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Vrecknidj
Warlord
9973 Posts
    
United States
 | | 04/20/2008 6:58 AM |
| Sometimes, all you need is a lot of miracles...
The Week Before the Qualifier
As everyone knows, I am posting away like crazy, very often posting rules questions (some of which are just this side of outlandish), because I'm trying a little of everything. I consider Mind Flayer Lich bands, Astral Stalker bands, Kuo-Toa bands, and a whole bunch of other things (I looked at everything in the top 4 from the previous weekend, and then about 15 other bands, including Dire Tigers and Dol Dorn bands, and even things like Eye of Flame bands). I only have time to play about 6 games though, so I stick with pieces I know. At home, I practice against Alex and my friend Dan. Alex, Dan and I attend just about all these kinds of things together, and we always hope one of us places well. Foreshadowing 1: the three of us are here to qualify, and, like previous years, I tell them that, since I've qualified before, if I face them, I'll concede if the numbers are favorable for them getting in. Like usual, they make the same pledge to me. Foreshadowing 2: Mike Pozsgay sends me an email, asking if he can borrow some minis for the qualifier.
Friday Night
I settle on this band, and test it three times (two wins), and decide I can stick with it.
Eternal Blade
Astral Stalker x2
Wild Mage
Merchant Guard
Kobold Archer x2
Farmer x2
I decide that two Archers and 9 activations is better than more Farmers, because the Archers can even up things more quickly at 15 damage a hit. This was a HUGELY successful decision.
I haven't picked a map yet, because I keep playing on all the maps I can, because I don't know what I'm going to face. I chat with some friends, including some folks on these threads, and consider a few in particular. I decide on Forest Cliff Lair, because I fear I'll be facing tons of bands with Wandering Monster, and I want to control the Victory Areas.
Saturday Morning
After the 150 mile drive, we're hanging out at Fun 4 All, and I re-think my map. After all, I won't really be facing all that many Wandering Monster bands, and switch to Market Square. I do this because Dan wanted King's Road, and between us, we only have one King's Road map.
Match 1 v. Josh (Joshua Labar)
Josh is playing some Dol Dorns, the Dwarf Battlemaster, two Shrieking Harpies (!) and a handful of good support. He wins map, but Fane of Lolth is excellent for me as the Wild Mage can see most of the map (or, at least, can see squares next to squares...), and the Astral Stalkers can hide. The match proceeds slowly as his speed is generally low, and we're both checking line of sight against my ranged threat. I use my Wild Mage and Astral Stalkers fairly effectively, but his Harpies can fly 12 from wherever they are, and then, if he wins initiative, fly another 12 and sit right in my way, so it's really tough to judge where to keep my pieces. The match only goes four rounds, and the difference is that I manage to kill a Champion of Dol Dorn relatively early (with a barrage from the Wild Mage and Astral Stalkers). We both played defensively, and with the points edge, this played to my advantage. Josh is a great guy and excellent player, and he beat me soundly last year. A Kobold Archer gets a critical.
Match 2 v. Matt (Matt Bass)
Matt and I show up at a lot of the same events, we live about an hour apart, and have a lot of gamer friends in common, and there is this tendency for games to go my way. He's running a damn challenging band (Eternal Blade x2, Warhorse x2, Wild Mage, tons of Merchant Guards, Farmers). I get map, and this frustrates him pretty soundly, and it turns out to be a significant part of my win. The game stretches into quite a few rounds, but I only get Assault points twice. He kills my Eternal Blade, Wild Mage, and a Merchant Guard, but I take out all that from him and his Farmers, and (I think) all his other Merchant Guards, and at least one Warhorse. It's a bloodbath to be sure, but my Wild Mage outperforms his Wild Mage and that makes most of the difference. Being able to Slow the Warhorses with the Astral Stalkers turns out to be a key way to beat the super-Charge that I feared so much. The game is much closer than the score indicates at the end. Another Kobold Archer gets a critical. (Foreshadowing: this is Matt's only loss in Swiss.)
Match 3 v. Rich (Rich Rennhack)
Rich, Matt, and Tony attend about everything together, so this is back-to-back playing against "local" friends of mine, and my third in a row against someone I count as a friend generally. One advantage to being such a prolific presence on the boards is that I know almost everyone at the qualifier. Rich is playing Wulfgar, Eternal Blade, Warhorse, Oni and clutter. The match is quite close until he hits a string of fantastic luck mixed with excellent playing. His Oni has a chance to cone my Wild Mage and Kobolds, he takes it, and they all perish. Then, Wulfgar has a chance to attack the Eternal Blade--two crits later, and I'm singing the blues. Yet another Kobold Archer gets a critical. (Foreshadowing: losing to Rich doesn't hurt my standings in the least.)
