We had a pretty good turnout for the monthly Monsterpocalypse Tournament at Battlegrounds this month: six people. We could have had as many as eight but I think, based on posts to his Facebook wall, that Leo's girlfriend had their baby and Adam had to attend his sister's birthday party. It was still an encouraging turnout so here's hoping it will grow.

It was cool to see some new players come out for Monsterpocalypse. Although many of our core miniatures games players do come out to all three of our monthly tournaments (AT-43, Confrontation, and Monsterpocalypse) it's always good to have diversity in the player base. I wound up winning the tournament (and taking home Mega Armodax!) but I think that was more a function of being the most experienced player with a team that was heavily play-tested than anything else. I was using my Cthugrosh/Ultra Cthugrosh team with five Meat Slaves, two Task Masters, two Squixes, three Spitters, two Elite Spitters, and an Explodohawk. In the first round I faced Armodax (Terrasaurs), in the second round I faced Zor-Raiden (Shadow Sun Syndicate), and in the final round I faced Terra Khan (Terrasaurs). As is often the case, it was power attacks that won the games for me.

I think I'm going to shelf the Cthugrosh force for a while and try out my Rogzor force. I'm still waiting for my five Bank Headquarters to arrive in the mail. Hopefully they'll get here on Monday so I can try them out on Tuesday at Battlegrounds and use them at the next 401 Games tournament.

Yesterday we had the monthly AT-43 tournament at Battlegrounds. This month we were playing with the foul weather rules in Operation Frostbite and army construction was at 2000 points. Turnout was disappointingly low (four people) but it was still a lot of fun. In the first round I played a new player (a guy named Mike who works at Nude Buddha Tattoo Studio here in Milton). He was also playing Karmans and I think this was his first full game of AT-43. I wound up winning but this game was more of a teaching game than anything else.

Next round I played Nick. This was one of the best games of AT-43 I’ve played. Nick really had his game face on and brought a killer Red Blok army consisting of Urod, two support units of Dragonov snipers, one unit of Dragomirov Kolussus, one unit of 12 RPG Soldaty, another unit of Dragonov Commandos with AT Gauss guns, and Propaganda. I was fielding an experimental all-infantry army consisting of a unit of Kaptars with ZZ Guns, a unit of Yetis with rocket launchers led by Guru Lucius, a unit of K-Fighters, two Karmic Crystals, and Karmic Bullet Time.

I was really lucky that we rolled “Foul Weather” on the weather conditions chart as this meant that no ranges beyond range 3 could be traced. If this weather condition hadn’t been rolled I think Nick would have overwhelmed me as his snipers could have sat back picking away at me while the heavy Red Blok artillery moved up. It was a real chess game because we were both dancing around each other on overwatch trying not to be the first one to come within range 3. I used Karmic Bullet Time to shuffle my Kaptars and K-Fighters into one of the corner objectives and Nick moved Urod and the AT Gauss-bearing unit into the same corner. I managed to take out one of his sniper support units but he wound up taking the objective and killing my Kaptars and K-Fighters.

The really interesting battle took place in the middle of the table. I had my Yetis hanging out near the Karmic Crystals and, since they were with Lucius, they had stealth while taking cover. Nick played a nearly perfect game but he made one mistake. He knew my Yetis’ jungle rifles couldn’t damage Dragomirovs so he moved them within range 3 triggering my overwatch and gambled that I wouldn’t be able to kill them all. His gamble appeared to pay off because I only took out one Dragomirov but he forgot my unit had stealth so his shots all missed. I wound up taking out his Dragomirovs (not without sustaining some losses) and jumped up on top of the platform to take the other objective as time ran out and won. I was seriously sweating this game and, I’ll say it again, I seriously doubt that I could have won if we hadn’t pulled that weather condition.

In the final round I played Adam and his Therian army consisting of a Baal Golgoth, Babylon Zero, Bane Goliaths, and a full unit of Assault Golems. I just plain lost this game. I failed to take out his Baal quick enough and once it got to my end of the table it was curtains for my guys.

Adam wound up winning the tournament which was pretty cool. I think this was the first tournament he placed in, let alone won, and it was funny because he was the most surprised when it was announced that he won. Nick came deservingly in second and I took third. It was a little unfortunate for the new guy to have come DFL but he had a great attitude, was a little older and more mature, and totally saw this tournament as a learning experience.

