Friday morning I arrive to the Convention Center at about 9:10 am. I am still totally undecided about what band I am running for the championships. I was in a bit of a quagmire. I am a dedicated CG tech player, and am too stubborn to change ‘how’ and ‘what’ I play to compete with the meta. I was talking to Aesoph on the phone the week before and we both acknowledged this as my biggest weakness as a DDM player. I have absolutely no interest in playing 3X Shadow Dragons (even though I understand it was the warband to beat and a formidable one at that). I tried playing around with UltroForge, but it didn’t fit my style of play at all and my FGFP would always end up running.
In the Bloomington qualifier, I ran Ulmo Lightbringer, Cleric of Syreth, Sacred Watcher X4 and Aasimar Fighter. I ended up going 6-2 and winning the qualifier with that warband, so it was still in the running for what to play. However, I had had little luck UlmoSwarm in the weeks leading up to GENCON playing against local players, so I abandoned that idea. My next thoughts went to trying to make Slayer of Domiel bands work. I played Hougar 2.0 on Vassal for about a month vs. various dragon builds and kept getting my butt handed to me. I kept trying to build a band to beat dragons, and outside of UlmoSwarm, I was having absolutely no success.
When the Warpriest of Vandria came out, I was totally pleased and instantly thought about pairing it with the Cleric of Sune and some Xen'drik Champion. I tested that band with the Wild Elf Warsinger a few times and had pretty good success vs. non-dragon bands. I pretty much wrote it off as not being competitive enough though. While playing on Vassal, Hougar kept hounding me: “I think you should go with your Xen’Drik band.� (thanks Hougar!). CSchroder helped me out a bunch too, and pushed for me to run the Xen’Driks. He knew I was going CG somehow and his “dare� on Hordelings almost got me to run “STORMAGE�. 
I had been saying for a week that I was going to play something and have fun with it. I had not been having fun lately trying to ‘play to the meta’ and had very little success locally. I figured I had nothing to lose and so I ran with it. I was choosing ‘style of play’ over ‘map and meta’. I turned my warband sheet into Ian Richards and named it “Breath on Me�. As I was walking around talking to people before the first round, I found out that James Prather from Louisville was running a Xen’Drik Champion band as well. After talking to Jerry Damage and Lalato on Thursday, the final “Breath on Me� became:
Storm Silverhand
Warpriest of Vandria
Xen'drik Champion X4
Darkmantle
Timber Wolf
8 activations 200pts
Round One vs. Keith (SneakyJoe) Map: MarketSquare
I had played Keith on Vassal and knew that he was a crafty and skilled player. He was running an UltroForge build. If I had my choice, I would have rather had this matchup than dragons right off the bat. The game was very close the entire way, going back and forth on points. It came down to my winning almost every late round initiative and being able to sidestep and skirmish attack the Firegiant until it was down. By the hair of my chinny-chin-chin, I pull of a round one victory. Keith was an excellent player and we had a blast playing each other. It was great getting to meet you in person!
Result 1-0
Round Two vs. Dan (Rakashaka) Map: Blue Dragon Lair
Dan is one of my local buddies and players. Neither of us were happy about being matched up in the second round. We can play each other any time we want and were looking forward to playing and meeting new people. Dan was running Werewolf Lord and 2X LSD with a wardrummer. All the rounds kind of blur together, so it is hard to recall the exact details of this match, but I made my saves vs. breath, only allowed 2 Xen’Driks to get breathed upon at a time and positioned my units well enough to withstand the jump/full attack/breath capabilities of the dragons. I ended up pulling it out in the end with another nail biter. A trend was developing here.
Result 2-0
Round Three vs. Paul (Grasshoff) Map: Field of Ruin
Gulp! My next matchup was vs. 2 x Kolyarut and 6 X Sacred Watcher. I knew who Paul was due to his snazzy white suit (he wore it last year too and I liked it) and knew he was an excellent player. He is part of the SoCal team and they are loaded with talent. This game went the duration and then some. It was kind of a weird game in that he would have to hit my 20 AC at +10 and then pass conceal, where I would have to hit his SW at AC21 with +13 and pass incorp checks. Put it this way, there was a ton of rolling in this game. I was lucky in that I won the majority of initiatives due to Paul not having a commander. I was more lucky that I passed well over half of my incorp checks, especially the two searing lights. I was able to drop a couple of watchers early and get up on points, forcing the battle to the mutual victory area. At that point it became, sidestep/full skirmish attack/pass incorp. The game went to time, it was down to the wire and I ended up pulling it out. Great to get to know you Paul!
Result 3-0
Round Four vs. Fredric (JGFred) Map: Market Square
Fredric was playing Storm/Wulfgar/CWW and company. I thought it was awesome that he was playing this band because it was something like what I was considering as well. I made a early mistake allowing him to line up my Xen’Driks with a Silver Fire and a Lightning bolt. They took the auto 20 and he passed is SR checks. I failed my saves and both Xen’Driks ran. One of them would eventually return, the other would run off the board. After some maneuvering, I was able to drop Wulfgar, but then Storm moved up and nerfed my Xen’Driks by taking away sidestep. Now they were hitting for a big 5 magic per attack and no longer fearless. It still could have gone either way, but Fredric played well until the end and was able to take me out. Nice work JGFred!
