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Shivan Darkeyes
Warrior
266 Posts
    
 | | 06/14/2006 8:48 PM |
| (WARNING THIS IS LONG)
Hi all,
I don't post as much as I used to, but I figured since I qualified out of Niles, which is looking to be one of the biggest qualifiers, I should take the time to write a report on how the long qualifier went.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is John Siadak, and I have been playing DDM since Harbinger and have been playing on a National Circuit level (Qualifiers, GenCon etc) since the start of Archfiends. I qualified in 2004 and 2005 and I think partially as a result of this I was really nervous about 2006. I didn't want to "regress" and not qualify since it would feel as though I just didn't have what it took to succeed at a national level anymore. This, combined with the rapidly increasing strength of the field (more good players playing more good bands) made be apprehensive.
I went to the Michigan qualifier and did horrible, at least for myself. It was the 2nd tournament that I ended up with a losing record at finishing 3-4. To make matters worse it tanked my DCI rating to an extent where there would be no way I could qualify based on rating. As a result, I had my qualification hopes pinned on Chicago (a qualifier I feared would be one of the toughest).
In Michigan I made the huge mistake of playing x2 HGB. The warband had done well for me in my limited testing, but I underestimated the effect Dagni's choice of a Marut Titan build would have on the Michigan meta. I knew that my band had a few problems with Marut, but I didn't foresee over 3/5ths of the field being Marut.
METAGAMING
As a result of this blunder in Michigan I decided to carefully and meticulously evaluate the field before choosing a warband. Prior to Niles I perceived the field to be 4 major groupings, "Titan Bands", "Anti-Titan Bands", "Durable Bands", and "Multiple-Hitter Bands". Some warbands could fit into multiple categories like Helmed Horrors in “Durable” and “Multi-Hitter”, but I just put the band in the category that I felt suited it best for simplicity. I got the following breakdown:
Titan Bands:
Marut/Couatl
Kord/Couatl/Bodyguard/Cleric
Arcane Ballista/Couatl
Anti-Titan Bands:
Archmage
Triple Deathslaad
Point Denial or "Durable" Bands:
Chraals
Helmed Horrors
SWarm
BShugg's 5th Place SW/Bodyguard band
Multiple Hitter Bands:
CE Quad
HGB Combinations
LE Quad/Quint (Especially featuring Dreugar Champs)
Monks
It is totally impossible to find a band that beats ALL of this consistently, this is part of the reason this qualifier season is both frustrating and invigorating. Its frustrating because you can't just pick one band and KNOW you are going to get all good/neutral matches, no matter what you pick there is SOMETHING competitive that your opponents can play that will stomp your face. This is compounded by the fact that I am only considering bands that other people have played in past qualifiers (and multiple times at that for the most part). Rogue bands can through calculations off even further, but these bands generally aren't worth the time it takes to worry about them because by there very nature there isn't anything you can do about them anyway as far as picking a band and testing it out against the field.
Due to the fact that there is no band that beats EVERYTHING consistently one has to make a guess, that guess is to what band i going to be played the most at the event you are attending. The smaller the event the easier it is to predict what people will be playing as you can do research on individual players and those players' preferences. At a large qualifier like Niles or at the Championships it is best to look for TRENDS for the bulk of the fields and only evaluate what you perceive to be the "top-players" at the event and meta against those two factions, seeing as the top players are the players you USUALLY will play in later rounds assuming you do well.
This time around I had the advantage of being able to view how events from the past had shaped the meta. I'll highlight some events and why I think they are important.
1. Dagni's performance in Utah and Arizona.
Reason: For whatever reason (maybe because he is really good) people LOVE playing the same warband as Robert Hatch. He is the "Mike Flores" of DDM. What Dagni plays, it seems, at least 1/5th of the field at any qualifier after that will follow. Michigan is a great example of this. Dagni plays Marut/Couatl/SW and sure enough the bulk of the field plays that. I underestimated this factor when I went to MI, I WON'T do it again at Niles.
Implication: KORD bands will be THE band to beat as many top players AND the bulk of the field will probably be playing this band. Added to the knowledge that I had that many top players were testing this band BEFORE Dagni's debut of it makes it even more of a threat, thus when picking an army I wanted to pick one that was 60/40 or better against Kord bands.