Next weekend’s tournament is Monsterpocalypse. I’m undecided if I want to field my standard Cthugrosh force or if I want to try out Rogzor and his cornucopia of blast attacking minions. I tried out Rogzor on Friday night against Allfrost and won despite myself. I’m so used to playing Lords of Cthul where all the monsters have Fly or Jump and it’s made me lazy when it comes to maneuvering my monsters around. In the game I had against Allfrost I totally pinned myself in a corner thinking it would be a good way to avoid smashes, throws, and body slams but all it did was make me stuck. I think I’ll stick with Cthugrosh for one more tournament and try and get in a few more practice games with Rogzor before I try and compete with him.

Cottondonkey came over tonight for a bit of Monsterpocalypse. He was using Zor-Maxim which was cool because I'd never played against Shadow Sun Syndicate before. I fielded Mega Cthugrosh for the first and possibly last time. Going into the game I was still scratching my head at how effective Mega Cthugrosh would be.

I attacked straight out of the gate and spent four dice to step up to Zor-Maxim and successfully body-slammed him into an Oil Refinery for three damage. That wound up being the last really impressive thing that I did. Man, are the SSS hard to hit! Zor-Maxim's Alpha form has a 7 defense and the Ultra form has a defense of 8. Dang!!!

Mega Cthugrosh did very little for me. I still don't understand why he has the Mire and Terrify abilities. Who really cares if spaces within two of him count for two when units move through them if Terrify prevents them from moving adjacent? I'm also not crazy about the Overload blast trigger. There was never a point in the game when Cottondonkey had enough power dice on my turn to allow me to even use the trigger. Considering that Ultra Cthugrosh has Sacrifice, Telekinesis, and Power Gorge I don't think I'll use Mega Cthugrosh again unless there's something I really haven't figured out.

Tonight I met up with Questor for dinner at the Swiss Chalet at Yonge & Gerrard for the first Festive Special of the season. I have to admit that I liked it when it included a Toblerone as opposed to the Lindt chocolates but they've upped the ante from the standard 3-pack to a Christmas-themed 6-pack in a little snow-covered cottage-shaped package so that's a good thing. I'd never had the orange-flavoured Lindt before; I still like the peanut butter ones best but I think orange is number two.

After dinner we killed some time at Hairy Tarantula and then headed over to 401 Games for the Monsterpocalypse tournament. Questor was only there as an observer (and there were three or four others there just playing demos with the event organizer) but there were three others there so we had enough for a round-robin tournament.

Two of the guys there (I'll call them Lenny and Carl since they're almost always seen together) I've seen around the Toronto gaming scene for quite a while and I know they're heavily involved in HeroClix. The other player was a younger Asian guy I'd never seen before. Lenny was playing a G.U.A.R.D. force with Sky Sentinel and lots of G-Tanks and Rocket Choppers, Carl was playing a Martian Menace force with Ares Mothership, and the other guy was playing Shadow Sun Syndicate but I didn't see which of the Zors he was using.

I was using Cthugrosh with 2 Explodohawks, 3 Meat Slaves, 3 Task Masters, 2 Squixes, 1 Elite Squix, 3 Spitters, and 1 Elite Spitter.

I played Lenny in the first round. He really knew the synergy between his units and did a lot of damage to Cthugrosh with ranged attacks from afar. I bumbled with my units a bit this game and really didn't make the most of them. My biggest gaffe was making my Explodohawks explode even when their Brawl attack missed. Costly considering that I'm spending two to spawn them since they're of a different faction & agenda. I did not use my healing abilities at all during this game which, in all honesty, should have cost me the game. I shifted the momentum considerably when I body-slammed Sky Sentinel on top of four (count 'em) four Rocket Choppers. I think the power dice I got from this attack wound up winning the game for me. Lenny moved his Sky Sentinel far away and targeted Cthugrosh with blast attacks. He almost had me down and out but he missed two combined range attacks in a row which left me alive with one life. Unfortunately for him, he left Sky Sentinel right in front of an Oil Refinery and I had just enough Power Dice to do a Smash Power Attack which sent him through the Oil Refinery and two fire hazards for four damage which knocked out his Ultra form and it was game over.

