Tim from Canada's experience at the ATC
Jan 17, 2018 23:34:01 GMT
tomw, Big Fat Troll, and 1 more like this
Post by timtheenchanter on Jan 17, 2018 23:34:01 GMT
Team Canada ATC Update
I (Tim) had the honor of captaining a team of really incredible Canadian players at the Americas Team Championship this weekend. It was a great weekend, and the organizers worked tirelessly to create a professional, well-paced event.
Details are here: conflictchamber.com/?event=30
Tim - Trollbloods - Borka2 (PoD)/ Madrak1 (BoH)
David - Grymkin - Dreamer (DM) / Old Witch3 (Bump)
Charles - Mercs - Damiano (Kingmaker) / Magnus2 (Irregulars)
Dustin - Cygnar - Siege1 (SotT) /Siege2 (Gravediggers)
Matthew - Khador - Vlad2 (WoW) / Old Witch2 (WGK)
Dave and I were both playing new factions, and using this as a testing ground for the WTC. Our hope was for proof of concept lists, but we both expected to be rough around the edges in our games given the window of time we had to practice. Charles played lists that needed to dodge Cygnar and Cryx, but were powerful evolutions of his continued mastery of Mercs. Knowing that no one else of the team could really afford to dodge Cygnar or Cryx, Matthew and Dustin build lists accordingly.
Round one we played against Minnistakes. We lost the die roll; they chose to pick tables. I've captained a team at the WTC before, but Dave is much more experienced at the pairing process, so while he let me take lead, his coaching was extremely helpful. We felt really good about how we paired this round.
I played against Jeff, who was playing Mohsar into my Borka2 list. I dropped this list largely because I didn't think he'd have an easy time cracking the armor of that many heavies, and for access to lightning immunity as an animus (his list had max Lightning Goats). Early in the game I got to trample a Primaled Earthborn into his zone and leave a Pureblood on only a few boxes, backed up by my feat. Edrea got to kill a bunch of druids with her new spell and that early attrition lead played out with Jeff needing to try an assassination that just didn't have quite enough damage for Borka2's ARM22. Our team managed to 5-0 this round. These guys might have lost their games, but they were incredibly nice and really fun to play against.
Round two we played against Beast Handlers and the scenario was Spread the Net which really mattered for several of our games. These guys had really strong lists into us -- moreover, they got to pick 3/5 matchups which put us at a huge disadvantage. We did not win the pairing process here, but I did manage to get Matthew a matchup he knew, me a bad matchup, but against a faction I knew well, and Dave a winnable game.
My game was against Scott Cook who is an awesome guy I've played before and chatted with. He was playing a really strong Skarre1 list, which is classically a good Madrak1 answer. She has MAT fixing to counter his Def buff, grievous wounds on multiple Stalkers, and variable threat ranges thanks to Cav. I got to go first, which put a lot of pressure on the board and let me setup well with a bunch of fury in the stone, keeping pieces out of threat. Scott pushed everything forward aggressively managing threat ranges well and deploying Orin to come up to a flag. I had a few cute plays to follow this up, including a Bull Rush slam on a Bane Knight that could follow up into a then knocked down Stalker (getting Stalkers prior to Skarre's feat is amazing). I deemed the 5 to hit sufficient not to cast Guided Hand, and regretted that choice when the slam missed. The other cav RFPed a few Banes and contested the flag. My Chronicler when on my flag, Fens jamming his rectangular zone. Champions held the middle of the board, the Mauler toed into my rectangle, and Madrak feated. Scott spent this turn expecting to clear out Fens, put a bunch of damage into Champions with feated Stalkers, and kill the Long Riders. Tough checks with no knockdown, plus his banes needing to walk to make attacks left one Fennblade contesting his rectangle. Similarly, the ARM20 Tuffalo mostly died to attacks from Skarre-feated models, but one survived to contest his flag. I scored 2-0. The remainder of the game was pretty defined by this. I couldn't clear the central zone or any addition zones to go to 5-0, but without giving up attrition entirely I managed to go to 4-0 and do work against Scott's army. He clawed back pretty well, but eventually Madrak won on scenario. This was key, because this round we only won 3-2.
Round three was the last round of day one and we got paired against Your MoM (the Muse on Minis folks). We won the die roll for pairings and let them pick tables. I think it's key to point out that this point that at the WTC picking tables was really important because of the scale, style, and impact of their terrain. At the ATC, it was almost universally less optimal to pick tables -- while they were different, they all fit the range of standard USA convention style without huge outliers. We based our entire pairing strategy around John DeMaris, who I think is one of the great minds for the game and a good player. Getting a good matchup against him was how I hoped to find a 3-2 win over one of the better teams at the event.