Result 3-1
Round Five vs. Glyn (Elder_Basilisk) Map: Blue Dragon Lair
Gulp! Ok, I was matched up with another watcher band. He was running Couatl, Sacred Watcher X4 and 2X Shadowbane Inquisitor with fodder. The short story was that I hit on about 75% of my attack rolls, both ranged vs. cover and melee and I passed nearly 2/3 of my incorp checks. So, the combination of those two factors allowed me to stay ahead on points and force him to be more aggressive than he probably would have. Even then, it was hard for the 30 hp SW to stand up to two skirmish attacks that passed incorp. Glyn didn’t make any mistakes, I just rolled exceptionally well in that game.
Result 4-1
Round Six vs. Jeremiah (sirhok) Map: Blue Dragon Lair
This time I was facing Ultroloth, 2X Noble Salamander, Snig and fodder. He was running 10 activations, so I knew I needed to pick off some fodder from a distance early. By the end of round 2, I think he might have been down to 6 activations and I was up on points. I was able to hang back, use my ranged capabilities and draw him out into the open. He then went up on points and had two choices. He could have camped out in the mutual victory area and made me come to him (limiting my sidestep potential), or he could come out and get me. He chose the later and it proved costly (as he realized at the end of the game) as I won key initiatives and was able to deal out severe damage to his AC 18 salamanders. I was able to take both of them down with minimal damage and then focus on the Ultroloth. Had he stayed put, it would have been a much more difficult “row to hoe�.
Result 5-1
Round Seven vs. Chris (Tundrin)
Ok, another dragon matchup as Chris was running Tiefling Cpt., 2X LSD, and Large Black Dragon with the wardrummer and fodder. It was getting late and I was exhausted. I couldn’t believe that I had made it this far, and would have been totally happy getting my butt handed to me and ending up 5-2 with this band. Chris made an excellent second round move capitalizing on a mistake I made in placing Storm. He was basically able to drop 3 of my Xen’Driks early on. He was up on points big time, when I finally got one of his LSD. There was about 20 minutes left in the game and he had both his LBD and LSD next to my remaining Xen’Drik. He was talking to himself and me saying “I should just move away, I am up on points�. I was confirming with him that that was the ‘prudent’ strategy at such a high level event in the last round (winner goes to final 8).
I guess something was with me on this day, because he went against his logic and moved forward to attack. He missed with his LBD. Next, came a full attack from the LSD. He hit the first time, failed conceal, missed on the second attack and hit on the third before failing conceal again. He then jumped the dragon out of harms way. I was able to charge the LBD with a healthy Vandria dealing 10 magic and sidestep, skirmish attack for an additional 30 magic dropping the dragon. At that point, he had no choice but to become aggressive and bring in his remaining LSD. It was a great game and I feel fortunate to have been able to hang in there and pull it out. Chris deserved a shot as well, he is an excellent player and made a great run for his first Championship.
Result 6-1 and a trip to the Final Eight!
I was pretty shocked that I was able to go 6-1 with my Xen’Drik build. Going into the day, I was dead set on losing the first two games and dropping to enjoy the rest of the CON. Aesoph grabbed me, gave me a giant hug and lifted me off the ground. I didn’t have much time to hang out as I already had made my friends (non-gamers) change their plans in order to pick me up to stay at their house. I was exhausted after 10 hours of looking at maps and maneuvering miniatures. I went to my friends house and celebrated with a barley pop.
I couldn’t sleep that night at all. I sat there thinking about the day and came to the revelation that, at least for me, style of play is more important that trying to play to ‘map and meta’. I talked to Shoe about this on Sunday AM before the champs and he told me he has been trying to tell people this for some time. I was so happy that I took a band that I love to play and did well with it. I thank everybody that helped me have the right mindset going into the tournament. It came down to having fun playing a game that I love and realizing I had nothing to lose.
I had to head back to Bloomington on Saturday to help with the family. Unfortunately, I had to miss the Community Draft. I headed back up to GENCON on Sunday morning. Thanks to JQ and Aesoph for calling me to direct me to the map online so I could study it a bit. They had my back in my absence. Both of those guys and others gave me a huge boost of support and help and I appreciate it.
10:00 am finally came and I was matched up against Chad Benner (ChadtheDragonLord). Chad was running 3X LSD and Tiefling. We played on Evermelt. In the second round things got going as he started jumping and breathing on my units. He was able to hit Storm, Vandria and one Xen’Drik with two breath weapons. Storm and Vandria passed, but the Xen’Drik failed one. He made a nice move double moving his wardrummer up to nerf Storm and Vandria with countersong. At that point, I was still able to get a couple of sidesteps off, but I couldn’t pass a Conceal 6 check. I failed on 8/12 conceal checks. That could have been 120 points of damage, but it was not. Next, I had a LSD based with Storm and proceeded to roll a 1 and a 2 on attack rolls (not even getting the chance to fail another conceal check). Oh well, I rolled very well vs. incorp to get here in the first place, so it all balances out. Chad is an excellent player and had a top notch warband, so even if I had made those checks, I still could have lost.
So, I end up tied for 5th place with Kevizoid, Thurbal and Erik (from Syracuse). Not too shabby for a band that not many thought could do well. I was very happy that I didn’t have to sacrifice my ‘style of play’ to compete at the highest level. I learned so much from playing in this years Championships. I think it is great for the game that we had potentially 3 teenagers in the top 8 (before one dropped for Dreamblade) and we have a 14 yr old as our champ. As Tried said, it was too bad that two of them had to face each other in the first round.
Thanks to Peter Lee, Ian Richards, Shoe, and all the other people that make this a fun and exciting game. I had a blast at GENCON and would have never thought I would be getting paid $250.00 to play a game that I love. It was great getting to put names to faces like Zippy, and chat with great guys such as Kiddoc and Jai. I look forward to GENCON 08!
