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jgsugden
Commander
4320 Posts
    
Walnut Creek, CA
 | | 02/07/2006 2:25 PM |
| This is a tourney report for a 200 point tourney at Endgame in Oakland on February 6, 2005. As a send off to the old ways, we're running tournamnets every Monday night this month at Endgame in Oakland. 200 point, 12 figure limit, tiles only (no maps).
Our first tourney was a success, although we always welcome additional players, such as our guest from Chicago, Dan Zedan.
The final standings and warbands were as follows:
1st place (3-0): John Sugden [jgsugden] (Urthok, 2 X Duergar Champ, Chraal, Efreet, Blue, Mongrelfolk, 5 X Kobold Miner, Assembly Rubble, Treasure Room, Hall of Heroes, Spike Stones Cave)
2nd place (2-1): John Wang [John05] (Death Slaad, Blue Slaad, Drow Arcane Guard, Cursed Spirit, 3 X Lolth's Sting, 2 X Spider of Lolth, 2 X Abyssal Maw, Deathlock, Assembly 3, Mushroom Tangle, Broken Fountain, Intersection)
3rd place (2-1): Jeffry Ashbury [Jasbury?] (Rakshasa, 2 X Duergar Champ, Chraal, Helmed Horror, Mongrel Folk, 2 X Blue, Assembly 4, Blood Rock Cave, Hall of Heroes, Spike Stones Cave)
4th Place (1-2): Andy Flores (Greenfang Druid, Frenzied Beserker, Dire Bear, Crow Shaman, Griffon, Assembly 6, Broken Fountain, Endgame, Intersection)
5th Place (1-2): Daniel Zedan (Mordenkainene the Mage, Dragon Samurai, Medium Earth Elemental, Anvil of Thunder, 2 X Dwarf Phalanx Soldier, Celestial Dire Badger, Assembly (statue), Burial Chamber, Shrine, Statue Room)
6th Place (0-3): James Hillstead [Krush] (Ryld Argith, 2 X Drow Arcane Guard, 2 X Lolth's Sting, Drow Warrior, Xen'drick Champion, Draegloth, Assembly Rubblem, Endgame, Egg Chamber, Blood Rock)
Match reports to follow ... but if you want to join us, we're starting no earlier than 6:30 next Monday. These will be sanctioned tourneys, and will be occuring all month. | |
Champion of Meepo _*_ Myztek on the Wizards Boards. _*_ (2206 DDM on 03/06/06)
Please note: The use of the  indicates an attempt at humor ... often a bad attempt.
BAD EBAY SELLERS LIST (CLICK HERE): AVOID AT ALL COSTS
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jgsugden
Commander
4320 Posts
Walnut Creek, CA
| | 02/07/2006 4:03 PM |
| Match Reports for John Sugden (jgsugden)
Rd 1: James Hillstead (Krush)
I felt bad for James during this match. The dice hated him. Do you want to know how badly the dice hated him? My blue nailed one of his drow arcane guard with a psionic charm, I gained control of it, and I was able to hit his best pieces with the burning hands, which routed Ryld (who then continued to route off the board next turn). That was: A failed DC 13 saving throw by a level 7 creature, a successful spell resistance roll, a 25% chance confusion roll to gain control, ideal placement of his figures to capitalize on the cumulative effect, and successful spell resistance rolls against all 3 targets. Plus, I never failed a concealment roll (against those conceal 11 arcane guards, or any of the other conceal 6 creatures) until the game was effectively over.
If the dice hate you, you can't win.
Strategically, I was able to establish the battle field in a good location for my side, which allowed my chraal to cone a good number of his troops. In addition, James made a mistake in using his Draegloth in chasing down some kobold miners that were effectively irrelevant except for providing activations. I had already blocked off access to my treasure chamber on his side of the board (with a kobold miner in it), so the kobold miners in his backfield were nothing more than extra activations and position blockers. He lost 2 rds of Draegloth effectiveness in chasing those guys down ... and that was huge. His bad rolls would have doomed him anyway, but by the time his draegloth entered the central battle, it was pretty much entirely alone against 2 duergar warriors, an efreet and a chraal. Hunting those kobolds with the drow warrior would have been fine, but using the draegloth was a game turning decision.
Rd 2: Andy Flores
Andy is a good player that is very familiar with his CG faviorites: The Greenfang Druid and the Dire Bear. When you play in a small group, however, familiarity goes both ways: You know how to play your warband, and your regular rivals know how you play your warband. I was able to predict most of his actions during the game, and used that knowledge to draw his warband in too many directions.
