Epic Pit
Alrighty, time for a journey into the hinterland, dubious as the meaning of that word as a descriptor seems to be. I brought Arkadius triple War Hog and Barny2, thinking I'd practice the latter list all day. This fell apart immediately due to beer and crowns being involved.
Opening round into a new entrant to the game rocking some Baldur 1 Call of the Wild. Has Megalith, a Feral, one of the Goats, a Stalker, double Argus, Lord of the Feast, Wrongeye and Snapjaw, support solos.
Grergh. Tourneys need to start in the second round, find the first a struggle to get thinking. Dropped Arkadius given I've got practice with him. Baldur's feat will be a time walk, thankfully Ghostly can get around it for some leeway.
I lose the roll, get choice of side. Epic Pit is vaguely annoying, I'd have been better off with a quicker scenario, Baldur can afford to get up the board and do ye old toe contest. Killing Wrongeye will also be a priority, given Knock Down is off the table and there's a bunch of defence 14 heavies around.
Net result I take the side with a defensive wall that allows super easy contesting of the centre circle, it's of middling use to me however would be super annoying if possessed by Circle.
Also centrally is a fog bank leaning toward the circle side, left side has some corrosive water, right has some Burning Earth, other terrain on the board isn't massively relevant through the game.
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Round 1: Circle mostly runs up as a block, aside from Lord of the Feast and an Argus on the right. A forest gets plonked out next to the central fog.
Arkadius pops up Guardian Beast and shuffles forward. Road Hog gets Forced Evo for some more oomf, it's probably overkill on a War Hog if Primal is already involved. One Warhog and Gorax go out left, planning on going for the objective. Puppet Strings goes on a War Hog on the off chance something wanders up and gets to be whacked by Guardian.
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Circle 2: Baldy doubles down on the hug-a-thon as everything chills out at the Circle side of the centre zone, with Solid Ground and Star Crossed up. Megalith also has the whatsits upkeep that slows him down and makes him all....I guess stonier?
Gnarlhorn toes the left zone, Argus toes the right. The forest template also got shifted to the other side of the fog bank.
Lord of the Feast backs up to be behind a wall on the back right.
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Minion 2: Time to alpha in hard and start dinging up the scenario points. Stones must be broken and Wrongeye killed, then some heavies would be good.
Razor Boars run up to murder positions, two of the War Hogs get Primal and feat pops.
One RaBo misses the Lord of the Feast, another leaves a Shifting Stone on one box, third one is the only iteration that gets to enter the good piggy awards as it guts the Blackclad Wayfarer.
War Hogs just propel forward as does the Road Hog.
Then an attack of the real stupids happens as I activate the War Hogs. To get to Wrong Eye I have to kill one of the Warpwolves, quite achievable if the Primalled centre fella just boosts his to hit rolls. Or you could just opt to forget about the whole Solid Ground thing and try for a headbutt. Sigh. After the Werewolf looks at the Piggy bemusably he gets punched for a bit. The Forced Evo'd/Primalled War Hog then does things properly, easily kills the Stalker then Overtakes across and kills Wrongeye.
Third War Hog isn't Primalled, just buffs for strength and easily kills the Gnarlhorn and the one wound Shifting Stone. Messed up it's placement so it can't get to the opposing objective.
That mess done, the Road Hog just shuffles and does a flame spray.
Arkadius hides behind the wall and a Gobber cloud with lights on either side.
Blergh. No points scored. Says a lot about Arkadius feat turns, but ultimately removing only 3 heavies felt as weak as Ashlynn. Least Star Crossed and teleporting is removed as an issue. Road Hog also could have just gone into the contesting Argus, boosted its attacks, probably killed it and sprinted back to score the right zone.
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Circle 3: Megalith gets stone buffed, shuffles up, pop his Animus to kill one War Hog and brutally maim the other. Baldur then swivels around to the top right of the centre zone, pops feat and throws down a forest to stop the surviving War Hog getting into Megs. He also does some casual swings and kills the injured War Hog before him.
The Feral gets Primalled, goes in and kills the Road Hog.
Left Argus goes out the now last standing War Hog, takes out its Spirit. The right little angry puppy goes for the Razor Boar on the Lord of the Feast and kills it, letting ol' Lordy Leau moves up, pew pew the Gobber Chef on the far right to teleport to him and gobble him up.
Stone units, having lost a member each, go into super irritating mode and pop in to contest and shield Megs.
Scoring just isn't the way to go about things, we keep winging it without Control Points.
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Minion 3: Feral being Primalled basically means I don't have to do anything to crazy, just kill Megs and I only lose by putting Arkadius somewhere silly. So about a 23% chance to win the way my last few tourney games have been going.
The War Hog gets Ghostly, Forced Evo'd and Primalled, alas for Circle the Shifting Stones are perfectly placed to be stepping points to get to Megalith and easily kill it. The blocking Argus is killed between the two nearby Razor Boars, one Primalled, and the War Hog being Ancillaried by Targ.
Other than that it's just clean up stuff, the Gorax wails on the enemy objective and does poorly. Guess this can be prolonged further then.
Right side Gorax toes the zone, Battle Boar runs across to be involved in the future.
Arkadius stays hiding behind the cloud with Guardian Beast and a couple transfers.
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Circle 4: One of the unit of shifting stones is down to a single rock, it ports back to be a frenzy the hell away target for the War Hog (Sodding Primal). Other stones just contest the centre zone.
Baldur shuffles further across, puts up a forest again.
Right side wise, the Feral frenzied into the obejctive for some good damage, it then dies to Lord of the Feast. The Argus gets Primalled and bites into the Gorax, fails to take out any aspects.
Circle get the first score of the game, drawing a point. 0-1.
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Minion 4: Circle are quite cut off from scoring the left zone and we're in the end stages of the clock, so key point is to run stuff across to contest the right zone and start racking up the control points.
Left zone wise, the Gorax finally kills the objective and the Gobber Chef I've forgotten since turn 1 runs across. Looks like I forgot to activate Targ. The upper Shifting stone is a hair out of being able to port into the zone, so don't need to worry about killing it.
Centrally Razor Boars frenzy first, this blocks the War hog from getting lost on the way to Bendigo. One Razor Boar does die to his twin poking him in the back, so some sweet Bacon happens.
Arkadius moves through the central zone to toe the left, Guardian Beast up. Swamp Gobbers create the central cloud again lest there be any spell assassination run attempts.
Orin shuffles across, lightnings out a Shifting stone.
Right wise Eilish runs across in my backfield, planning to run in and contest later. The Battle Boar kills Lord of the Feast after Primalling himself. The Gorax was out of Arkadius' control area and moving him in puts the 'lock at threat, so he just flails at the Argus.
I score the elft zone and objective, now 2-1.
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Round 5/6: Below the clock threshold where I'm willing to take pics.
Arkadius stays safely put, scoring the left zone in circle turns. I clear off the centre zone at one point and otherwise just move models in to contest the right, end up winning 9-3.
That's the opening round dusted, longest game of the day and definitely wobbly for me. Baldur1 and Megalith Animus should hit the table more.
