This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to participate in a local tournament at one of my favorite gaming spots in Austin, Texas! Emerald Tavern has a relaxed atmosphere and is usually full of people playing a plethora of games ranging from RPG's to casual board games. Best part, is you can play while having a pint there too!
Unfortunately, I had a pretty busy weekend so I didn't really have time to prepare a deck, but there was Shadeglass on the line so I did what anyone would do...I net decked! I ended up using Bryce's Cursebreakers list featured right here. Bryce does a great job explaining the deck so I won't get into that, plus this was my first time playing the deck. I know, trial by fire!
Note: I did add Rebound and Rising to the Challenge. The former is great when it goes off and a personal favorite, the latter is in case Stormsire gets popped early.
The tournament format was as described in the official rules: each round is a best two out of three with wins being valued at 3 points, draws at 2, and losses at 1. I would like to give a special shout out to Vincent, for running the event as TO.
My first match was against Michael, a local player with whom I've chatted with a couple times but never really gotten to play against. He mentioned he'd been trying to get the Eyes of Nine to work and to no surprise, that was his warband of choice.
For the first game, I won board and after picking the Tri-Force board (the one with 3 blocked hexes in the middle), I set the boards horizontally and perfectly lined up.
I noticed Michael deployed his acolytes a bit closer than he should have so I lined up my models aggressively. I started off with successfully casting Ammis' innate spell, inspiring her, and in my power phase I played Inspiration Strikes on Rastus. Michael then summoned a Blue Horror on his end of the board which I responded with by charging Rastus into Narvia allowing me to score What Armour and Measured Strike. Vortemis then moved up to get into a better position to start slinging spells which was followed by Ammis charging K'Charik, removing him from the board. Vortemis then fired a bolt at Rastus, dealing a damage and successfully inspiring. Stormsire then charged at Vortemis but missed entirely with Turosh doing the same thing a moment later, ending his movement on my side of the board.
Turn 2 started off with Ammis charging Turosh and cutting him to pieces. Vortemis fired at Rastus again dealing two damage, then used Hidden Paths to transport himself to a safe distance. I too played Hidden Paths and placed Rastus right next to Vortemis who then played Sidestep to get one hex away. I then charged with Rastus, dealing two damage and then played Deathly Fortitude on him. (I guess we forgot to place a charge token on Rastus, but he technically shouldn't have been able to charge because he had moved.) Vortemis then chose to smack Rastus with his staff successfully wounding, but I played My Turn allowing me to strike back, eliminating Vortemis. Turn 3 started off with placing the Blue Horror on guard and then playing Sudden Growth on him. We both ended up cycling through objectives for the rest of the game. I scored Extreme Flank, Master of War, and Superior Tactician in the final end phase which allowed me to win the round 11-2.
Game 2 started with the boards being placed in the exact same way as the last round, although I think Michael did switch his board out. He started the game by summoning a Blue Horror and playing Shardgale. I was able to cast Rastus' innate spell allowing him to inspire. Narvia then charged Ammis, whiffing her roles. I drew a power card. Turosh charged Ammis as well, dealing a point of damage as well as inspiring himself. Ammis responded by charging Narvia, eliminating her, and then I played Inspiration Strikes on her. The Blue Horror decided to get in on the action and charged Ammis and whiffed. Stormsire charged Turosh with a spell and wounded him scoring me Measured Strike. I was able to score Escalation, Master of War, and Extreme Flank at the end of turn 1. Turn 2 started with K'Charik charging Stormsire, I played Rebound as a reaction and it went off! At that point Michael offered to concede but as this was a tournament, I requested we play the game out so I could ensure my glory wasn't just +7. Cycling through objectives, I ended up winning game 2 with a score of 18-2.
Oh man, I figured I would end up playing Kelly at some point in the event but I wasn't thrilled that it was during round two. Last time we played, his Fiends ended up barbecuing my goblins in the finals of the previous tournament. I was hoping I could return the favor this time around.