Even though I won it was a really close game that totally could have gone either way. G.U.A.R.D. armies are going to be tough to play against as the synergy between the units and monsters is really impressive. I'm thinking that Rampage and Body-Slamming/Throwing opposing monsters onto units is going to be important versus G.U.A.R.D. forces.

For some reason that I don't understand Lenny decided to bail on the tournament after our game and go line up for the midnight release of the new World of Warcraft expansion. Lame! In the other game, Carl beat the Shadow Sun Syndicate player on time but now that Lenny was leaving it meant someone had to sit out. At that point, the SSS player decided to bow out, as well, in favour of going and playing another game in another part of the store. I guess it's good that the SSS player at least had something else that he wanted to go do but I think it's a total cheese-horn move to bail on a tournament just because you're suddenly in a position where your odds of winning overall are low, ESPECIALLY when you're going to wait in line for a friggin' video game. But, like I said, nobody else was bothered by it so I guess no harm, no foul.

Lenny and I then played a game to decide the overall winner. This game, I'm glad to say, went a lot better and I felt a lot better about how I played. I also could do no wrong on my dice rolls and Lenny didn't make four or five rolls that the odds said he should have made at least two of. But, that's what you're sometimes in for when you play games with dice. I used my Explodohawks a lot more effectively this time and really used my Meat Slaves effectively to heal my monsters. Lenny relied on blast attacks and I don't think he even attempted a Power Attack the whole game which may have been his undoing. The Ultra Ares Mothership is immune to Power Attacks and that really slowed the game down. I wound up using Ultra Cthugrosh's "Fling" Blast trigger pretty effectively which meant I was doing one damage and destroying a unit (and, thus, getting a power die) every monster activation. We ran out of time (each round was an hour) but the final result was that Lenny's Alpha Form was knocked out and his Ultra Form had only 2 damage left whereas my Alpha had taken one damage and my Ultra was at full health.

Lenny wanted to scoop at one point but I wouldn't let him. I refuse to accept a victory due to an opponent just forfeiting. If I win, I want to beat you. Similarly, even if all looks lost for me, I never scoop. If I lose my opponent deserves the gratification of beating me. I tried to be jovial about it but I think Lenny was a little frustrated and maybe thought I was being a prinsk by making him keep playing but I just wanted to keep playing, nothing more. It was all fine afterwards; we actually traded and I walked away with a fourth Meat Slave. Only one more to go!

For winning the tournament I got to pick from the three available Mega Forms: Sky Sentinel, Cthugrosh, and Gorghardra. I picked Gorghadra, even though I already have one, because I'm hoping to trade it for a Mega Rogzor or Mega Yasheth when they come out. I'm REALLY tempted to just throw it up on ebay since they're going for $60+ but I think I'll hang on to it for trading purposes.

So, overall, I'm really pleased. I wish I could have played against the Shadow Sun Syndicate just to see how they play. Maybe next time. 401 is having another tournament in a few weeks and I'm totally planning on going. Hopefully I fare as well!

I got back about an hour ago from Battlegrounds from the Confrontation tournament and came home with a perfect record... 0 and 3. Yikes. I can't really pin-point what went wrong. I tried out my Vestals today and wasn't really impressed with how they fared. They're essentially Fangs that move 20 but cost a lot more points and don't have an Incarnate that can go with them yet. Technically, I guess I could put Y'Anrylh with them but that would be a waste as it would put their movement down to 15.

My list was a unit of Great Fangs x3 with Y'Anrylh (Rune Guardian, Repentant), a unit of Hunters x4 with Serethis, and a unit of Vestals x5 (Rune Guardian). I didn't get spanked in any of my games and I can't think of a time when I made a huge tactical error. AH surprised me when he activated his Cavalry twice in a row to get the charge but that wasn't really a game-breaker. I fared OK against CF's Dirz army. In both of those games I gambled and used Scout to put the Hunters right in the face of a ranged unit. The first time I did it against Dirz to try and take out the Hybrids Alpha but didn't get the activation sequence that I was hoping for and only wound up killing three of them. The second time I did it against Temple and a really bizarre turn of events took place. My Hunters got slaughtered by Templars but due to my opponent failing two back-to-back morale tests when they were engaged with one single Hunter they routed and ran off the table. Weird.