Another implication is that Marut bands might still be played here so Marut would make a strong showing.
2) Marut bands have won more qualifiers than any other band.
Reason: People like to play what wins, and people that are either A) Too lazy or B) like to analyze statistics and evaluate match-ups rather than come up with a brand new warband will often default to the warband that is doing the best and go with that one. Often times this is even a SMART strategy the warband is winning for a reason, it must be good against the field.
Implication: Marut warbands will probably be high on the list of things to beat, make sure my warband has at LEAST a neutral match-up against Marut.
The second implication is more subtle and in my opinion the difference between qualification and missing in many cases. This level of analysis questions what other players will be doing as a result of past environmental factors, but it is ALSO important to remember that other players are doing this exact same thing, this means that you want to take it one step further and anticipate what other players are going to do as a result of their own metagaming. In this case the best three warbands against Marut are Kord, Death Slaads, and Archmage. This means that these three warbands will be forces to be dealt with. It ALSO means that warbands that have NO CHANCE against Marut will be less likely to be played. The Couatl (which appears in both Kord AND Marut) hoses bands that rely on elemental damage. This means that Chraals, Helmed Horrors, Efreetis, Red Samurais, Dragons, and Elf Pyromancers are less likely to be played so bands that suffer against these figures go up in value.
3) SWarm isn't fun to play and isn't receiving a lot of attention.
Reason: I don't know why SWarm and Bshugg's variation on it have not received a lot of press on the forums or in casual conversation, but for whatever reason they haven't. This combined with the mind-numbing exactness and "wear-you-down-slowly" feel the band has makes it not very fun to play. It also requires a VERY high level of skill to pilot successfully, Brad Shugg claimed that it was too hard for him to play so I pity to think what that means for myself and the rest of us.
Implications: SWarm won't show up as often as it should despite being a VERY good warband.
Based on all of that I came to the following conclusions of bands that would be played:
Played Heavily:
Marut
Kord
Played Moderately:
Death Slaads
Archmage
Multiple-Hitter Bands (no Red Sams, Helmed Horrors, or Chraals)
Played Lightly:
SWarm
Chraals
Helmed Horrors
Rogue bands involving Red Samurais, Elf Pyromancers, or Energy Weapons in general
The best part about a metagame analysis like this is that even if people don't do the "2nd step" analysis the people that bring bands like Kord weed out the bands that you choose to have weak matches against like Chraals, Helmed Horrors, etc. It also means that even if the Marut is played in large quantities Kord bands will probably weed it out of the later rounds.
CHOOSING A BAND
Based on all this I choose to play Monks. The reason for this is simple. Monks have good game, I'd say even a favorable match-up against Kord builds and they crush Death Slaads, Archmage, and Multiple-hitter bands (at least ones that don't include Red Samurais, Helmed Horrors, or Chraals). Monks also have an ok time against Marut so long as they are able to get off all 4 unavoidable stunning strikes within 6 of the YM on the Marut or able to kill all the support pieces and play keep away from the Marut for the rest of the game.
Monks biggest weakness is area of effects like breath weapons and fireballs but happily the Couatl should do a good job of weeding those pieces out of the metagame.
Monks has the core of:
Young Master
Gith Monk x3
and the rest is up to the individual warband designer.
I considered 3 options for the rest of my band:
1.
Gith Monk
Aramil
Hill Dwarf Warrior
Man @ Arms (Or Human Commoner)
2.
Gith Monk
Lantern Bearer
Timber Wolf
Man @ Arms
3.
Sacred Watcher
Sacred Watcher
Aramil
Timber Wolf
I tested with all three and decided I liked the additional monk more than the Sacred Watchers. This is just personal preference and I highly suggest all players that are considering this band test all three versions before committing to one.
It came down to the choice between 1 and 2 and I ultimately decided to go with Aramil because I felt Aramil was "less risky" and matched-up better with my metagame predictions.
Aramil is better:
Kord
Marut
Monks
SWarm
Helmed Horrors
Chraals
Lantern Bearer is better:
LE Quad/Quint
Archmage
About the same:
Death Slaads
CE Quad
It should be noted that the STANDARDBEARER is also an interesting choice. If the metagame had suggested that a greater amount of Monk builds would be present I would have taken him since he is the bomb in the mirror match.