Game 1 started off poorly with me losing board. My goal was to go long-board so I can delay those nasty charges for as long as possible. I went with the Tri-Force board again in hopes of controlling his movement. As expected, he deployed Ghartok, Zharkus, and Magore as far forward as he could with Riptooth right behind them. Kelly won the roll off and started things off with Riptooth charging into Ammis, wounding her for two (I forgot he moved four). I swung back, dealing two as well. Ghartok came in swinging but whiffed his rolls. Ammis tried taking down Riptooth but he rolled a critical defense. Zharkus moved up to position against Rastus. Ammis went for Riptooth again but failed to land a blow. Magore advanced as well, right behind the scuffle with Ammis. Once again, Ammis went for Riptooth and finally landed a hit! Kelly then played Rebound successfully forcing Ammis to smack herself, removing her from the board. This was going lovely.
Turn 2 was a bit of a blur. Zharkus came in charging at Rastus, dealing two wounds. I played Inspiration Strikes on Rastus and swung back dealing two. Riptooth went for Stormsire but whiffed. Kelly then put Tethered Spirit on Zharkus and Soul Trap on Riptooth. Rastus ended up hitting Zharkus again but he was saved by Tethered Spirit. Magore then came in and crushed Rastus. I figured he couldn't successfully roll Rebound, Tethered Spirit, and Soul Trap in one round so I whacked Riptooth with Stormsire. He ended up saving Riptooth too.... At that point I knew I was done for and tried to score whatever glory I feasibly could. By the end of the game, I lost the first round, 10-7.
Game 2, I won the roll off for boards! I set up long-board and positioned my warband as far back as I could while ensuring the lethal hexes were closer to my opponent. Kelly ended up placing his warband mid-board. I won the roll off and started things off with casting Ammis' innate spell, inspiring her and scoring Harness the Storm. He walked up with Riptooth. I got Rastus to cast his innate spell as well, inspiring him too. Ghartok came running up as well. I moved Stormsire to the right side of the board. Zharkus came moving up next. I moved Ammis to the other side of the board. Lastly, Magore came forward. I ended up scoring Magical Supremacy, Extreme Flank, and Master of War.
Kelly won the roll for round 2 and elected to go first and he ran up some more with Ghartok. I moved up Stormsire so he could start slinging spells next turn. Riptooth came in and charged at Ammis, but whiffed. Stormsire fired a bolt at the daemon dog and successfully hit, inspiring himself. Zharkus positioned himself so that he was in range for the next round. I struck Riptooth with Ammis but Kelly played Rebound again...it went off. Thankfully, I had one wound left and I played Sudden Growth on her. Magore then came up into range as well. Ammis went in for a second strike and took down Riptooth.
Round 3, Kelly won again and came in charging at Rastus with Ghartok, through a lethal hex. I was able to fend off the strike with a critical defense! Rastus struck back dealing two damage and pushed Ghartok back one. Zharkus charged in for Rastus as well and ended up dealing two damage. Stormsire then fired a bolt at Ghartok and although it was successfully blocked, I was still able to push him back into a lethal hex, killing the fiend. Magore then came in and tried to go for Ammis but failed his charge attack. At that point, I figured I was safe and just cycled through objectives. I won game two, 11-0. Phew!
Here we go, game 3. In a way, this was the finals of the tournament. We both knew that whoever won this game was probably going to win the tournament. Quite frankly, it was one of the most intense games I have ever played. We are usually quite interactive but this game was uncharacteristically quiet.
Note: I got really caught up in the intensity of the game and forgot to take notes on how every turn played out. Unfortunately (or fortunately) this won't be as descriptive as the other games as I am going off memory here.
Sadly, Kelly won board and set up the battlefield quite similarly to game 1. The only difference is that I was using the board with the "corridor" on the side. My thought process here was that I could force the charges to come to one side, and therefore in theory, I could pick my fights more favorably.
