My first round pairings was with Mike (Loyce8869) who ran three FB,Devis, wolf, xephs (Brady Bunch?). After round one, Mike had the girls blocking the center VA which was a really good move, he took an early lead on points and I started to feel the Jaws of life tightening. I ended up stuning one FB with my Gravehound which I believe was pivotal to my win. It didn't help Mike that he missed several conceal/ac rolls. My Chraal ended up routing, but I ended up just winning on the war of attrition as I focused on FB at a time with all of my beaters until they were gone. I think I had only 20 VP, but was still able to win.
1-0
My next match was against Jacob Padilla running a CE beater band: Eye,Orc champ,MDPx2, Trog thug, tiefling captain, wardrummer, and an orc raider. He won map init so we played on the tomb of Queen Parag. I moved in cautiosly along the bottom while he moved enough distance along the top to be within striking distance next round. Next round I won init and dropped my Chraal in to breath on the Eye,thug, and tiefling. I forgot to mention that his MDPs at this point where surrounding my HBG. It ended up being the chraal pulling the Arnold Swartzenagger (butchered that!)commando and somehow surviving for like 2-3 rounds, Jacob had one caotic evil dice. The rest of my band pulled back and focused on eliminating both MDPs. In the end I hit those lower acs, but he was having a lot of trouble htting me in return.
2-0
At this point I'm feeling pretty good. I am undefeated in a tourny of this caliber! My Next match was against Carl Baughman who had a similar band to mine: HBG,Zakx4,goblins,etc. This was the only match where I felt I made a bad tactical decision. I won map and set up on my favorite side B. Carl was a great guy and made some really cool manuvers. I move all my guys to the center as he moves his Zaks at top,middle, and bottom of the ship husk. Next round comes my mistake, I sent my Zak through a hole to base his Blackguard. At first it seemed like a good idea, but I really could have used him later in the center. Carl moved his two Zaks at the bottom in to the center to attack my HBG and at this point one of my DC was commited to the central Zak, and I had sent the Chraal north so I was in big trouble. He ended up wining inits and my HBG went nine feet under and it just went downhill from there.
2-1
Had a break, my buddy Stu was right there with me at 2-1 and we were both excited. My match after the break was against Jeff Wilder and his quad Helmed Horrors. As soon as I saw his band I was thinking "how am I going to get through over 400 hitpoints and still survive!?" I was especially afraid of HH because it was the one band I didn't get to test against. He won map which was Hellspike. Tactically I knew my best bet was to seperate one or two HHs from the rest and concentrate all of my firepower on it. Having a Chraal here really helped as well which auto damaged two with its breath and three with a deathburst. Second round Jeff had two HHs at the bottom, one at the top, and one sorta near the center and I decided to throw it all at the bottom two while my miner slid by to collect points less than six squares away. I also had my gravehound harassing his DDM which forced the attention of one HH up top. I ended up methodically taking down one HH at a time, and I started to lose beaters: the Chraal, then the Zak, eventually the HBG, but despite the odds, I still ended up winning it with only my two DCs left. Jeff had some tough breaks with ones and made a mistake of not activating a HH with only 10hp left, but I was still very proud of this win being so close, which raised my morale big time.
3-1
My next matchup was against John (?can't remeber last name-sorry!)who was playing four JA, Coutal, wolf,CoY,SB. This was a bad match-up for him and I was rolling really well while he missed quite a few. Again my gravehound came out and stunned a JA--I love that little dog. I had won map init and had tried to prevent VP for John by taking out his wolf. Probably my favorite manuver of the match was when I put the chraal all the way through the ship husk in a position where he had to decide: do I ignore the chraal and move to the center or send JAs at him. He ended up sending all the JAs into the center husk where the party began. I sent the chraal to the back next round despite the Coutal being right there in melee reach and breathed on the CoY and SB killing the CoY and wounding the SB. As for the center, I just came out ahead in the number of attacks hit since my bonuses were higher and it didn't help John that my guys had the same damage output as the JAs. Mine also had higher ACs and conceal which definitely saved me. John was a great guy and I liked his band but I just didn't have a titan for him to mutilate.
4-1
When I saw the next band I was facing, I wasn't suprised. Elliot Chin was running the Archmage--the band I feared. I had played Aravis the night before the qualifier against his AM band and thankfully I did learn one thing from that. Throw everything at him- at all costs. It really pained me when Elliot won map init and we played Kings Road. No aoos!!! I felt a huge weight on my shoulders, but I gave it my best shot anyway. Elliot made a good move and MS'd my blackguard round one! I knew then I had to just surround him if possible. This skirmish was almost comical in a way. Think: weird Brittish comedy where an insector is chasing the thief going through all the doors in an entire house. That's how I felt :). I chased the Archmage to the top right, he moved to bottom left, I actually get a base with my Zak in the bottom right, but then I make the worst mistake of the tournament. I win init, I attacked the AM with the Zak--TS,--first of all I didn't declare it to be his second attack, then what do I do, I moved on to my second activation forgetting my second attack!!!! Oh man, I was embarassed! I think I felt caught off guard because I had played my first two rounds slowly, and I tried to speed up my play to be fair to Elliot, but I totally missed it. So the AM moved to the bottom left and it was pretty much over because my HBG died thus the Chraal died, and I was still chasing him with my DC in the end. Props to Elliot, that band is awesome, and that was one wild goose chase!
4-2
My last match of the day was agianst Darsen Chen and his Slayer of Domiels x4 with Village priest, arcanix guard x2, wolf. I won map and I basically went through my normal routine of movement to the center. The funniest part of this match was the dog fight in the top right va between TW and gravehound. The gravehound kept stunning the TW and it would have routed, but kept getting stunned and still scored victory points for Darsen. In the center I was able to block advancement from the left side and I kept hitting his Slayers. I think I only missed a conceal once. Darsen dice unfortunately ran out of gas and I ended up just beating the slayers. Although their ability to gain double VP was a scary thought, he did take one DC for 66 points. My friend Stu had played against Darsen and this same situation came up on a much larger scale which I'll let one of them describe or perhaps I could another time...
So I ended up in 7th place which I was very proud of and heck, I even got three boosters out of it! the rares fyi were: Hill Giant Chieften, Shuluth, and a Sand Giant. Guy had made a ruling for my match with Carl, but Stu and I realized much later on the drive home that we should have got Guy's autograph on our rulebook! :) We won't forget next year! I had a blast and so did the whole Central Cal crew as we talked about the tournament almost the whole way home about 3 hours away in Fresno. Two of us placed in the top ten so everyone lookout, Central Cal is on the prowl now! :)
PS-Before I left, I bought an Archmage from Game Castle, feel free to insert the poetic justice here: lol
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