Match 4 v. Pat (mege on the boards)
I don't know Pat, but he's playing a band much discussed online, so I expect he's around on the boards. His band contains the Mercenary General, a huge pile of Sellswords, the Cleric of Pelor and a little extra support. I manage to sight the Cleric of Pelor with my Wild Mage, early, and get a critical (and the EB had boosted the Wild Mage), so I do 40 cold to the Cleric. A round later, and I'm up 32 points. (That was key to my victory.) After this, it's a race to avoid the damn Sellswords while trying to pick them off from a distance. This is a LOT harder than it looks. Meanwhile, he has an Eidolon in the backfield ripping apart my guys with his 30-Damage nukes. The game is a nail-biter (91-85, then 119-114, then 119-120, then 129-120, and finishing 139-130). The difference is that we run out of time; and this always sucks. In the last two rounds, I really mess up my placement, and if the game had gone another round, he'd have killed my remaining Astral Stalker and won handily. Pat and I both know that, at the end of this one, he outplayed me, and that his band really was excellent. The real difference was the early elimination of Pelor--had that not happened, I'm quite sure this would have easily gone his way.
Match 5 v. Josh (Josh Hughes)
Josh is an excellent player and a friend of mine, and I've lost to him lots of times. Sadly, he's playing a band and map I'm prepared for (but not looking forward to). But, he sometimes plays quite slowly (you can't take 60 seconds to tap a Darkmantle when you know ahead of time that's what you're going to do--I'm just sayin'). He's playing Mind Flayer Lich, two Astral Stalkers, Deathjump Spider and a pile of Darkmantles on Blue Dragon Lair. So, I can't target anything of his (he keeps his two pieces without Hide well hidden). I miss a few early line-of-sight checks and he picks off some of my fodder. I eventually tire of fact that he's simply going to win on Assault points and start driving my pieces into his turf. My Wild Mage does some good against one of his Astral Stalkers, but she eventually dies for her temerity. In the end, I kill said Astral Stalker, but, it's already over by then, Josh wins 105 to 73. (Foreshadowing: there are only two people I could have lost to at this point that wouldn't have ruined my chances, Josh was one of them.)
Match 6 v. Alex (my son)
Before the match, Alex, Dan and I (Alex and I area 3-2, Dan is 2-3) discuss dropping. We could get home early and get some rest. But, as we're chatting about it, the pairings are posted, so that ends that. We aren't going to push the TO at this point, and decide to take our chances. I know that I'm the only one with a chance, simply because my tie-breakers are good. But, I also know that this is probably it, and we're going home without any of us qualifying. Of all the weird luck, I get paired against Alex who rather promptly concedes to me. He was tired, he ran into some awful luck (he had the best chance out of the three of us, in my opinion, at the start of the day), and he knew I had a snowball's chance in Hell even though he didn't (my tie-breakers were much stronger). So, he conceded.
End of Swiss
I place 5th in the final standings. Mike Pozsgay, who had already qualified and who was the only undefeated player at this event, drops, pushing me into 4th place and a shot at qualifying. At the playoff table are Josh Hughes, Rich Rennhack, Matt Bass and myself. Josh and Rich were my only losses, I was Matt's only loss, and Rich had already beaten Josh (I think). We're all from the Kalamazoo area, so west Michigan completely represented here on the east side of the state. Maybe Wizards will have a qualifier in South Bend, Indiana or Kalamazoo, Michigan, so those easterners can come to our turf to play...
Playoff Match 1 v. Matt
Poor Matt. He's an excellent player, he was well-prepared, but, I got map again, and things didn't go his way. It was a much closer, more nerve-wracking game than before. But, I got a Farmer on my Victory Area and could afford to leave him there, and he had to move his forces to my pieces and couldn't keep up on Assault points. Remember those Kobold Archers? They are key to my victory. Matt never attacks them, and they keep rolling over 15. They take out his Warhorses and Merchant Guards and cause all kinds of mayhem. I couldn't have won without them. One of my Farmers kills his Wild Mage (who only had 5 points remaining), and, in general, my dice were really hot. At the end, I was head 195 to 137. Matt's EB was adjacent to my EB, and was within walking distance of his Victory Area. My Farmer was on my Victory Area. We were both adding incorrectly, and assumed that if his EB killed mine, and he got Assault Points, he'd win 211 to 195. In truth, the math, of course, would have favored me. If his EB had killed mine, it would be 195 to 191, and then we'd have both gotten Assault Points, and I'd have won 205 to 201. But, he needed a critical to kill my EB and he didn't get it anyway. Still, at that moment, we both believed that the game had come down to that die roll, and that if he'd only rolled a 20, he'd have won.