It seemed to me that Andy was really handicapped by his limited number of activations. On turn 1, by the time he finished activating all his creatures, I had activated only kobold miners and mongrelfolk. This allowed me to position my key figures exactly where I wanted to without worries about what his creatures could do in a double move. In addition, he sent his griffon to hunt down my tile grabbing mongrel folk (which took 3 turns) and his greenfang druid pulled back to pick off a kobold miner that sprinted onto his assembly tile (which cost it 2 rds of effectiveness). 6 points of my warband tied up 80+ points of his warband during key rounds in the match.
Andy also had one error in commander movement that left his Frenzied Berserker out of command for a round (with the nearest rushable foe a kobold that was in his backfield, away from the combat where he wanted the Frenzied to fight). When it finally made it to the fight, The frenzied rolled a 1 on the attack. The duergar champ it was basing was killed by his bear, and I managed to finish off the frenzied with reach melee attacks so that it could not get off that deathblow - it dealt no damage, and only made 1 attack.
I was able to use my kobold miners to great effect in this match. I spread them out so that Andy could not use the Greenfang Druid fire spells on a big target. No matter where the Greenfang went, during the match, his only choice for a target for his fire spells war a miner (or the Efreet). These guys, although jittery, are actually some of the most fearless guys in the game. As they cost no victory points when they die, using them as sacrifical spell suckers or position blockers can be effective with minimal risk. Accordingly, I had them diving between enemies right and left, and hiding in the enemy backfield.
Round 3: John Wang
John keeps claiming he is new to the game, but his strategy is *very* good. His lack of familiarity with a few things really hurt him (specifically, he did not realize that my treasure room had walls and moved two pieces awkwardly under the belief that they'd be able to get my tile grabbing kobold miners).
He only has one big hole in his strategic game: speed. Our finals match lasted 3 rds, and I am a (typically) carelessly fast player. Being slow in play isn't always a weakness, but it is if you don't plan for it. At the end of round 3, I was the winner by roughly 15 points. At the end of round 4, I might have lost by 15 to 50 points.
His other huge mistake took place before he even left home: he forgot the card for this Drow Cleric of Lolth, so he had to do some last minute substitutions, and was left with his Death Slaad as his only commander.
Tile and figure placement was pretty standard, with me using my hall of heroes to block off any turn 1 chaos hammers against my assembly tile - especially given how my miners were all spread around the board and would draw the hammers first. I love those miners.
In rd 1, we were each able to acquire tile points and move our figures forward. John axed a few kobold miners and my mongrelfolk while I produced flame on one of his spiders, but nothing substantial took place other than positioning. However, it was a very slow round with John being very careful in his positioning, and me being slightly slower than usual for my key pieces.
Round 2 started with 27 minutes to go in the match. I finished off that spider to gain a point advantage and unleashed my chraal breath on his blue slaad, the death slaad and the drow arcane guard. The drow arcane guard routed before it activated, and proceeded to route off the board when it did activate.
However, I made a mistake in the next activation. My brain just jumped out of my head, crawled across the floor, down the stairs, across the street, hopped into the bar, had a few vodkas, and came back in a less than functional condition. I previosuly figured out that given where my first duergar and my chraal were, I could only get my second duergar champion around to base his death slaad by putting it in a position where it'd get chaos hammered along with the other duergar champ and the chraal - which I decided was a bad thing (the possibility being 2 hammer on my 2 duergars and the chraal, which would have been very bad given their injury status from minor attacks by other figures - it would have been worse than the risk of the deadly rend on the duergar champ basing the death slaad). For some reason, I blanked on this when it came time to move the second duergar (perhaps because the move took place roughly ten minutes after I figures out the problem), and I proceeded to move the second duergar to that exact wrong place.
Hammer time. He moved the death slaad (with my duergar wiffing on the AoO), and then hammered all three. Then he killed my 1st duergar with the blue slaad (critical hit for 40) during attacks and dealt some damage to the chraal. The dice liked him during those attacks.
Rd 3 began with 8 minutes to go. Given our play speed, I knew this was the last round. Accordingly, I focused on snatching my tile points for the roundd, and then focused on getting my expensive pieces to safety after they had killed some fodder. Urthok was out of range of all his pieces, so my only vulnerable pieces were the chraal and the remaining duergar champ. The chraal had 50 hps left, so in order for it to die, he needed to critically hit it. The only creatures that could attack it were the blue slaad (not basing, in melee reach, but with cover on the attack), the death slaad (who could not get to a flank position, and 2 lolth's sting (who could not deal any damage unless they critted). To kill the chraal, he needed a critical and some hits.
