I just got home from Worlds after a very long drive and figured I'd write things down before I forget any more. I went 3-2 overall, ending with 29 tournament points and just barely beating Dion for the title of 2nd best Waiqar.
My List:
Lord Vorun'thul
with Obscasium's Guantlet and Thirst of Bilehall
2x
Reanimate Archers
3x2 with Corruption Rune and Close Quarters Targeting
1x
Death Knights 2x2
with Reaping Blade
Round 1
vs Curtis Chandler - Meeting Engagement, Volatile Runes
I was first player
Curtis was running a big 3x3 block of Reanimates with beast Vorun'thul, Ankaur Maro with Regenerative, 2 single carrion lancers, and a unit of 6 death knights with column tactics.
Setup had my archers both right of center, Lord V just left of center, and my knights off to the left. His reanimates faced Lord V, Knights vs knights, and Maro was on the centerline.
The first turns were mostly repositioning. My archers swung up and around to face the left half of the board, Lord V crept a little closer, and my knights shifted around a bit. His reanimates started forward toward Lord V, making room for Maro to add 4 more trays over the course of two turns. His knights and one of the lancers moved to face off against my knights. I'd been trying to maneuver so that he would be forced to fight me on top of a volatile rune.
Turn 3 things came together. On the left flank, the carrion lancer charged in front of his knights. This successfully blocked my own charge. I hit the Lancer at an angle with my knights which forced me to flank them, exposing my own flank to his knights - and also forcing them onto the very rune I'd been trying to get him stuck on. I killed the giant worm, but my knights were doomed. In the center, things were going much better. The reanimates marched forward, only for Lord V to counter charge and transform. He managed to kill a few skeletons and slapped them with the gauntlet. This would prove very useful, as the game was kind enough to consistently provide 2 blue and 1 green rune for several turns in a row, helping my negate Curtis' regen. The archers closed in and added further pain. Meanwhile, Maro was down to a single wound, so he reformed to face parallel to the board edge, off to the left.
Turn 4, knights kill knights. Lord V runs away at I3, leaving the reanimates to attack nothing. V moves behind them, facing where I hoped Maro would be. The archers continue to pepper the reanimates, whittling them down, tray by tray. And finally Maro moves...a full speed sprint putting him exactly where Lord V was facing.
Turn 5, The reanimates begin the long process of turning around, heading toward the archers as they continue to get covered in arrows. A necromancer can't keep up due to dismal green runes showing turn after turn. (When will Waiqar get some sort of rune control!?). Lord V charges Maro and has no difficulty taking out the last wound.
The last few rounds mostly consisted of Archers vs Reanimates. As I recall, by the time they finally charged on turn 7, they had maybe 4 trays left. After killing the last of the skeletons, the gauntlet killed the Vampire.
Final score was 168-59 for an 8-3
Round 2
vs Luke Fraser - Maelstrom, Seize the Artifacts
Luke was running Daqan with The Baron, Kari, and a couple of 3 tray crossbows, a 2 tray rune golem and and a 1 tray golem.
This game went very much in my favor. Luke was hoping to bait me into coming toward him with the Archers, but instead I just dialed in attacks. This allowed me to take out some of the crossbowmen as they moved into range. Kari fell victim to the archers as well, while Lord V went to say hi to the Baron, bouncing through the single golem to get there. Lord V managed to slap on the gauntlet, killing the Baron of the course of two turns.
However, my favorite moment of the tournament happened between my deathknights and the two golem unit. He kept dialing in the stun+armor, keeping me from getting in the free mortal strike. But I had reaping blade, and was mostly fishing for blanks. After a couple turns, I'd gotten through the vitality token and one of the trays. I need to do two more wounds, so either two blanks, or ten damage. First roll is something like a panic, a damage, and a surge. Worthless. So I reroll all three dice, hoping for blanks...and get a double, double, and single damage icon. Ten damage the hard way! Not super important as there was another turn or two to go, but I just found it hilarious.
Final Score 171-56 for a 9-2
Round 3 vs Andrew Miller -
Andrew is one of the few players local to me. We have spent a lot of time practicing against eachother and we drove down together from Bozeman, which is a way too long trip. In all our practicing, Andrew tends to win more than I do, but we've had a lot of close games.
Andrew's list:
Aliana Summersong with Spear and Ambush predator, The Prince with Malicorn's and the ability to shift people, a 2x3 archers with Rallying Starling, Dispatch Runner, Wind Rune, and Simultaneous Orders, and a 2x3 Leonx with Raven tabards and Moment of Inspiration.
I set up with Lord V in the center, flanked by the archers, with the knights on the left to face the Leonx. and the rest of Andrew's army roughly in the middle.
Turn 1, the right most archers do a 2 speed wheel to face everything else, as the other archers move forward a little and V keeps pace. Nothing too exciting overall, but Summersong gets a little closer.
The next turn, things go bad for Andrew. Hoping to set up a charge on V next turn, he moves Summersong up right before the Archers on the left. V moves up parallel and transforms into her flank. He does 2 wounds on the attack and slaps down the gauntlet, killing her at the end of the round. From there, V is free to charge forward and attack the Prince as my archers move in to help take things out.
Had I not dialed in that move on V, Summersong would have easily killed him next turn, and I would have been in trouble.
