Gen Con 2007 Championship Report
By Chad Benner (3rd Place Finish)
This was my third trip to the Gen Con Championship held at Indianapolis. I’ve always done extremely well at qualifiers and local tournaments but always seemed to underachieve in the Championship. This year I vowed to change all that.
In 2005, my first attempt, I chose a band on my own without any input from other players. It ended up being a tier 1.5 band and I made some rookie mistakes being a bit nervous and overwhelmed by the size of Gen Con. The band didn’t quite fit my play style either. The band was quad Justice Archons and Couatl. This was during the time of 12 activations and we used the Fane of Lolth map. The band was too slow and I had no tile grabber so it wasn’t a surprise that I finished 4-3 with it.
In 2006, my second attempt, I spent a few weeks with my DDM buddies testing out the three popular bands that were expected to do well: Korducopa, Monks, and Belchers. I chose Korducopia because it was generally felt it was better or even against the other bands. Well, that band didn’t fit my play style (single titan) and I didn’t get much practice with the band either. I played much better this time because I felt that I didn’t make any major mistakes. However, I finished at 3-4. I lost one match because I couldn’t pass incorporeal on a SWarm band, lost another because I wasn’t aware that the ranged attack rule change around corners also affected melee reach 2 and my CoDA got whacked because it was out of position. The other loss was against a great player and it came down to the final round and he got the better luck than I. The game could have gone either way. So, despite the losing record, I felt good about all my games because I wasn’t outplayed in any of them.
This brings us to 2007. The year of the Amish. Joining up with team Amish was a great move. As a team, we were able to play-test bands as a group and have discussions on what worked and didn’t work. This helped a lot as no one would have the time to do all that practice by yourself unless you were not married (like Kevin Cleveland or Eddie Wehrenberg). As a team we felt that Shadow Dragons were very strong on all three maps. Market Square was the weakest in the sense that there were few walls near the center but it did have LOS from start to start across the map so in reality it wasn’t all that bad of a map. The Shadow Dragons were fast and hit hard and had a breath weapon for the auto-damage. A lot of maneuverability and flexibility. This band fit my play style more than any other band before that. Not too mention it would be cool if I could win and the name Chad the DragonLord would be associated with Shadow Dragons. So I decided to run the Shadow Dragons and decided early enough to get more practice time in than any year prior.
Here is the exact build I used:
Large Shadow Dragon x3
Tiefling Captain
Orc Wardrummer
Hyena
Kenku Sneak x2
I chose the kenku because I wanted a ranged attack threat in my band. It may or may not have been the best choice because during all my games they rarely hit anything. Mostly because I kept rolling under 7 whenever they shot at fodder and when I did roll high it was when I was shooting into cover or into melee on a big guy and the ACs would be well into the 20s. I think I only hit once or twice with them the whole time.
Anyway, here is a report of my matches.
Round 1: opponent Mark Abernathy
Band:
Shadow Dragon x2
Black Dragon
Tiefling
Drummer
Kenku
Sm Black Dragon
Orc Warrior
Map: Market Square
Ironically I was thrown against my team leader. Team Amish vs. Team Amish in a slight mirror match, ugh. This was not how I wanted to start. Mirror matches at this level typically come down to who has the better dice rolls as the skill levels are about even and the bands are obviously even. Ultimately it was the dice that decided this one. In the early rounds Mark rolled a critical hit but failed the conceal check on my Shadow Dragon. He missed several conceal rolls and I passed most of mine. I was able to leverage that early luck and was soon ahead one dragon which ultimately gave me the victory. Although, in mirror matches, even if you are ahead a piece, a later change of luck can give that piece right back again if you aren’t careful. I was careful and won 202-143.