So, until I can find something else to buff the Vestals they're going on the shelf. For the same points I could have put in a unit of Shadow Trackers and added another Great Fang to Y'Anrylh's unit which I think would have done more for me. I just hope that this recent parting of the ways doesn't delay the release of Sylvan Animae units too long. I can't wait to start spawning them on the field.

The coolest thing that happened today, though, was two older gentlemen (50+ years old) coming into the store and asking for a demo game of confrontation. They were both really cool guys and have been war-gaming for years. They're going to come and check out AT-43 next Saturday, too. I hope they become regulars. It would be really cool to have some guys from their generation hanging out at the store.

Today was the last day of the first Confrontation tournament at Battlegrounds. I was supposed to face The H but he no-showed so I got a win by default which got me the win for the tournament. I would have preferred to have won by actually playing but I'll take first place and the $25 in store credit. Even thought The H didn't show up there was still a lot of Confrontation being played. W played AH in a Temple of the East (played by W) versus Temple of the North (played by AH) battle.

Temple of the East's advantage is “When it is activated, a unit can transfer some or all of its faith points to the other units of the company.” The definition of faith points in the core rulebook is a little vague, in my opinion. It's not clear to me whether or not units without a member with a Fervor stat actually generate faith. I've posed the question on the forums and it's still unclear. So, until Rackham chimes in, it looks like we're playing it that they do.

AH had a clear advantage early on when some fortunate dice-roll took out W's entire unit of Fusiliers, leaving him with only a unit of Spearmen led by Abel. At that point, AH's only losses were two members of his unit of Templars led by Severian. AH parked his Fusiliers in the middle of the board and started accumulating Elixir like crazy and it looked like it was all over. Unfortunately for him, AH just didn't remember what he could do with all that Elixir and, although he eked out a timed win, came really close to losing.

After that W and I played a friendly game with his same Temple of the East army against my Twilight Hills Wolfen army consisting of a unit of four Hunters with Serethis and a unit of four Fangs with a Rune Guardian. Twilight Hills allows me to give a unit the Scout ability (the unit can deploy anywhere that isn't engaged with an enemy unit). This mean that both my units wound up with Scout since Serethis' Spear of Mist gives his unit Scout. W is a great guy and a really good sport and it's great to have him as a regular at Battlegrounds. That being said, he adopts a play style that I generally find to be “un-fun” to play against. Simply put, the dude turtles. His army builds in AT-43 and Confrontation usually consist of long-range weapons backed up by high-armour infantry and he sits back and makes you come to him. To give him his due, his plays this style very well and has good success with it. Having two units with Scout, though, was pretty fun to play against him.

The tables we play on at Battlegrounds are about four feet square and we usually deploy in opposite corners with your deployment zone being anywhere within 30 cm of the corner. Deployment wound up looking like this:


Ordinarily, W would have likely put his Fusiliers on the hill but I'm guessing he wanted them behind the Spearmen so that they could shoot without becoming engaged. The long and the short of it was that this one just turned out UGLY for Temple. The Wolfen eliminated all of the Temple without losing a single fighter. I think they only took three damage total. One thing you do not want when you're facing Wolfen is for them to be shoulder-to-shoulder in a big brick. Both his units wound up eventually being routed on run off the table.

So, the lesson learned is to beat the turtle the best weapon for the Wolfen is Scout!

I played CF at Battlegrounds in our opening round match for the August AT-43 Tournament. It wound up being a 1-1 tie. I goofed by choosing the wrong corner of the table. I always forget that the containers and low walls can be destroyed. Had I picked the other corner I'm certain I would have done better.

I really dislike the tournament rules that grant an extra victory point for controlling the corner and two for the centre at the end of the game. Playing Karmans puts me at a distinct disadvantage since I rarely control more than three units. I also don't understand why being at arbitrary points on the board at the end of the game can swing the balance of a game.

I did some recording with Andy Hopp this morning for a new podcast all about his art, writings, and endeavours. Andy's always fun to talk to and today was no exception. If I get to bed early enough tonight I'll do some editing tomorrow morning before we do what we have planned for tomorrow.

