GDNerd's Crucible 7 Report

Congrats on the win. You went 8 and 1 overall right?

Yup 4-1 day 1 4-0 day 2.

Time for some day 2! Sorry for the delay but I spent all morning travelling home then slept because I couldn't sleep in the airport hotel I got. Apologies if anyone if I got any details wrong I'm doing this from memory bc I didn't write notes during.

Round 1 - Retribution (Recon 2)

This round was fated as Rean and I were shit talking each other the night before about how we were going to whoop the other's ass. I was of the opinion that Goreshade4 Dawnguard is not playable into double SotN (or a SotN BoH pair but that's a story for another day) and he disagreed but I assumed he was just bluffing me. I put down Madrak assuming he'll drop his Ravyn MHSF list and try to run the table with the GK but he puts down Goreshade4 instead. Things get more complicated when he wins the roll-off and there's a house dead center of the board. Turns out Ghost Walk-ing Imperatus is a freaking nightmare to not die to.

I kinda do some weird panic moves to try and jam up a bit which lets him use Vyros' gun to flame burst 3 of my champs which was basically an unforced error on my part. His Invictors do a bunch of 2 man CRAs and leave my raiders at 5 strong. He layers his Sentinels in an attempt to limit my output without committing too much and puts some clouds around the house to make it difficult. He also decides to play super conservative and not feat which was IMO a mistake.

My ambushing bears come in on the side I want to put the GK into and they kill ~3 Sentinels. The GK tramples over to that side and kills ~4 more. On the other side raiders and champs tear through his Invictors and sentinels and try to put up a layer for Imperatus to not have a good walk lane onto Madrak himself. I feat and this means he has limited output. I think he gets 3 vengeance moves 5 normal Sentinel attacks, Imperatus and a couple punches from Goreshade to kill the GK and he falls short by ~10. He concedes as he was losing attrition and scenario hard (especially after dumping an entire flank into not killing a model) and Goreshade is in melee of the GK as it stands. On average he had to roll ~10 above average to pull it off so it wasn't a great chance but TBH the GK was going to walk him down if he didn't do something.

Round 2 - Convergence (Mirage)

Ian and I met at last year's Crucible but didn't get to play so it was nice to get an actual match in this time. He had Mom and Axis. I've been talking up Kolgrima as a CoC solution because Teps rip through raiders bears and champs trivially but he only had one TEP in Axis (and I knew he wouldn't play Mom) so I played Madrak. I won the roll-off to go first.

I unpack as standard, allocating Valka and Lanyssa to my close flag, planning on using my zone side to sweep up and around to his side, with goblins flanking on their zone side so I can contest a couple times. On his turn he makes a crucial mistake and puts his TEP just in ambush range of the bears which kill it. My other set of bears cripples an inverter and my GK sits in a place where only one Inverter can walk to it under feat. He tries to go for a play where he conducts across his Inverters but I countercharge the light with all his allocated focus and take out its induction node which basically just ends his turn.

At this point I'm up 2-0 and all I have to do is clear a flag for Valka to score out. Unfortunately when doing my righteous vengeance move I forget my feat is no longer up and Valka gets countercharged and killed which kills that plan real quick. At this point I have to go for attrition, which is a bit tricky under his feat. I am able to kill the crippled Inverter and cripple another while setting up my forces to avenge the GK which will likely die, put a gobber into his zone where it's annoying to get at and go up to 3-0.

I forget whether he kills the GK or not but I just clear the flag Lanyssa is on and score out after putting the other swamp gobber into his zone ending the game 6-1.

Round 3 - Legion (Invasion)

Jesse had Fyanna and Anamag and from my xp with legion nowadays they just always drop Anamag unless the specific thing they're hunting with their off list shows up so I put down Madrak. He lived up to my expectations, and I won the roll-off which as I've said many times before makes me feel quite comfortable in the driver's seat. His Anamag was a double chosen variant with max warmongers and rotwings.

He parks his Hellmouths behind the central forest but one is poking out in such a way that I can get some semi-easy charges off with my left hand flank. My raiders walk up and bomb the crap out of his tentacles but only kill like 3. He gets a lucky scatter on the BB and kills Lanyssa, also kills a couple Raiders and lets me countercharge valka up (but doesn't trigger Righteous Vengeance). He tries to set up a defensive posture by giving me only Rotwings as a target for my bears to ambush on but he forgets about his plan by the time he does his second unit of Chosen and leaves 2 of them in range of the bears.

