Report by Kiddoc, Tournament Organizer
Hey all, our local gaming store here has been hosting tournaments for the last month now. After WinterFantasy, I took it upon myself (with generous help from our FLGS owner) to get some sanctioned tourneys up and running, and weve been playing ever since. Weve varied the games a bit, and our number of players has climbed steadily to an expected 10 or so for next week. We play every Thursday, and this last Thursday we gave 200pt warbands a shot. I, unfortunately, had to judge, so I didnt get a chance to run mine, but we had 7 people show up to test out their skills. About half are very new to the game with pretty small collections at this point, but I try to make the priorities for the night: 1) Fun; 2) Teaching; 3) Competition. Anyhow, the other half of our players are pretty experienced and/or have deep pools of minis to draw from, so it makes for an interesting mix. Here are the players and the warbands they ran:
(Note: all our games are Quickstrike format)
Tim
Tims a brand new player, who just picked up his first minis about an hour before the tourney started. That said, he had to piece together a warband from pretty slim pickins. Even so, he really had a blast that night and I think weve got him hooked for good. This was Tims warband:
| Eye of Gruumsh | 44 |
| Drow Wizard | 29 |
| Dire Ape | 25 |
| 2x Druid of Obad-Hai | 58 |
| Werewolf | 14 |
| Troglodyte | 7 |
| Troglodyte Zombie | 10 |
| Chitine | 7 |
| Total | 194 |
Mike
Behind me, Mike is probably our most experienced player. I brought him up to WinterFantasy with me and taught him the game there. Hes got a good head for strategy, and a ton of minis to pull from. We play casually quite a bit, and both have a good understanding of tactics and the emerging metagame. Mikes warband consisted of:
| Eye of Gruumsh | 44 |
| Tiefling Captain | 21 |
| 2x Ogre Ravager | 76 |
| 3x Orc Raider | 36 |
| 2x Orc Spearfighter | 15 |
| Orc Archer | 8 |
| Total | 200 |
(Now, you might notice that Mike is running archfiends minis!! We picked up a ton of them from Winterfantasy, where they were ruled legal for constructed play. Some people might argue that its not fair to allow them, but we decided at the FLGS that theyd be allowed for use. They were given out free to anyone, minis gamers or not, at WinterFantasy, whichin a waymakes them even easier to obtain than some of the terrain tiles in the prize support packs. Anyhow, weve agreed as a house rule here that any tile or mini officially released for public consumption by WoTC is immediately legal for play, at least until they tell us otherwise.)
Bob
Bobs the store owner, and an all around great guy. He hosts us every week, and busted his butt to get Wizards support (incidentally, our FLGS is now host to both an Archfiends release event and the Championship Series) for our minis addiction. This was Bobs first week playing and we was really excited to be giving it a go. Bob ran:
| Drow Wizard | 29 |
| Small White Dragon | 24 |
| Large Red Dragon | 83 |
| Red Samurai | 40 |
| Orc Archer | 8 |
| Drow Warrior | 6 |
| Orc Spearfighter | 5 |
| Total | 195 |
Steve
Ah, my young apprenticemuahahaha. Steve paid attention and learned the game quickly, because the first full week after we taught him, we put him in charge of demoing it at a big convention here. Steves got a bright head on his shoulders though, and he was a quick study. His mini pool is growing, as is his playskill. In a couple of more weeks, hes going to be dangerous. Steve went with:
| Drow Cleric of Lloth | 42 |
| Large Red Dragon | 83 |
| Ogre Ravager | 38 |
| 5x | Abyssal Maw 25 |
| Zombie | 4 |
| 2x Skeleton | 8 |
| Total | 200 |
Jeff
Jeffs our youngest player to date, but one of our most enthusiastic too. Hes been with us since Week 1, so hes learning the game quickly, and thanks to some shrewd trades on his part, his collection is filling out nicely. Hes still coming to terms with concepts like efficiency for single units, but hes got a good angle on tactics so far. He also tends to roll a lot of 20s. Jeff ran:
