Tournament Battlereport Conquest im Sidequest #2 in Bremerhaven (all games / english)

A week after Bedburg, Bremerhaven came and I actually wanted to ask something funny for it, but the day before there were three cancellations and so we were "only" 14 players. The whole evilness from Lübeck, Bremen, Bremerhaven and Konrad was also there from Freiburg... Well, my box was standing untouched in the corner and so, shrugging my shoulders, I took the Kelpie Con list with me again. Link to T3.

Kelpie Con [2000/2000]
Relentless Drill

 == Warlord Imperial Officer [75]: On Your Feet, Fire First, Aim Later
* Mercenary Crossbowmen 3 [105]:
* Mercenary Crossbowmen 3 [105]:
* Imperial Ranger Corps 3 [120]: 

== Noble Lord [80]: Weapon Master
* Mercenary Crossbowmen 3 [110]: Standard Bearer
* Mercenary Crossbowmen 3 [105]:
* Household Knights 3 [140]: Standard Bearer
* Household Knights 3 [140]: Standard Bearer 

== Warlord Priory Commander Crimson Tower [110]:
* Order of the Crimson Tower 3 [215]: Standard Bearer
* Order of the Crimson Tower 3 [215]: Standard Bearer
* Order of the Ashen Dawn 3 [240]:
* Order of the Ashen Dawn 3 [240]:

Except for the first scenario, this was rather suboptimal for the list, but I've played it so often that it should probably work. At least when no spires or dinosaurs jump in my face.

Game 1 Grind them Down vs Cameron1411 with W'adrhŭn

Gru Gru Bäm [2000/2000] The W'adrhŭn == (Warlord) Chieftain [135]: War, Mantle of the Devoted, Rapid Displacement, Tontorr Rider
• Tontorr (1) [310]:
• Veterans (3) [205]: Chief

== Predator [145]: War, Ceaseless Hunt, Marksmanship, Conquest 1, Conquest 2, Conquest 3
• Slingers (3) [175]: Flint Knapper
• Slingers (3) [175]: Flint Knapper
• Hunting Pack (3) [125]:
• Hunting Pack (3) [125]:

== Scion of Conquest [145]: War, Sacred Censer, Conquest 1, Conquest 2, Conquest 3
• Chosen of Conquest (3) [230]:
• Chosen of Conquest (3) [230]:

That's bad snark, at least on Grind Them Down.

Round 1 we both got one light not and we moved forward a bit. Without the Hunting Pack I would have filled up a page to swap the Slingers for a Crossbows Regiment, but Dennis has seen that many times and of course won't give it to me.

Round 2 he gets both Chosen and I get both HHKs, but the lights stay away. He is greedy, takes my rangers on the far left and loses the hunting pack in return. A good swap for me as they always annoy me in the late game. Thanks to Fanatic, his two choices come in two zones and I can only get one, but I'm playing for a win in turn 7 and until then my living protective shield only has to prevent the worst. 4:7

Round 3 comes with the rest including Tontorr and for me three knights and a few crossbows. His first chosen go into my crossbows with Move Move Charge and we shoot at each other a bit and use a lot of alibi activations until the knights appear in the perfect places for maximum violence at the end. Dennis is nicely distributed, I have more cards next round and I'm confident that I'll kill the two cards beforehand. 5:14

Round 4 and my remaining knights arrive, I don't fire the Supremacy and both of us have done so much mindgame that the activations seem absolutely confusing. The Hunting Pack in the middle is killed by my Crossbows with Lord, my HHK on the left falls through the Tontorr and the Crossbows behind it through the Chosen. My Ashen Dawn appear on this side and the HHK go into the Chosen, so that the Tontorr can't intercept the knights next round or the Chosen simply disappear 13". On the other side, the Chosen kill the Crossbows and are killed by the Ashen Dawn destroyed. Then comes Seek new Escort and the Ashen Dawn turn around and get a few shots from the slingers and also receive 5 damage. Essentially it doesn't matter because I still have Crimson Tower and they can land with the five or six in the slingers. If they can't do that, I'll probably still be in the zone, so I just tried that and of course the 6 came in. The slingers stop with 2 lives, I stand with my butt in the zone and comfortably go to 12:18.

