Totengräber's Workpläce

Last Saturday (10/11/2008) at Games to Die For, Sryth held the first Alkemy tournament in the US (to my knowledge, at least). I showed up about 11:20am for setup and we started playing around 12pm when the St. Louis folks showed up.

Here’s my Aurlok Nation list:

• Tamel’Seh Far Eye
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Wolf Thunder Warrior
• Crow Thunder Warrior
• Toad Medicine Shaman

Round 1 (Jin Posts) vs. Andy’s Kingdom of Avalon: With the exception of a second Crossbowan in place of a Templar Novice, Andy’s army ended up being nearly identical to Jim’s army, which I’d played before. The big fear for me in this game was getting my guys shot up on the approach to the Jin Posts. With as little scenery as we were using, this was a definite possibility. Also, having heard of, but not seen the effects of the Deacon’s “Corruptive Bonding” formula, there was fear of that as well. I deployed my forces mostly to my right side of the table in hopes of controlling one Jin Post definitely and contesting the center one. I don’t think in 200 points one has enough figures to cover all three. The first 3 rounds consisted of one or two activations and a pass on both our parts. Andy ran the Deacon around to collect as much components as possible. He was full up at 12. This game was very bloody. I ended up running one of my Aurochs into one of his Crossbowmen to try and minimize their effect and maybe cause some confusion. It didn’t really work all that well. The other guys hung around the Toad Medicine Shaman to build him up for his damage spell. In the end, we drew, but I’d lost all but a couple of figures.

Round 2 (Informants) vs. Doug’s Khaliman Republic: I’d never played this scenario before, but as it turns out, the army I built is perfect for this scenario. It’s all about speed and TamelSeh can hand it out while being pretty quick himself. I decided before the game began that my strategy would be to run full out and try to get the 5 VPs before Doug does. Doug used the Shiek’s first turn of activations to shoot at my army. The Wolf Thunder Warrior and TamelSeh ended up taking a couple of wounds each. This wouldn’t matter for the scenario and Doug would later say he regretted doing it. In the end, he tried to kill TamelSeh with the Shiek while TamelSeh was standing “on watch” next to the 3-point Informant. After two successful cover saves, it pretty much ended the game. We ended up spending the last 30 minutes chatting about all kinds of stuff. I ended up with a win and no minis lost or enemies killed.

Round 3 (The Chests) vs. Jim’s Kingdom of Avalon: I’ve played against Jim’s army before and so I had some idea what to expect. This scenario, however, I’d only played once. There wasn’t all that much eventful, unfortunately. Jim ended up successfully opening one chest and claiming a total of 7 VP in the end. I had 3. A good number of my figures were killed and several of his as well, due partly to the Deacon’s “Corruptive Bonding” spell. I ended up with a loss.

I came in 4th place and apparently was very close with 3rd, but my Goal Average broke the tie in Mark’s favor even including my bonus points for turning in my list on time and being the only one with a fully painted army.

The prize support was excellent and since only 6 people made it, I believe everyone walked away with something. Personally, I picked up the Khaliman starter.

While there were several well painted figures in the painting competition, I ended up winning with my Toad Medicine Shaman. This entitled me to my choice of LE figure when prize distribution came around (though, that painting DVD was sounding good, Doug! ) and I chose the Khaliman LE.

Sryth picked up the Khaliman Tuareg box and hooked me up with it with the promise I’d “hook him up” with something sometime.

All in all, the tournament was a blast and it was great getting to see the guys from St. Louis again. I look forward to the next time we can do something like this. And thanks, Doug, for bringing prize support!!!

In preparation for Saturday’s tournament, I brought  my Alkemy stuff to Games To Die For for our weekly gaming get-together. Joel and Jim were the only ones there and they started playing a game since I needed to wait for a call from my (awesome) wife. I watched their game for a bit while I waited. It was Kingdom of Avalon, featuring Deacon Leodegarius, vs. Khaliman Republic, featuring Sheik Araoui Ibn Khalid (or Ma-Sheik-gun).  They played the default “Jin Posts” scenario. I didn’t pay attention to every turn or action, but it seems that the Avalonians having 9 figures while the Khaliman only having 6 is a real problem in this game at this point level. In the end, the use of the Deacon’s “Corruptive Bonding” formula caused Joel to call the end of the game. There was much discussion of the “brokenness” of this formula. Personally, at the 200 point level it is very powerful and only slightly less so at larger point levels. However, Kraken Editions has not posted errata or an FAQ about the formula, so it seems that it works as intended.