I took the dive this round, playing into Keith's Denny1 (Scourge) with Madrak. Keith is a great player and a friend; in the 4 other times we've played over the years he's always beaten me. I was forced to go second against Denny, so I selected a side with a central hill to unpack Madrak and my champions onto. He ran everything up, playing both Satyxis units centrally and Nightmare and the Nyss on a flank. I unpacked wide, putting my Long Riders in the right zone, staggering Champion placement 2/2/2 on the hill with the sorcerers command distance back. Madrak unpacked behind the champions and I filled the stone. Fennblades flooded the zone with the Nyss Hunters.
Keith ambushed his Blood Witches, feated, and killed a lot of my army. Highlights include the Long Riders being outside the feat, the Champion unit tanking most of the Satyxis charges largely intact, and me losing all but 3 of my Fennblades. My followup turn was really strong for me, because I had the rare opportunity to really make use of both parts of Madrak's feat. I healed the champs to full (also healing the Fennblade Officer who had toughed and one of the Long Riders). Guided Hand and War Cry from the Fellcaller let the Champions do a ton of work to the Satyxis engaging them. Fennbladed through vengeance got to contest the Nyss zone somewhat meaningfully and a lucky attack from the officer killed the Blood Hag. Critically, I forgot to remove Parasite from the Champion unit and gave Keith an extra turn of use out if it without taxing Denny's focus. The Longriders unjammed the Satyxis engaging and toed the back of their circle zone.
On his turn, Keith jammed the Long Riders with a remaining Satyxis Officer and held the back of the same circle with a Raider Captain. He put a bunch more damage into the remaining Fennblades, but thanks to favorable tough checks and Even Ground, he left the Drummer alive in the zone. Centrally, not being able to charge meant Nightmare only killed two Champions instead of four. My rebuttal turn included Guided Handing and War Crying the stone unit to let a member charge (via tactician) through a Long Rider to kill the Satyxis Officer jamming them, then the Long Riders charging the Raider Captain and scoring the right zone. Champions killed nightmare, and I contested the Nyss zone minimally. Over the next few turns, I locked down the right zone. Keith Ghost Walked and ran a few Satyxis over, but Long Riders cleared them. Madrak used his axe to kill the two Satyxis models Keith had positioned to contest my zone the following turn, and the game became gradually scoring a point faster than he was. A huge feature of this game was how often Denny had to play back or behind cover because of my stone's ability to remove stealth and the Bomber/Madrak duo. After the game, Keith commented on a few of my more tilting tough checks, then quickly moved on to how if he's used the Nyss to soften up the Champions earlier he probably would have killed more on the feat. There's a lot of tools in this matchup, but to win I felt like I had to have Keith critically misidentify how much work Champions would take to give me the best possible feat -- and he's a good enough player that he identified that immediately.
We managed a 5-0 this round, which was a high to end day 1 on as Muse was one of the teams we feared the most.
Day two and round four we played against Gresham Gravy Train. Everyone on my team wanted to dodge their Nemo3 player, and I had a list teched for the matchup (although in the practice week leading up to it I'd lost the one game I'd played). We focused our efforts in pairing on engineering this matchup, which gave the rest of our team winnable games.
I played Ben, who was a super nice player with a level head and the right idea about the game. I played Borka2 into his Nemo3 and right away after deployment he asked to keep the time on his clock to ask some questions. Borka's got a ton of weird tools, so I did my best to identify all the potential threat ranges. Turn one I build a wall of Earthborn/Borka/Earthborn, putting up the Storm Troll animus to make Borka Lightning immune. I pushed Rok up the right hand side, put Lynus and Edrea with him, and put the rest of my list in the left zone. Ben's first turn he unpacked everything putting ARM buffs on both Striders and running his mechanics unit bunched up behind a forest.
On my two, I took a bit of a risk with Edrea. She could just get a beed to one of the mechanics by walking wide, and if I roll a hit I probably kill them all with blast and deny him a scoring unit in Standoff. I went for it, she missed, but clipped two of them. Rok tried to stationary a forward Firefly but failed, I deployed a Whelp on the flag, and feated with Borka in a very forward position, both Earthborns animus-up and behind a well, Borka between them, Mulg behind. Ben moved a Firefly to contest the flag, who Rok counter-charged to get into the zone. Ben activated Nemo next, expecting to feat, shoot the Firefly, and kill Rok. Nemo's shot into the Firefly missed because of Stealth -- granted to models in Borka's control from his feat. This was tech for the matchup we'd discussed, but it caught Ben a little off guard. He was really respectful about handling his tilt, but I could tell it affected him. The rest of the turn was him killing Lynus & Edrea with the Strider, failing to kill Rok with Dynamo (who walked into 5", then Rok stumbled closer off his first attack and dropped a Whelp into his melee), and scoring the flag with Arlan.
