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The Beastmaster
Skirmisher
5 Posts
    
 | | 03/05/2006 8:00 PM |
| With this weekend marking the release of the new DDM series: 'War Drums', Game Kastle hosted a day long string of sealed tournaments on Saturday, March 4th. The first tournament began with a sizable twenty-four competators. Sheets of revised rules & battle maps, brand-new miniatures and blue dice filled the tables of GK's Gaming Arena. After the second round of tournament play, the size of active players dwendled into half as some left for other engagements or dropped to play in the second tournament. Those who did stay enjoyed two more rounds of gaming on 'Broken Demongate' and prizes in the form of 'War Drum' Booster Packs (for those qualifying in the top ten).
Chimeras, War Trolls, Shuluths, Warforged Captains, Inspired Lieutenants, Arcane Ballistas, Fiendish Girallons, Large Duegars and Brass Samuri filled many warbands. However, none were more potent than the Aspect of Moradin & Hill Giant Barbarian combination, as two such warbands went 3-0 into the final round to face each other for the championship. Unfortunately, the clash of the twin titans could not be played out as James had to withdraw to be with family.
A list of the top ten:
Flores, Andy
Murphy, James
Sacha, Louis
Snyder, Ray
Dewey, Glyn
McDaniel, Brian
Gavidia, Eddie
Cleaver, Eric
Hellie, Ben
Wilder, Jeff
Thank you to everyone who did show up to celebrate the 'War Drums' Release. It was good to see most of the Bay Area DDM community under one roof, again.
This is all I have to report about the Release Party @ GK because I left after the end of the first tournament. Does anyone want to report about second and third tournaments?
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Andy
"Life is the constant struggle against the tendency to produce entropy by irreversible processes." | |
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Feathers
Underboss
1140 Posts
| | 03/06/2006 3:53 AM |
| Andy, I wanna know how your matches went. [:)]
Congrats to the top 3. I'm curious to know what Louis pulled and how he fared. Obviously, Louis did well, but I'd love to read reports from ya'll.
Congratulations again to all who stayed in it. | |
Champion of Neogi
Completed Trades/Transactions: sttmxn, Krush, jgsugden, Ayrychx2, Venport, Tysac
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Krush
Commander
3852 Posts
| | 03/06/2006 4:07 AM |
| I have heard thru the grape vine that Ben won a match, thought it was a fluke, dropped his second and headed on over to Who's On First?
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Gehenna | |
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DinoBen
Sergeant
412 Posts
Based outta Games of Berkeley, CA
| | 03/06/2006 3:46 PM |
| Ben here. First my thanks to GameKastle for running this event, huzzah!
Yup, the grape-vine was accurate. I pulled a victory in my first game and then headed off to greener pastures with my dignity intact. You see, when you pull an Arcane Ballista, a Warbound Impaler (I considered posting to the "Worst Pulls" site) and no heavy hitters (not even a large Duegar), winning in a match is not a prize to be tarnished by being stupid enough to think that I could win again.
My warband was simple enough: Arcane Ballista, Warpriest of Moradin, 2x Mephling Pyromancer (Bringing my total number of minis that could fire off rounds with my Ballista to three), an Axe Soldier, a Quaggoth Slave and a Skeletal Legionaire.
Casting Fly on the Arcane Ballista was the key to my first and only victory. This allowed me to play a "denial game" (i.e. denying my opponent the ability to base my Arcane Ballista) and get off far more shots than I had any right to shoot. See, my opponent had two 6 movement Large creatures that couldn't catch my mobile ballista that I shot for 35 Magic Damage each round. He also only had 4 minis, one of which I routed w/ Fireballs early on, so I was able to out-activate him.
Once the was Ballista based, however, I knew it would be worthless! With all the HGBs flying around that tourney, I knew I'd never get another game in like the first.
