Brief Prerelease Report

A total of about 10-12 people showed up--the smallest number I can remember for a prerelease tournament.

Here's what I pulled:

Rares

Bruenor Battlehammer

Capricious Copper Dragon

Uncommons

Eternal Blade

Drow Spider Priestess

Sahuagin

Shrieking Harpy

Cliffwalk Archer

Human Cleric of Bahamut

Commons

Black Woods Dryad

Blood of Vol Fanatic

Demonweb Swarm
Flame Snake

Merchant Guard (x2)

Militia Archer (x2)

Construction
I was pretty delighted by my rares--two solid hitters with 100 hp and AC 21 each. In addition, the dragon has one of the only area damaging effects in the game, and I think the only line 12 effect. Both were auto-includes. The Eternal Blade was also a shoe-in, with her Improved Initiative and generally good stats all around. Because Bruenor is also a very solid commander, I could afford to use her a bit more aggressively, especially to take out weaker units once my dragon occupied a victory area.

With those three picked, I had 35 points remaining. I still had plenty of good units, but I wanted to boost my activations, so the two Merchant Guards (two bodyguards!) and the Flame Snake went in, leaving me with 11 points--just enough for the Demonweb Swarm, and 7 activations, at 199 points.

For map, I went with Hailstorm Tower, figuring that the central victory areas would force a confrontation in those areas, which would favor my band due to the Copper Dragon's Hoardmaster ability. My band had little in the way of ranged attacks, but while there are some good lines of sight on the map, most units can gain cover, giving my two main hitters an AC of 25 if I led with them.

We played a total of four rounds.

Round One (vs. Kevin)
My opponent was running the Dwarf Maulfighter, Thundertusk mount, Manticore, Snaketongue Cultist, a Militia Archer (his only commander), and I forget what else. I got map initiative, so we played on my map. Right off the bat he was at a disadvantage because he did not realize he could be mounted during setup. Then in round 2 I was able to double move the Eternal Blade to the Thundertusk, taking it as her Eternal Training Enemy; I hit it for 25 damage, it failed morale and routed off the board. The battle continued in this vein, leading to an early victory. 1-0

Round Two (vs. Shane)
This was the first (and only) time I faced an opponent with an Eternal Blade, amazingly enough. He had a Dwarf Maulfighter on a Thundertusk, but also had an Abyssal Stalker and some other units which I cannot remember (I think he may have had a Cyclops--I remember playing against one in round one or two). Again I won map initiative, and we played on Hailstorm Tower. We ended up fighting outside the area with the magic circle; it quickly devolved into a mashup with all our beaters piled together. I sacrificed both my bodyguards, and with superior hit points was able to outlast his hitters, taking them down one by one. 2-0

Round Three (vs. Bret)
This was the first fight and only fight in which I lost map initiative, and so we ended up playing on Hellspike. I was actually happy with this choice, as I had little in the way of ranged threats, and enough hitters that the open space did not particularly bother me. What was more concerning was that my opponent had the Rage Drake, Sword Spider, two Drow Blademasters as commanders, along with a Shadow Mastiff, Farmer, Mummy, and a Fire Snake--eight activations! Fortunately, in the first round he moved his pieces up in a way that allowed me to position my dragon for his acid line breath weapon at the start of the second round, which took out the snake and farmer, and weakened the rest (he failed all but one save vs. the Breath Weapon). I then moved it over to the one space wide victory area against the crooked wall, where he remained for most of the game to grant me the Hoardmaster points. The other mistake my opponent made (which he considered his biggest error) was sending his Rage Drake out and around to presumably go after the back ranks of my warband, rather than simply making a beeline for my dragon and taking it out.

I ended up getting 40 points from Hoardmaster, and about 50 more from squatting on the victory area; the spider routed after one hit from the dragon, and was near enough to its exit to make it off the board immediately. My opponent did crit me three times (!), and severely weakened my three primary hitters, but ultimately I took out everything my opponent had except the Rage Drake (which was still at full health at the end of the game), and won on points.  3-0

Round Four (vs. Kyle, aka Lord_Rock on the boards)
I was feeling nervous anticipation at this point; I had never done so well in a prerelease tournament before, and Lord_Rock is one of the best players in our local region. He was running a Cliffwalk Archer, Abyssal Stalker, two Flame Snakes, a Snaketongue Cultist, a Fire Archon, a Werewolf Champion, and an Animated Statue--in other words, some pretty decent ranged support. Fortunately for me, it was also a band wth a Commander 2, so I was assured of making most initiative checks and had a real advantage when it came to morale saves. And again, I won map initiative, so we played on my map.

We moved up in round one, me able to get my dragon into the magic circle on a double move for early victory points, and otherwise using the walls to maintain total cover against his band. He moved his Fire Archon, Werewolf, and Abyssal Stalker up just outside of the central building, where I could have moved and got all three with a breath weapon. Not taking the bait (which would not have killed any of them but would have got the Werewolf set up to rush me and hit my dragon for lots of damage), I moved back close to the shared victory area near the map side, and got two of his units (the Cliffwall Archer and one other--a Flame Snake I think) with the breath weapon. Flame snake died, and the Archer saved and took 10 damage.

He moved his units in, and was able to take out my Fire Snake and both Merchant Guards with a pair of swift firebursts, leaving me at that point with only three activations. However, it also put his hitters in close contact with my hitters, and at that point the battle shifted in my favor, as I was able to rout or kill both the Archon and the Werewolf without too much difficulty. I had also repositioned my dragon on the side victory area, to gain Hoard points for my kills and prevent it from being flanked by the Abyssal Stalker.

After that, he did not have enough beef to take out my three hitters, though he did bloody them up pretty badly, and I went on to victory--the first time I had ever come in first at a prerelease! 4-0


In summary, I have to say I had some excellent pulls, with three very solid hitters, two of them also excellent commanders, and good support in the form of the Merchant Guards (who twice sacrificed themselves in round 3 to the Rage Drake to prevent a rend on Bruenor). My thanks and appreciation to my opponents, who played very challenging games against me!

Coda: Got pretty good pulls in the five boosters as prize for first place, with the rares being: Blade Spider, Nightmare, Yuan-Ti Champion of Zehir, another Capricious Copper Dragon, and Umber Hulk Delver.