So my band was:
Young Master x1
Gith Monk x4
Aramil x1
Hill Dwarf Warrior x1
Man at Arms x1
The last issue was picking a map. This was the hardest part of the process for me. My top three contenders were:
Dragon Shrine
Teleport Temple
King's Road
The first map eliminated was King's Road. Though it boosted my Monk's AC to an incredible 29 in the forest the Monks only had minimum 40 maximum 120 points of auto damage. No band rolled over and died at 120 points of damage and most wouldn't even be phased at 40 so I NEEDED to hit a few times at +9 or +13. This is somewhat easy to do against most of the field, but if their ACs go up +4 it becomes much more difficult. King's Road also reduces the advantage that my speed has against warbands with casters (Couatl, Archmage, Aramil, etc).
I finally decided on Dragon Shrine because match-ups against Helmed Horrors and Chraals were so bad for my, they were almost auto-losses on the Teleport Temple, I needed the extra bit of elemental protection just in case I got paired up against one of those bands in the first few rounds.
THE TOURNAMENT
Round 1:
Opponent: Jason Singerland (Liquidburn)
Warband: KCBC (Drow Outpost)
Aspect of Kord x1
Couatl x1
Warforged Bodyguard x1
Cleric of Dol Arah x1
Timber Wolf x2
Human Commoner x2
The Match:
I was disappointed to be playing Jason first round though I was happy that my predictions about Kord were correct. Jason is a good player and I would rather have faced someone... less good first round.
We roll for map init and I lose (no surprise considering his init bonus). He chooses Outpost and I win side init setting up on Side B.
I know that if I am going to win this match I need to do one of two things.
1) Do so much damage against Kord that he dies before Jason has a chance to use him effectively.
2) Kill the "Soft underbelly" of the Couatl and Cleric while keeping the Aspect out of attack range.
Either of these options are very possible with my warband since it forces up to 4 stun saves a round and it only takes the failure of 2 for Kord to be out of the picture.
The second option requires me to swing around the back using my speed 10 to engage the Couatl in melee. This is harder to do seeing as good players will often use their human commoners and/or wolves to create a turn delay by blocking a key choke point on the outpost.
Jason played very defensively holing up in a strip of the map by the bridge that made it almost impossible for me to get in more than one monk at once. While this happened I slowly accumulated tile points while Jason did not because I had control of the bridge and he couldn't get to it without leaving the safety of his tunnel.
After I was about 50 tile points ahead Jason maneuvered into a position where if he won next turns initiative he could force morale checks on two of my monks while keeping his Kord relatively safe. I knew I had to strike.
I forced Kord to make 3 Stun checks though I could not do it next to the Young Master which reduced the damage I dealt by 30 I think this was a mistake, it passed two of them to the bodyguard and both Kord and the bodyguard made all their saves. Meanwhile I moved a monk to melee the Couatl so even if I lost next init he would have to take an AoO to use the Couatl. Sadly, all my unavoidable strikes would then be used up and I would have to actually hit Kord a few times.
Over the course of the next two turns 2 of my monks were dead and Kord had been missed 6 times and hit once though he just passed the damage to the bodyguard.
Time was called and I was down 86 to 119. I would get tile and Jason would not and the bodyguard was at 5 HP. I could move in and make a single attack with one of my monks for the win. I swung but came up short of the kill that I needed to win the game. Not a very good start against a match-up I thought would be pretty good for me.
0-1
Round 2:
Opponent: Kelley Gradert (KGradert)
Warband: Archmage (King’s Road)
Archmage x1
Xen’drick Champ x2
Inspiring Marshall x1
Greycloak Ranger x1
Timber Wolf x1
Devis x1
Xeph Warrior x2
The Match:
This is probably my band’s best match up. There is really only 2 ways that I can lose. Either missing an inordinate amount of conceal checks or if the Archmage’s Banishment succeeds in sending one of the Gith’s back to Limbo. I felt really bad because Kelley is a friend of mine from the Quad City area from which I recently graduated college. I had played several matches against Kelley before and knew he was a very good player so if there was any chance that he would pull this one off I knew he would.