Poor Erin had to work all day at the greenhouse on the hottest day of the summer so far while I played games over at Battlegrounds in air-conditioned comfort. I played my make-up AT-43 tournament game against Jordan and won without losing a single fighter which was pretty sweet. I still feel really hand-cuffed playing Karmans at 1000 points but at least this time I knew I was playing Red Blok so that helped me plan a little.

I went with a unit of eight Anakongas with flamers led by a Saint and a King Buggy. I was assuming that I'd be facing an infantry-heavy army even though Nick likes to play Red Blok with Urod and a unit of three RPG Kolossus (which, incidentally, it still bothers me that I've lost to twice). I can never remember which Red Blok infantry is which but I think he had one unit of RPG Soldaty with rocket launchers, one unit of Dragonov Kommandos with M-Gauss guns, and one Sierp.

Originally I was thinking that I was going to try out the new Arceo faction but I went with Nova (my standard) as a game-time decision and I'm glad I did. I had 9 LPs and Jordan only had 5 or 7 total (can't remember) and this has to have been the first time ever I played Nova against an opponent where I had more LPs than he did. We played on a 4' by 4' table and started in opposite corners as has become the custom at Battlegrounds. The terrain layout was that there was a big two-level ziggurat in the middle of the table with bunkers on the top level (each step was height 2) and various containers were around the bottom. This layout favoured my force, I think, because both of my units had anti-grav so I always had somewhere to run if I got surrounded.

Nova was also a good choice for me because Jordan almost always plays with Propeganda. In a 1000 point game Propeganda both players have so few units that getting to activate an infantry unit for a second time with Propeganda is a potential game-breaker. Being Nova, I was always able to cancel it so, essentially, he was fighting my 1000 point army with an 850 point army.

On the first turn I sent my Anakongas around the left side of the ziggurat on the first step in contemplation of getting in close to his infantry and hitting them with the flamers while my King Buggy went the opposite direction to take on the Sierp. Jordan sent his RPG Soldaty and Sierp towards my King Buggy and his Dragonovs the other way. Looking back I'm not sure why he sent the Sierp towards the King Buggy because the Sierp's light mortars weren't strong enough to penetrate the King Buggy which I didn't know as it was happening but he apparently did because, even when he was in range, he didn't bother firing at the King Buggy. I kept the King Buggy behind containers well enough to avoid taking much damage. I had done one point of frame to the Sierp with my ZZ Guns and went up close in the hopes of finishing it off with one ZZ Gun so that I could turn the other one on the RPG Soldaty. I was initially disappointed when I wound up having to use both ZZ Guns to take out the Sierp but then I thought, "Wait a minute... I have two FLAMERS on the back of this thing!" In all the times I've used the King Buggy it's almost always been against vehicles at ranges greater than 25 centimetres so I'd pretty much forgotten that the King Buggy even had flamers. Needless to say, Jordan wasn't happy when my flamers auto-hit and auto-killed his whole unit.

After that it was pretty much over. Jordan did get two weapon hits on the King Buggy with his remaining unit and took out the flamers but I got to range zero and auto-hit & auto-killed four Dragonovs right before the Anakongas jumped in and gave them the flamer treatment again.

After AT-43 Jordan, Adam, and I played a three-way game of Confrontation AoR (again with 1000-point forces). I was playing Wolfen and had a unit of four Hunters with Serethis and a unit of four Fangs which included a Rune Guardian. Adam was playing Temple and Jordan borrowed Paul's Scorpion army. We were playing Marauder style which means that all the unit cards get shuffled and activate in a random order which is really cool. Since, with Serethis, my Hunters had the Scout ability I was able to start them on the other side of a hill from Adam's Fusiliers. I was lucky enough to get to activate them first and they charged over the hill and got right in their faces. Adam failed his courage roll so, after taking out a few in combat, the remaining Fusiliers routed and ran off the table edge. Fusiliers gone before they even fired a shot. Sweet. Jordan's cross-bowmen and Adam's remaining unit met up in a forest patch and Adam took out the cross-bowmen but sustained a few losses. From there we all just kind of met in the middle in a cluster and the Wolfen just plain out-lasted everyone. My Fangs all got killed but, at the end of the game, Serethis and his Hunters were all still there to a man.