Having survived the feat turn, the rest of the game is a cleanup process. I didn't get Borka killed and gradually won on scenario. Eventually Rok died, but not before killing Dynamo and a Firefly. Mulg killed a Stormstrider and most of a Stormclad. Ben made an incredible effort to stay in the game, but an Arcane Vortex on the Force Hammer needed to finish Mulg didn't help him. The team took this round 4-1 and advanced on to the finals.
In the ATC finals we played against the eventual winners, and excellent bunch of folks from California called "Top of Two Grab a Brew." In the pairing process, we got me a good matchup into Cryx, Charles and Dustin winnable games, and expected Matthew and Dave to have a little more trouble.
I played Alex, who was knowledgeable, positioned extremely well, and knew what he was doing. He was also a really amicable opponent -- assuming their team goes to WTC, he'll represent America well. He dropped Asphyxious2 and I played Madrak1.
I'll go over this matchup quickly as it's not terribly dissimilar in play to the Skarre1 (in fact, easier in a lot of ways). The clouds prevent charging for a turn, but the stone denying continuous effects makes it quite playable. Champions are great at killing Banes, and RFP as a theme perk keeps Asphyxious's feat in check. I got up on scenario and attrition, but had a few key turns where I made the mistake of trying to win the game, rather than simply carrying that advantage to a turn 7 win. Eventually, after a turn where a win was on the table but I didn't capitalize on it, I clocked out bottom of seven without a 5 point lead (Alex had 26 seconds). There's lessons there, especially about playing your list better, and I'm happier to have learned them than I would be to have won the event. I believe this game was recorded, and when it gets released I'll share it.
Quick note - this round we lost 2-3 and the deciding table involved a judge call to resolve the game. These things happen, the judging at the event was professional, and all members of the Canadian team stand by the call that was made. We harbor no ill feelings toward "Top of Two" team members.
The ATC was excellent and we were happy to be invited. Hopefully we'll be able to come back next year and have half as many games against people even half as nice.
I (Tim) had the honor of captaining a team of really incredible Canadian players at the Americas Team Championship this weekend. It was a great weekend, and the organizers worked tirelessly to create a professional, well-paced event.
Details are here: conflictchamber.com/?event=30
Tim - Trollbloods - Borka2 (PoD)/ Madrak1 (BoH)
David - Grymkin - Dreamer (DM) / Old Witch3 (Bump)
Charles - Mercs - Damiano (Kingmaker) / Magnus2 (Irregulars)
Dustin - Cygnar - Siege1 (SotT) /Siege2 (Gravediggers)
Matthew - Khador - Vlad2 (WoW) / Old Witch2 (WGK)
Dave and I were both playing new factions, and using this as a testing ground for the WTC. Our hope was for proof of concept lists, but we both expected to be rough around the edges in our games given the window of time we had to practice. Charles played lists that needed to dodge Cygnar and Cryx, but were powerful evolutions of his continued mastery of Mercs. Knowing that no one else of the team could really afford to dodge Cygnar or Cryx, Matthew and Dustin build lists accordingly.
Round one we played against Minnistakes. We lost the die roll; they chose to pick tables. I've captained a team at the WTC before, but Dave is much more experienced at the pairing process, so while he let me take lead, his coaching was extremely helpful. We felt really good about how we paired this round.
I played against Jeff, who was playing Mohsar into my Borka2 list. I dropped this list largely because I didn't think he'd have an easy time cracking the armor of that many heavies, and for access to lightning immunity as an animus (his list had max Lightning Goats). Early in the game I got to trample a Primaled Earthborn into his zone and leave a Pureblood on only a few boxes, backed up by my feat. Edrea got to kill a bunch of druids with her new spell and that early attrition lead played out with Jeff needing to try an assassination that just didn't have quite enough damage for Borka2's ARM22. Our team managed to 5-0 this round. These guys might have lost their games, but they were incredibly nice and really fun to play against.
Round two we played against Beast Handlers and the scenario was Spread the Net which really mattered for several of our games. These guys had really strong lists into us -- moreover, they got to pick 3/5 matchups which put us at a huge disadvantage. We did not win the pairing process here, but I did manage to get Matthew a matchup he knew, me a bad matchup, but against a faction I knew well, and Dave a winnable game.