Record: 1-0
Round 2: opponent Shayne Lindeman
Band:
CoDA
Ch Dol Dorn x3
Sacred Watcher
MaA x2
TWolf
Map: Blue Dragon Lair
Shayne was playing a band I hadn’t practiced against. I knew the CoDD were tough cookies with the high AC and a lot of HP and with a commander 7 they were practically fearless. Not to mention the feat of strength could give them pushback to move the dragons off of a wall so they couldn’t escape. Without a solid game plan coming in I played sloppily. Shayne set up on the left in the shielded start area. He moved a MAA up to the corner of the long wall at the far left of the wall near the exit. And he moved his Twolf out to the VA. He had his CoDDs and CODA all in the small area so I was looking to jump to the corner of the wall and breath on all of them and then fly 8 spaces away to avoid retaliation. My plan was to use the three BW to soften him up and then go for the CoDA and hope his CoDD failed MCs. That was the plan but I screwed it up. I announce the jump and marked it off and then discovered when I put down the cone template that his MAA that he had moved was a closer target and the cone would be in the wrong direction. Stupid me I should have checked before I marked off the jump. Now the BW was worthless so I decided not to waste it and instead I swung at the MAA, killed it, and flew back 8 spaces toward the remote VA for me. My second mistake here was I didn’t end adjacent to a wall. I was flustered a bit by my failed BW and I was being careful to get as far away as possible for a retaliation so I counted 8 to get the furthest away and didn’t think about the wall until I had passed the turn back to Shayne. It was then that I noticed and it was too late. Now I was kicking myself because I had made one major mistake and one minor mistake all in the first round. Shayne marched his dwarves out towards the VA around and up from the bottom so they were all grouped together within 4 of each other. His SW moved straight out to the VA and provided another nuisance to me that threw me off my game. In round 2 he ran his TWolf deep into his remote VA and my Kenku’s were rendered useless for that round as they couldn’t shoot at the wolf like I wanted and would be ineffective against the SW. So again my attack plan was falling apart. Typically I like to be in control of the VA and the battle but everything was now falling into place for Shayne.
Since I had wasted my one jump and had parked the dragon away from a wall I was limited in what that dragon could do. I jumped in with the others and breathed and then backed off but he was able to charge or base and attack the two dragons. He passed all of his saves. My other dragon was now forced to move first and then jump to breath. I had wanted to jump, breath and then move away but it was out of position to do that and I made another mistake by ending my move adjacent to a CoDD that hadn’t activated so Shayne was able to make a free full attack at the end of the round and then he could potentially win init and full attack again before my dragon did anything other than breath. Well lucky for me he missed with both attacks. The next round he whacked me but I passed MC and swung back. We slugged it out and I found a way to jump in and full attack the CoDA with one Dragon. It was interesting that when his CoDA was alive I won two inits despite the +4 to +7 difference and then when I maged to kill the CoDA he won the inits at +0 to +4. So there was a moment when I could have taken a big lead had I won the init but instead he was able to kill a dragon before it attacked and put significant damage on the other before he lost his CoDD. That was enough to put Shayne up and because I was unable to clear him from the VA he won 204-148.
Record: 1-1
Round 3: opponent Aaron Fudurich
Band:
Ultraloth
Zak Rak
Duergar Champ x2
Ice Mephit
Bat x2
Warrior Skeleton
Kobold Monk
Goblin Skirmisher
Map: Field of Ruin
Aaron was already frustrated about his play and about DDM in general. He also seemed unhappy to be facing me and before we even started he told me he was hoping I would kill him quickly so he could go to the dealer room. I told Aaron not to give up because I lose quite often and with 10 activations and a solid band he had a good chance of winning. I started on the left.
We both moved out and scored VA points. I positioned my dragons near walls to gain LOS towards the center and towards his side. I decided to wait him out. I did jump one dragon into the middle to clear his tile grabbers early in the second round. His Ultraloth was too far away to nerf me and I presented closer targets too. He moved his Zak Rak in to attack it, failed conceal and then get jumped on by my other dragon. It routed away. Aaron killed my Hyena and a Kenku and we both scored tiles. He was ahead 30-23 and then suddenly announced that he was conceding when I won the next init roll. I was about to pounce on him as I could get 6 flank attacks at his DCs or attack his commander and his Zak Rak was already routing so he he said screw it and said he was quitting the game of DDM. I tried to reason with him and that he shouldn’t give up the game just because he wasn’t doing well. He said he could never be good enough to compete at this level and decided he should move on to other things. I think this was the first time an opponent conceded to me when they were technically ahead in points. Although I was about to go way ahead as I had him in a tough spot and had just won init and was about to clobber him.
