Here you have it, my short (actually, this will be quite long, but that doesn’t draw many readers, now does it?) story about GAME09. OK, you really want a short one? Good times, laughter, and FUN!!!!

Before we even got underway, I already had a journey behind me. I want to go with a party, because that makes for a more enjoyable journey and reduces costs. We quickly were with 4 persons, and all seemed good. Until I hear that llarbal has scheduling problems. He is replaced by our local judge, great thing! Then the booking agency decides that the hotel we booked at isn’t trustworthy enough and cancels our booking two weeks before the tournaments. A frantic weekend later, I change the booking to another hostel. Then, just 2 days before we leave, I hear that our judge can’t come and we can’t find a replacement on such short notice. We are already sharing rooms with Plastic Finn. Skay needed a room for Saturday, so he could bunk with us too. Now I know what tour operators go through: no, thank you!

Anyway, Miniatorix, Fearless and me go by overnight ferry and then drive to Manchester. We arrive on Friday, meet pf and have lunch, play some Icingdeath scenario, meet up with Alepulp and do some more gaming. Most of us brought 100 pnt warbands, and PF and Skay play their league match! Glorfyndas and his wife come in, and Glorfyndas’ heroes gets brutally slaughtered by the enraged dragon. All 8 of us have dinner in a Chinese restaurant, then we play some Fluxx and decide to go to bed early.

Note: most of the time the heroes won though (7-3 or so), all without the special ability. Key? Cattie-Brie. Icingdeath doesn’t like 50 damage crits.

I also decided that my fun will be in running a smooth show, so I won’t play Standard. I also needed to prep the Community Draft event, and that takes time too. For what it’s worth: I was planning on bringing the Seer, Draegloth, Shadow Dragon trio to the table. I figure that if I had run it, it would have ended somewhere in the middle of the field.
We didn’t have a laptop, and would have to go to the other side of the building (5-10 minutes) to the MtG area to get pairings etc. Fortunately, Glorfyndas’ wife has brought her’s and we are graciously allowed to use it for the tournament. Again: I can’t thank you enough!

I did bring the (new) DCI reporter software on a USB-stick and after an install, warband registration and search for the UK-players DCI numbers (really guys: write them down! ).It was already decided to do N+1 rounds and no top 4/8 cutoff. 14 players in the tournament means 5 rounds.
Bye certificates for the first round were presented to the top 2 of the national championships in the Netherlands, UK and Finland. 5 of the 6 players who got a certificate where there, and 4 (Alepulp, Miniatorix, Plastic Finn and Glorfyndas) decided to use them. I see a lot of games, but none that I remember very well, I simply had too much to do. Lunch break is taken after the second round. Finally, when the dust settles, we have a new EU standard Champion: alepulp.

I was taking community draft prizes and boosters after lunch and prepping them when possible. The players that bought boosters at the con don’t have cards with them, so I have to prep them after the standard tournament ends. That means: no dinner for me: printing and cutting cards. When we left at the hostel, I already said: I think I will have to live on banana’s today! Well, that turned out to be true…

We start drafting for the community draft around 21:00. For many of the players this was their first draft. For one player (TameTitan) this was his first tournament! The prize table was chock-full of all kinds of nice stuff. The picture below gives an impression, but misses out on two angelfire boosters, a pair of Guild maps, a Drow Outpost map, a Demonweb set poster, Minis to the Max posters, and various other bits and pieces. Thanks to everyone who submitted, it was a sight to behold!

We had 12 players, and 3 draft pods. Stories of my draft pod: deadseashoals brought a Dangerous Delves (War Devil) and a Blood War booster. Guess what came out of the Blood War one? A Horned Devil. He picked the War Devil anyway. I ended up drafting heavily into underdark/civ. It wasn’t great, but then I (as fourth player) dumped my Deathknell boosters. Valorous Prince suited me just fine!
From my final pool I build the following warband:
Evil, Civ/Und, Valorous Prince (48), Dragonmark Heir of Deneith (34), Gnome Trickster (27), Tiefling Blademaster (27), Flameskull (25), Dwarf Artificer (21), Acheron Goblin (7), Skeletal Dwarf (6), Farmer (3), King's Road, 198 pnts, CR 2, 9 acts

Story from the second pod: Miniatorix gets a Lamia on 15th pick. But he’ll tell you that himself.