As it was, final score was 133-96, for a 7-4
Round 4 vs Justin Hare - Maelstrom, Volatile Runes
With 24 points, I'm currently 2nd overall, and it's time to face my first Uthuk of the day, North American champion Church. The last time I faced Church, he was busy defeating me in the Top 4 at Gen Con. Would today be different!? Not really.
Church was running an improvement on his last list. A bigger unit of Berserkers, a 2x2 Spined Thresher Unit, a 2x1, and of course Ravos.
For Setup, I focused on making the side of his deployment very unwelcoming. In return, he put all of his objects far into the corner where they wouldn't matter at all. I set up archers across from his berserkers, with the second unit further to the right. Knights and Lord V were on the left.
I'm afraid the details of this game were a little rusty, but I managed to surprise him with the 2 wheel maneuver on the archers that I had used previously. As he charged toward the left archers, the right archers were in excellent position to rain down fire.
After a few turns of engagement, I'd decimated the berserkers and killed a tray of spined threshers. The remaining tray was wounded, and fled to escape the deadly arrows. Ravos took a couple wounds before healing up with the pimp cup, and the death knights were dead. At this point, Justin was up by about 20 points, and had the fleeing crab, the big unit of crabs and Ravos. I had a unit of full strength archers and Lord V. Seeing no way to kill much more without losing V, I decided to play cautious, hoping to settle for a 5-6. Justin played things cautious as well, trying to bait Lord V into a place where Ravos could kill him, but the timing was just all wrong and I didn't attack.
Finally at the end of turn 7 Ravos walks into V and the Spined Threshers approach the archers.
Turn 8, I decide to attack and bounce with Lord V. Fearing a charge with Ravos, and at risk of getting flanked, the archers dial in a reform and Corruption Rune to try and stun or immobilize Ravos. However, Justin was worried that a miracle strike from V along with a something from the archers could kill Ravos, so he dialed in defense. I think he may have over-estimated V's damage output, since he would not be flanking, and thus only get a single die.
The archers turned to face the Spine Threshers and get charged. Unfortunately for me, they roll three damage on two dice, removing two entire trays and thus gaining an additional 13 points. That's enough to go from a 5-6 to a 4-7
Final score 78-111, for a 4-7
Round 5 vs Jennifer "JJ" Bedell - Meeting Engagement, Seize the Artifacts
The loss against Church dropped me back to 4th place overall, but I'm still in a position to get top 4. In fact it would later be apparent that all I needed was a 5-6 or better to make the cut.
And that's when everything went horribly, horribly wrong.
JJ was running a list with 4 sets of 2 tray Spined Threshers, all but 1 with Scuttling horror, Kethra with nothing and Ravos with Insatiable.
Things started off alright. Lord V jumped into some terrain on the left, hoping to jump out, tag some Threshers, then jump off and go fight Kethra. The Threshers moved in closer and Kethra bombs them, rolling a mortal strike. Things are looking up!
Turn 2, Lord V transforms and hits the flank of the Threshers. Manages to get a single wound in, a little dissapointing, but not too surprising. There I made my first missed opportunity of the day and failed to hit them with the Gauntlet. Not too bad though, I can use it on Kethra in a minute.
But then the Threshers go. Anticipating the attack, they dialed in an attack. One damage on the dial, and threat 2 due to brutal. She rolls three damage symbols. 8 damage punches through V's protected and delivers 2 wounds. That was...unexpected. Kethra bombs again, and once again fails.
Meanwhile, the archers are shooting, managing to put damage on one of the units, slowly whittling it down. Death Knights are attacking, helping to get rid of a single unit.
Turn 3, Lord V is prepared to dash away from the Threshers, both to escape the range of the Kethra Bomb and to get ready to charge her. He can take a wound from her this turn, and next turn maybe kill her. Before that happens, Kethra activates...and rolls a double hit. No more Lord V.
Demoralized by the loss, the archers proceed to roll mostly blanks for the rest of the game. I don't recall what turn it was, but it was no later than turn 6 before I was tabled.
JJ had an excellent list, and she used it well. I lost everything, while I was only able to destroy a single unit.
Final score was 31-260 (thanks to the artifacts) for a demoralizing 1-10 loss.
With 29 tournament points, I dropped to 9th place, while JJ secured her spot in second.
Despite my pathetic showing, JJ invited Andrew and I to join her and Shane the next day for the grudge match vs San Antonio, which we accepted.
Closing thoughts on Worlds
As usual, it was a great tournament. Everyone I played was friendly and enjoyable to play, and I hope they thought the same of me. Brooks was the grand marshall, and did a good job of answering questions and helping to make sure things were running well.
The only place I feel things went bad...was prize support. I have to admit, I was disappointed with the prize support this year. The shirt was excellent, I'm glad to have something actually Runewars themed. The alt art cards were...ok? But the templates and tokens were lackluster. The prize article ( https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/9/26/rwm-fragments-of-power/ ) describes acrylic templates and shows them as white and yellow, or possibly clear and gold. The actual ones received matched the store championship range rulers, made of wood. The top faction range rulers were identical to the store championship ones, just with the faction symbol added.
The tokens are all clear with gold markings. Individually they each look fine, but by all being the same they aren't easy to differentiate at a glance. Different colored ones like those in the article would have been better.
The prizes weren't awful, it was just a little surprising that they failed to match what was previewed. It makes me wonder if something went wrong and there was some sort of last minute change, or if their was some sort of mistake between the article an the ordering. I don't know if any of the other games had similar issues or not.