Michael spielt in Deutchland...
Nov. 10th, 2003 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nadrielWell, I have the details of my little excursion here- I will be taking advantage of LJ-cut to avoid boring those of you with no interest in gaming stuff, or the finer details of warlord games.
Anyway, on Friday, we headed up to the airport. Which is where the first problem occurred. My friend, who was driving, is noted for his tardiness, and underestimated the M25. If I'd been consulted on travel arrangements, we'd have left earlier- I've lived in London, and know what it's like...
Anyway, as a result, we missed the plane (by about 5 minutes), and I spent some uncomfortable hours asleep in the airport, before catching an early flight on Saturday.
After a little trouble with a taxi driver who didn't know where we were going, we arrived literally just in time for the first round of the European Singles tournament.
I won enough games to have me at 34th by the end of the penultimate round. The top 32 would go through to the elimination rounds.
I had a very hard fought match against a young German player (matches are best of three). In the final round, All I needed to do was win an initiative roll for the turn in order to go first, and I would have won. If I failed, he would have won. I failed. Which cost me the entry to the elimation rounds, and 10 places in the standings.
In the end, I placed 44th out of 130. So close to doing a lot better, but them's the breaks. And 44th out of some of the 130 top players in the world from 10 different countries is no shame. But next time I'll do better...
In a way, I was lucky, because I didn't get throught to the final elimination rounds, I was available to take part in the Strategic Warlord event...
The premise behind this was that there were teams of 7 players for each faction, with five players each controlling one warlord (and having the corresponding deck), one Runner to pass messages to and from the Oerlord, and the aforementioned Overlord. I was the Overlord for the Deveranian faction (basically a Lawful Evil empire of primarily wizards and knights). The Overlords were sat around a map containing territories, and you recieved resources for each territory you held. The winner was the one with the most resources. The Overlords could donate resources to move warlords across the map quicker, or allow them to start with a slightly bigger army in one battle. They were also free to make and break alliances as they saw fit.
It really wasn't fair on them. I'd been wargaming since I was 6, read Sun Tzu and Machievelli for fun, and was naturally devious. I soon had everyone except one faction tied up in mutual defence and non-aggression treaties with everyone bar one faction, that everyone wanted dead. I would send my armies in to assist against this faction, then everyone else would inevitably move off in search of more battles, and lose track of the fact that I'd taken more of their territory. I never spent any of my resources on boosting armies, on the principle that my armies didn;t need it, as they were only ever involved when the allied forces vastly outnumbered their enemies. Otherwise, they weren't fighting. As a result, when other players were losing resources on such things, I still stockpiled them. I was also fortunate in that my Runner was very enthusiastic, and reported back for more orders frequently. Also, unlike many of the other overlords, I never had any trouble with my Warlords disobeying/misunderstanding orders. So, in the end, I won, with hardly a battle fought. Sun Tzu would be proud... :-)
So woo, yay me, I won that...got a nice shiny medal and some prize in the form of some more cards.
Next day, we had the World Doubles, where I was paired with the 2002 European Champion, a friend of mine. Unfortunately, unlike many of the teams there, we had not planned our decks to work together. That said, we still did fairly well...
We started well, but we got unlucky and drew against two of the top teams over the course of the five rounds, and another bad initiative roll turned one vitory into a draw, costing us our entry into the elimination rounds.
After finishing that event, I had free time to spare. Now, I feel the need to digress a little to explain the importance of what I managed to pull off.
At normal tournaments, like the ones that I sometimes run, there is occasionally the chance to use a deck to challenge a special, extra-hard Overlord deck. If you win, you keep the deck. At large torunaments (at least 40+ people), there will be a couple of people allowed to run Dragon Lord tournaments. If you have an unsigned Overlord from a challenge, you can approach one of these people to ask to challenge a Dragon Lord. These decks are designed to be extreemely hard to beat, and after each challenge, the Overlord you used is signed, and thus cannot be used again.