I won map and played on the Dragon Shrine, if I could get the Acid Shrine with one of my fodder this would be an even tougher match for Kelley. Unfortunately for me Kelley won side init and chose to set up on the Cold side making it tougher for me to get an acid shrine.
I maneuvered my forces into a split with one Monk heading towards the electricity shrine in a way where Kelley could not see him if he moved and the other three plus the young master towards the Acid shrine in all hallways where he couldn’t see me. I used as much of my movement as possible since I knew that wasting movement in an attempt to avoid LoS is a recipe for disaster against Archmage and other ranged bands. The best thing to do is to use the blinding speed of the monks to shut them down before they even get a chance to do anything even if it results in a death on the way over there.
Kelley surprised me and used his quick cast dimension door to pop over to the lone Gith Monk and attempted to Banish him. I prayed to the dice gods and rolled. I made the save and I knew Kelley was now in trouble. I was lucky against and won initiative. The Monk that had just been attempted to be banished did an Unavoidable Stunning Strike (after the Young Master moved across the board to be within 6 of him) and succeeded on his conceal roll. Kelley failed the stun save!
The rest of the monks crossed the board to join their friends and Kelley needed to win init or this game was basically over. I won init again and used two unavoidable stunning strikes to end the Archmage’s existence. I made both conceal checks and Kelley conceded feeling that his Xen’drick’s would be insufficient to finish off my monks.
Despite his 0-2 start Kelley would go on to finish 4-2 before he decided to drop so he could head home early, save his DCI points, and most importantly, help my tiebreaks. I was grateful for this move though I hadn’t asked him to do it.
So far I had been correct in my predictions lets see if they would continue.
1-1
Round 3:
Opponent: Joshua Molter (?)
Warband: CE Quad (King’s Road)
Ryld x1
Orc Champ x2
Ogre Ravager x1
Orc Wardrummer x1
Hyena x1
Orc Warrior x2
The Match:
I had played Josh in my last qualifier at Niles and had squeeked out a win against him, but I knew he was very good. This worried me a bit. I had played 3 great players three rounds in a row… did this tournament have a bottom?
The good news was Josh was playing CE Hitters without any Red Sams. Sadly, Josh WAS playing the Orc Wardrummer, but that is to be expected. He was playing on King’s Road which was pretty surprising to me since his hitters would have an even HARDER time connecting with my pieces while the AC bonus didn’t help him all that much.
I won initiative and thought hard about whose map to use. In the end I decided to go with my map because it would make it harder for him to get to the Young Master whom he needed to kill to have a good chance to win (at least in my opinion).
He won side init and set up on the fire side. He positioned his pieces and I moved into the sacred circle on the bottom putting my fodder in front of my monks so if he wanted to charge he had to attack something worthless rather than a monk. I was able to get early activation lead turn 2 by picking off one of his orc warriors and he was afraid to advance so he simply repositioned his forces on the top section of the map. He left one Orc Champ too close and I was able to close in and US SA him twice. He made both the first stun save and the morale check, but failed the second stun save. The following rounds involved a bloodbath in the center, basically my monks were able to hit more often than him (not surprising since two of his pieces got Ray of Enfeebled AND my AC was 25) and I was able to win without losing a piece.
2-1
Round 4
Opponent: Dan Vahovick (?)
Warband: Kord Variant (Hellspike Prison?)
Aspect of Kord x1
Couatl x1
Rikka, Angelic Avenger x1
Cleric of Dol Arrah x1
Aramil x1
Hill Dwarf Warrior x1
The Match:
Another Kord band! I was feeling quite proud of myself at this point since I had been right on with my metagame predications. At the same time this band was a MUCH better matchup for me than the typical build because it didn’t have as much damage that I had to cut through. Monk’s biggest problem against KCBC is that it has to cut through all of Kord, the Bodyguard and 1-2 heals before it wins and that relies it on making some “real” attacks, in other words, attacks that don’t involve auto crits. This build was missing the bodyguard and in its place had another hitter, Rikka. It also ONLY had 6 activations which means that I could swoop in with multiple monks and put some SERIOUS hurt on Kord before he even got a chance to respond. I made a silent note to myself to make sure to protect my Young Master and fodder and rolled for map init.
