I posted this on hordelings, but seeing this thread, I figure I ought to put the report here as well. My thanks to the store staff and the local gamers who were at the tourney. It was a pleasure playing with all of you.

16 total participants (I only have the names of the 13 who didn't drop and I only have the bands for the top 4):

After 5 rounds of swiss:
1. Kyle Rakoz 5-0 (Vlaakith, Vampire dire wolf, thrall of blackrazor, cursed spirit x2, timber wolf, warrior skeleton
2. Dave Doffing 4-1 (Storm, 3x Shadowdancer, Cormyrian war wizard, graycloak+timber wolf, bat, xeph, wild elf warsinger)
3. Josh Leslie 4-1 (Drow Sergeant, 3x large black dragons, thrall of blackrazor, 3x orc warrior)
4. Glyn Dewey 3-2 (Solar, shield guardian, dragonmarked heir, mialee, timber wolf, 3x man at arms)
5. Greg Ragland 3-2
6. Nicholas Rice 3-2 (I think he had Eye of Gruumsch, large black dragon, 2x orc champion, orc wardrummer, and 3 orc warriors, but I may have that player's name wrong)
7. Chris Craig 3-2
8. Carl Baughman 3-2
9 Shane Voelker 2-3
10 Trevor Riviera 2-3
11 Van Wolfe 2-3
12 Stephen Townson 1-4
13 Jake Watkins 0-5
7. Carl Baughman

Top 4:
Glyn defeats Kyle
Leslie defeats dave

Final:
Glyn defeats Leslie

So much for results, how about a report now:

Pretourney. I was flying up so I brought a limited selection of bands with me:

Ultroforge
SWarm (Ulmo-Swarm and classic Swarm)
Solar (with a human commoner in case I decided to use it instead of a man at arms)
Large Black Dragons (with Ryld or Werewolf Lord as commander and with 3 dragons/2 dragons+thrall versions)
CG Storm bands (Shadowdancers, virtuous chargers, or a hybrid with the slayer of domiel)

I didn't make my decision as to what to play until shortly before the tourney. I was very tempted to play Ulmo-Swarm. It has favorable matchups against what I consider to be the better half of the meta. The problem is that ultroforge is still a fairly popular band and should rip it apart. (Unlimited scorching rays, bodyguard, and +20 attack bonus vs. Ulmo=bad news). That, and I've never played Ulmo-Swarm (though I've played against it and watched Derry play against it). I was also strongly tempted to play the dragon bands. However, I figured that there might well be a ballista band or an ulmoSWarm in the tourney and I didn't really want to face either of them (not that Ultroforge is a walk in the park for the dragons either).

Then it occurred to me: the solar band actually has a pretty strong matchup against all of the bands I was considering. That put me down on its side.

Then came the matches:

1. vs. Marut, coatl, 2 sacred watchers, coatl, cleric of order, aramil.

I won map and so we played on thieves' quarter. I made the solar and the bodyguard immune to sonic damage and shot my opponent's tile grabbing wolf with the solar. Unfortunately, it made morale. My wolf, which was hit in the second round, didn't. There was a lot of manuevering, but my opponent exposed aramil in the fourth round and he routed off the table and I was then able to manever the shield guardian to kill his cleric of order while the coatl took AoOs to get away from the solar. At the end, I won on points on the strength of killing aramil, the cleric of order, a wolf, and a three pointer and three rounds of assault points vs. four or five rounds of assault points and a man at arms and timber wolf for my opponent.

2. vs. Inspiring Marshal, 2x Asura, 2x Bralani, aramil, etc.

His map was also thieves' quarter so there was no need to roll for map init. My opponent exposed aramil during setup, so when I was forced to go first, I moved and shot aramil with the solar--he then routed off the board. That was fortunate because my opponent took advantage of the last activation to route my timber wolf off the board. 13-10 me.
In the following rounds, I was able to gain assault points with more durable units. I tried for a slaying arrow on his bralani but missed. Eventually, however, the solar and bodyguard beat down his asuras and bralanis one at a time until I hit 200 points with only a wounded asura and the untouched inspiring marshal left to my opponent.

3. vs. Eye of Gruumsch, Large black dragon, orc champion x2, orc wardrummer, orc savage, and IIRC, orc warrior and timber wolf.

I won map init and we played on thieves quarter. With my last activation, I was able to move my solar and shoot his timber wolf which then routed off the board and replace it with my timber wolf to put me up 15-0. In the next round, he killed my timber wolf and I landed a slaying arrow on an orc champion (who made the save) and a magic missile on his orc warrior (thus once again denying him assault points). This points lead and whittling of my opponent's fodder forced him to run an orc champion to his victory area when I was still able to respond with the solar and shield guardian who killed or routed the orc champion (I didn't note which but I think it was an outright kill).