As much as I like AT-43 I think I like Confrontation better. What I like best is that I don't feel like I'm agonizing over unit selection like I do with AT-43. Paul had the Trackers in so I picked them up today. I think I'll try them out next week since they're the only unit in my faction right now with ranged capabilities.

We had our AT-43 tag-team tournament at Battlegrounds (Milton, Ontario, Canada) today. The way it worked was that each pair of partners (signed up ahead of time) brought a 1500 point force to the table of whatever faction they wished. Then each team was paired off against another team. We were playing on 4" by 4" tables with terrain pre-arranged by the store. Each team then rolled a d6 and the team with the highest number got to pick the corner where one of their members would set up. That individual's partner was then compelled to set up on the opposite corner. The other team then starts with a player in each of the two remaining corners. Then we did deployment as usual with the only adjustment being that you could deploy units anywhere within 30cm of your corner of the table.

The tournament used swiss pairing with points being awarded like so at the end of each 2-hour round (we played 3 rounds):

3 points: Complete win (all of the opposing team's units were destroyed)
2 points: Timed win (time expired in the round but your team was ahead on Victory Points (VPs); VPs explained below)
1 point: Complete loss (your opponents achieved a complete win)
0 points: Timed loss (your opponents achieved a timed win)

We used VPs as the differential between rounds. You scored 1 VP for each infantry unit completely destroyed and 1 VP for each armored fighting vehicle destroyed. There was also a single objective token dead-centre on the table that scored you 3 VP if you controlled it uncontested at the end of the game/round.

The reason we went with this complete vs. timed win system was to reward players for finishing their games. Personally, I was glad for this because, in my opinion, it encourages people to play in the "spirit" of the game and not to get ahead on points and turtle. Also, this really encourages players to not get bogged down in lengthy rules disputes.

We had seven teams so that meant fourteen people for a tournament which was really awesome. We had 8 teams signed up but one team mysteriously no-showed. I was playing with the following Karman Nova List and my partner was playing the Therian Cypher list:

Kaptars x4 with Saint
Easy Trikes x3 with Mentor
King Buggy
1490 AP

Incubus Golgoth with Alpha, Relay
Incubus Golgoth with Alpha, Relay
Bane Goliaths x3 with Relay
Assault Golems with Sigma, Nucleus Gun
Hyperlink Antenna
1495 AP

It really stung that for my King Buggy to have a Mentor put me at 5 points over! So our team strategy was basically that the Karman vehicles would kamikaze the enemy's AFVs and the Incubi would initially stay put and snipe enemy officers and specialists. My unit of Kaptars would hide behind cover and never show their heads and just sit back and cancel enemy LP expenditures. Our hope was to use Nova and sniping in tandem to take out officers and cancel their units' activations. Overall, it worked really well.

Our first opponents were a Red Blok and Karman pairing. I can't remember exactly what the Red Blok player had but there were 3 units of Kolossus and a unit of infantry with sniper rifles. The Karman player was playing Flux with a unit of K-Warriors, Easy Trikes x2, and a unit of 8 Kaptars with ZZ Guns. It was pretty bad luck on their part to be facing us because our strategy pretty much capitalized on what they brought to the table. The Flux was really hampered by only having Mentors. Even at full strength their Karmans only had 4LP to spend on routines which my Nova gulped up easily. Basically, I think the Karman player wanted the option to control the objective with his Trikes so he went with Flux. Despite the strategic mis-match in our favour (dumb luck; no reflection on our opponents) the dice fate-monkeys were particularly cruel to the opposing Karman player. Towards the end of the game when they just wanted to try and get a few VP he attacked my Easy Trikes in close combat with his K-Warriors hoping to take at least one down. The poor guy rolled two 1's and two 2's on his power grips. Dang. This game was a total wipe; we killed everything of theirs and I don't think we lost a single fighter.