| Eye of Gruumsh | 44 |
| 2x Gargoyle | 42 |
| Tiefling Captian | 21 |
| 3x Orc Spearfighter | 15 |
| 3x Orc Warrior | 9 |
| Orc Berserker | 8 |
| Orc Archer | 8 |
| Total | 147 |
Ian
Ian has placed highly both of the past two weeks, which is a tremendous credit to how quickly hes learned the game. He has a great knack for building warbands and finding the synergy between different units, hes just got to work on learning the subtleties of terrain placement Ian put together the following band:
| Silver Sorcerer | 49 |
| Bladesinger | 34 |
| Copper Samurai | 32 |
| Elf Ranger | 21 |
| 4x Half Elf Sorcerer | 56 |
| Lidda, Halfling Rogue | 4 |
| Gnome Recruit | 3 |
| Total | 199 |
TheresaTheresa is Jeffs mom, and the mom we all wanted as a kid. She not only brings him up for his weekly D&D games, but she learned to play minis with him. Shes a great sport, and always has witty comments to keep the game fun. Shes still learning the game, but coming along quickly. Theresas warband was:| Purple Dragon Knight | 45 |
| 3x Stonechild | 36 |
| 3x Dwarven Axefighter | 36 |
| Cleric of Yondalla | 14 |
| Ember, Human Monk | 18 |
| Cleric of Order | 24 |
| 2x Stalwart Paladin | 18 |
| Total | 191 |
First round pairings resulted in the following matchups:
Game 1: Mikes Orc-assault warband vs. Tims piecemeal pugilists
Game 2: Ians bombardiers vs. Theresas Righteous Do-gooders
Game 3: Steves Maws N Claws vs. Bobs I only own 2 dragons and Im playing them both, damnit!
Game 4: Jeff on the bye
In game 1, Mike spent a good bit of time teaching Tim the ropes, while Tim realized that he didnt own the wolves necessary to make the Druids anything but big-helmed meat-sacks. The benevolent and all-merciful judge intervene and was happy to loan Tim the wolves for the evening. That said, he was playing with almost every mini he owned, and couldnt really make a stand yet against Mikes finely tuned killing machine. The Ogre Ravagers and Tiefling split up to form a very distracting and very imposing front, when the orc raiders set up for a flank. He kept the Eye at a distance to charge in and out as needed. Tims dire ape did some nasty damage when Mike was able to lure it into a charge, but it wasnt enough as Mike handily took the game.
In game 2, Ian tried to set up for a missile barrage, while Theresa plodded her well-armored, but slow group forward toward the center. Ians crew unloaded with the magic missiles quickly as both warbands sparred around for position. Theresa found herself choked off quickly while she was searching for cover from the unstoppable magic bombardment, and wasnt able to keep all of her band together. The players spent a lot of time feeling the opponent out, neither willing to charge right in to melee until the end of the round. In the end, it was the Silver sorcerers lightning bolt that did it as Ian won by a point victory when he cooked Embers goose.
Game 3 was one of the most amusing games of minis Ive seen to date. Steve was as stoic as could be playing with his rag-tag bunch of maws centered around their various immunities, while Bob was about as vociferous a player as Ive ever seen. Poor Steve did not have a single roll in the first 4 rounds that broke into double digits, and he expended 4 of his maws going directly for the out-of-command white dragon. Bob would shout and whoop as his team closed in, and seemed to get giddier with ever 1 Steve rolled. Eventually Steves bad luck broke, but not before Bob was able to make effective use of the Red Samurai to wipe clear everything but the Dragon. Steves red squared off directly with Bobs red, and Steve did manage to get the best of the titanic duel. However, Bob managed to get another few lucky rolls (much to the chagrin of everyone within shouting distance), and Steve quickly found himself down to only the Cleric of Lloth, and out of the first round.
Game 4: Jeff spent his bye teaching a curious onlooker how to play. What a guy!