My opponent responded by moving the eye and an his remaining orc champ up to the roof where I was able to follow up by moving my bodyguard adjacent to the solar and shield guardian. He proceeded to miss once or twice with the eye and then conceded when the solar, bodyguard, and shield guardian combined to eliminate the orc champ and whittle his eye of gruumsch to the point that hitting my pieces enough to morale check them would kill the eye.

4. Vs. Vlaakith, vampiric dire wolf, thrall of blackrazor, 2x cursed spirit, etc.

I won init and we played on thieves quarter. The early portions of this game went very well for me. My opponent exposed his vampiric dire wolf by moving it to attack the shield guardian and the solar destroyed it with a slaying arrow. The thrall then proceeded to miss the shield guardian two or three times (thanks to the solar's cfx), enabling me to drop him to 5 hp with the shield guardian and finish him off with mialee's magic missile. Vlaakith and a cursed spirit finished off the shield guardian, but we were close to time and I still had an uninjured solar and bodyguard. Then, my solar at the edge of the central tower (connected to both victory areas and adjacent to the shared victory area), rather than fully retreat to deny vlaakith the disintegrate, or to base Vlaakith and attack, denying her the disintegrate without taking an AoO from the solar and ten damage from jumping off the roof, I moved back two squares from the edge and attacked the cursed spirit. Vlaakith would be able to move onto roof and disintegrate but only by remaining in melee reach of the solar. She did so. The solar failed the save and, thanks to the cursed spirit, failed his morale check. Thanks to my moving back rather than forward, he routed off the board. The game went on for two or three more rounds. Mialee miraculously survived as did my men at arms. The bodyguard killed one cursed spirit and kept scoring assault points but my opponent didn't take the bait and move vlaakith to engage the bodyguard. Two rounds later, he won on assault points (one or two rounds before I would have accumulated the 90 assault points I would need to win without killing vlaakith).

5. vs. Storm, 3x shadwodancers, cormyrian war wizard, etc.

In my defense, I think I only won one initiative this game other than setup. In the first round, my opponent was able to route my timber wolf off of the victory area with a shadowdancer and move his bat to the edge of my victory area. The next round, my opponent won initiative (thus denying me a slaying arrow on the shadowdancer who routed my timber wolf). I then made two mistakes. First, I forgot my opponent had put flight on his shadowdancers. Second, for some inexplicable reason--probably because I had forgotten that two of the shadowdancers could fly and that storm has countersong, I placed my solar one square from the edge of my rooftop victory area and put the bodyguard next to him. That worked well until storm moved up and the war wizard rayed the bodyguard to death and a shadowdancer flew in to flank with the bat. Now, I was in trouble. My shield guardian pursued the warwizard and successfully kept him from contributing anything further to the fight, but he wasn't enough to keep my solar alive--especially when he kept missing shadowdancers. I killed storm and one shadowdancer, and I might have pulled it out by routing another shadowdancer in the last round, but it was not to be and the solar died to the sneak attacking shadowdancers.

At least my tie-breaks proved good enough to get me into the top four this year.

Match 1. A rematch against Kyle's Vlaakith band. This time he won initiative so we played on frostfell rift.

I was careful to set up so as not to give my opponent any starting tile fireballs. This time I magic weaponed the bodyguard and put both immunity to fire and electricity on the solar. I also magic missiled my opponent's warrior skeleton and routed his wolf with the solar's ranged attack. In round 2, I won initiative and cast the magic missile then was about to move my timber wolf out as a fireball screen when I realized that the vampire dire wolf was exposed. I moved and used a slaying arrow on it, destroying it.

My shield guardian and bodyguard then got into a scrum with Vlaakith and the thrall of blackrazor in the neighborhood of the central victory area (though my records indicate that my opponent didn't manage to score assault points after round 1). The shield guardian was getting the worst of the tradeoff (not surprisingly since Vlaakith attempted a disintegrate on it and even on a successful save, that's still 30 damage plus ten from the fireball it had eaten earlier) so I moved the solar in to deal with Vlaakith. And he promptly failed his paralysis save. The bodyguard dutifully soaked up a hit that would have otherwise been a double damage hit from vlaakith and I moved the injured shield guardian back in order to deal with the thrall. My solar unparalyzed and was promptly paralyzed again by Vlaakith. The thraal killed a man at arms and moved around in order to avoid taking AoOs on his way in to beat on the solar. The next round, I lost initiative and the bodyguard took a Vlaakith's hit for the solar and was promptly paralyzed by it. The thrall finished her off and then struck the solar who passed his morale check. The solar then beat the thrall to within 15 hp of death before turning his attentions to Vlaakith. The shield guardian finished off the thraal and vlaakith retreated. The next round, I charged vlaakith with the solar and, thanks to the charge, hit her and finished her off.

