I was
lucky enough to participate in the Texas Regional Championships at Quakecon
2015 in Dallas
I had been
thinking about what I would play for a while and tossed several ideas back and
forth. I had been playing a lot of Katar and Friends and Eliatrope Hordes
leading up to the event, but both of those teams had issues. Katar is not a
huge fan of seeing Malee Buhrum and considering I had seen her during the Thursday
warm up event, I didn’t really want to play that game of cat and mouse. The
Eliatropes, while being strong, really shine when your opponent over extends
and if they don’t it can be a really hard game. So I had to default to the
other list I was playing:
The Dark Crystal
Henual, Poochan,
Phaeris, Wally Sumwerels, The Black Crow, Moe Lawr (2), and Mike Locke
Named in honor of the
Jim Henson Classic, this group of evil bird monsters and gentle wizards plays
very much like a tool box with The Black Crow as the centerpiece. It covers all
of the elemental types and offers several control options through range, action
point, and target manipulation. On the regional map it has a strong economic
game starting its second turn with anywhere from 16-19 Kamas depending on if
you went first and with a 32 initiative it usually goes first.
The main engine behind
the list is the Henual buffing the Crow with devotion allowing the Crow to use
three Dark Pikes or two Crobak Nosedives in a turn a single turn. This
gives you the option of either hitting someone for three armor piercing attacks
from range or dropping two birds to pull a target into or out of range, then
blocking lanes with the Crobaks. Giving the Crow critical means that he has a
high chance of taking out many of the level 1 figures and some of the more
squishy level 2 ones in a single activation, which triggers 3 uses of
prospecting to keep the money flow going. From there it’s all about finding the
right tool for the job. Poochan is able to bring anyone into the fight. Did
your opponent clump up with a bunch of level 1 Krosmasters? Throw in Mike and
make sure they can’t attack next turn! Did they bring up a heavy hitter? Throw
in Phaeris for the big guy to play with!
What it lacks in the
upfront aggression that a kitty rage or Eliatropes based team can provide, it
more than makes up in consistency. It is more of a death by a thousand cuts
versus a single target nuclear strike. If you can’t take out a figure in one
round, you can spread the damage where they can’t afford to commit all in,
because if they don’t manage to kill their target, they will lose too much from
the counter attack in return.
So with
that saddled up in my travel bag, I made my way over to the event. After
learning my lesson Thursday night about how terrible parking was, I secured a
ride from my lovely wife to Quakecon and headed inside. It’s a fairly sizeable
con with a very strong focus on LAN gaming, it was a lot different than other
gaming conventions that I’ve been too. It felt more like a family reunion for
people more so than a convention. I got registered up and prepared for battle.
Round 1 vs
Ryan
I had play
Ryan recently first round at our Season 2/3 kickoff event at Chronicles Games
and he was playing a very different list this time. He had moved away from The
Black Crow and Darkness Knight to a straight up Merkator buff team. Merkator,
Henual, Luk, and Lou were placed down in front of me.
I started
the game by collecting all of my usual money and positioned myself to be able
to take a few pot shots the next turn. He rolls for tension and chooses to
double and proceeds to buff Merkator and move forward. In his movement he
leaves Henual right behind Merkator.
I roll
tension and get double criticals. I decide to kill the buff squad. I move
forward with the Crow and kill Henual with Dark Pike through Merkator while
putting 2 points on the big cyborg. I move some pieces around and manage to
leave Lou at 1 HP. He gives critical to Merkator and after some buffing from Lou,
the dust settles with Wally dead and the Crow hanging on with 2 hp. I tension out again and buff crow and give
him aqua buff and with a throw from Poochan he is able to stab both Luk and Lou
ending the game.
Game 2 vs
Gabe
Gabe and I
have had this “He wins, I win” sort of rivalry going on and going into the
match I had recently won, so I was looking forward to the loss. Of all of the
matches I played on that day, this one I remember the least because it took a
lot of mental horse power dig myself out of an early hole and come back at the
end. He was playing his variation on the Old Men team Ghett, Diver, Henual,
Moe, and Luk.
I know
that I lost Wally early because he didn’t want to wear his armor that day and
lead to another Moe dying senselessly to try and recover. I eventually whittle
Ghett down and out of the picture and then apply Phaeris to the infected area
to pull out the win. It was a close game and there is a reason Gabe was last year’s
Champion.
Game 3 vs
Mike
I had just
played Mike in the finals of the Thursday night warm up event and he was still
playing the same list from there. Poochan, Malee, Kivin, Fern, Luk, Ayan.
He’s not
really sure how to approach this team as it was very different than Katar and
friends that I had played Thursday. He decides to avoid the crow. I get 7 ish
points on Malee and back up he brings up Ayan in preparation for a throw turn.
I get aqua buff and finish off Malee, leaving Ayan at 1 HP. Ayan kills Wally
and picks up a Moe with Kivin. I kill both Ayan and Kivin and end the game. I
know there is a lot of paraphrasing here, but Gabe really took it out of me.
Game 4 vs
Nick H
Nick is
from Houston and brought to the table the winner’s team from Anime Expo,
Captain Amakna and 2 Raul Baks.
I go first
and get my money and take my normal centrally located position. Nick rolls tension
sells it and moves his Rauls’ forward both flanking a tree, looking at my 1
point Krosmasters ready to make sure they do nothing for the rest of the game. I’m
already starting to feel the need to go into the tank to figure a way out of
this mess because I know Cap can really deter you from going after the Raul
duo.
I roll tension and get double critical. I sigh and we each trade in our
GG. We then start to flip over the final set of rewards when stasis crystal
pops up. A purple crystal. Skeksis love
dark purple crystals. I look at the positioning and I would be able to apply
Phaeris to a Rual and Moe to the other and both could have critical as the
crystal would buff the Crow with critical. The problem was that the crow would
have to buy the crystal himself due to positioning and initiative order, so that’s
two armor piercing attacks at 3 base damage each hitting both Rauls’. I start
the plan in motion. Phaeris goes up to the plate and whiffs with Raul armoring
out of the damage. At this point I’m tired and I want to just all in. I get the
crystal and get into positon. I roll the first attack roll get a single
critical and no armors from team Raul. I roll the second attack and double critical
and punching my ticket into first place and getting me to Nationals.
After that
it was a blur of pictures, a Banh Mi sandwich with a Thai tea from a food truck,
and me being crowned the 2015 Texas Krosmaster Regional Champion.
I want to
thank everyone for coming out to the event to make it such a success, Randy
Navarro for helping run the warm up event and making sure our board states were
organized as hell for the main event, Randy Brown for being the Mick to my
Rocky during the rounds bringing me things to drink and talking to me after
each battle. Rob from Japanime for hosting the event and making it possible and
Shaun H for getting me home so my wife didn’t have to stop raiding in Wow and finally Florian "Wendig0" Delarace for bouncing ideas off of and helping with the conception of the team. Looking
forward to next year already.
-Jeric is an established miniatures player who provides tactical insight, event reports and a few odds and ends along the way
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