However, I got to go first, and I was able to reduce the chances by offing one of the lolth's stings with the chraal. I then moved my duergar out of attack range (by his big hitters) and finished off one of his abyssal maws for 5 more points. He proceeded to attack the chraal with the blue slaad, and hit. This forced a morale check, which the chraal failed, and forced it to route, but not off the board. The Efreet moved up into harm's way and finished off another lolth's sting, but as it was unwounded, there was no possible way for John to kill it with only 1 attack by a death slaad. We ended the game, with John getting (30 tile points + 33 for a Duergar Champ + 3 for a Mongrelfolk + 0 for 3 X Kobold Miner = 66) and me getting (30 tile points + 25 for drow arcane guard + 14 for 2 lolth's sting + 5 for abyssal maw + 9 for a spider of lolth = 83).
If we went to 4 rds, I'd have needed to make the morale check on my chraal to win the game. If I did, he'd have been unable to kill any of my key pieces (barring a critical hit with the blue slaad or something else unlikely), and the chraal makes 70% of those morale checks. If he had, I'd likely have been able to play 'keep away' long enough to stay in the lead.
My tournament MVP warband contributor: Kobold miners. They sucked up a lot of my enemies actions, even though they never hit a single thing. They didn't do much in the finale, but they were key pieces in the other matches. | |
Champion of Meepo _*_ Myztek on the Wizards Boards. _*_ (2206 DDM on 03/06/06)
Please note: The use of the indicates an attempt at humor ... often a bad attempt.
BAD EBAY SELLERS LIST (CLICK HERE): AVOID AT ALL COSTS
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Krush
Commander
3852 Posts
| | 02/07/2006 8:50 PM |
| | Gee I feel sooooo much better now after reading your report. | |
Gehenna | |
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John05
Warrior
246 Posts
| | 02/08/2006 6:59 AM |
| What really annoyed me were that the two failed morale saves (your chraal and your 2nd Duergar) ended up working to your advantage! [:(!]
I've made some serious considerations on that game. Although I agree with the flaws you found in my game play, I think they were far more severe than your story implies. Since I have the luxury of bashing myself without seeming rude, I will comment that I made huge errors in judgment for that game even ignoring the fact that I didn't bring a single decent commander to the tourney. I had plenty of opportunities to win that game but I missed them!!
I'll try to report what happened to me perhaps on Friday (when I'm not dead tired or grouchy), because, even as embarassing of a performance it was, it was a very enlightening match for a newb like me and I'm sure other newbs could stand to gain in sharing in some of my aweful experiences.
Added: Oh yeah, and the Treasure Room is a totally bogus tile! Not only is it overpowered, it's hard for idiots like me to notice the walls! They are practically camouflaged. Aren't walls supposed to be black!? What the Heck?!
~John | |
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Feathers
Underboss
1140 Posts
| | 02/08/2006 5:42 PM |
| Wish I coulda been there guys. Next week! [:)]
Glad ya'll had fun and I'm glad to see a visitor from Chicago! | |
Champion of Neogi
Completed Trades/Transactions: sttmxn, Krush, jgsugden, Ayrychx2, Venport, Tysac
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John05
Warrior
246 Posts
| | 02/08/2006 5:52 PM |
| "Casual Tourney"
Locale: Endgame Oakland, CA, USA
Date: 2/7/06
Context: 12 figure limit; tiles; 1 hour per game; 6 participants
Introduction
My first and biggest mistake I can not blame myself for because that mistake was to show up at the tournament in the first place. I had gotten out of work and school earlier than I had expected that day. Normally, I WOULD have no trouble getting to Endgame on mondays; this was simply a bad day. I had originally thought I'd be missing Monday's DDM Skirmish at Endgame. Turns out, I'd only be 20-30 minutes late. I didn't bring my collection because I only had a few figures in my car which I had left from last week (and forgotten to take them out). However, I had a few of my favorite pieces, and some junk fodder which I kept in a plastic bag. So I decided to go for just a game. Just for a casual game.
So I walk into Endgame, expecting to wait another 30 minutes or so before getting a game, because I was sure people had already started playing, and everyone was already paired up. The store clerk, having recognized me by face by now, told me to take a sheet and go up for a tournament. "Wait! There's a tournament? I just came for a casual game or two... do you have to pay for this?"
"Yes," he responded calmly but urgently, "You don't have to pay for it. There is a tournament today. John Sugden is running it. Hurry, they are about to start."