I won my first game against Fearless’ warband on his Hailstorm Tower map. On the second round his copper dragon lined my flameskull, trickster and goblin, and the flameskull retaliated and moved away. He moved his WWC into the tower, where my farmer was waiting as bait. He was now in charge range of 1: my blademaster (hit for 20, and cp to give allies +2/+5), my Valorous Prince (for 20), my Dragonmark into CA (for 30), then snake swiftness on the Dragonmark for the kill. Everything swarmed into the tower. My flameskull (with only 5 HP left) was pulled by the Prince and on round 3 got to activate first, recharge the fireball and gave most of his warband a taste of it. His monk killed the flameskull, I killed his cleric and that was game. 1-0

Second game against Stuart with a speedy ranged warband on Dragondown Grotto. First round I made the mistake to want to blast his half orc spy and spend the rest of the round protecting it from the Spy. Once we started moving, it came down to one roll with my valorous prince against his Dwarf Shieldmaiden. I missed by 1 and then my Prince died. I couldn’t overcome the 48 point deficit after that. 1-1

Third game was against Glorfyndas, who build around a mezzodemon, scythejaw and Skull Lord on Fane of Lolth. We played on my map, he grabbed VP during the first round, after I used my flameskull to good effect. Next round I did the flameskull again, and got to kill both the Canoloth and the Scythejaw. After I got his Talon Champ and Snake in the third round, he conceded. 2-1

Finally Eugene and Stuart were both at 3-0, but because Eugene had better OMW, he got first pick from the loaded prize table. Everyone thought it was a wonderful experience and I have repeatedly heard that it was probably the highlight of the convention.

What more do I have in store for you? My report of day 2 (where I did get to play in the main feature tournament), and the warbands of all three tournaments (if you guys/gals are interested?)
But that will have to wait until later this week.

You can already look at some pictures from the championships at my web album.

The pics aren't mine, but Robin (bugging bear?) was kind enough to share them!

Sounds like fun!

How many DDM players did you folks have at the con?

Oh, and congrats to Alepup!

I want to thank David (Thekk) for his immensely valuable judging and preparational work. Most days I got an email or something checking that I'd done everything at my end and that all was well. His judging was great and we had no issues (although I do look forward to seeing the final word on "that map square" ;-) ).

We had 14 for the EU Champs Standard and the same for the EU Champs Limited events, although we had 3 new players for the Limited event as Jared, Bugginbear and Annoyinglizardvoice had other commitments. But that was great since we enthused 3 other players - great fun!!!

Awesome! I'd love to see bands/maps and any game/tourney reports you guys care to share.

Thanks for the report, David, and even more for all the work you did to make the event a success!

I made notes of what I played and went against, so I'll come up with a report this week too. Here's hoping for a lot of reports, even if short ones (like thekk's ;)).

Cross-post:

alepulp said:
We had the following players:

Glorfindel - Germany
Glorfinelina - Germany
PF - Finland
Skay - Russia
Alepulp - UK/Sweden
Rob - Holland
Joost - Holland
Miniatorix - Holland
Microelf - UK/US
Wanderer13 - UK
Annoyinglizardvoice - UK
Bugginbear - UK
Jared - UK
Deadseashoalds - US

Top 3 were:

Alepulp - 5-0
Microelf - 4-1
Miniatorix - 4-1

Top 3 warbands:

Alepulp ("Now you see me...") Dragondown Grotto
Ogre Mage
Witchknife x 2
Wand Expert x 2
Blue x 2
Man at Arms x 2
Merchant Guard

Microelf ("Cats and Dogs") Dragondown Grotto
Catfolk Wilder x 2
Demonic Gnoll Archers x 2
Cougar x 2
Wild Elf Warrior
Demonic Gnoll Priestess
Gnoll
Greenspawn Sneak

Miniatorix (Golden Koli)
Gold Dragon
Kolyarut
Wand Expert
Drow Assassin x 2
Earth Shugenja
Goblin Runner
Merchant Guard x 2

As you can expect from this group, there was not easy game and 5-0 really was a surprise. At least 3 games were waiting games and I won map all times, bar the one with Microelf. The last game was won against Miniatorix - we'd been playing and practicing online and both knew the other persons' warband well. That's why we both played incredibly close to the heart. I pulled that out 31-30.... we had about 9 rounds as well I think. And that win was only because he forgot (and I did too) about his champion power in the last round.