I won map and played on mine. My opponent seemed very unfamiliar with the map and I helped show him where the victory areas were. We rolled for side init and he won choosing the cold side. I knew that the Monks and Kord both had speed 10 but there were two other important factors to keep in mind:
1. Kord has melee reach 2 that essentially means I have to be 11 spaces away from him or I could be in trouble.
2. Kord has a large base. This means that he can’t charge through the same areas that Monks can charge through.
Using Kord’s large base I was able to set up charge routs for my monks with no counter-charge routes for Kord. As a result my opponent kept backing his pieces up until he was back in the cold room. He eventually ran out of room and I was able to move my Young master in and a monk to unavoidable stunning strike his Couatl. The best part was the way the pieces were set up even if the Couatl didn’t rout or stun he would have to move it FIRST or Kord couldn’t make an attack. This was all from the monks high speed. the couatl made its stun save but failed morale putting me way ahead in the match. I was able to quickly kill off the Cleric of dol Arah as well giving myself the init advantage I needed. Kord proceeded to fail stun saves 2 in a row in the next 2 turns and I quickly killed his whole army. Good luck on my part and good strategy made a good matchup and a victory.
3-1
Round 5
Opponent: Jake Kindwall
Warband: Marut (King’s Road)
Marut
Couatl
Dwarf Wizard
Sacred Watcher x2
Arcanix Guard
Standard Bearer
Warforged Scout
The Match:
Jake was playing Marut, which surprised me a bit because I figured the numerous Kord builds would have taken him out by now, but not so. In fact Jake was undefeated at this point and I had been paired UP against him. He was talking about how good his Couatl was at winning init and how hot his dice were so I was looking forward to playing the match.
I lost map init (darn that Commander 0 Couatl). And we were playing on King’s Road. In some ways this was actually good for me because the forest helped me out more than him. My Monks needed insane rolls to hit the Marut with non-US anyway and the game plan was to use all 4 strikes on the Marut anyway to finish it off quickly.
Jake moved his Marut out right in front of his army as quickly as he could straight down the path not in the forest towards my monks. I quickly positioned my forces so I would be able to make all 2 of my monk’s attacks the next turn and moved two monks up to deal the Marut 40 damage right off the bat. The problem with my plan was that the Standardbearer could move up just close enough where my monks wouldn’t get +10 damage against the Marut because of countersong. This required me to move up and kill the standardbearer first. Sadly, the commander 0 pulled through again and Jake was able to attack with the Marut on one of my monks. I got lucky and he missed though! He moved his couatl and SS the Marut. The Marut smashed the Gith Monk’s face causing him to make a Morale Save. Sadly, he failed and made it to the very edge of the board. One of my non-marut melee monks moved up to attack the standardbearer I missed what rotten luck! I then moved my second monk up and hit the standardbearer forcing it to test, it failed and it ran off the board. The YM moved to put the monk back under command again but it failed morale AGAIN running off the board. My other monk attacked the Marut and missed twice. Jake won init AGAIN (good ole Couatl Commander 0) and attacked my other monk but thankfully he missed AGAIN. The Couatl used snakes swiftness on the Marut again and it hit and did my monk 25 damage because I had Ray of enfeebled it last turn. With the standardbearer gone I was able to finish off the marut. Jake finished the turn up by forcing my hurt Gith to test by using a lesser cold orb off his dwarf wizard. The gith failed morale and ran to the very edge of the board.
The next turn the YM put the Gith under command but it still routed off the board and the SW, Arcanix Guard and remaining two monks spared in the center. SW have a hard time hitting monks and monks have a hard time hitting SW plus they are immune to stuns so the battle was long and allowed the Couatl to shoot some orbs off at my monks. Time was called after I had killed the Dwarf Wizard, Arcanix Guard and Sacred Watcher.
What I learned: on King’s Road bring the battle to your OPPONENT so your Monks get two chances to attempt to rally (even if they don’t)
4-1
Round 6
Opponent: David M. Weiss
Warband: CE Quad (Hellspike Keep)
Eye of Gruumsh
Orc Champion x2
Ogre Ravager
Orc Wardrummer
Tiefling Captain
The Match:
I got paired up AGAIN against the only undefeated player, David Weiss. David is a pretty hilarious guy. Despite not hitting any of my pieces out of 6 or so attacks during the course of the game and failing 2 out of 5 stun saves as well as one morale check David kept good spirits during this match. The dice weren’t kind to him, but the match-up was so good for monks that I think his dice would have had to result in him hitting almost every time for him to have had a shot. I am REALLY happy with my choice of bands after this map.