After that, Joel and I sat down to a game. I played my tournament list:

• Tamel’Seh Far Eye
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Toad Medicine Shaman
• Wolf Thunder Warrior
• Crow Thunder Warrior

I was thinking that based on my last few games that I haven’t been gathering all the components I should be and I haven’t been using the Toad Medicine Shaman to his fullest potential.

He played:

• Sheik Araoui Ibn Khalid
• Oracle of the Sornha Family
• Ghulam of the Suleman Family
• Jaraya of the Malikh Family
• Jaraya of the Malikh Family
• Malik Tuareg

This was a really good game. Not really a close game, though, since he jumped on two of the Jin Posts before I did and got an early lead. He and I controlled one of the Jin Posts on either end of the table easily and quickly while we fought back and forth for the middle one. My one big mistake was not running everyone closer to the Posts on the first turn. Instead, I moved the Toad Medicine Shaman slowly and behind everyone to benefit from his “Empathy” ability and to build the setup for his “Animal Fury” formula. I did end up getting the formula to work, but it failed to killl anyone. All in all, I think that was my big and really the only game-changing mistake I made. In the end it was 3-0 in Joel’s favor. In the end all of his remaining figures were in the red while the figures I had were mostly pretty well off health wise. A very fun and good game.

I have all my minis painted for my army and I feel like I can run it pretty well now, so let’s see how the tournament goes.

Last night I worked on finishing painting on the last two of my Aurlok Nation figures in my army list for this Saturday’s tournament. The Wolf Thunder Warrior isn’t my best work, but he’s passable. I felt like I needed to finish these to get the last bonus point (the other available point was for submitting the army list by 10/08) so I might have some chance at the tournament. I doubt my tactical prowess will do me any favors.

There seems to be some confusion on my part as to whether there’ll be a painting competition at this tournament. I thought for sure there was, but the organizer seemed to be unsure since he doesn’t know what prize support will be there. Oh well.

That leaves four other Alkemy figures I own that need painting, which are the least detailed (Toad Thunder Warriors and Thapioca).

Last Thursday Jim and I played a game of Alkemy since there is a tournament this coming weekend and neither of us had played in a few weeks. We decided to play the Jin Posts scenario since we knew it best and had limited time to play. Here’s the list I ran with:

• Tecum’Seh, Crow Sachem
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Toad Medicine Shaman
• Wolf Thunder Warrior
• Crow Thunder Warrior

I’m not sure what Jim was using, but here’s my guess:

• Deacon Leodegarius
• Countryside Priest
• Avalonian Recruits (x2)
• Templar Novice (x3)
• Knight Errant

We had toruble setting up the tinted terrain as usual because the wording is a little bit confusing, but since we were both using Earth, it didn’t really matter much. There was much discussion about whether the alchemist needs to be within 1″ of the terrain piece or within 1″ of the (tiny) marker to gather elements, which according to this thread, shows that it’s by the marker. I also suggested we use a little bit more LoS blocking terrain outside of the six tinted pieces of scenery since shooting seems pretty powerful in this game and my army doesn’t have much in the way of shooting. So, we used 8 pieces of scenery total as a compromise.

My mental block with this game seems to be how to use my alchemist. Seems like every game I end up with my Toad Shaman way in the back trying to gather components while the rest of the army is moving in to complete the objective. I feel like if I spend the first turn gathering components and protecting the Shaman, I am sacrificing the objectives of the game. If , however, I only gather components once, I’ll only be able to cast any of his spells once or twice. Not to mention the medicine Shaman’s “Empathy” ability that only works if he’s within 6 inches of his buddies. I guess I just need more practice.

It was a really good game. There wasn’t anything really all that notable in the game, however. It ended up coming down to a draw that really could have gone either way had we played as long as we might have in the tournament.

Now to get my army painted for the tournament!