Phoenix Open Battle Report

I posted about this on the Trollbloods Facebook group, but I figured I'd follow up more in depth here.

I rolled in Saturday Morning with the following lists:

Doomy Power of Dhunia
Doom2 - +27
- Mulg - 19
- EBDT - 15
- EBDT - 15
- Mauler - 15
- Mauler - 15
- Axer - 10
Max Krielstone + UA - 10
Janyssa - Free
Whelps - Free
Whelps - Free
Total - 74/75

Gunnbjorn Power Of Dhunia
Gunnbjorn - +27
- Mountain King - 36
- Bomber - 19
- D+S - 18
- Axer - 10
Min Stone + UA - 9
Knot - 6
Janyssa - Free
Shaman - Free
Shaman - Free
Whelps - 4
Total - 74/75

Doomy is literally unchanged from LVO I seriously believe it's a perfect iteration of the list. Insane brick fighting potential, its threat ranges border on oppressive (especially with overtake surfing) and just all around amazing. Gunny on the other hand I've been playing with only since just before LnL with mixed results. Originally I had a Glacier King and was using this as a Legion/Cryx/Cygnar drop. After more games I realized Doom2 is probably better into Legion than I had previously thought and refocused it on Cryx/Cygnar (and I've come to the conclusion it works versus Grymkin as well).

Day 1 Round 1 - Khador (Spread the Net)

Round 1 starts off and I get handed a sheet of Butcher3/Vlad1. The terrain looks pretty good for avoiding vlad rocket assassination so I pick Doomy as he's such a house into Butcher. My opponent picks Butcher (we discussed it after the game and he felt pretty intimidated by Gunny for his Vlad list which I guess is valid). I end up getting to go first. Positioning back and forth happens in the first round. Second round he scores one point on his close zone.

Then comes the big feat turn for me. I rage up Mulg, an EBDT and a Mauler with Doomy planning on killing 3 heavies and scoring 2. This involves Mulg and a raged EBDT both going into a Devestator and killing it, and Mulg only buying 2 attacks so he can Arcane Suppression. Guess what doesn't happen. I end up having to send in the second EBDT to throw the devestator into Ruin but because the rage'd EBDT didn't finish the job he couldn't overtake in such a way to prevent Ruin from dispelling the animus. Butcher goes in and kills all 3 but ends on 0 camp to do so. I have a pretty good odds assassination with a Wild Aggression and Rage'd Axer that can charge ruin to thresher and buy 3 attacks but not a single one of the attacks hits. Womp womp. On to the next round.

Day 1 Round 2 - PoM (Recon II)

Round 2 I get paired into a PoM player with Vindictus/Amon. I know Doomy plays well into Amon but I feel the sheer weight of bodies in Vindictus might favor Gunny so I drop Gunny. My opponent drops Amon. He wins the roll off and goes first and sets things up. I turn around and kill a choir boy with D+S on bottom of 1 (so impressive, I know!). Turn 2 he aggressively moves forward with his jacks hoping to force an attrition or scenario lockout. He has this triangle block of templar double crusader hiding a 2 camp Amon. My immediate instinct is to refuse to play a real game and kill him on the spot.

With his triangle formation he made 2 crucial mistakes - 1) he put the "point" of the triangle facing my Mountain King rather than away and 2) he put the "point" of the triangle within 8 inches of the Mountain King. This meant that the enliven he put on the front crusader was absolutely worthless. I Knot up D+S MK and Gunny, then Janyssa up a hill for Gunny to shot Amon, forcing the only shield guard he had. With guided fire and rage up on the MK I plow into his crusader and catch amon with the assault and hit (despite forgetting about the reckoner he placed to make it need 13s to hit), and even do ~`3-4 damage off of an explosivo pop on him from a mechanic. I proceed to kill the Crusader, Kill shot into him again and leave him on 3 life with 0 camp. D+S aims, Lucky Shots, and hits. For some reason I'm in the tunnel and forget that I hit (my brain wasn't taking deafen into account) and re-roll to hit. Thankfully THAT still hits and I bop him for the last couple points and get to take a long break waiting for round 3.

Day 1 Round 3 - Cryx (Pit II)

I tense up as this is the matchup I've been worrying about, only to find out that they're playing double Dark Host in some weird brews (Morty2 Gaspy3). I know how annoying Gaspy3 is when you give him the raw fuel that Doomy 2 will so I drop Gunny and he drops Morty2. He's actually got an interesting jack package going on with this combined arms threat but by the time he can shoot them and I've used my feat his heavies are crippled. His feat turn doesn't really get any work done and I walk him down from there.

I think this game would have been a lot closer if he had played more aggressively with his Wraith Engine but he held it back afraid of me getting to it. I think if he had used it in conjunction with some of his Bane Knights he would have killed my MK and crushed the flank. But alas, hindsight is 20/20.

End of day it turns out I make the top 8 cut and I go out for sushi with a large chunk of the attendees. Had some delicious strawberry sake which was a HUGE mistake because despite not being a super lightweight drinker it was so hot and dry that I felt immensely hung over in the morning.