Record 2-1
Round 4: opponent Gary Ploog
Band:
Ryld
Black Dragon x3
Hyena
Orc Warrior x3
Map: Market Square
Gary kept his dragons back. He started on the left and stayed back along the edge. This game my Kenku’s were able to clear some fodder off the VA and I gained an activation advantage in the early rounds. I kept even on tile points and use my greater maneuverability of my dragons to jump, breath, and move away. He closed in with Ryld on my tile grabbing shadow but that gave me the opportunity to flank Ryld with another dragon. It also put one black OOC so I was able to jump and full attack the OOC black and it routed off. Ryld died next round and then another black died the following round. I only lost one shadow dragon and won 176-72 when he conceded.
Record 3-1
Round 5: opponent Jan Van Elschoct (Jan Elfman) from overseas
Band:
Ultraloth
Chraal
Greater Barghest
DHoD
Bat
Prisoner
Gr Sneak
Ice Mephit
Kobold Zombie
Map: Blue Dragon Lair
Jan started on the right and moved out cautiously. I moved out only far enough to gain LOS with my dragons. I wanted to stay far away from the Ultraloth’s nerf rays and the Ice Mephit and Chraal BWs. Jan left me an opening in the middle of round two when he left his DHoD behind a bit. I jumped into the rear and with two dragons flanking and four attacks I killed the bodyguard. One of the Dragons was also basing his Ultraloth so instead of taking an AOO to nerf me he full attacked with the Ultraloth. He brought his Chraal back to breath on my two dragons but left me an opening to get my last dragon in to flank the Ultraloth. Now he was in a tough spot. He was forced to bring his Barghest in and hope to clear my dragons off his ultraloth but it didn’t happen. He rolled poorly on conceals and attacks and my dragons unloaded on the ultraloth and it failed it’s MC too and took some AOOs. I chased it down and killed it and he lost his Chraal. Then it was just a matter of cleaning up what was left. He conceded with me ahead 167-82.
Record 4-1
Now I started getting the feeling that I would have a chance. With just two rounds left I was two wins away from making the top 8. I thought to myself, just two wins more, I can do it. Then I sat down to face my next opponent. I knew it would be a good player as only the really good players were left now.
Round 6: opponent Pat Lynch
Band:
Ultraloth
FGFP
DHoD
Prisoner
GobSkirmx3
Sneak
Map: Field of Ruin
I was 1-2 against Pat in my career. The only time I had defeated him previously was at the Mass qualifier last year when he couldn’t pass incorporeal checks and made a major mistake. Well this time I had to be on my game and be lucky again. This was my first match against the dreaded Ultraforge at Gen Con and I was glad to face it on Field of Ruin and not Market Square. With FoR map, if I could gain appoints lead I could possibly win by running away. I wouldn’t be able to do that on Market Square for sure.