Final match: vs. Leslie's triple LBD, thrall, drow sergeant band.

We both had thieves' quarter as our map but I won init and made him set up first. When I saw that he had exposed his thraal of blackrazor to the thin line of sight from my start area to his, I set up the solar to take advantage of it.

I won initiative, cast magic weapon on the solar, and slaying arrowed the thrall of blackrazor. The thrall failed the save and died. I then moved the solar up to the base of my opponent's rooftop victory area. The shield guardian and bodyguard warded themselves against acid. My opponent started to run a cordon manuever. He breathed his dragon on my timber wolf which promptly made its save and then passed morale (one lucky dog!). He then parked the drow sergeant and two dragons on my rooftop victory area while moving another one down to the shared victory area so that I would have to base it in order to score assault points. Unfortunately for him, that was actually a pretty good option for me. I moved the solar to base it, attacked dealing 25 damage, and moved both the bodyguard and shield guardian adjacent to the solar.

The next round, I won initiative, hit twice with the solar forcing morale (which it passed) and then finished it off with the shield guardian). My opponent then moved a second black dragon in to base the shield guardian in the corridor between his rooftop victory area and central square. I charged with the bodyguard and hit. The next round, I won initiative again, flew the solar over the dragon into a flank and hit it once, then hit it with the bodyguard. Without being able to see the drow sergeant, if failed morale and ran off the table. Left with a single black dragon against my uninjured solar, bodyguard, and shield guardian, my opponent conceded.

Okay... Round 4...

Vs. Glen: Solar, sheild Gaurdian, Dragonmarked heir, MOAx3, Twolf- won map init (thieves quarter, I won set up).  I had never officially played on TQ but had studied it pretty hard.  I wasn't quite familiar enough with the roof rules but good enough to win  (with a bit of luck).

We had some issues with line of sight round one. He asked if we agreed that there was no line of sight to the lower squares and we did, just afterwords he tried to move down and slaying arrow from a different square but I agured that we just both agreed that there was none.  He was good about it and appologized.  We both got tile points round one in the center VA.  His solar shot my wolf but made his moral.  He tried to tempt my thrall out for a slaying arrow, but i didn't bite.

Round 2- i zot his wolf with a electricity orb from Vlaakith and block with a cursed spirit.  He moved some fodder, I moved mine, my wolf moved to my VA, then he put his sheild gaudian on his VA and I moved my VDW over to take a big bite out of him since he did not cast MW on it (my first objective for this match was to take out his sheildgaurd).  I thought I was protected on the rooftop but he got the slaying arrow off and the VDW was gone like that.  Seeing his big oppertunity to cordon at that point I double moved and swift hasted my thrall for a hit on the shield gaurd and double moved Vlaakith to keep him from being able to land the solar on the VA at all.  Also brought over a cursed spirit to round it out while moving my second cursed spirit to the center VA.

Round 3- Boo my thrall misses x2!!! but an elect orb from Vlaakith makes it doable next round... Solar and dragonmarked try to hunt down one of my cursed spirits and kill off my warrior skelt and puts the shieldgaurd under CFX.  Solar and dragonmarked are cordaned off thier victory area!!!

Round 4- I win init again!!! Thrall misses x2 again, both due to CFX!!! I bring up my cursed spirits who, with the help of Vlaakith take out the sheild gaurd... big mistake on my part.  The shield gaurdian had hit the Thrall all 4 times and since I didn't move my wolf to block mialee MM the thralls last 5!!! Horrible mistake on my part and now it was totally a dice game and my time was running out.  Double moved the cursed spirit to get next to the solar.  He moves his solar back 2 squares to force me to come to him (AoO misses) and he missed incorp roll vs Cursed spirit.

Round 5- I win init and off goes the disintegrate spell.  60dmg, moral check, 19 thanks to the cursed spirit!!! solar routs and its clean up time.

I spend the next two rounds hunting MaA's and win on victory points before he can rack up the needed 4 rounds to win.


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Big mistakes made by me this game: not knowing roof rules, not getting off my fireball, not getting the thrall HP before engaging, VDW getting slain.  This was my one freebee match and I needed it.Â

Congrats all.Â

 

Sounds like a good tournament.Â