What a great day! I left early to get some sleep while the rest were playing the community draft. Tomorrow we have our Angelfire limited event :) Some new players have turned up for that. Cool...

It's been great to meet all the guys as they're all so cool and fun to be with!

Were there any Foulspawn Seer bands? If not, why not?

I can only speak for myself, but I simply felt it wasn't going to be fun to play, or to play against. It was also probably not a good idea to bring to an event where we all love the game (ehhh... did I say that about 2.0????) and want to enjoy friendships.

My report...

I got into Manchester at around 5. Checked in, went to find a tasty place to eat, went to the Premier Inn at 7 and found no DDMers there (I later found out that they had gone out to eat), go back to the hostel, read my dry, dry microeconomics textbook, take a sleeping pill, and crash.

Next day, head over to the main con site and meet all the Europeans I had played with on VASSAL. Plastic finn, thekk, Miniatorix, alepulp and more. Hem and haw about a warband and decide to play a random pile of pieces that added up to 200. Wait for thekk's DCI reporter troubles, and after a small delay, the standard tournament starts.

My warband, for reference:

Oni, 2x Witchknife, 2x Wand Expert, 2x Merchant Guard, 2x Blue, Goblin Runner on Frostfell Rift

Round 1 vs Alexander (Skay)

Skay played something with double Catfolk Wilder and headed by Bralani on Dragondown Grotto. I rolled 6 or 7 natural 1s over the course of the game, but it didn't matter, because I did score kills on both his Catfolk, and with no more ranged support, Skay was pinned down by a hail of theoretical Wand Expert lasers, and I won 75-17 when time was called.

1-0

Round 2 vs Stuart

Stuart played 3 Ambush Drakes, a Snaketongue Cultist, and junk. He missed two of his ambush strikes and about half of his breath attacks and died.

2-0

Round 3 vs Wayne (microelf)

microelf played two Demonic Gnoll Archers, Demonic Gnoll Priestess, two Catfolk on Dragondown Grotto. No champion, but he won map and that's basically GG for me. I made it closer than I thought it would be, but with the forest on that map, I just couldn't fight back effectively, and microelf played it tight and didn't let me steal the game.

alepulp tells me the Ogre Mage makes the difference in this match as compared with the Oni and I am inclined to agree, particularly considering he won his match against microelf, and that's the major difference in our warbands.

2-1

Round 4 vs Robert

Robert played two Catfolk (MOAR CATFOLK>???), Galeb Duhr and Earth Archon on Keep of the Fallen Kings. I lasered his Catfolk and Stunned his Elementals, and that was that.

3-1

Round 5 vs Kay

Kay played two Astral Stalkers, Warpriest of Hextor, and a Babau on Dwarven Outpost. I set up in the cave, got an early lead on points and controlled the victory areas, while Kay sat in the outpost waiting for me. I eventually pushed the Oni up into the doors and got off two massive template attacks. It did eventually die, but it proved to be enough of a distraction that I killed his Warpriest and an Astral Stalker, while his other Stalker was injured, and all of my other pieces were fresh, and Kay conceded after that.

4-1

About the result I expected, 4-1 for 4th place. I'd have been disappointed with 3-2 and was hoping but not expecting 5-0. I'd definitely like to have taken my chances in a single elimination playoff though. :D

After the standard, everyone, except for thekk (who is awesome, and was busy preparing the community draft) went out for Chinese, and then the community draft started. I rode War Devil / Khumat / Soulknife / Snaketongue to victory and got a couple of repaints and a box of chocolate.

I didn't play on Sunday, as I was playing in a Magic tournament, so obviously since I was not there to defend, alepulp won :D

The_Duke said:
Were there any Foulspawn Seer bands? If not, why not?