The next game we faced a Therian/Red Blok pairing. The opposing Therians had their own Incubus, Bane Goliaths, and two Golem units heavy on the Nucleus Guns. The Red Blok player had a unit of 3 Sierps, Krasnye Soldaty x12 (3 rocket launchers, 2 mechanics), Dragonov Kommandos (3 sniper guns), and Propaganda x2. Red Blok's disruption made my Nova a little less effective until we took down two Sierps and the Golgoth sniped his Commander. All my vehicles wound up destroyed but that was the plan and they did their job taking down a few Sierps and Infantry. Eventually, even though he had two units left (Sierps and Kommandos), I was able to just set aside 3 VPs and keep the Red Blok player from activating anything (he was glad for the opportunity to take a smoke break). My Therian partner then was able to take out the rest of the Therians. In isolation, the Therian VS. Therian action was pretty evenly matched on paper but because I could sit back and cancel most of the opposing player's routines it gave us a considerable advantage. We wound up with a complete win in this round, as well.

In the third and final round we faced a Karman/UNA pairing. The Karman player had an all-infantry platoon comprised of Wendigos x8 with Venerable (regular, not Cornelius) and Grenade Launchers, Kaptars x6 with Saint, and K-Fighters x2 with Mentor. I don't remember which officers the UNA player had with all of his infantry but he had a complete anti-vehicle force with Copperhead with Col. Stark, Star Troopers x12 with Missile Launchers, Steel Troopers x9 with Missile Launchers, and Jam Tac-Arms x3. On the first turn it was my King Buggy's priority to take out the K-Fighters which he did. I was hoping to be able to take out the K-Fighters in the first ZZ Gun salvo and fire the other at the Kaptars but cover saves compelled me to use both salvos to take out the K-Fighters. My team-mate was able to then snipe the Wendigo medic and officer so, with my Nova ability, that was the last we saw of the Wendigos. The opposing Kaptars went and hid in a bunker. I had hoped that my King Buggy would be around long enough to turn the flamer on them but those darn UNA locked shots and laser targeters meant that it was gone before the turn ended. I tried to take down the Copperhead with my Easy Trikes but some lack-luster dice rolls combined with cover saves made the few hits I scored essentially moot. In retrospect I probably could have done more for my team by rushing and BBQing some of his infantry. Who knows? After the initial two turns lady luck abandoned the UNA. I swear that he missed 80% of his 3+ missile shots (we jokingly emphasized the "miss") and I think he only wound up doing damage on 40% of his shots after that. The UNA were all behind a big hill that our Incubi couldn't see over. We made a bit of a gaff by not leaving his Incubi on overwatch so the UNA were able to run up a few sacrificial lambs, laser-target whatever they wanted, and bombs away. The UNA player returned the favour by forgetting that take cover took place at the end of a unit's activation and his Tac-Arms got sniped. Had we played that siege a little better it may have wound up different but we wound up with a timed loss with a score of 7 to 3.

Fortunately, we were the only team that went into the third round with two complete wins so, barring some really wacky scoring in the final round, we more-or-less had the tournament sewn up going into the final round. Overall, I was just pleased to come in first place but that last match was grueling.

Getting 14 people out for a tournament was really cool and I hope we get similar numbers at our tournament next month!

So we had another D&D Minis Tournament at Battlegrounds today and I'm pleased to say I came in first and went 4-0 on the day. Here's the warband I ran:

Hierophant of the Seventh Wind
Dire Tiger
Spectral Panther x2
Giant Centipede
Elf Archer x4

The Hierophant gives models with the Beast keyword +4 Attack as long as he's not bloodied. I kept him well away from combat until end game was certain. I was originally planning on running only one Spectral Panther and two Dire Wolves but I'm actually glad that the guy from whom I was going to borrow the Dire Wolf forgot to leave it at the store because I don't think this warband would have done as well. The Dire Wolves are on 2x2 bases and the Spectral Panthers are on a 1x1 base so they had much more maneuverability.

I also had uncommonly good dice luck today. My Dire Tiger took out a Cyclops in one round by scoring a critical on its follow-up attack in synergy with the Hierophant using one if its champion abilities to add 20 damage to an attack. 80 damage in one round! Heck, even the Giant Centipede scored a critical at one point. So I walked away with 14 victory points (1 VP = $1 in store credit) and, even better, the coveted Gelatinous Cube miniature from Desert of Desolation:


A lot of the guys at Battlegrounds still run warbands with a handful of big, beefy creatures. I'm convinced that only having one or two beat-sticks and filling out the warband with little guys with ranged attack is the way to go.