5-1
Round 7
Opponent: Ricardo Boronat
Warband: GAS (King’s Round)
The Match:
At 5-1 with a loss in the first round I was pretty sure I had to win this match to make top 4. I was 2nd in the standings to Ricardo but a lot of people at 4-2 had much better tiebreaks than me so if I lost it was anything but a sure thing that I would make top 4. To make matters worse Ricardo was playing Monks, a deffinitionally neutral matchup for me. The only difference was that instead of the Hill Dwarf Warrior Ricardo was playing a Human Commoner. I can understand playing the Commoner instead of the Man at Arms, but not using all of his points seemed like a bad idea. It didn’t really matter since the core of his band was the same- this match would come down to dice.
I won map init and elected to play on my map, figuring that I would be more familiar with it.
We danced around the map for awhile until Ricky won initiative and had me go first resulting in an opportunity for him to strike at my forces. My monks made their morale checks though oen of them failed his stun check. Ricky won the next initiative but I had placed my monks so that only two of his (the two he had moved in at the end of the last turn) could engage my pieces. Even so I figured I was a dead duck for sure since he would get two attacks at +13 and two attacks at +9 to kill me with. Ricky only hit with 1 attack and I was still in the game! Monks exchanged blows and Ricky moved his other Monks around so if he won init he could base my Young master with both his monks and kill it. I moved one of my monks into melee with his Young master to provide some counter pressure, but I knew if he won init all he had to do was use his two remaining Unavoidable Stunning Attacks on my Young Master and I had lost.
Ricky won initiative.
I had been so close! I couldn’t believe he had won the last three inits in a row, but that’s the mirror match for you…
The something amazing for me happened. Ricky moved a GM and Unavoidable Stunning Striked my YM. The YM failed the stun save and made the Morale save. Ricky then asked “If the YM is stunned do your Gith Monks get its commander effect?” I answer “No”. Thinking to myself: if the YM is DEAD Gith Monks don’t get the commander effect either. Ricky then proceeds to think for about 6 minutes. I ask him to hurry up even though it is obviously a crucial point in the game 6 minutes is a long time.
Ricky then moves his other GM to attack the GM that I based his YM with. I guess he was swinging for the fences afraid that he might fail his YM’s own Morale check. I make my stun save but fail my morale on the monk and he runs off the board.
I was still in it! He had made the mistake of not finishing off my YM and now I could simply unstun him and kill his Monks. I was lucky enough to hit with some of my +13 to hit attacks and soon Ricky’s Monks were dieing. I was able to get a point advantage and was able to run my monks away until I won on tile points.
6-1
I had qualified! I was ecstatic. I played Ricky again in SEMIs and had better dice and beat him again and was really tired and conceded to Dave so we could all go out and get some food since I didn’t want the travel award or the taxes that go with it.
CONCLUSION
I hope you all enjoyed my really long tournament report. I also hope that it shed some light on the process that I used to pick my warband and WHY I did so. I think the process I used gave me a SIGNIFICANT edge in the tournament and was one of the big reasons I qualified and Niles but failed in Michigan.
-John Siadak (Shivan Darkeyes)
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13th Place at the 2005 DDM Championship in GenCon | |
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Vrecknidj
Warlord
10446 Posts
United States
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kgradert13
Sergeant
909 Posts
| | 06/15/2006 12:34 AM |
| quote:
To make matters worse it tanked my DCI rating to an extent where there would be no way I could qualify based on rating.
*Cough* 31 in the world now and well into auto-qualify. Finishing well will do that for you.