So I headed upstairs and see several people prepping for their games. A few people greeted me, and I exclaimed that I had no clue about the tournament. John Sugden mentions that people had been talking about this month-long, back-to-back tournament for a while now... He also claimed that it was announced on Maxminis Tournaments section (this section) of the forums... I still can't find it. Can anyone provide me with a link so I could read over the information?
Acknowledging the fact that I can sometimes be clueless or left out of the loop when not spoken to or informed directly and formally, I simply accepted my inopportune timing, and decided to participate despite my lack of prep. "Wow, I'm so not ready for this. Let me check my figures."
So why do I have to rant about the time, and make a fuss out of this intro? Well, you'll soon see how TIME plays a huge role in the games I will be reporting.
Jeff (jasbury) tried encouraging me, "Hey, last time you came unprepared you won the tournament!" While I probably should have been more grateful for that comment at that time, my pessimistic nature had already dismissed that last tournament as either a fluke (or a demonstration of my obviously superior luck, which Derry can attest to).
To be perfectly objective, there were many factors going for me at my first tournament which even I wasn't aware of at the time. First of all, the entire tournament was constrained to the Drow Outpost. No terrain initiative to determine map. While I was aware the 8 figure limit would alleviate my handicap of a 4 activation warband, I was not considering how much the specific map had helped. With merely a cursory glance at the Drow Outpost, we can see that the victory areas are generally very safe. Two private victory areas, one public (shared). The shared one would not be simple to camp with a tile-grabber. To reach a private victory area would require a LONG journey or crossing the center victory area. It's not a very "tile-grabber friendly" map. Well that was perfectly fine with me... I didn't have any tilegrabbers!
I couldn't make the same mistake again. I knew tile grabbers would be THAT much more important on a larger map with tiles. This would be my second game using tiles at a competitive game ever, and I wasn't about to underestimate the value of tile points now. (My loss to JGSugden later would teach me that not only were tile-grabbers stronger in map games, but that in a 12-figure game with tiles, games were MUCH slower, making tile points all the more important). Combine that with my abrupt switch from managing a 4 activation warband to a 12 activation warband, and you can see why time was such an important factor.)
So I knew activations would definitely going to be more important for the next few games of this tournament. I wasn't about to take the foolhardy risk I did last tournament. While my luck as a beginner is definitely superior [:p], I didn't feel like pushing it. So I decided I would build a warband with 11 figures, minimum.
Now, it's a personality flaw of mine to try and be affable as often as possible, so knowing that I had 5 busy people waiting for me to construct a warband 30-45 minutes past the usual time games start, REALLY put me under stress. I came expecting a very casual game. JSugden tried calming me down by calling this a very "casual tournament... that still counts towards our DCI ratings". The games were to be timed and should all start at the same time. This was extremely intimidating, being the one to keep everyone waiting. So I pretty much pulled the following band from my arse:
42 Drow Cleric of Lolth
53 Death Slaad
50 Blue Slaad
35 Lolth's Sting x5
11 Cursed Spirit
9 Gnoll x3 (No, I can't get my hands on Orc Warriors)
200 points, 12 activations
It wasn't the greatest warband, but I really only had 2 Blue Slaad, a Death Slaad (edit: not 3 Death Slaadi, my bad), Drow Cleric and a bag of fodder to work with. Not surprisingly, I did not bring my Tiefling Captain... AGAIN. I was very thankful that at least my Drow Cleric was still with me. I completely forget the reason why I would bring such an expensive mini with me even though I hadn't used it since the last tournament. So I go searching through my cards at a frantic pace, because people were still waiting, and JSugden had asked again whether I was ready.
...
I don't have my card for the Drow Cleric. As I felt my face bleach, I asked the other members whether any of them had a Drow Cleric card with them. None had one. I assume everyone just brought what they needed for the tournament. "Well Heck, it doesn't take a genius to see how screwed I am today. My only commander has a CR of 1." That's like having an expensive, sub-par Eye of Gruumsh as your only commander!
Thoughts raced through my head as I tried finding more figures to fill in those 42 points.
It felt disappointing to know I would lose this tournament. I didn't mind so much for the first one, but that was because I was painting on a clean canvas. In a way, I accidentally painted something half decent, and didn't want to take away from the painting's value (sorry about the egotistical admission [:I]). I may just be anal-retentive (no anus jokes please), but it irked me somewhat to spoil a perfect record (yeah yeah, I know it's only 3-0, I'm just trying to be honest here).
