I apologize this is quite long.

I had the fortune to play at the qualifiers in Niles, Minneapolis and here in Madison and I was able to experiment with a few different ideas, taking different bands to each tournament. I tried an LG 5 hitter that I qualified with last year and went 4-2 in Niles, losing a pair of close games in a Storm and dragon heavy metagame. I tried double blacks with two wardrummers in Minnesota and got slaughtered going 2-4. So after watching my ratings drop to the low 1700s I decided that Madison was gonna have to be "it." I tried coming up with a lot of ideas with Zippy offlist involving the arcadian hippogriff, the cuoatl, and gith monks but I just couldn't make anything work.

Zippy and I worked feverishly to build bands that would win against Storm and against Ryld+dragons. It just happened that the same strategy works against both. In order to negate a little bit of Ryld's initiative advantage I needed a way to activate all my important figs after the dragons got moved. Given that I like bands with 4 or 5 key activations, I needed to make them go last. The solution involved getting 12 or 13 activations. While it's easy to do in LE, I didn't like the matchups against the hard hitting figs out tere. So I went with CG, the other really good option.

The second key to success was being able to dish out 45 points of damage reliably in one phase on approach to the dragons to force morale, and being able to deal 90 once based. The solution was the Virtuous chargers who accomplish 45 upon moving up and 90 if paired together. While Storm is a great commander for getting them fearless, it limits their mobility and threat range which is their greatest asset. The solution was the Inspiring Marshall. That gives the chargers an operational threat range of 24 squares. On the first turn it's highly unlikely that unless the opponent is planning for it that they keep their key figs shielded or more than 24 squares away. I had my three big figs, the marshall and two chargers, so I set about to get to 12 activations. A pair of greycloak rangers with two bats achieves this rather nice for 42 pts total. I opted for the old wolves rather than the timbers just for the chance to rally and the extra 4 on morale, which mattered in half my matches. The result was I needed 3 more figs and preferably some beef. I chose a pair of dwarf berserkers both for their speed and their potential damage output. With one activation left I had a tough time debating between the air mephit to power up the dwarves, the satyr for pipes, or the wild elf warsinger and adding another bat. With the low ac's and having 5 "important" activations, I chose the warsinger and then tied another bat to a charger for a total of 13 activations.

With the potent for nasty fodder charges and a lot of wide open space needed for large movement I opted for the dragon shrine, which also gave me a chance to get much needed energy resistance.

The result is what I called...

"Too Many Puppies are driving me bats!"

in honor of Jesse Kindwall and his "Too Many Puppies" fame.

Inspiring Marshall 29
Virtuous Charger * 2 80
Graycloak Ranger *2 30
Wolf *2 0
Wild Elf Warsinger 9
dwarf berserker *2 34
bat familiar * 3 18

13 Activations
Dragon Shrine

We were expecting a lot more players than showed up, but a convention pulled a lot of local players away, and many others chose not to make the drive out. Of the people I recognized at the tournament, which was all but Sam (lalato?) and some new players, I was pretty sure I had the most experience of the players there. Though I had only played a handful of matches with this band, my previous experience running high activation CG and just experience in general left me feeling less apprehensive than I might normally feel.

In round one I faced the other Josh, running Ulmo-Swarm.

So of course I lose map initiative and end up on King's Road. Oh the many reasons I hate this map...
Long story short was I couldn't hit Ulmo in the woods at AC 31 after the forest and a shield of faith from the cleric of order.

0-1.

I was feeling rather humbled after losing my first match and knowing I'd probably need to go perfect afterwards. My second round left me facing 4 invisidancers with the cleric of sune. We both brought dragon shrine so I felt a little relief till I tried to figure out how I was gonna beat him. Though he had 10 activations he was shocked to find himself out activated and after winning first turn init and making him go first I had all 5 big boys to move at the end. My dice may hate incorporeal rolls, but they didn't mind conceal 11. I was able to rout one dancer on turn one after connecting with 3 of 4 attacks from the chargers. We trade attacks in the center for a while and he gradually brings the cleric of sune into commander effect range of the entire battle, which was happening in the shared victory area. He quickly learned the dwarf beserkers, injured, under sune's effect, in a magic circle hit HARD....VERY HARD especially when flanking! +15/+15 for 25 magic made short work of more dancers. He made a few small play errors that may have allowed him to kill a charger but he shadowjumped and moved to hit for 15 with the commander effect rather than jump to flank to hit for 20 and kill me.