So there you have it. I hope for more competitive pulls tomorrow at Games of Berkeley. Hope to see some of the Bay Area crowd there tomorrow evening. Cheers, -Ben | |
Champion of all things Athasian
"Don't sing it - Bring it!" | |
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jgsugden
Commander
4320 Posts
Walnut Creek, CA
| | 03/06/2006 5:43 PM |
| It was a bad start to a bad day. I went 1-1 and withdrew to play in the second tourney.
My rares were Snig and a Warbound Impaler. The Warbound Impaler is mediocre, but Snig is my vote for worst rare pull. I left Snig out.
My uncommon commander was a saving point - warpriest of moradin. He proved to be the MVP of the day for me, almost singlehandedly winning a match for me with his CE. My only other useful uncommon was a combat medic - which is not so powerful when you lack a titan for damage dealing.
My other figures were weenie fillers. My band ended up as:
Warbound Impaler
Combat Medic
Warpriest of Moradin
2X Quaggoth Slaves
Orc Mauler
Hunting Cougar
Howling Orc
In the first match, I managed to get the jump on the enemy commander and route it off the board early in rd 2. This allowed my warpriest to force an insane number of hopeless morale checks on enemy units. My opponent had a similarly lackluster warband, so the match was fairly even, except for his one catastrophic tactical error in leaving his commander in a position where he could be charged.
The second match was mostly a blur. I hardly remember it. IanB was my foe, and he brought Shuluth, an Inspired Lieutenant and an Ogre War Hulk to the table. The rest of his warband was rough filler, but it was a much higher qualitty than mine. We were playing on the Broken Dragonshrine, so when he managed to grab the better positioning in the breach, I thought it was going to be a long day. However, a few bad rolls forced him to move up Shuluth, and I managed to take him out. From there it was touch and go - with both of us having pretty even odds of winning. In the end, he got the rolls he needed and finished off enough of my figures to get the win. I don't recall the fine details of the game, but it was a decent match-up. | |
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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Lead Moderator
LCS
Underboss
1899 Posts
| | 03/06/2006 7:13 PM |
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Warforged Barbarian
Warpriest of Moradin
Brass Samurai
Steelheart Archer
Warforged Scout
Goblin Blackblade
Quaggoth Slave
(7 activations, 199 points)
All of our matches were on the errata Broken Demongate map.
My unused rare was the Arcane Ballista. My only spellcaster was the Warpriest, and I would have needed to also play the elemental wall (I actually pulled two) in addition to the WF Barbarian in order to have a chance at blocking the chokepoint and keeping the ballista free to shoot. With my selection of commons, I would only have been able to fit the Warforged Scout and one more figure. I decided not to run the Ballista, since it would probably be shooting into combat and cover, and there were just too many heavy beaters that could easily shrug off a hit on an attack of opportunity in order to base the ballista.
Since both of my uncommon commanders were good pieces, I decided to use both of them instead of trying to fit in an elemental wall. The Warforged Scout was pretty much automatic, and I chose the Steelheart Archer since I wanted a solid long range attack and she would still be pretty decent if based (she's significantly better than the hobgoblins for only 4 more points).
I only had enough points for two more figures, since I think the cheapest figures I had were the Scout and the Hunting Cougar. I like using Sneak Attack, so I chose the Goblin Blackblade. The Quaggoth has a good attack bonus and a good chance of getting Savage Frenzy to work, so he was in too.
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My first match was against Ian Bell, who was running:
Ogre Warhulk, Shuluth, Inspired Lieutenant, Combat Medic, + (Warforged Scout ?)
From the beginning, I decided I wanted to eliminate the Inspired as quickly as possible. Especially since Ian had the Medic, I wanted to concentrate my damage on the Inspired and try to take it out before it could use its psionics.
I started from the closer starting area on the "indoor" side, and moved to meet his Ogre at the choke point. The Warpriest cast Divine Protection. I think Ian had the Scout, but I killed/routed it quickly. At the end of the round, my Warforged Barbarian was basing the Ogre and the Inspired, I didn't have the Goblin ready to move into position yet, but the Quaggoth was in position to go after the Inspired. Ian had also moved Shuluth up, and those three figures of mine were in the Stun cone.