Pat started on the left and I on the right. He scouted his sneak in the central VA and I took a risk to give me an advantage. I jumped a dragon into the middle and swung at the sneak. I had a 35% chance of missing and wasting the jump. But I knew if I hit I would gain a 16 point lead and gain control of the middle VA. It worked and I took an early lead. Pat made one minor mistake and exposed a skirmisher to a kenku attack but I missed the first time. The other Kenku managed to hit though and that helped give me the activation advantage I needed before engagement. I could tell Pat was worried as he was taking a long time to move now. He also commented that I had him in a tough spot, which I did. He moved his pieces slowly out towards the middle and left his DHoD slightly in the rear but within reach 2 of the FGFP. I decided to go for it and jumped a dragon in to make one attack on DHoD and then jumped, flanked, with a full attack on his DHoD and proceeded to miss on all but one attack. Pat’s FGFP then swung twice, hit twice, but failed conceal twice! Lucky. I was able to kill the DHoD but one dragon was nerfed. I was still gaining VP and he wasn’t so I had built up a 63-14. So when I finally killed the DHoD I was faced with a decision. Do I jump in to base the Ultraloth and press my attack further or do I run away now with about 20 minutes still left to play and try to win on points? I decided to try my chance with running away because I could always press the attack later if he managed to catch me plus I would get a full attack versus his single attack when we did engage, unless it was with the FGFP. Also, I was in good position on the VA and his remaining fodder was still too far away. My only concern was if he managed to get the prisoner onto a VA he could make up the difference by 10 points every round. But at the current pace and score he would need 4 or 5 rounds to catch up, even if I lost one dragon. So I ran. I had two dragons left with 30 hp and one at full. All had jumps left except one with 30hp which was the furthest away after using its last jump and move. I used it to harass his prisoner and keep it from moving closer to the VA. I used my Kenku’s to plink away at range on his prisoner as he slowly inched it closer to the VA. I had to keep running so I wasn’t able to use my dragons for anything except covering the remote VA. Pat moved his FGFP and Ultraloth and eventually his prisoner onto the central VA. By this time 2 more rounds had passed and I was ahead 86-34. It was still close but time was running out and we were down to 12 minutes left. I was being careful with my moves to avoid any slow play. I didn’t want to get accused of slow play but on the other hand I didn’t want to make a mistake and give the game away by moving too fast. I did some calculations and knew that if he scored VP for two more rounds and killed a dragon that he would be ahead by 3. So I kept being careful with my dragons and worked hard at killing the prisoner. I did score some hits with my kenku on it but it passed MC and was down to 10hp. I even considered bringing a shadow dragon in close enough to finish it off but I didn’t need to as the time eventually ran out after a few more rounds and I won 119-54. We had played 8 rounds so there was no slow play. In fact the last 5 rounds were all played in the last 20 minutes. Rounds 1-3 took 40 minutes.
Record 5-1
Only one win away. It all came down to win and I’m in or lose and go home as 5-2 would not get me in with my tie breakers.
Round 7: opponent Kevin Cleveland
Band:
Shadow Dragon x3
Cleric of Gruumsh
Drummer
Bat
OW x2
Hyena
Map: Market Square
A mirror match with one subtle difference that Kevin will claim is a major difference. The Cleric of Gruumsh. Kevin had revealed to me his band a few days before Gen Con. It is a great idea as it gives the band 9 activations at the cost of a reduced commander rating. The Cleric is slightly weaker but the shadow dragons love activation advantage so it is a good twist that may make his band better. I considered using the cleric myself but out of respect for Kevin I decided not to steal his idea and stuck with the band I had practiced with. Now we would get to see which band was better.
Kevin won the first two inits which was huge in this matchup. Going last I knew that Kevin could save all three dragons and jump and attack my band. So I attempted to keep my commander safe by keeping my forces together and putting the Tiefling in the middle of my dragons away from being based for attack. Well that only made me susceptible to BW cones and at the end of the round Kevin jumped and breathed once on my dragons and commander but luckily my Tiefling passed his saves. The next round he won init and jumped his other two dragons in to breath on all my guys and then move away. Now he had all my dragons down to just 45hp save one that was out of range and I had lost the Tiefling. Now instincts tell you to go after his dragons which were now all in the corners of my start area. You want to retaliate but that would not have been a smart play. Instead I decided to retaliate by doing the same to him so I jumped my dragons across the board and attacked his commander and drummer. So by the end of the round we both had no commander or drummer. However, Kevin was ahead by a few points as he had killed one kenku and had one extra round of victory points. Kevin’s dragons all had more hp left so things were not looking good for me. Kevin had the advantage. We ended up engaging each other over my victory area and it was luck that pulled the game out for me. In the slugfest Kevin was winning the inits but he kept missing with his attacks. He failed conceal a few times and then on one series of full attacks with a flank he rolled a one, a two ,and then another two to outright miss my dragon. Plus my dragons passed their MC and one of his did not and routed off. Then he wins init again but I pass MC and he misses again to leave a dragon at 5hp. I retaliate and hit and his dragon misses MC and routs off. Time is called and I win 179-134. A very close game and Kevin’s dice went cold right at the end or I would have surely lost. Kevin played a bit better than me early on and I think his build is a little bit better too. But I had the luck when it counted and I was at least smart enough to keep it close until the end.