What I ended up with, after much stress, was the following warband:
53 Death Slaad
50 Blue Slaad
25 Drow Arcane Guard
21 Lolth's Sting x3
18 Spider of Lolth x2
12 Deathlock
11 Cursed Spirit
10 Abyssal Maw x2
200 Points, 12 Activations
(Note, throughout the entire tourney, no one, including myself, realized that the Abyssal Maws should have been out of command because they are Difficult 2, and my Commander is CR 1... Now, although I sincerely apologize about this mistake on my behalf (I normally don't pay attention to the Diff 2 on the Maws because I almost always have a commander with CR 2... the stress and lack of preparation made me forget. It's not a great excuse, but I hope it gives you guys some understanding on how I could have missed this), let me take this opportunity to remind us all again (including myself) to pay attention to every ability on yours and your opponent's cards.)
After some consideration, the Spider of Lolth's didn't seem that bad. They have a decent poison DC. They can kill most fodder 1v1. They SOMEWHAT counter the Mongrel Folk, Kobold Miners, and other weak Tile-grabbers which I expected would cause me trouble in a 12-figure, MAP+TILES environment. Also, being fearless was a great bonus because I have a commander rating of 1! 1!!!
The Drow Arcane Guard... I really only threw that in because I didn't have any other sturdy pieces besides the two Slaadi. My fodder bag really is only filled with junk (which is why it was so forgetful and was left in my car in the first place). As a big fish in a small pond, the DAG shined, and was chosen to fight for me. The deathlock... I'm not sure why I picked that. I think it was because I still needed to fill in that last 12 points, and people were waiting on me.
The deathlock was still in its plastic bag, so the glare from the lights above must have camouflaged it or something, because I missed it and entered my first match without it (Yes, I was in such a rush that I didn't notice):
53 Death Slaad
50 Blue Slaad
25 Drow Arcane Guard
21 Lolth's Sting x3
18 Spider of Lolth x2
11 Cursed Spirit
10 Abyssal Maw x2
188 Points, 11 Activations
I then borrowed a few tiles that JSugden had. I didn't have enough time to analyze the strategic merits of different tiles and make objective comparisons or even consider their value given the current meta... So, I simply grabbed some randomly. I ended up with one of the worst Assembly tiles (Assembly Rubble would have been so much better). This was a huge mistake on my part, because, in retrospect, I'd argue that tiles worth about as much as sub-par secondary beaters. I had mushroom tangle... that could be useful (not that it has an absolute, context-free efficiency value [)]). However, this kind of mistake I can forgive, due to the time constraint. This time constraint is different from the time constraint that killed me in the final match in that it wasn't directly related to the tournament.
After haphazardly snatching my dice from my bag, and tossing my bag to a nearby table, I started my first game against Jeff Ashbury with my forgotten Deathlock hiding safely inside its plastic bag, laughing at me behind my back. | |
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Feathers
Underboss
1140 Posts
| | 02/08/2006 7:00 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by John05
"Casual Tourney"
Locale: Endgame Oakland, CA, USA
Date: 2/7/06
Context: 12 figure limit; tiles; 1 hour per game; 6 participants
Introduction
So I walk into Endgame, expecting to wait another 30 minutes or so before getting a game, because I was sure people had already started playing, and everyone was already paired up. The store clerk, having recognized me by face by now, told me to take a sheet and go up for a tournament. "Wait! There's a tournament? I just came for a casual game or two... do you have to pay for this?"
"Yes," he responded calmly but urgently, "You don't have to pay for it. There is a tournament today. John Sugden is running it. Hurry, they are about to start."
So I headed upstairs and see several people prepping for their games. A few people greeted me, and I exclaimed that I had no clue about the tournament. John Sugden mentions that people had been talking about this month-long, back-to-back tournament for a while now... He also claimed that it was announced on Maxminis Tournaments section (this section) of the forums... I still can't find it. Can anyone provide me with a link so I could read over the information?
Can't use that as an excuse anymore. [)]
http://www.maxminis.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12430
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Champion of Neogi
Completed Trades/Transactions: sttmxn, Krush, jgsugden, Ayrychx2, Venport, Tysac
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John05
Warrior
246 Posts
| | 02/08/2006 7:17 PM |
| Hey, thanks for the link! I honestly never paid any attention to that section of the forums.
I'm kind of bummed though. Now I have yet another section of the forums to pay attention to besides Tournaments and DDM Skirmish Discussion. I'd rather not be pulled in too deeply... [:(!]
~John | |
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Feathers
Underboss
1140 Posts
| | 02/09/2006 2:04 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by John05
I'd rather not be pulled in too deeply... [:(!]
~John
Too late. [)] | |
Champion of Neogi
Completed Trades/Transactions: sttmxn, Krush, jgsugden, Ayrychx2, Venport, Tysac
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