There are two different Dragon Lords, Aldrich von Grossentir, who is the slightly easier of the two, and Draxon Rhull, who is generally harder. Earlier this year at another major tournament, I became one of the handful of people in Europe to be able to beat Aldrich (there's also about 20 or so people in America who've managed it, but large tournaments are more frequent there). Of those who've beaten Dragon Lords, few have done it more than once. On the Sunday, I picked up my copy of Draxon Rhull...
The principal behind my deck was avoiding his armies, and simply taking a pot shot with enough bonuses to hit, and extra wounds, to kill him in one shot.
This involved getting the requisite items onto my warlord and the right actions into my hand before all the dragons that he brought in ate me alive.
I managed to get all the kit and actions by the start of round three, and with some specially chosen cards, managed to keep all but the weakest dragons from being able to attack me, so my army held. On the third round, I needed to make one roll to be able to reach and kill the Dragonlord. I failed, and thought that I'd lost my chance. In the fourth round, however, I manged to get another dragon delaying card, which gave me just enough time to get another shot off. I made the roll I required to get the right number of wounds on him, and then I just needed to roll to hit- anything but a one (a particular bane of mine was inconvenient rolling of bad dice...). I rolled a three. On a D20. I braced myself for the inevitable slew of defensive cards, knowing I only had enough counter-defence in my hand to stop one thing. At this point, the Dragon Lord player picked up Draxon and handed him to me. I was stunned- I even asked if he was sure he didn't have any defensive cards, becuase they'd always come up before when I tried to take down the deck. But no, I had done it, won my second Dragon Lord...
In the evening, there was pizza for all, and I spent a fair amount of time tranlslating German to English, German to French, French to English, and French to German, as well as giving directions to taxi drivers and suchlike. I swear I don't know how Brits manage abroad without a language speaker...
So, after all that, I flew back to England on the Monday, and ended up catching a train home. Which was delayed 50 minutes. Ahhh, the joys of the good old UK...
Anyway, on Friday, we headed up to the airport. Which is where the first problem occurred. My friend, who was driving, is noted for his tardiness, and underestimated the M25. If I'd been consulted on travel arrangements, we'd have left earlier- I've lived in London, and know what it's like...
Anyway, as a result, we missed the plane (by about 5 minutes), and I spent some uncomfortable hours asleep in the airport, before catching an early flight on Saturday.
After a little trouble with a taxi driver who didn't know where we were going, we arrived literally just in time for the first round of the European Singles tournament.
I won enough games to have me at 34th by the end of the penultimate round. The top 32 would go through to the elimination rounds.
I had a very hard fought match against a young German player (matches are best of three). In the final round, All I needed to do was win an initiative roll for the turn in order to go first, and I would have won. If I failed, he would have won. I failed. Which cost me the entry to the elimation rounds, and 10 places in the standings.
In the end, I placed 44th out of 130. So close to doing a lot better, but them's the breaks. And 44th out of some of the 130 top players in the world from 10 different countries is no shame. But next time I'll do better...
In a way, I was lucky, because I didn't get throught to the final elimination rounds, I was available to take part in the Strategic Warlord event...
The premise behind this was that there were teams of 7 players for each faction, with five players each controlling one warlord (and having the corresponding deck), one Runner to pass messages to and from the Oerlord, and the aforementioned Overlord. I was the Overlord for the Deveranian faction (basically a Lawful Evil empire of primarily wizards and knights). The Overlords were sat around a map containing territories, and you recieved resources for each territory you held. The winner was the one with the most resources. The Overlords could donate resources to move warlords across the map quicker, or allow them to start with a slightly bigger army in one battle. They were also free to make and break alliances as they saw fit.