Record 6-1 and I am in the top 4 of my flight! I had just defeated the #2 and then the #3 players in the world to get in. I was ecstatic.
Sunday Top 8 Finals
Round 1: opponent Scott Evans (Bleys)
Band:
Xen’Drick Champion x4
Storm Silverhand
Warpriest of Vandria
Dark Mantle
Timber Wolf
Map: Evermelt
Scott had an interesting band choice that many DDM fans would love. He was just thrilled to make the top 8 with this band and didn’t care so much how things played out. I had prepared for this matchup. Ian Richards of WoTC refused to reveal how the top 8 pairings would be ahead of time. But Kevin and I and some of the other DDM players had discussed all the possible scenarios and there were only 3 possible scenarios. Scenario A and B had me matched up with Scott and scenario C was the least likely scenario to be used so I prepared to face Scott.
Sunday came and sure enough that’s who I ended paired up against. My plan was to go after Storm or the Warpriest of Vandria, whichever one Scott presented to me. But I also had another option which was to bring up the wardrummer and use countersong to block his two CFX which were very strong for him. I had discussed this strategy with my Team Amish buddies and they didn’t think it was a good idea but I felt it would be a strong move if I was able to pull it off properly.
So after round one we both had scored 10 VP as again my Kenku failed to hit the enemy fodder and the Dark Mantle was in the middle and so was my hyena. Scott kept his warpriest way back. Too far back as it turned out and moved two xendricks wide to gain LOS into my band. I had positioned the drummer on my start area to be in the square as close to the middle as I could and I pushed him directly to the middle 6 and turned on resistance beat. The Tiefling I brought up close too to keep the dragons under command. In round two I pushed the drummer ahead 6 more and kept the resistance beat and I used my dragons to jump to a place where I could breath onto both commanders and a xendrick with one and two xendricks and a commander with the other. Then I moved them back 8 spaces towards the center. One I parked on the central victory area so I could take out his tile grabbers later and the other I kept by a wall nearby at the top. Scott then double moved two Xendricks in to base the dragon on the victory area since it was not adjacent to a wall. He moved Storm up to be within CFX range of them but the warpriest was too far away to move in and get his CFX. He would be able to move him up next round to grant the CFX but this one round delay helped me. Also, by having to double move his xendricks he hadn’t put any damage on my dragons yet and some of his pieces were wounded pre-engagement.
The first two rounds I had won initiative and the next 4 rounds Scott would win initiative. Scott won init round 3 and moved his warpriest closer so he could side step with one of the xendricks and he attacked my dragon but failed conceal twice. Then I made the move of the game and pushed my drummer right up behind my dragons and turned on countersong. I now had 3 of his 4 xendricks within the effect so they were no longer fearless and could no longer side-step. I then full attacked his Xendrick and one immediately routed away. Scott continued to attack and failed more conceals. But the game was really lost from the countersong effect. I routed another xendrick and then double based Storm even though I had to land on the fire to do so. I felt the 5 fire damage per round was worth it to give two dragons a flank on Storm. The first xendrick failed to rally but the other one did. I killed another Xendrick and Scott continued to fail conceals. He failed conceal 8 out of 12 times. I dropped Storm down to 5hp and Scott had one last chance when he won init to kill a dragon and rout the other but at +17 it passed MC and I swung at storm 6 times needing one hit to kill her to put me at 200 exactly. I missed once and then missed twice and then rolled a 20 to finish her off and I won 200-88. Good game.
I was now in the top 4 overall.
Round 2: opponent Maxime Archetto from Montreal (Tetralogue)
Band:
Shadow Dancer x3
Storm Silverhand
Cormyrean War Wizard
Gnome Trickster
XephMap: Evermelt
Maxime had just finished defeating Erik Samhammer on the tiebreaker of highest valued piece closest to the center. They had finished in a tie on points and they both had a piece on the center but Maxime’s Storm was worth 57 and Erik’s CoDD only 42 so Maxime had squeaked that one out.