In the second round, the Warforged Barbarian damaged the Inspired with Bloody Rage, but I chose to do whirlwind attack and managed to miss the inspired. It was a bad choice, since I didn't really need the higher bonus to hit the ogre, and attacking normally would have allowed me to try the second attack against the Inspired again instead. The Ogre pounded on my Barbarian. I got a decent line off with the Brass Samurai to get Shuluth, the Ogre, and the Combat Medic in the backfield (who I was hoping to rout, but it didn't happen). Ian used Shuluth's stun cone, but only the Quaggoth failed. The Combat Medic moved back and used Sacred Healing to patch up his team.
The third round, I did hit the Inspired with the Warforged and figured I would be able to follow up with a hit from either the Blackblade (after moving to flank) or the Quaggoth (and hopefully both). Both missed, and were also now in range of the Ogre's whirlwind. I thought it had been worth the risk, and had hoped that the Quaggoth would have enough hit points from its Frenzy to take that one hit and that the Goblin's 20 AC gave it at least a small chance of surviving. It ended up completely the opposite (and ironically it was the +2 from the Inspired's commander effect that cause the Goblin to get hit). My Warforged Barbarian also decided to rout. I did manage to ping the Inspired w/ the Steelheart, and Ian moved her back away from the front line.
The next round, I did manage to rally the Barbarian. Ian moved his Ogre up to the victory area but missed the swing at my Scout. The Inspired came over and used Hostile Empathic Transfer on the Brass Samurai, who managed to fail her save. My Brass Sam then proceeded to miss the Inspired twice and hit only with her third attack, and then ended up having her brain sucked out by Shuluth. At this point, even though I had only killed Ian's Scout and had lost the Brass Sam and my fodder, I was still in the match because of the tile point advantage I had accumulated.
The next round, the Ogre routed my Scout, who had to take the long way around because the Ogre was blocking the quicker path. My Barbarian ran back towards the battle. At the end of the round, I had managed to get myself into position where I thought I had a chance to win. My Barbarian was in movement range of the wounded Inspired, and even if Ian healed her first with a Cure Light from the Combat Medic I could probably still kill her the following round. I would need to take an attack of opportunity from Shuluth, but I had the hp to take it. I had the Warpriest in position so that even if Ian won initiative and moved the Ogre to base my Barbarian, I could still survive taking both hits since the Close Wounds would save the Barbarian from Shuluth's attack and allow him to go after the Inspired.
It was a pretty good plan. Ian won initiative (during the whole tournament, I think I only won initiative on the second round or later a couple of times in all my matches combined) and moved the Warhulk to base the Barbarian. No problem, I had planned for that... and then his Combat Medic used Searing Light on the Barbarian. Now, the Close Wounds would only save him from the Ogre's attack, and he would die if both the Ogre and Shuluth hit. The Barbarian made his save against Shuluth's Disorientation (which I had also done for most of the match), but I just couldn't risk going after the Inspired since I wouldn't kill the Inspired this round unless I got a critical.
My Warforged Scout rallied, and the next round Ian moved the Combat Medic up to base it. I was agonizing over the choice of whether to risk the AoO from the Medic to return to the victory area, but Shuluth's Disorientation made the decision for me. The Scout failed the save, but the Medic missed and the Scout ran to the back corner and got some more victory points. My Warforged Barbarian was squished, had his wounds closed, but ultimately got finished off by Shuluth.
At that point (I think I may have routed the Ogre, but can't remember exactly), my Warpriest and Steelheart tried valiantly to make Shuluth rout or kill the Inspired, but neither happened and Ian won. With the healing from the Combat Medic and the Inspired Empathic Transfer, I wasn't able to do enough damage quickly in the early part of the match to accomplish my initial goal, and ended up at a disadvantage that I was struggling to try to overcome for the rest of the match.
Loss, 0-1. In one way, it turned out to be for the best, because it dropped me out of the bracket with the two players who pulled the Aspect of Moradin + Hill Giant Barbarian.
- - - - -
I'll try to get some details about my three wins typed up in the next few days.
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