Tonight marked the first night of Epic games that used the new Unhallowed minis. I decided to run a Lyrandar Skyfire Captain warband and expected to see at least one or two others. Much to my suprise - there were no others! On the other hand, 3 of the 8 bands featured Bahamut. Anyway - here's what happened:

The bands:

Zuran Alda (3-0)

Dark Naga x2
Fire Giant Forgepriest x2
Beholder
Beholder Lich x2
Gauth
Map: Dragondown Grotto

Sunnray (2-1)

Aspect of Bahamut
Justice Archon x5
Warmage
Map: none

Nuit Eternelle (2-1)

Aspect of Tiamat
Large Blue Dragon
Duergar Champion
Greenspawn Sneak x4
Whitespawn Hordeling x3
Map: King's Road

Temysry (2-1)

Ghaele Eladrin
Storm Silverhand
Lyrandar Skyfire Captain
Epic Storm Archer
Dragonmark Heir of Deneith
Crow Shaman x2
Bat Familiar x3
Map: Dragondown Grotto

Orcdoubleax (1-2)

Aspect of Bahamut
Warpriest of Moradin
Shield Guardian x2
Dragonmark Heir of Deneith
Cleric of Moradin
Human Commoner
Map: Dragondown Grotto

Zak X (1-2)

Epic Vlaakith the Lich Queen
Caller in Darkness x3
Orc Wizard
Orc Wardrummer
Cursed Spirit
Troglodyte Thug
Map: Hellspike

Grubbis (1-2)

Dark Naga
Horned Devil
Beholder
Beholder Lich x2
Devourer x2
Helmed Horror
Map: Dragondown Grotto

Tomcat (0-3)

Aspect of Bahamut
Elf Warmage
Shield Guardian
Justice Archon
Dwarf Artificer
Vampire Hunter
Hammerer
Bat Familiar
Aasimar Fighter
Map: Field of Ruin


Round 1:

Zuran Alda def. Tomcat
Sunnray def. Zak X
Nuit Eternelle def. Temysry
Orcdoubleax def. Grubbis

Round 2:

Zuran Alda def. Orcdoubleax
Sunnray def. Nuit Eternelle
Temysry def. Zak X
Grubbis def. Tomcat

Round 3:

Zuran Alda def. Sunnray
Nuit Eternelle def. Orcdoubleax
Temysry def. Grubbis
Zak X def. Tomcat


My first matchup was against Nuit Eternelle and his Tiamat warband. I knew this was going to be difficult because Tiamat was only going to be taking 20 damage a hit from my storm archer and he'd be able to close the distance fast since he won his map and we were on King's Road. In the first round, I buffed up my archer and started taking shots at what he could see. In the second round, he moved a bunch of fodder up to base the archer so that I'd have to waste time taking them out before being able to put any damage into Tiamat. Fortunately, the Lyrandar and Ghaele helped out in this regard. By the third round, Tiamat was on top of them and managed to take out Storm fairly quickly. The storm archer passed his morale save but could only drop Tiamat to 20 hp. I lost the next initiative and the storm archer went down to attacks. Fortunately, I also finished off Tiamat during the round with the Lyrandar and Ghaele. His duergar then finished off Ghaele and I was quickly down to nothing but a crow shaman. After flying him away to a victory area, I ended up at 498 when he went over 500.

Next up, I faced Zak X and his Epic Vlaakith. This time, I won my map and started from the "live" side of Dragondown Grotto. I spent the first round buffing the storm archer who then sidestepped out of the forest to make a flurry of attacks at the leading Caller in Darknesses. I managed to take one out, but after missing many incorporeal rolls he still had two others blocking. In the following round, I managed to take another one out but couldn't finish off the third one before he was hidden in the forest on my side of the map. By this point, Vlaakith was most of the way to my warband. In the third round, I managed to take out all the rest of his warband besides Vlaakith and the wardrummer but he ran up and based the storm archer even though we were both in the forest. I missed many attack and conceal rolls, but two rounds later he had not rolled a crit and couldn't shut down my archer who eventually did enough damage to drop him.

In my final match of the night, I was up against Grubbis' multi-hitter band. We were both using Grotto and I won side and could set up on the "live" side of the map. I again started by buffing up the archer who proceeded to make a total of 10 attacks in the first round, dropping the Helmed Horror, a Devourer and the Horned Devil (who failed morale). After sidestepping back into the forest my entire band was out of view and thus couldn't be targetted by the beholders. In the second round I managed to drop the other Devourer at the end of the round by sidestepping out of the forest. I won initiative in the third round, but I forgot to move the archer back into the forest and he took 4 eye-rays for his trouble. Sadly, one was a finger of death and I failed the save. Now there was no real way I could damage his beholders since he could always heal them by keeping the undead ones up front. So, for the next 7-8 rounds, I was relegated to burning activations then flying a bat down to one of my victory areas. After winning the following initiative, I'd fly the bat back and wait for him to run out of activations then repeat. Although I did lose a couple creatures during this process, I still managed to keep enough activations to collect 275 victory points from victory areas to finally push me over 500. Not the most elegant way to win, but we were both unable to effectively hurt each other after he was left with only beholders and I didn't have anyone that could dish out enough damage fast enough to drop anything of his.