No Foulspawn Seer bands were played (thankfully). Personally I consider it to be an unfun warband to play and to play against, just like Alepulp. I rather play something that is more challenging to play correctly. In that regard I had incredible game vs Alepulp in the finale. With both of us tactically maneuvering around the map to find a weak spot to exploit for most of the fun game. But I'll write a more complete report about my Game '09 experiences tomorrow.

Overall there were very few warbands that had some sort of ranged area attack, I only remember seeing 1 Wildmage and Alepulp's Ogre Mage of course. No Solamith's . Hopefully Thekk can post a complete overview of the warbands played.

The_Duke said:
Were there any Foulspawn Seer bands? If not, why not?

I found it too vulnerable if some key rolls fail. I was looking for a band that had defenses against various types of bands. Also, I figured people are prepared for the Seer... as most of the top bands were. That's not to say it didn't have a chance to win it all, if things went it's way. I agree with thekk, who said he most likely would have ended up somewhere in the middle, had he played (with his Seer band)... barring hot dice.

Personally I don't consider it unfun in a competitive tournament. Talking about the first round nuke wb, btw, obviously the piece can be used other ways too.

Thekk said:
For what it’s worth: I was planning on bringing the Seer, Draegloth, Shadow Dragon trio to the table. I figure that if I had run it, it would have ended somewhere in the middle of the field.

Great report, thanks! Can you talk a bit more about your thinking regarding the Seer warband?

I love the Foulspawn Seer, but not to play in alpha strike warbands (I feel it would be bad taste).

I have played it in warbands along with other abberants; mangler, gauth, slasher, half-ithilid all benefit from its auras and CPs.

I nearly played one at the Euros, but was put off by the themed/keyword.

My EU Champs report - part 1 - constructed (ehhh. standard).

I was really hoping to play 1.0, but it became clear soon after the initial excitement for stats that the interest had died, so I had to make do with 2.0. I started immersing myself with practice games with Miniatorix online checking various new pieces and seeing what would work. I quickly decided that the only real new threat in the most recent set was the Blue... it was an awesome piece at that price.

I knew that Microelf was likely to bring his undefeated "Cats and Dogs" and that Miniatorix was likely to bring his Golden Collie mix and they're both exceptionally strong players. So I meta gamed versus these instead of Seer warbands.

I don't like combat warbands, instead preferring positioning and ranged attacking, making life difficult for the opponent and giving me map area control. I also realised that 2.0 has the same need for activation control for ranged warbands - so I went for 10 activations.

I wanted blues, a ranged warband, a way to out manouver an opponent and some nice champion powers, plus a lot of resilience. I did experiment with the idea of insubstantial warbands, but decided against them. I tried monks and stunning attacks variants with the Young Master and droppped that. Then tried single and double Golden Dragons in various formats and that also ended up in a dead end. In the end I decided on a variant of the UK Nationals warband that had worked so well:

Ogre Mage - a great commander and map commander, especially for ranged warbands
Witch Knife x 2 - usually a good way to control what happens and when
Wand Expert x 2 - a reliable source for inflicting pain and mayhem.
Merchant Guard - to help the Ogre (usually)
Blues x 2 - additional cheap ranged attacks
Man at Arms x 2 - just because I didn't want any pigs on my table during an epidemic

Map had to be Dragondown Grotto.

I'll add my match reports later.

OK, I've got the final results for you:

Standard (5 rounds, 14 players, 4 byes awarded)
Rank Name Points OMW%
----------------------------
1 Scott, Peter 15 60
2 Mcmanus, Wayne 12 62.6
3 Vergeer, Bart 12 58.25
4 Hwang, Eugene 12 52
5 Bleything, Stuart 9 58.6
6 Kostiainen, Antti 9 50
7 Howard, Jared Lee 9 41.2
8 Kelterer, Kay 6 75
9 Visser, Robert 6 66.6
10 Howard, Charles 6 50.6
11 Kiyachko, Alexander 6 49.2
12 Chadwick, Robin Lee 6 46.6
13 Mundi, Joost 3 48
14 Kelterer, Wiebke 0 60

