We had fairly decent showing with 7 people turn out for our weekly tournament. On my way in I noticed that the food donation box is overflowing and needs to be delivered soon! My best guess would be that we've now donated somewhere in the neighbourhood of 350 pounds of food. Let's keep it going! Starting this weekend - the Thursday Knights will not be the only sanctioned tournaments running in Halifax. Many of the regulars will be gathering at Monster Comic Lounge on Sunday afternoon for their inaugural sanctioned tournament. Looks to be a good time. Without further ado - here's what happened tonight:

The bands:

Tem (3-0 with a bye)
Storm Silverhand
Bralani Eladrin x3
Crow Shaman
Wild Elf Raider
Man-At-Arms
Xeph Warrior
Map: Dragondown Grotto

Pumpkin King (2-1)

Sword Archon
Kolyarut
Maug
Dwarf Artificer
Timber Wolf
Man-At-Arms
City Guard
Map: Dragondown Grotto

Banana Samurai (2-1)

Orog
Horned Devil
Large Duergar x3
Orc Savage x2
Map: Dungeon of Blood

Orcdoubleax (2-1 with a bye)
Cleric of Order
Couatl
Thundertusk Cavalry x2
Mephling Pyromancer
Timber Wolf
Human Commoner
Map: Frostfell Rift

Zuran Alda (1-2)

Cleric of Syreth
Tordek, Dwarf Champion
Elf Warmage
War Weaver
Warforged Scout
Timber Wolf
Human Commoner x2

Map: Forest Cliff Lair

Zak X (1-2)

Greenfang Druid
Frenzied Berserker
Owlbear Rager
Voice of Battle
Gnome Trickster
Hyena x2
Map: Dragonshrine

Edgecoc (1-2 with a bye)

Hezrou
Clay Golem x2
Hyena x2
Map: Dragonshrine

Round 1:
Banana Samurai def. Zak X
Pumpkin King def. Orcdoubleax
Zuran Alda def. Edgecoc
Tem def. BYE

Round 2:
Tem def. Pumpkin King
Banana Samurai def. Zuran Alda
Zak X def. Edgecoc
Orcdoubleax def. BYE

Round 3:
Tem def. Banana Samurai
Pumpkin King def. Zuran Alda
Orcdoubleax def. Zak X
Edgecoc def. BYE

Lots of 'interesting' warbands tonight and the winners were not the ones I was expecting. It seems that lately people have become tempted to use bands that have very high AC and tonight was no exception. Despite suspecting this, I decided the run the Bralani because I figured that most of the time, I wouldn't need to hit much to win - the whirlwind blasts and silverfire would take care of the rest.

In the first round, I unfortunately got the bye. On the bright side, I know my band will do better in both rounds 2 and 3 so it would have been much worse if I had lost my first match and got the bye in the second round.

In the second round, I was paired up against Pumpkin King with a high-AC warband. I knew that he had relatively low HP pieces, so silverfire coupled with lines from the Bralani would put a serious hurt on most of his pieces - especially the Sword Archon. Since he was also using Dragondown Grotto I knew I would be in pretty good shape. He started from the deadwood side and moved using cover as much as possible through the difficult terrain along the top of the map. I managed to pick off most of his fodder pieces and even put 15 damage into the Sword Archon. In the second round, I managed to get a lot of good rolls hitting the Maug and Sword Archon multiple times. In the third round, he had finally swatted away all my blockers and made it up to base my leading Bralani (though it was in the forest). After a couple whirlwind blasts and silver fire, all he was left with was a severely wounded Kolyarut and conceded the game.

In the third round, I was matched up against Banana Samurai with his Horned Devil band which included 4 large bases. I won my map which was huge but lost side and started from the deadwood side. I split my warband between the two start areas and moved everyone up to the forest to start taking shots at whatever I could see. Thankfully, his support pieces all have relatively low AC so they were easy to hit with the Bralani. I took out one of the Orc Savages in the first round and put 15 damage into one of the Large Duergar. He finished the round by dimension dooring to the centre victory area. I won initiative in the second round and used a Bralani to hit the wounded Duergar which routed. I then positioned Storm so that she could not see the HD and cast confusion, catching both uninjured Duergar and Orog. Much to my suprise, Orog failed the save along with one of the Duergar. When they activated, they rolled 2 and 3 respectively so I used them to beat on each other. The Duergar missed, but Orog managed to rout the Duergar. Not only that, but he failed the confusion save again so the other routing Duergar ran off the board with no chance to rally. Of course, during all this fun, the Horned Devil flew up into the woods and smacked Storm for 25 but she passed the stun save. I knew at this point that I could win without ever having to face the HD as long as I could kill everything else. It didn't take long to drop the final Duergar and start pelting Orog with ranged attacks. He managed to control Orog this round and he passed the save as well. When he won initiative in the next round, he hit Storm again and both stunned and routed her. She was now expendible as long as I could take down Orog. He ended up getting pelted by a couple ranged attacks and was hit by two whirlwind blasts. In the end, Storm failed to rally and ran off the board, but a final whirlwind blast took out Orog putting me well over 200 points.

This was my first time playing the Bralani and I was very happy with how they worked out. They are extremely efficient for their cost and can pack quite a punch. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea for Storm to be put in danger like that in the last round just to get off a confusion spell - it was the last thing she did in that match.