These limited events are a lot of fun, so my goal going into today was to have just that fun. I knew my friends would be there and the camaraderie is the best part of the tournaments usually.

 

So we had 16 people come out and it was the first snow fall of the year causing lots of havoc with the roads.ÂI was pretty happy with the showing as our constructed qualifier had only 13 I believe.

 

So we pulled boosters, recorded the contents than turned them back in. Then the recorded boosters were re randomly distributed. My friend Greg was not to pleased as he drew an eternal blade, cap copper and angel of vengie.. Tough to give that back up.

 

Anyway back to our boosters we were now given, I put together this:
{Cyclops}

{Nightmare}

{Drow Spider Priestess}

{Dwarf Brawler}

{Yuan-ti Malison}

{Militia Archer}

{Farmer}

 

I selected Dungeon of Blood for my map.

 

Round one vs Joe Q(thenameless), his band had Oslyth, Manitcore Sniper, Farmer, Merchant Guard, I think Drow Blade master and some other things from DOD im sure, the memory isn’t helping here.ÂWe played on my map, I cant recall all the details from this match but I do recall the Cyclops getting a crit(in the magic circle and blood rock) on the Osyluth which gave me a big edge. 1-0

 

Round two vs Sean Jackson, his band had an Angel of Vengeance, Dwarf Brawler, Thundertusk boar, Flame Archon and fodder to match.ÂWe locked up and I failed 2 saves with my Dwarf mounted Nightmare combo on the Words of Truth. Yes stunned! Then everything failed MC checks and the rout was on, I think I lost about 200ish to 110ish. Sean played well and is a good player, my dice let me down a bit but such is happenstance when your playing a dicegame. 1-1

 

Round three vs Greg Blanchard, Greg’s a good friend of mine and we learned how to play this game together in the summer of 2006. Never like to have to play in the sanctioned events though.ÂGreg brought some pain to the table in the form of a Sahuagin Baron, Blade Spider, Drow Spider Priestess, Dwarf Maulfighter, Snaketongue Cultist, and Shadow Mastiff.ÂWe played on his map, Hellspike of which I was able to use very well for my stick and move Cyclops, the MR3 coupled with Blind-sight was very formidable on that with his speed 8, and I was able to keep his Bladespider from gettingÂa flank off, Greg also rolled horribly and this made it into a fairly easy win. 2-1

 

Round four vs Chuck Moody, Chucks an up and coming player on the local scene (of which I haven’t been able to play much lately) so it was cool to be playing him as I haven’t had a chance.ÂHe was running Bruenor Battlehammer, Cliffwalk Archer, Feral Troll, and I think a Large Fire Elemental, then fodderish stuff.ÂThis match came down to a bit of luck for me to defiantly seal the deal, my militia archer scored a crit with a shot on his feral troll before it could activate after basing my Nightmare w/ Dwarf. Then my Archer again scored a crit on Bruenor later on, Bruenor also failing his hard to kill instantly snuffed the elemental and the cmdr. We played a bit more from there but it was primarily over. Was a good match.ÂHe won map but chose to play on mine. 3-1

 

Round five vs Shane Elgaard, Well Shane is a top player on our VANDDM team, winner of the constructed qualifier in Lacy, WA earlier this year and pretty much our top DCI ranked player for most of the year, he was 4-0 going into this game and we knew if we both finished 4-1 we’d both be in, so he forfeit to me to ensure I made it (I may have well made it on a strong 3-2 but this was a guarantee, yes filthy colluders). We did play the match for fun though and I failed some rolls spectacularly and was also a bit out played, his band had awesome synergy, Drow Spider Priestess w/ Bladespider, and Drider. A having a Harpy didn’t help either.. 4-1 onto the draft!

 

Draft time! We did double dump as I think its more exciting and a bit faster, we blasted thru the draft pretty quickly.

 

The order of finishers was:

1st - Joel Barnabe (Kezghan)
2nd - Joe Quaizon (The Namelesss)
3rd - Shane Elgaard
4th - Daniel Thomson (NeonKnight, Myself)

 

All VanDDM teammates.

 

I dumped first and dropped a G cube and Umberhulk!! Damn id love to have both for the collection cant have enough but this is for serious so.. Eternal Blade hello I love you!

 

I was very happy with my draft had 2 situations where I really wanted a certain piece but had to wait to get it and didn’t think it would last, those were a Fire archon (I was second pick) and a Yuan-Ti Malison ( but my second!). So my top 4 band was I think the best band by far.

 

{Eternal Blade}

{Cliffwalk Archer}

{Yuan-ti Malison}

{Yuan-ti Malison}

{Snaketongue Cultist}

{Fire Archon}

{Farmer}

Map: Dragondown Grotto (duh!)

 

Semi Final vs Daniel Thompson aka the NeonKnight

He was running something with Trip Blood of Vol Fanatic’s, Dual Drow Blademasters and a Astral Stalker with fodder in the form of a Sahuagin.ÂI won map and that was pretty much it. I lost the farmer and I think that was it, he did press deep with 2 surviving Fanatics who crit my Eternal Blade and had her down 40 in a snap, thankfully the autosave for morale was used. That was about the only scare. On to the finals.

 

There was Joe Q aka thenameless waiting for me as always (Vancouver Constructed Qualifier, and the last pre release) so far my track record was 2-0 in these big matches. I lost map +8 vs +2 didn’t pan out so well there. So we fought on Keep of Fallen Kings. His band was rare crazed. Band was Umberhulk Delver, G-Cube, Wolf Champ, Large Fire Elemental, Drow Blademaster, Ravenous Ghoul, Tiefling Rogue, and Shadar-kai Assassin. Eitherway I won set up took the left side of the map and set up my archers to wipe out his g-cube upon winning int. Course that didn’t happen he won and I wiped out a Ghoul instead. Either way it was still too much ranged hiding behind rough terrain for his band to handle and it didn’t help that his Elemental failed MC when he came into base the archers, he did get his Wolf champ in there next but my fodder type and archers beat on it a bit my Cliffwalk was smoked by his champ though and ran for it. But the champ only ever really got the one swing off(that piece is terrible).ÂHis Umberhulk was trashing my confused Firearchon in his VA with the 5hp cube hanging in there too. When I rolled a 20 and got control of the Archon(at 10hp) burst killing the cube then moved in for a smack down on the Umberhulk, then my archers ploughed into the hulk and it failed mc, then next round on winning init, I slew the cmdr game set match. 3-0 in big games vs thenameless, starting to feel a bit guilty here. All in all a lot of fun had and I cant wait to take on the best at DNDXP next year! Thanks to Craving for a Game for hosting the event and getting us the best events and prize support. Thanks Buck!