So we had an AT-43 tournament this afternoon at Battlegrounds: 2000 points, all assault. I tried out Nova for the first time. The valid builds given the currently available models (no proxies are allowed for these tournaments) for Nova are pretty limited and I went with:

Kaptars x10 (with Saint, ZZ-Guns x2, Grenades, Mechanic)
Easy Trikes x3 (with Mentor)
K-Warriors x2 (with Mentor)

I agonized over whether to take snipers or ZZ Guns but I’m glad I went with ZZ Guns given the opponents I faced. My first opponent was playing Web Strider Therians. His list was along the lines of:

Incubus Golgoth x1
Bane Goliaths x3
Hekat Golgoth x1
Storm Golems x9
Storm Golems x9

It may have been a little bit different but that was the gist of it. The Trikes took out the Incubus’ propulsion first turn and it failed its morale check. The Trikes then ran over the Bane Goliaths and took out two of them and the ZZ Rifles took out the last one. The K-Warriors were on the other side of the table and took out one of the units of Storm Golems on their own when a lucky 10 cm deviation. Sometimes fate smiles on you. Smile

The funniest moment in the game came when his Hekat charged my K-Warriors, missed with all four Scythes, and my K-Warriors turned around, did 2 points of damage to it's propulsion, and then it failed its morale check two turns in a row and went bye-bye. So, in my head, I see the big scary robot run up, whiff, and the gorillas turn around and pull its legs off. Classic. The battle went back and forth for a bit and I wound up losing my Trikes and the K-Warriors but wound up winning with 80% of my Kaptars in tact. Being able to cancel the Therian routines was a big help and kept him from teleporting and sprinting around the table so I had the time I needed to get into the best position.

Things went downhill from there. Next I faced a UNA player playing M.Ind with the following list:

Defender Snake x1
Fire Toads x4 (with Newton)
Steel Tacarms
Steel Troopers x9 (with Missile Launchers)

Now... I only just read this a few moments ago and found out that Missile Launchers can't be used on overwatch which the Defender Snake was doing the whole game which really kept my Trikes from showing themselves. Not saying it would've won me the game but it would have changed the face of the battle entirely. I'm 100% positive the guy I was playing against didn't do it on purpose because he's a really good sport so no suspicion of cheating on his part whatsoever. Given that we were playing with the DS going on overwatch when it really wasn't allowed to I'm pretty happy with the way I played. I made one crucial mistake where I gambled and shot at the DS with my Kaptars' ZZ Guns instead of putting them on overwatch so that the Steel Troopers didn't come out of hiding and fire their missiles. This enabled them to take out a Trike's propulsion. I failed the next morale check and that tipped the scales.

Next I faced another Therian player with the following Cipher list:

Incubus Golgoth x2
Bane Goliaths x3
Storm Golems x9
Storm Golems x9

This was probably the closest game I've ever played. I lost but I wouldn't change a single move I made. In the end it came down to my Kaptars without their ZZ Guns or Saint against an Incubus. I had the Incubus well worn down and immobilized but when my Saint got sniped I didn't have the LP to cancel his repair routines and it wasn't long before it was on the prowl. I won't go into details but this fight came down to die rolls. I failed two morale tests in a row for my Trikes. Had they made their roll there was a good chance I could have taken out the other Golgoth. But, dice rolls are the one thing that I can't control so, while I obviously would have rather won, I'm satisfied to have made an almost-mistake free game. The only thing I forgot to do was repair with my Mechanic one turn but it would have been moot given the hits the Trike took the next round.

So, although I went 1-2, it was another solid outing for the Karmans. While our options are still comparatively limited, don't believe the hype when you hear people say that the monkeys can't compete.

I was at Battlegrounds today playing AT-43 and was talking to this guy, Eric, who was considering buying some Karmans. I know he used to play Therians so I asked him what happened to his army. Apparently, he took his car in to get a flat tire fixed and his models were all in a box in his trunk. When the mechanic was done he not only put the spare in the trunk on top of his models but CRAMMED it in there as hard as he could to get the trunk to close. So much for his army. Yikes.

Rackham finally got some new Karmans out the door! Contrary to what their release schedule, they released the Kaptar unit attachment with the ZZ guns instead of the sniper rifles first. They also released the K-Warriors so now I have access to mortar guns which is pretty sweet. Hopefully I can get a slot at the tournament next Sunday at Battlegrounds.