On my turn I kill those 2 chosen, a third, the more exposed Hellmouth, and feat such that he can't score anything on his bottom of 2. He tries to figure out a good attrition retaliation without feating and realizes he's so screwed on scenario that he just concedes - one flank is going to hard fall to bears and champs and the other will get cleaned up by the other bears and the GK. By the time my third turn would be over he would basically only have the BB and some Rotwings. Unfortunately another game that kinda just hard ends because of not respecting ambushing bears but thems the breaks.

Round 4 - Protectorate (Spread the Net)

Both my possible opponents were Protectorate so I spent some time waiting to see what flavor I was going to be put into. Max ended up beating Troy (my day 1 PoM opponent) so I get to see some new brews. Max has Durst double Judicator and Harbinger Faithful Masses. Not sure what he'll put down bc both seem pretty OK into me but I put down Kolgrima. He chooses Harbinger, which is in a somewhat non-standard FM Build - Idrians of course but also Pressgangers made up the core, with a battlegroup consisting of Crusader Sanctifier Devout, then a mix of the usual suspects when it came to solo support. He wins the roll-off and elects to go first. I choose the side where the flag is hidden entirely behind a forest so my Fel Caller can live there for the entirety of the game.

Max shoves out real hard with the Idrians (intending to put them into their prey target - my Raiders) and less hard with the Pressgangers, his solos following up behind. On bottom of 1 I make a mistake and try to cloud a flank instead of putting everything into the stone and feating which would have prevented his Idrians from doing much of anything and allowed my Raiders to be basically untouched (I think I lose 6?), but I play for a game where I hold the center hard, reliably take my flag and zone while preventing him from scoring either of his home elements. This plan works to a tee and by bottom of 3 (4?) he concedes at my score of 4-0.

After the game he told me that he basically lost his winning spirit when I told him he autoqualified for WMW but despite the reliable scenario walkdown he had a pretty heavy clock advantage on me - I'd hate to see him again when he "actually" has his game face on.

Conclusion

With that I take down Crucible 7 and show those Floridians what us NorCal players are made of

All in all I had fun but my main complaint is how their heats work. They made us play 5 rounds despite there being ~21-22 players in each for a top 8 cut. Not only did this make the day go late but every X-1 made it in along with multiple X-2s. Then in the top 16 their head judge left in the middle of the finals (second year in the row) and had one of the players judge the finals instead. If they just did top 4 cuts from each heat and ran 3 rounds on the final day it would easily eliminate both of these issues.

The main theme of the weekend seemed to be people not respecting Ambush whether it was the bears or the Lookouts. They kept getting juicy targets that realistically won me games (TEP, Chosen, solos on flags, etc). According to some of my buddies local to the Florida area nobody really plays Trolls down there so the people I faced were wholly unprepared for bear maulings. A pleasant surprise but something I can't reliably expect at events.

Kolgrima needs some tinkering in my eyes, the Champs are much harder to abuse w/o Tactician and I'm sorely missing Steady. Seriously thinking about a variant that replaces them with the HHH but it makes Ossrum double TEP CoC and flavors of Cryx I don't want Madrak for much worse. IDK I'll keep messing around until I find some setup that makes me happy.

Great reports as allways gdnerd, thanks for sharing

And congrats on the big win!

I noticed you assassinate a lot with Kolgrima, often as a last ditch effort; Does she not have great scenario or attrition play?

I have a hard time finding a good army for her. Had a game recently with a list similar to yours before the champs and it just crumbles after the initial engagement. Fire eaters underperform, bomber doesn't do much, neither does Pyre Troll. I have no idea which battlegroup she wants since she doesn't support one at all..

Also, they are immune to cold so she can spray right through them and they can get to an effective DEF 15 against enemies who are not immune to cold if those are standing in her clouds. I am actually looking at maybe using this in Kriel Company because they're still immune to cold there and she can not only spray through them but see through them as well.

I see.

I'll have to give it some more tries.
What if they camp 3-4 every turn? Then you kinda have to attrition weather you can or not..

I have considered 2 full Raider units (instead of 1 + 2xFire eaters), have you ever tried/though about that?