Turn 1 started with the Fiends marching up the board while both Rastus and Ammis failed to cast their innate spells. Riptooth pushed up deep positioning himself to go for pretty much anyone next turn. I moved Stormsire to the far right edge of the board. Ghartok moved up last, blocking my exit out of the "corridor." Now, for some reason, I forgot I had Extreme Flank in my hand and instead of moving Ammis to the left side of the board, I charged Riptooth. I did end up doing two damage but it wasn't worth the cost of two glory. Neither of us ended up scoring anything.
Turn 2, Stormsire ran up and hurled a bolt of lightning at Ghartok, dealing a single point of damage. He followed this up with Abasoth's Withering, lowering his victim's health to two. Riptooth attacked Ammis, doing damage. I smugly played My Turn and rolled three successes. Things were looking bright....until Kelly played Rebound, again. Unsurprisingly, he got it off and Ammis bit the dust. Rastus, with Great Strength, charged Ghartok, slaying him. Magore went for Stormsire, dealing two. Stormsire tried to attack back, missing. Zharkus came in and went for Stormsire as well, thankfully I rolled a critical defense. By the end of turn 2, we were both at four glory and they had corned Stormsire at the bottom right of the board.
Turn 3 started with Zharkus swinging at Stormsire and he thankfully missed. After whiffing an attack, I used Hidden Paths to get Stormsire the hell out of there. He ended up on the other side of the board effectively ruining Kelly's hopes of scoring Denial. Magore went for Rastus but missed. I ended up moving Rastus towards Stormsire, putting him out of charge range. At this point, we were fishing for objectives in order to gain the upper hand. Specifically, I was looking for Escalation. I knew my opponent had a card he could score in his hand and I assumed it was no more than two glory. If I could find that one card I could tie the game, and since no one was standing on any objectives, I would win off total glory scored throughout the match! With the last activation in the round and two cards left in my glory deck, I figured I could pull this off.
I didn't...
Escalation was the last card in my deck. Kelly ended up scoring Conquest, winning the game 6-4 and taking the series.
As we were cleaning up for the next round, I complimented Kelly on his defense heavy upgrade build. It seemed to work out quite well for him, especially since he was rolling hot. He responded by saying my previous blog post helped him build his deck. For one, I was elated that people were finding my writing useful. On the other hand, he used my own advice to beat me. Mixed emotions indeed!
Sadly, I was unable to play a third game as we had an uneven number of players attending the event. The final match was played between Spiteclaw's Swarm and Magore's Fiends. After 3 games, one of which ended in a draw, Kelly ended up taking the Shadeglass Trophy.
Final Thoughts:
Boy, not the result I was hoping for. Round 1 went exactly to plan, I capitalized on my opponents positioning in the first game and played aggressively in the second. Round 2 was tough as expected when playing Kelly. Looking back, I made a blunder in the final game and overall just psyched myself out because I tend to turtle against Fiends. It didn't help that he was rolling some straight fire either. He got Rebound, Forceful Denial, Tethered Spirit, and Soul Trap off every time. Next time if/when we play, I think I'll play a bit more aggressively and try to isolate some of his fighters early on. Also, I think I'll switch Victory After Victory out of the deck and replace it with something a bit more reliable for my play style. I'll probably cut down my gambits and upgrades to ten a piece for greater consistency too.
In regards to the overall event, I enjoyed it thoroughly. The only changes I would make are finding a way around the byes (if possible) and stricter enforcement of the round timers. Thank you again to Vincent, the participants, and the wonderful people at Emerald Tavern for hosting the event. Congrats to Kelly as well! Looking forward to the next one!
December, due to the Holiday Season, won't have any more tournaments. However in January, there will be a tournament every weekend, with some weekends having two. The best part is, all seven of the tournaments will have a Shadeglass Trophy up for grabs! My personal goal is to win at least three of the events. Regardless of the outcome, there will be plenty more tournament recaps heading your way.
Till then, cheers!
Aman