My game was against Scott Cook who is an awesome guy I've played before and chatted with. He was playing a really strong Skarre1 list, which is classically a good Madrak1 answer. She has MAT fixing to counter his Def buff, grievous wounds on multiple Stalkers, and variable threat ranges thanks to Cav. I got to go first, which put a lot of pressure on the board and let me setup well with a bunch of fury in the stone, keeping pieces out of threat. Scott pushed everything forward aggressively managing threat ranges well and deploying Orin to come up to a flag. I had a few cute plays to follow this up, including a Bull Rush slam on a Bane Knight that could follow up into a then knocked down Stalker (getting Stalkers prior to Skarre's feat is amazing). I deemed the 5 to hit sufficient not to cast Guided Hand, and regretted that choice when the slam missed. The other cav RFPed a few Banes and contested the flag. My Chronicler when on my flag, Fens jamming his rectangular zone. Champions held the middle of the board, the Mauler toed into my rectangle, and Madrak feated. Scott spent this turn expecting to clear out Fens, put a bunch of damage into Champions with feated Stalkers, and kill the Long Riders. Tough checks with no knockdown, plus his banes needing to walk to make attacks left one Fennblade contesting his rectangle. Similarly, the ARM20 Tuffalo mostly died to attacks from Skarre-feated models, but one survived to contest his flag. I scored 2-0. The remainder of the game was pretty defined by this. I couldn't clear the central zone or any addition zones to go to 5-0, but without giving up attrition entirely I managed to go to 4-0 and do work against Scott's army. He clawed back pretty well, but eventually Madrak won on scenario. This was key, because this round we only won 3-2.
Round three was the last round of day one and we got paired against Your MoM (the Muse on Minis folks). We won the die roll for pairings and let them pick tables. I think it's key to point out that this point that at the WTC picking tables was really important because of the scale, style, and impact of their terrain. At the ATC, it was almost universally less optimal to pick tables -- while they were different, they all fit the range of standard USA convention style without huge outliers. We based our entire pairing strategy around John DeMaris, who I think is one of the great minds for the game and a good player. Getting a good matchup against him was how I hoped to find a 3-2 win over one of the better teams at the event.
I took the dive this round, playing into Keith's Denny1 (Scourge) with Madrak. Keith is a great player and a friend; in the 4 other times we've played over the years he's always beaten me. I was forced to go second against Denny, so I selected a side with a central hill to unpack Madrak and my champions onto. He ran everything up, playing both Satyxis units centrally and Nightmare and the Nyss on a flank. I unpacked wide, putting my Long Riders in the right zone, staggering Champion placement 2/2/2 on the hill with the sorcerers command distance back. Madrak unpacked behind the champions and I filled the stone. Fennblades flooded the zone with the Nyss Hunters.
Keith ambushed his Blood Witches, feated, and killed a lot of my army. Highlights include the Long Riders being outside the feat, the Champion unit tanking most of the Satyxis charges largely intact, and me losing all but 3 of my Fennblades. My followup turn was really strong for me, because I had the rare opportunity to really make use of both parts of Madrak's feat. I healed the champs to full (also healing the Fennblade Officer who had toughed and one of the Long Riders). Guided Hand and War Cry from the Fellcaller let the Champions do a ton of work to the Satyxis engaging them. Fennbladed through vengeance got to contest the Nyss zone somewhat meaningfully and a lucky attack from the officer killed the Blood Hag. Critically, I forgot to remove Parasite from the Champion unit and gave Keith an extra turn of use out if it without taxing Denny's focus. The Longriders unjammed the Satyxis engaging and toed the back of their circle zone.
On his turn, Keith jammed the Long Riders with a remaining Satyxis Officer and held the back of the same circle with a Raider Captain. He put a bunch more damage into the remaining Fennblades, but thanks to favorable tough checks and Even Ground, he left the Drummer alive in the zone. Centrally, not being able to charge meant Nightmare only killed two Champions instead of four. My rebuttal turn included Guided Handing and War Crying the stone unit to let a member charge (via tactician) through a Long Rider to kill the Satyxis Officer jamming them, then the Long Riders charging the Raider Captain and scoring the right zone. Champions killed nightmare, and I contested the Nyss zone minimally. Over the next few turns, I locked down the right zone. Keith Ghost Walked and ran a few Satyxis over, but Long Riders cleared them. Madrak used his axe to kill the two Satyxis models Keith had positioned to contest my zone the following turn, and the game became gradually scoring a point faster than he was. A huge feature of this game was how often Denny had to play back or behind cover because of my stone's ability to remove stealth and the Bomber/Madrak duo. After the game, Keith commented on a few of my more tilting tough checks, then quickly moved on to how if he's used the Nyss to soften up the Champions earlier he probably would have killed more on the feat. There's a lot of tools in this matchup, but to win I felt like I had to have Keith critically misidentify how much work Champions would take to give me the best possible feat -- and he's a good enough player that he identified that immediately.