In our match Maxime won every single initiative roll. We both moved out cautiously giving our shadow jumpers LOS to the center. Since countersong had done so well for me earlier I made the mistake of relying on it again here. I had no reason to do that. I should have known that my dragons are stronger in melee than his dancers. The dragons can swing three times versus one attack from a Shadow Dancer and the Dragons have more HP and conceal so I shouldn’t have messed with trying to make them non-fearless. So I made the mistake of pushing the drummer and the Tiefling up towards the center. Another reason I had chose to do that was to keep the commander and drummer safe inside my dragons so his invisible dancers would have a hard time finding a flank or a jump spot to land to get to them. The trouble with this was that it made the two of them vulnerable to the Lightning bolts and silver fore from Storm and the CWW. One interesting twist was at the end of the second round. Maxime had won the inits but he went first in rounds one and two so I had the last move in round 2. He had placed a dancer out pretty far in a place where I could fly in and attack it with a dragon without using a jump. It was also already adjacent to one of my other dragons. I was able to end the move next to a wall and still get an attack off but I chose not to flank as it would have put me in a worser position. I hit and passed the invis conceal check to put 15 damage on the dancer.
So in round 3 when he won init again he curiously passed it to me. Even though his dancer was invisible I was in position to take 6 attacks at it. I put countersong on with the drummer thinking I could rout it before it acted but in retrospect this was a bad move. For one thing, it was way too early in the round to put countersong on with his lightning bolts still unused and my guys were close to MCs. I swung with the dragon and rolled a critical and passed conceal so he defensive rolled the damage. Second attack, another critical and I passed conceal and he passed MC. Countersong was completely wasted now and I was left without the +4 benefit to saves. I got lucky and hit with the third attack too and passed conceal so just like that he was down a dancer having never used it for even one attack. But he used his silver fire to hit one dragon and my drummer and Tiefling. The Tiefling could have used the +4 now as it failed the MC and routed away.
Then he used a lightning bolt to hit the two dragons and my hyena. Without the +4 one of them failed and took 30 damage, the other took 15 and the hyena was dead. Later he used a dancer to jump and swing on a healthy dragon. But the dragon he hit was unactivated so I was able to jump with my last dragon into a flank, swing thrice and then full attack with the first dragon so I managed to kill a second dancer.
Then Maxime took another risk and jumped his last dancer into the same spot the just killed dancer was at (in other words – flanked by both dragons) and swung at the injured dragon to bring it to 35hp. It passed MC this time. I had one last chance to rally the Tiefling but I still lacked the +4 to saves. Luckily I rolled a 13 and the Tiefling survived to give me a +4 init bonus next round. If I win this init I can win the game here as I was in position to swing 6 times on his last dancer and then I could jump and base the CWW and swing at him too if I have any attacks left. But Maxime wins init again and my switch to countersong now looks even worse as he makes me pay for that mistake and uses the CWW to lightning bolt my two dragons flanking his dancer. Again one of them fails the save and takes 30 damage then it fails MC (Oh where are you +4 resistance?) and it routs away but not quite off. Maxime makes a nice move and jumps his dancer into a spot where it can attack the Tiefling and he hits and passes conceal to kill the commander and prevent the dragon from rallying. Just like that the victory is torn from my grasp and I am now staring at defeat. I try to go after Storm here but she has too many hit points and my one dragon was so injured that it dies when I fail to win init the next round and the game is lost. I lose 86-209.
Record 7-2 and tied for 3rd place with Neil McLellan who had lost to Eddie Wehrenberg. It was a good run and I came close but ultimately I made mistakes in my last game which Maxime was able to capitalize on and defeat me. Congratulations Maxime and congratulations Eddie for winning it all. Also congratulations to Neil and Scott and the rest of the top 8 – Guillaume, Kevin, and Erik. Good job guys you played well.