1-1.

round 3

So...your girlfriend gets into minis and comes to her first ever tournament, 10th match or so overall and what happens? You get paired. My hat goes off to her though she put up a hell of a fight. Nicole was running 2 gith monks, sword of heironeous, arcadian hippogriff and the war wizard on the outpost. I toss lousy init and end up on the bottle necked outpost, but my experience, my knowledge of the map, and of her band helped my pull through. She set up on the cave side and I moved my fodder up to screw up her targetting with the war wizard. She advanced a monk but moved it a hair too far so I was able to GMA and then bring both chargers to bear after getting it flanked. After finally killing the one monk and making morale for the chargers I was able to disengage them and pick off her stuff as it came through her own bottleneck.

2-1.

Round 4

more Team Whitewater action!
This time it was against Martin (Zippy) the man who knew my playstyle the best of all the people there (Peter Lee not withstanding). Having played practice matches against me and helping me build mine he knew me pretty well, but the same went for me. He ran Umber Hulk, two large blacks, mounted drow patrol, drummer and tiefling with a cursed spirit and hyena. Using my GMA on the first turn I'm able to force morale on one dragon but miss with the last swing to keep it alive. I also got a dwarf to powerful charge the mounted drow patrol and get 20 on him. He starts his counterattack in round 2 and forces morale on one charger, out of command, next to a cursed spirit...oh snot... Well, I knew I was in trouble and tossed that +5 and watched the 15 appear on the die, 20! phew...that was the match right there. He lined some fodder with his other dragon and killed the warsinger to stop my charges but injured a battle rager in the process, taking it down to 10. His mounted drow provokes an AoO to go kill hit, and takes another 10 in the process. He approaches and as his attack role is falling I call out "one!" and watch as his attack role FUMBLES! This was the first of many such occasions...

My injured dwarf retaliates and kills the MDP and I mop him up, it sucked that I had to hand him another loss but I couldn't afford one myself.

3-1.

At this point I know my destiny is in my hands. I just need to win and I'm top 4. I wind up against Sam running almost the same band as martin except the thrall instead of the drummer and MDP. Again we played on the dragon shrine and he took a different approach. I'm on fire side again and he sent the thrall up towards the top victory areas where my wolf was tile grabbing and then spread his dragons out, one in the middle of his side, the other in the shared victory area. Towards the end of round one he needed to be excused temporarily and as he had completed his activations I just had my big five left. I let him go and the head judge monitored my moves for the GMA while he was gone so that play wasn't slowed down. He must have watched me count the move for the chargers 8 times as I was frantically trying to find the way to get both basing one dragon and eventually I found it. When Sam returned I resumed the actual attack portion as I sent one of his dragons to an early grave and set up charge lanes on the umber hulk. Turn 2 I lose init and he gets the umber to attack and gets an acide line off on both chargers and a dwarf. I moved to erase the umber and smack it twice but it passes morale, and my powered up dwarf misses on the charge. Again the fighting goes back and forth, he used the thrall to take out the warsinger before I could unleash any nasty charges. My other dwarf goes after his remaining dragon. Next turn I watch as a lot of attacks miss the umber hulk and he manages to kill one of my chargers. My fodder gang flanking the dragon forces it's morale, but it stays. More init, bad news bears I lost. His dragon starts attacking my battle rager basing him and I know I'm probably doomed. 15 hit points left, AC 12...yeah, toast right? Wrong. As he's letting the first attack fall "A one would be really nice" and up pops a fumble! Second attack, +8... "man a three would be really nice..." up rolls a 3. The look on his face is one of utter dejection, and I called for a two on the last attack to change it up, but he finally squished me and the tiefling killed my very wounded other battle rager for his second activation. My fodder attacks and does some damage and he smacks a graycloak with the thrall and it routes but later rallies. So, it's still sorta ugly, dragon's in bad shape and I win init on the following turn. I whiff with both enhanced mobility attacks on the dragon, but the marshall pops him for 10. His retaliation, he sets up the flank with the tiefling and then misses two of three attacks on the charger. Thrall moves some more. Another init, he wins, and all three attacks from the black miss the charger! His luck was atrocious, I think he was on 12 straight attack rolls in single digits...LOW single digits. All my fodder misses this dragon that has 5 hp left, but the charger finally gets it as time is called.

4-1! and the top seed for the final 4

Unfortunately this means playing Josh again, more Ulmo! Yuck. Again I lose map and basically the game. My fodder managed a few crits on Ulmo, and I got one enhanced mobility hit on him, but the cuisinart was too much and I lost to him again.

But I accomplished what I set out to do. I qualified, and I did it with a band that wasn't all over the boards. My only losses were to the guy that won it all, can't ask for much more than that!

I just wanted to thank Peter Lee for judging for us and the fine people of Misty Mountain for hosting. The place is clean, climate controlled, and very hospitable. I highly recommend it if you're ever in the Madison area, it's a really nice place.

Also I am proud to say that though it was a qualifier there was a fair amount of fresh blood playing and they were running some truly ingenius ideas, it's a shame some of them didn't do better!

See you other top 4 at GenCon!