Playoff Match 2 v. Rich
Neither Rich nor I need the travel. We both drive to Indy, and it's only 4 or 5 hours. I'd taken the first place prize at qualifiers in the two previous years, so I was happy for Rich to get it. Besides, he said, he for sure wasn't going to any more qualifiers anyway.
Dave | |
Knowledge Arcana editor issues 5-9, Phoenix Lore Magazine editor, assistant editor for Rite Publishing;
My Trade Thread and My Reference Thread; Winner of WBC IV, IX and XIII; Rule #0: bshugg is always right! | |
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Sirohk
Commander
3721 Posts
USA
| | 04/21/2008 3:38 AM |
| Dave, congrats. Well done.Â
It was great seeing you and some of the other folks there that I know from the last few years of DDMing and then meeting a whole new crew of people.Â
That was a fun tournment and well run. I'm glad we made the trip.Â
I'll post some more thoughts when I have more time.Â
Cheers.Â
 Â Â | |
Sirohk, the Bard of Heartstone
Knight of the Rahshasa's
And Crusader of the Zakya, Ak'chazar, Naztharune, and Naityan Rakshasa's | |
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Vendelphian
Warrior
212 Posts
Flint, Mi
| | 04/21/2008 7:56 AM |
| | Great report Dave. I'm always excited to read them after the big Qualifier. Didnt get a chance to say bye though, Eric and I had a rough day and a long drive too so we headed out before the round was over. I had quite a devastating loss from Alex :) Hopefully we'll see you at Gen Con. | |
VENDELPHIAN CHAMPION OF ELDEVERE
As the once great Zanin Arthasad would say...
ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! Lets charge the gates!!!! | |
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Vrecknidj
Warlord
9973 Posts
United States
| | 04/21/2008 1:19 PM |
| You'll have to write up the details of the match with Alex. I'm curious why it turned out that way.
Alex didn't know how the LGD worked, or else he'd probably have done much better in that match. Honestly, I figured he'd make it to the top 4; I was surprised that he didn't do better...
Dave | |
Knowledge Arcana editor issues 5-9, Phoenix Lore Magazine editor, assistant editor for Rite Publishing;
My Trade Thread and My Reference Thread; Winner of WBC IV, IX and XIII; Rule #0: bshugg is always right! | |
|
Vendelphian
Warrior
212 Posts
Flint, Mi
| | 04/23/2008 8:54 AM |
| Heres how it went Dave.
We both have a three for init, and he wins his map. Hellspike.
First round goes somewhat slow but is very important. He moves up far enough to have two A.A. within sight and reach of my Harpies lures' He wins init and and moves up, I believe his Cleric. I then come in with both Dol Dorns and Hit each A.A. with 40 dmg a piece. Threfore those two should be dead when they activate with the harpies lure. The round carries out and he puts one champ down to about 40 and the other is still full. When it comes for him to activate the two arcadians, I get 4 attacks to kill two. I miss with all four. I lure them both towards my harpy, but they cannot do anything. So all 4 A.A's are alive and if he wins init, I can just about call it game where if two were dead, I would be pretty set. He wins init, activates three, and kills a dol dorn, and badly injures another. I go to hit with my dol dorn, and miss again. I move my harpy up and cone hoping to put the two down to 10. I miss with that both times. Next act he kills my dol dorn with his last arcadian. After that I go through a series of misses to try and finish off the two hurt A.A's but I fail until the very end when I finally crit one with my elf archer. So I thought I had decent setup from the beginning but the arcadians have better AC than I could hit.
I really think the Arcadians are good too. Eric and I were in agreemetn that if one brought LGD, the other would take A.A. but I changed my mind in the end. | |
VENDELPHIAN CHAMPION OF ELDEVERE
As the once great Zanin Arthasad would say...
ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! Lets charge the gates!!!! | |
|
Vrecknidj
Warlord
9973 Posts
United States
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