Round 5 comes the Supremacy and I take the Slingers and the Veterans with the same Crimson Tower. The Ashen Dawn go into the Chosen without Clash and the Tontorr could only get to the 5 because the Chosen are unfavorably in the way. So he moves into a zone because Dennis knows that he has to score points and sees three almost fresh knight units flood over. Of course, I place the one Ashen Dawn at an angle so that he doesn't see it and would have to use one of his actions to turn the next round. They are covered by the Crimson Tower and behind it by a few crossbows. 7:25 p.m

He was allowed to start round 6 and somehow doesn't want to let the Murder ponies take over. So the Tontorr went into the forest to help the Chosen. This gives me the option to clear the field of my pieces and position myself better. My Ashen Dawn will last at least one more round and after doing some math I decided on Seek new Escort Move Charge with a Crimson Tower. This meant I got to the back of the last Chosen and had three zones 27:25. We then stopped the game because he couldn't possibly prevent me from scoring at least 14 more points.

In addition to the lucky batch of murder ponies (Crimson Tower) and the fact that the second Hunting Pack didn't come early, foregoing the Clash action against the Chosen simply won the game for me. So the sound torr couldn't help and I was able to steal enough time..

Game 2 Off Balance vs LA1 with Nords

== Blooded [100]: Crow
* Stalkers (3) [160]:
* Bow-Chosen (4) [270]:
* Trolls (5) [320]: Standard Bearer
* Ugr (3) [150]:

== Volva [115]: Rune of Shielding, Arcane 1
* Valkyries (4) [195]:
* Huskarls (5) [270]: Standard Bearer, Thegn 

== (Warlord) Shaman [70]:  
* Raiders (3) [110]: 
* Sea Jotnar (1) [240]:

Lars was one of the three Nords at the event and had opted for three infantry bleats instead of the Jotnar Power. The Anti Spire and Monster Jotnar were still there, if I was good at it I could manage it. Just don't get greedy and play the Old Dominion game.

Round 1 & 2 I had all the lights and mediums on the field and he was still missing the Huscarls and the Ugr. My riflemen were positioned broadly and the two Household Knights units in the middle. There were a few Valkyries that I wanted to stand in the way of and I was able to easily sacrifice my Rangers and the IO for 5 points and thus took the lead. I definitely wouldn't be able to keep it, but then I wouldn't have to catch up as much later.

On round 3, Lars gets his rest and for ny only one regiment of Ashen Dawn. Lars starts, eats the IO and the Rangers with the trolls and then at some point the Valkyrens before the last three knights. So with the toe in the zone to force me to put a few Household Knights there and I decide to put my knights in the zone before the Noble Lord. Might as well do a move charge, but I want the Valkyren closer to the Ashen Dawn. They appeared completely by chance so that they could charge a regiment to attack the knights. I moved the other knights into the raiders to slow down his block and his Jotnar appeared on the far left and forced his way through a choke to roll up my flank from there. We both scored and despite the warlord I was still in the lead.

Round 4 all the knights come, so the time runs out earlier than expected for Lars and I'm still in the lead. Lars trolls kill the rest of my right flank and then Ashen Dawn and Crimson Tower appear there. In the middle he manages to kill my knights and so I have to activate mine before the Valkyrs. They don't do anything and at some point the Valkyrens go in there, but of course they don't hit them so as not to leave room for the Ashen Dawn. So I just position myself, give the Jotnar lots of fancy piercings and he devours a regiment of crossbows. Lars scores in both zones and takes the lead.

Round 5, Commander's Supremacy is ignited and Lars can start. His trolls go to the Ashen Dawn. Do nothing and die in the counterattack of the Ashen Dawn and Crimson Tower. The other Crimson get the Jotnar and the second Valkyren start beating on the HHK, but don't wipe them out. Now the Ashen Dawn come in, destroy the Valkyrens and I hold a zone again. The Huscarls and the Bowchosen position themselves in the middle and manage to kill an Ashen Dawn regiment together in round 6. However, I hold both zones and can start the next round and wipe out the Chosen straight away. After that we just extrapolate.

Like Uziel, he also foregoes damage, since there are hardly any Dweghom running around with us anymore and most of them only pack a regiment of Ashen Dawn. It works there too, but it's not ideal against me. The Ashen Dawn only fear Jotnars, Bearserks and Bow Chosen, the rest is fodder. Lars also has that standing around at home and 3 melee fighters and two Bow Chosen have often made my life difficult.

Game 3 Echolon vs Shamenix with Dweghom

In the last game I was unfortunately paired down and was allowed to play against Tim with Dwegom, who had a draw with Nino the round before. Dweghom.. they have almost disappeared from Germany since the update and I had little desire to play against them and would have preferred to beat up Drizzts or Uziels Nords. Well, there's nothing i can do, so put it in the meat grinder and let the Fireforged and Dragonslayer do their bloody work! Only he didn't have those two with him, but his "I hate Wadrhun and Spire variant". Nick and Dennis have been complaining about this list since the update and have already told me horrible stories about it. Uziel doesn't like it because it doesn't have any useful answers against Ashen Dawn and I saw it the same way.