Community Draft (3 rounds, 12 players)
Rank Name Points OMW%
---------------------------
1 Hwang, Eugene 9 55.5556
2 Bleything, Stuart 9 44.3333
3 Kiyachko, Alexander 6 55.5555
4 Kostiainen, Antti 6 55.5555
5 Balder, David 6 55.5555
6 Vergeer, Bart 6 33.1111
7 Mcmanus, Wayne 3 88.8889
8 Visser, Robert 3 55.4445
9 Mundi, Joost 3 55.4445
10 Kelterer, Kay 3 55.4445
11 Steventon, Martin 0 66.6667
12 Kelterer, Wiebke 0 44.4444

Angelfire Limited (4 rounds, 14 players)
Rank Name Points OMW%
----------------------------
1 Scott, Peter 12 62.5
2 Balder, David 9 64.5
3 Kelterer, Kay 9 60.25
4 Mcmanus, Wayne 9 52
5 Vergeer, Bart 9 47.75
6 Mundi, Joost 6 60.25
7 Visser, Robert 6 60.25
8 Bleything, Stuart 6 47.75
9 Kiyachko, Alexander 6 47.75
10 Kostiainen, Antti 3 62.5
11 Brecken, Chris 3 58.3333
12 Kelterer, Wiebke 3 58.3333
13 Steventon, Martin 3 52
14 Emsley, Russ 0 54 (Dropped after round 2)

plastic finn said:

The_Duke said:
Were there any Foulspawn Seer bands? If not, why not?

I found it too vulnerable if some key rolls fail. I was looking for a band that had defenses against various types of bands. Also, I figured people are prepared for the Seer... as most of the top bands were. That's not to say it didn't have a chance to win it all, if things went it's way. I agree with thekk, who said he most likely would have ended up somewhere in the middle, had he played (with his Seer band)... barring hot dice.

Personally I don't consider it unfun in a competitive tournament. Talking about the first round nuke wb, btw, obviously the piece can be used other ways too.

How were the top bands prepared for it? I just don't see it (but have had a massive migraine since 11am...). I also think the seer by itself is awesome for melee bands; adds mobility, att, and some synergy. I'd like to hear how others are using it non-nuke wise.

lord_rock said:
How were the top bands prepared for it?

Goldie: -2 Attack and Weaken x2 while giving allies +2 to DEF. Merchant Guards. Wand Experts avoiding most of it, if set up right. Nothing water proof, but decent chances of survival without giving too much to other bands or copying the GenCon champ band. (I'll give it to you, "Cats and Dogs" isn't a band I'd expected to see that high - without any decent defenses except attack. Dragondown is a great map for it, though, the damage punishing, and obviously microelf a really good player.)

In related news, I've got my own report done up to the start of Community draft... still quite a way from finished. :)

goldie probably makes it but Cats n dogs is pretty toast and witch knives better do some good rolling if they survive the assault.

Part 2

I apologise if I get some of the facts slightly wrong - the event was a bit of a haze because of running GameCon and a lot of side events indirectly as well as playing DDM.

Round 1 - my Bye - I needed this since I also run the main convention and Saturday morning always has something that needs fixing.

1-0

Round 2 - Kay Kelterer

Astral Stalker x 2
Babau
Warforged Scout
Spiretop Drake
Elf Warrior x 2
Warpriest of Hextor
Xeph x 2

I knew I had to pull out those pesky Stalkers and so I laid up a very valuable bait fairly early on - I flew my Ogre Mage into the DDG central victory area. He can't be ignored. The Babau left its lair and charged in. From there I had a target and stunned it with mind storms and killed it with the wand experts. Now Kay had to come and get me so his Astral Stalkers came at me. By the end I'd killed them both also and most of his fodder. It was pretty close though as he could move in fairly safely through the forests. I think he had a chance if he'd decided to attack the Ogre Mage with a Stalker instead so that he was slowed. However, I worked out that he couldn't in fact kill me before I was all over his pieces.