Realizing there was no Cryx or Cygnar in the top 8 I switched to the following Grim1 List:

Grim1 Power Of Dhunia

Grim1 - +29

- Runebearer - Free
- Mountain King - 36

- Bomber - 19

- Mauler - 15

- EBDT - 15
- Axer - 10

Min Stone + UA - 9

Janyssa - Free

Whelps - Free
Total - 74/75

Day 2 Round 1 - Grymkin (Breakdown)

Opponent had Dreamer and Heretic. I was worried about dying to Heretic gunfire so I played Grim. He goes first. First round is positioning. Bottom of 2 I put my Earthborn toeing one of the circle zones along with the rectangular zone to contest, with a whelp and the MK holding the fort in the other circle. Forgetting about Glimmer Imps I feel the EBDT is safe and decide not to feat. He Furies up a S&M and goes to town.


In retaliation I move up aggressively and feat (forcing labyrinth otherwise he would die to MK charging directly onto the Heretic) but I forget the Gorehound has 2" melee and walk into its melee preventing me from killing Lord Longfellow, so I just rage both my remaining heavies instead. I also forget to use the Runebearer to cheapen a spell to camp a second fury (more on that later). Mauler and Bomber kill all of his beasts who shoved in less a Gorehound and a S&M he kept back with the Heretic. This leads to a do or die scenario where his only out is to kill Grim with one unit of Hollowmen and Lord Longfellow. He rolls a 9 on the first CRA (-2) so I transfer it not expecting him to roll as well on the next one, and he promptly rolls an 11 T_T. Longfellow falls a bit below average on his first shot so it comes down to a tough roll on his final attack on me and I don't make the tough roll. Sad day. If I had used the Runebearer to cheapen a spell I wouldn't have risked dying and would have then been so far up on attrition that I don't think he could have turned it around. Bad way to start the day.

Day 2 Round 2 - Khador (Outlast II)

Opponent was rocking Karchev/Irusk2. I felt that Doom2 was the no brainer here, but I didn't feel happy about the matchup. He drops Irusk2. He goes first and by the end of top of 2 it's clear I have to go for the assassination. Despite him feating, I have a way to clear a path to run an EBDT into Primal Shock range of his dog, then Mulg can land on his caster with 2 overtakes. 2 boosted to hit primal shocks (needing 7s because of the hill) - first one misses the second one he toughs (and because of Solid Ground it's still standing to give him the def bonus). At this point I've ceded too many activations to go back to attrition so I have to send in Mulg. In for a penny, in for a pound. Charge attack slams an ifp towards Irusk, needs a 2+ on the distance to hit... roll a 1 on distance. Then the second initial toughs. Then after finally landing on him with 3 attacks I roll an 8 every single time (which is what I would have needed if the dog had died). I concede rather than play it out any further. Frustrating when your dice go ice on a big day but every player has their ups and downs. On to the final round to save a shred of my dignity.

Day 2 Round 3 - Minions (Recon II)

From my opponent's pair it was suuuper obvious that they had to play Arkadius (his other list was Calaban) so I dropped doom2. He went first which forced me to position really conservatively behind a house to block LOS on his feat frenzies. He still lands a fully pumped War Hog on Mulg and boosts for the crit on the tusks to knock Mulg down preventing me from slamming him away. At this point I have decided to stop playing a real game. I then proceed to engineer one of the most complicated assassinations I have ever done. I tectonic shift a war hog back so my mauler with Rage can throw it at the perfect angle to clip Arkadius but not the wall he's behind. To avoid a random crit KD on the Guardian Beast I block one hog with a whelp, I slam the other with my Axer, so I can throw it with my mauler into his other Road Hog. I walk a rushed EBDT on to his knocked down Warcaster and it's GG.

I feel bad for my opponent this round, it took 38 minutes of paused clock judging (I counted) in regards to some throw line angles and the Gordian Knot that is multiple model displacement least disturbance when one of them is b2b with a flag and a fraction of a fraction of an inch away from a wall. The judging was so constant that the head judge said for events going forwards he's going to have to modify the adjudication process to put less of this on paused clock to avoid abuse by players (In this scenario it was a do-or-die run that I was going to concede if it failed so it wasn't malicious abuse but it's still not fun for anyone involved. Still, better than being a jerk and rough handing it in my book).

Conclusion

At the end of the day I end up in 7th with a 1-2 record on the day and 3-3 for the weekend. Not where I wanted to be for the weekend and I'm really disappointed - in the Butcher and Heretic games I feel that better play on my part would have flipped those matches really easily and wouldn't have required me to rely on dice going my way. As an extra disappointment neither Scott Chandler nor Brian Marino won the whole thing (the only two people at the event with more WMW points than myself) so I actually ended up further from the wildcard spot than when I started the weekend. Irregardless I had a blast the entire time (as long as I was indoors - Phoenix is HOT) Tyson Will and Matt know how to run a heck of an event.

I'll continue grinding with the Doom2/Gunnbjorn pair going forwards (at least until the CID stuff comes out), I've got Crucible, SoCal Open and the I5 Team Tournament all in October and might squeeze in some more events if I can find the time. I'm having a blast playing Trolls. Everyone's super down on Trolls ATM but I feel it's SUPER overblown and with good plays and good meta reads there should be more repping of the Kriels on DGI even without the buffs coming down the pipe.