It really wasn't fair on them. I'd been wargaming since I was 6, read Sun Tzu and Machievelli for fun, and was naturally devious. I soon had everyone except one faction tied up in mutual defence and non-aggression treaties with everyone bar one faction, that everyone wanted dead. I would send my armies in to assist against this faction, then everyone else would inevitably move off in search of more battles, and lose track of the fact that I'd taken more of their territory. I never spent any of my resources on boosting armies, on the principle that my armies didn;t need it, as they were only ever involved when the allied forces vastly outnumbered their enemies. Otherwise, they weren't fighting. As a result, when other players were losing resources on such things, I still stockpiled them. I was also fortunate in that my Runner was very enthusiastic, and reported back for more orders frequently. Also, unlike many of the other overlords, I never had any trouble with my Warlords disobeying/misunderstanding orders. So, in the end, I won, with hardly a battle fought. Sun Tzu would be proud... :-)
So woo, yay me, I won that...got a nice shiny medal and some prize in the form of some more cards.
Next day, we had the World Doubles, where I was paired with the 2002 European Champion, a friend of mine. Unfortunately, unlike many of the teams there, we had not planned our decks to work together. That said, we still did fairly well...
We started well, but we got unlucky and drew against two of the top teams over the course of the five rounds, and another bad initiative roll turned one vitory into a draw, costing us our entry into the elimination rounds.
After finishing that event, I had free time to spare. Now, I feel the need to digress a little to explain the importance of what I managed to pull off.
At normal tournaments, like the ones that I sometimes run, there is occasionally the chance to use a deck to challenge a special, extra-hard Overlord deck. If you win, you keep the deck. At large torunaments (at least 40+ people), there will be a couple of people allowed to run Dragon Lord tournaments. If you have an unsigned Overlord from a challenge, you can approach one of these people to ask to challenge a Dragon Lord. These decks are designed to be extreemely hard to beat, and after each challenge, the Overlord you used is signed, and thus cannot be used again.
There are two different Dragon Lords, Aldrich von Grossentir, who is the slightly easier of the two, and Draxon Rhull, who is generally harder. Earlier this year at another major tournament, I became one of the handful of people in Europe to be able to beat Aldrich (there's also about 20 or so people in America who've managed it, but large tournaments are more frequent there). Of those who've beaten Dragon Lords, few have done it more than once. On the Sunday, I picked up my copy of Draxon Rhull...
The principal behind my deck was avoiding his armies, and simply taking a pot shot with enough bonuses to hit, and extra wounds, to kill him in one shot.
This involved getting the requisite items onto my warlord and the right actions into my hand before all the dragons that he brought in ate me alive.
I managed to get all the kit and actions by the start of round three, and with some specially chosen cards, managed to keep all but the weakest dragons from being able to attack me, so my army held. On the third round, I needed to make one roll to be able to reach and kill the Dragonlord. I failed, and thought that I'd lost my chance. In the fourth round, however, I manged to get another dragon delaying card, which gave me just enough time to get another shot off. I made the roll I required to get the right number of wounds on him, and then I just needed to roll to hit- anything but a one (a particular bane of mine was inconvenient rolling of bad dice...). I rolled a three. On a D20. I braced myself for the inevitable slew of defensive cards, knowing I only had enough counter-defence in my hand to stop one thing. At this point, the Dragon Lord player picked up Draxon and handed him to me. I was stunned- I even asked if he was sure he didn't have any defensive cards, becuase they'd always come up before when I tried to take down the deck. But no, I had done it, won my second Dragon Lord...
In the evening, there was pizza for all, and I spent a fair amount of time tranlslating German to English, German to French, French to English, and French to German, as well as giving directions to taxi drivers and suchlike. I swear I don't know how Brits manage abroad without a language speaker...
So, after all that, I flew back to England on the Monday, and ended up catching a train home. Which was delayed 50 minutes. Ahhh, the joys of the good old UK...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-10 02:22 pm (UTC)Well done, and comiserations at the same time :)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-10 02:31 pm (UTC)Congrats!
Date: 2003-11-11 08:10 am (UTC)'Course, I don't know you that well either ^^;;;
Re: Congrats!
Date: 2003-11-11 08:14 am (UTC)And for more information on the game, there's The AEG Warlord website. (http://www.warlordccg.com)