The pairings for the second round were:
Mikes Orc Assault vs Ians Bombardiers
Bobs I only own 2 dragons and Im playing them both, damnit! vs. Jeffs Orc Horde
Game 1: Mike knew what he was facing when Ian revealed his warband and did an outstanding job of setting up the terrain to minimize the impact of Ians heavy spell-slingers. Mike got out of the gates and quickly spread his team thin through spots of cover, while Ian maneuvered to try and get some of the more vulnerable units into his line of sight. Ian was only able to do some light peppering with his pyrotechnics before Mikes deceptively fast orc raiders forced the issue of combat. Soon after that, the ravagers closed in and made short work of Ians melee light band. Ians samurai and sorcerers tried valiantly to concentrate fire on a couple of creatures, but Mike was winning a lot of initiatives and sacrificing his cheap units to draw fire. Eventually the high hit points and savage attack of the ravagers wore down Ians front line and broke through to his vulnerable units. Ian was still able to evade pretty well, but when time was called, he wasnt able to build up enough casualties on the other side to overcome the damage that Mike did.
Game 2: In this game, Jeff got off to a fast start, and immediately sent everyone charging for Bobs red dragon. The eye landed a couple of solid hits (and a critical I believe) and after a lot of concentrated fire, the big red went down. Jeff really made good use of the damage overage strategy and the hot die he was tossing as he managed to get the white dragon and the red samurai off the board as well. Bobs luck had turned on him, and before he knew it, Jeffs small horde had knocked him over the 70% limit. Bob completely forgot about his Wizards arsenal this game, and let Jeff escape without raining snowballs down around him.
The Finals featured Mikes Orc Assault against Jeffs fellow Orc Horde warband. Mike had the advantage laying out terrain, and moved his pieces carefully to try and lure Jeff into a pincer. Jeff wasnt daunted by Mikes slow calculated positioning of troops, and rushed his headlong into the fray. This strategy very much favored Mikes mobility, and Jeff soon found himself engulfed on both sides. Jeffs die continued to smoke though, and he did get a ravager to flee, but not before Mike had used sneak attack to devastate Jeffs army. Mike had a tougher fight on his hands than he had originally thought thanks to Jeffs hot hand, but eventually the combination of patience and terrain placement paid off for him, and he took down a significant amount of points as the game ended.
So (after tiebreaker matches) here was the final outcome
1st Mikes CE Orc Assault
2nd Jeffs CE Orc Horde
3rd Bobs CE I only own 2 dragons and Im playing them both, damnit!
4th Ians CG Bombardiers
5th Steves CE Maws N Claws
6th Theresas LG Righteous Do-gooders
7th Tims CE Piecemeal Pugilists
So thats how things fell out for our first 200 pt tourney. I would have went with a Lawful Evil band myself, and I was surprised to see none of them that night, but LE bands tend to require a high amount of hard-to-get rares, particularly for 200pt games. I definitely noticed that the 200 point format tends to be a lot less predictable than the 100 point format, which makes for interesting games. It was difficult to play within the time constraints for 200 point bands, but in the end, I dont think any of the outcomes would have changed if unlimited time was possible. Ive definitely noted the power of spellcasting in the 200 pt games, as the better spell-slingers are infinitely more affordable and more supportable in the 200 pt metagame. Obviously our metagame here tends to resemble some of the others posted around the boards, CE is quite prevalent, dragons are popular, as are the big hitters. I think 200 pt does tend to favor those with very large collections as it is a bit more rare intensive, and I also agree that you can do a lot more with whats available. I dont really think that theyre less luck based, in fact, strictly from a probability standpoint, youre going to be rolling the dice a lot more. 200 pt. bands tend to be more resilient to things like critical hits, but I wouldnt necessarily say theyre less luck based. Ill be interested to see how switching to the 200 pt format full-time when archfiends comes changes the game and if the same amount of warband diversity will continue, or whether the new REALLY BIG HITTERS will become staples in every band. I truly hope that having an increased power level won't decrease the diversity available to those who want to stay competitive. Anyhow, hope you enjoyed the tourney report. Ill try to keep them coming, so long as we get people to come and play.