We managed a 5-0 this round, which was a high to end day 1 on as Muse was one of the teams we feared the most.
Day two and round four we played against Gresham Gravy Train. Everyone on my team wanted to dodge their Nemo3 player, and I had a list teched for the matchup (although in the practice week leading up to it I'd lost the one game I'd played). We focused our efforts in pairing on engineering this matchup, which gave the rest of our team winnable games.
I played Ben, who was a super nice player with a level head and the right idea about the game. I played Borka2 into his Nemo3 and right away after deployment he asked to keep the time on his clock to ask some questions. Borka's got a ton of weird tools, so I did my best to identify all the potential threat ranges. Turn one I build a wall of Earthborn/Borka/Earthborn, putting up the Storm Troll animus to make Borka Lightning immune. I pushed Rok up the right hand side, put Lynus and Edrea with him, and put the rest of my list in the left zone. Ben's first turn he unpacked everything putting ARM buffs on both Striders and running his mechanics unit bunched up behind a forest.
On my two, I took a bit of a risk with Edrea. She could just get a beed to one of the mechanics by walking wide, and if I roll a hit I probably kill them all with blast and deny him a scoring unit in Standoff. I went for it, she missed, but clipped two of them. Rok tried to stationary a forward Firefly but failed, I deployed a Whelp on the flag, and feated with Borka in a very forward position, both Earthborns animus-up and behind a well, Borka between them, Mulg behind. Ben moved a Firefly to contest the flag, who Rok counter-charged to get into the zone. Ben activated Nemo next, expecting to feat, shoot the Firefly, and kill Rok. Nemo's shot into the Firefly missed because of Stealth -- granted to models in Borka's control from his feat. This was tech for the matchup we'd discussed, but it caught Ben a little off guard. He was really respectful about handling his tilt, but I could tell it affected him. The rest of the turn was him killing Lynus & Edrea with the Strider, failing to kill Rok with Dynamo (who walked into 5", then Rok stumbled closer off his first attack and dropped a Whelp into his melee), and scoring the flag with Arlan.
Having survived the feat turn, the rest of the game is a cleanup process. I didn't get Borka killed and gradually won on scenario. Eventually Rok died, but not before killing Dynamo and a Firefly. Mulg killed a Stormstrider and most of a Stormclad. Ben made an incredible effort to stay in the game, but an Arcane Vortex on the Force Hammer needed to finish Mulg didn't help him. The team took this round 4-1 and advanced on to the finals.
In the ATC finals we played against the eventual winners, and excellent bunch of folks from California called "Top of Two Grab a Brew." In the pairing process, we got me a good matchup into Cryx, Charles and Dustin winnable games, and expected Matthew and Dave to have a little more trouble.
I played Alex, who was knowledgeable, positioned extremely well, and knew what he was doing. He was also a really amicable opponent -- assuming their team goes to WTC, he'll represent America well. He dropped Asphyxious2 and I played Madrak1.
I'll go over this matchup quickly as it's not terribly dissimilar in play to the Skarre1 (in fact, easier in a lot of ways). The clouds prevent charging for a turn, but the stone denying continuous effects makes it quite playable. Champions are great at killing Banes, and RFP as a theme perk keeps Asphyxious's feat in check. I got up on scenario and attrition, but had a few key turns where I made the mistake of trying to win the game, rather than simply carrying that advantage to a turn 7 win. Eventually, after a turn where a win was on the table but I didn't capitalize on it, I clocked out bottom of seven without a 5 point lead (Alex had 26 seconds). There's lessons there, especially about playing your list better, and I'm happier to have learned them than I would be to have won the event. I believe this game was recorded, and when it gets released I'll share it.
Quick note - this round we lost 2-3 and the deciding table involved a judge call to resolve the game. These things happen, the judging at the event was professional, and all members of the Canadian team stand by the call that was made. We harbor no ill feelings toward "Top of Two" team members.
The ATC was excellent and we were happy to be invited. Hopefully we'll be able to come back next year and have half as many games against people even half as nice.