Since I managed to accrue a whopping 20 pts at the qualifier, I need to win a few local events to even be close now. | |
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Shivan Darkeyes
Warrior
266 Posts
| | 06/15/2006 1:16 AM |
| | At least you gained 20 points I lost over 60 at Michigan. :) | |
13th Place at the 2005 DDM Championship in GenCon | |
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True_Blue
Underboss
2386 Posts
| | 06/15/2006 5:10 AM |
| | Nice read, thanks for the writeup. I always like looking over reviews that are in depth. They tell a lot, and its easier to learn more from them. Thanks. | |
Champion of a Knight of Takhisis/Knight of Neraka | |
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Sirohk
Commander
3930 Posts
USA
| | 06/15/2006 7:16 AM |
| Nice write up Shivan Darkeyes. [^]
I enjoyed reading how you came up with your warband choice. [)]
And well played! Congarts! ΖD]
| |
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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CTSparky
Sneak
128 Posts
| | 06/15/2006 10:30 AM |
| | very nice write up. I go through a similar decision making process when choosing a warband, it is just I don't write it down. Excellent. | |
I have yet to be Guyf'd. But I have been f'ed. | |
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Shivan Darkeyes
Warrior
266 Posts
| | 06/15/2006 1:27 PM |
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| Glad to hear that everyone liked it, I felt like since I qualified I owed it to everyone to share my experiences. If anyone has any questions about the strategy I used in any of my matches (which I was a bit briefer on) feel free to ask and I will gladly answer and questions. | |
13th Place at the 2005 DDM Championship in GenCon | |
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bshugg
Underboss
1833 Posts
| | 06/15/2006 3:43 PM |
| Nice read John! Very well written report. Going into Niles I had completely forgotten that the MN guys were in love with monks. I figured you would end up running them, as I got the feeling you were comfortable with them in the field. I figured there would be one other floating around but thats about it. Boy was I suprised when I saw 6 of them!
I was happy that you made top 4 after the first round loss. Thats a tough climb to make! See you in a week or so, bud.[)] | |
Looking for someone to cosponser a midwest DDM event. let me know if your interested!
Check out my brand new blog:
http://bshugg.blogspot.com | |
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Fundin Strongarm
Sneak
61 Posts
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
| | 06/15/2006 9:33 PM |
| Nice report. Any thought to using Jozan instead of the Hill Dwarf? That's what I use when I run the band (and convinced Terry's [Neidhart] son Ryan to do the same). That CLW can be handy and Turn Undead 2 can sometimes (ok - rarely) be useful against some LE fodder.
One other thing -- against triple Slaad's, I don't think GAS stands up all that well. Their level is high enough that they can make most Stun saves while the Wardrummer Countersongs the YM CFX. Their AC is high enough that the Monks have a tough time hitting. Throw in the Chaos Hammers and it could be trouble.
I switched from GAS to Triple Slaads (one Blue) because my matchups versus Titans wasn't what I was looking for. Glad you did well. | |
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Shivan Darkeyes
Warrior
266 Posts
| | 06/16/2006 1:14 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Fundin Strongarm
Nice report. Any thought to using Jozan instead of the Hill Dwarf? That's what I use when I run the band (and convinced Terry's [Neidhart] son Ryan to do the same). That CLW can be handy and Turn Undead 2 can sometimes (ok - rarely) be useful against some LE fodder.
One other thing -- against triple Slaad's, I don't think GAS stands up all that well. Their level is high enough that they can make most Stun saves while the Wardrummer Countersongs the YM CFX. Their AC is high enough that the Monks have a tough time hitting. Throw in the Chaos Hammers and it could be trouble.
I switched from GAS to Triple Slaads (one Blue) because my matchups versus Titans wasn't what I was looking for. Glad you did well.
I prefer the Hill Dwarf because he can act as a "screener" piece of fodder for my monks against ranged pieces and can be the closest unit against an opponent's charge. I just don't think Jozan brings enough to the table though he would be my second choice.
I have only played against Death Slaads once, I found that the Slaads don't have enough Hit Points even with the regeneration to stand up against the monks, but maybe I just got lucky. | |
13th Place at the 2005 DDM Championship in GenCon | |
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Liquidburn
Sergeant
944 Posts
| | 06/16/2006 7:20 AM |
| | Great report John! | |
Jason Slingerland
"Why do I have to be Mr. Pink?" | |
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Shivan Darkeyes
Warrior
266 Posts
| | 06/18/2006 2:46 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Liquidburn
Great report John!
Are you going to try to make it to the championships through the Grinder? | |
13th Place at the 2005 DDM Championship in GenCon | |
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