== Ardent Kerawegh [160]: 'Until We Have To', Flaming Oratory, Tactical 1
* Initiates (5) [235]:
* Flame Berserkers (3) [170]:

== (Warlord) Tempered Steelshaper [100]:
* Hold Ballistae (3) [140]:
* Steelforged (4) [275]:

== Tempered Sorcerer [125]: Magma School, Hellbringer Sorcerer
* Hellbringer Drake (1) [180]:
* Hold Warriors (3) [155]: Herald of Magma

== Tempered Sorcerer [125]: Magma School, Hellbringer Sorcerer
* Hellbringer Drake (1) [180]:
* Hold Warriors (3) [155]: Herald of Magma

Anmerkung die Fireforged auf den Bildern sind Crossbows, weil Dennis morgens die Box falsch gepackt hatte.

Round 1 he gets all the lights and I get all but one crossbows. He wants tokens, so his regiments come first and the Steelshaper's later. I measure and place marks where the regiments are equal and place two in front of the left Marker and the rangers and third crossbows towards the right. Just so that I can shoot the next round and he can't shoot at me right now. Intimidated by all the crossbows, he places his general in the forest instead of towards the zone. On the far left there are a few berserkers who probably want to outmaneuver me, but I don't worry about that.

Round 2 comes Steelforged and Initiates and from me both mediums and the last crossbows. I get the left lens, do two damage to the right one and set the Rangers so that his Steelforged definitely won't come into the zone next turn and I can get the lens with either the Crossbows or the Rangers. Unless he just puts the Steelforged right in front of it, but that would be fine with me too. In support of Operation Living Shield there were Household Knights on both sides and he deployed to his zone with the Ardendt and Initiates. Since the Dweghom have short legs, he couldn't get in with them. I would have let Ardendt in the Berserkers score, but I took a 5-0 lead.

Turn 3 he got everything and for me it was Ashen Dawn and Crimson Tower with Commander in the deck. I built the whole thing quite conservatively as I would definitely get the second Marker. So we swapped the Marker for Ranger and I just march. Put my Crimson Tower in a forest so that the dwarves' evil crossbows wouldn't feel like firing at them. My Crossbows with IO positioned themselves so that my regiments were safe from de Steelforged and in turn I would happen to fit right in between them. All in all I was very satisfied and the two toads on the left and right didn't worry me. Magma is bad, but without Sorcerer Warlord someone will always have to cast a zone because his heralds couldn't possibly run into the important terrain pieces. 10:2

Round 4 for me comes the rest, Ashen Dawn at the bottom and all the Crossbows above. Come here and die Steelforged. But for a long time nothing happened except that we positioned ourselves. He didn't want to get out of the magician bubble so I took the charge on the Steelforged and he used tokens to basically have all the tokens in order to have 3 Steelforged left afterwards. They hit back, but I had saved Blessed and so the damage was more manageable. Then I decided to put the other heavy Ponys on the flank too, because the Initiates with Hardend and Teneacois aren't a great target as I'm already leading them anyway. 12:4

Round 5 I ignite my Supremacy and the first Crimson Towers dismantle the Warrior on the far right, the Household Knights on the left wipe up the remains of the Berserkers and the Steelforged burst as the Crimson Towers appear from the forest with Move Charge and fall into their flank. Without tokens and with Blessed for the impacts, the regiment is simply gone. This allows the Ashen Dawn to charge the old toad behind it, but in between he has produced enough tokens to survive. 14:6

I start round 6 and Crimson Tower charges the Drake. He still has two lives, heals himself with the tokens but then still dies. Then Tim gives up.

Tim's previous experience against Hundred Kingdoms (Lübeck have no good 100k Player) is limited and I actually play against Uziel's Dweghom and now his Nords at least once a week. I knew pretty well what would and wouldn't happen there and to make matters worse, the whole thing was taking place on Echolon. We played Echolon at every German tournament at the beginning of the year, so the moves for the first three rounds were already set in my head, assuming I got two lights in round 1. If there had been Thanes and Dragonslayer... it would have been bad.

In the other final, Uziel's scenario list won against Drizzt Jotnars and Uziel wins the tournament by a whisker over the SOS, leaving me with a glorious second place.