2-0

Robert Visser

Unicorn
Catfolk Wilder x 2
Kenku Sneak x 2
Earth Archon Rumbler
Dark Mantle x 2
Elf Archer
Galeb Duhr

This was going to be brutal, and it was. Two great attacking options in combat and amazing ranged options plus two tough tile grabbers. I won map - as I had a commander. Robert jokingly said "I don't believe in champions". Robert had both his Dark Mantles placed in the one area he gets hide on the side of the map. Tough to pick off and he used the to great effect harry my wand experts, but I soon gained activation control as I stunned both advancing elementals and killed the Archon (after 3 misses). I had a piece pop in and out of the VP area each round gathering points and then hiding away. One advantage of activation control and a champion is the ability to have a piece pop in and then out at the end and beginning of a round - you just have to place your pieces right to achieve that. I managed to stun the Galeb twice with the mind storm, but, as in all my games, few of the status attacks lasted. Galeb was soon upon one of my gatherings of pieces, but the witchknifes did a good job of walloping it and reducing its effectiveness. The cats were now coming out to play and the wand experts made a mess of at least one of them. I slept the Unicorn (who then saved). Ultimately, though, the game was over.

3-0

Wayne McManus

Cat Wilder x 2
Demonic Gnoll Archers x 2
Demonic Gnoll Priestess
Cougar x 2
Greenspawn Sneak
Wild Elf Warrior
Gnoll

We had the same map and he set up on the "wrong" side - allowing me the ability to pop in and out of the central VP area. Both warbands are ranged based and both are brutal in that role. I've played Wayne's warband myself and against him before and know just how tough it is if you expose yourself. But his archers and wilders are pretty easy to kill, so they need to be protected also. This game was one of trying to pull him out. He had his sneak in the one area he can use hide, but a wand expert placed invisibly in the central area at the end of a round soon removes that and it doesn't take long until he has to expose his cougars to gain VPs. they're gradually picked off as I gain VPs and lose one or two low cost pieces in the centre. He has to start exposing his pieces to get some shots off, albeit against low costs pieces, just to keep up. Now I start stunning his gnolls and forcing the cats out instead. One cat dies and he's down to 4 or 5 activations against my 8. I can get VPs with little or no trouble each round, using the fey jump skills, while he's down to slow fodder or his big hitters (at least one was down to 25 HPs - one barrage from a wand expert).

4-0

Bart

Although we'd played before online a lot in preparation for the tournament, I don't think we'd played on dragondown grotto - and I won map init. I therefore chose my map.

Gold Dragon
Kolyarut
Wand Expert
Drow Assassin x 2
I can't remember the rest :(...

Anyway - the game was very interesting indeed as we tried to outmanouver eachouther to gain an advantage. With his assassins hiding, I kept out of the way and he did the same, trying to get the dragon over the gap. We both made some low level kills and both got some sneaky VPs, but both scored really low. In 8 or 9 rounds we only just got 30+ points. On the last round, as his dragon was having a nice meal of clobbered blues and I was checking across the map to his area of hidden pieces to extract my revenge. He was, at this point slightly ahead on points and so when time was called I flew in my Ogre Mage and blasted his hidden assassin, placed neatly just next to the VP area in the dead fall trees. Both he and I forgot that he could have champed that attack and won, but he only reminded me of it after the game while we were handing in the results. I'm not sure, but I think he'd have won then, although I'm not sure if the 31-30 win included my last rounds' VPs. It was a blur...

One question came out of this and it was the final ruling on which squares are forest on this map. In 1.0 and in a thread online it seemed that the single square at the top, near the VP area, is a forest square, allowing an invisible space. The lack of this forest square in fact made me have to play much more defensively than I had intended against Bart. That square allows pieces to zip on and off the VP area and control the map. We played that it wasn't forest - what is the final official ruling on this? (not that it matters now, but it would be nice to know).

5-0 and I'm the EU Champ... somehow winning on a forgotten champ power isn't as nice as winning on pure skill, but it was a great feeling and still is! The guys are such good players and winning in 2.0 against them feels awesome! Maybe 2.0 isn't so bad after all :)

I won a brilliant Beholder, hand-made by annoyinglizardvoice. It's got pride of place on my DDM cabinet! Thanks for all the games and for the organisation and judging by David.