A view from inside the one, and only, Hyperpower of the Infinity setting - PanOceania. Discussing the tabletop wargame, the setting and background, the roleplaying game and Aristeia!
Join me in the Tempest Hexadome for this throwdown between the Deepwater Dragons and the Thunderbolts. This was our third match in the Regular Season of the Auckland Aristeia League, played with the Koorie Queen Mod, live streamed thanks to https://www.twitch.tv/knlghth00d
The Dragons team: Dart, Eclypse, Gaia and Valkyrie
Selected from a full roster of: Dart, Eclypse, Gata, Gaia, Koorie Queen, Maximus, Mendoza and Valkyrie after Koorie Queen was banned by the Thunderbolts under the Koorie Queen Mod.
The Bad Wolves team: Eclypse, hEXx3r, Lunah and Mushashi
Selected from a full roster of: 8-Ball, Bixie, Eclypse, Hannibal, hEXx3r, Lunah, Massacre and Mushashi after Massacre was banned by the Dragons under the Koorie Queen Mod.
Scenario: Frenzied Dance
I had hilariously over-analysed the scoring zone and convinced myself that it was different from the usual Ziggurat missions. But it's not. However with the zones being "cleared" of affiliation after each Round the importance of having stickability was paramount.
I had intended to run a rendition of my "All The Hidden, All The Time" Team with Dart, Eclypse and Koorie Queen joined by either Valkyrie or Gaia. When the 'bolts banned Koorie Queen I simply pulled in both of my "last choice" Aristos, which proved to be an excellent decision.
The match was dominated by my opening play with Gaia, pulling both Obliteration and Epirogenesis with my mulligan, which placed her last aggressively positioned behind Lunah and the 'bolts Eclypse who she pulled into a corner and pinned down with Gorgoneions for the duration.
Combined with three Frags on hEXx3r and one on Mushashi (who spent the entire match so far out of position that he never got to actually make an attack across four rounds) from Valkyrie and Dart made for a nearly impossible match for the 'bolts.
Tune in next week for the first of a series of Aristo Analysis videos from KN1GHTH00D, starting with the alleged "Queen of the Hexadome" ('though after tonight I suspect the Dragons media team are going to be disputing that title) hEXx3r.
Join me in the Tempest Hexadome for this throwdown between the Deepwater Dragons and the Bad Wolves. This was our second match in the Regular Season of the Auckland Aristeia League, played with the Koorie Queen Mod, live streamed thanks to https://www.twitch.tv/knlghth00d
The Dragons team: Dart, Gaya, Maximus and Mendoza
Selected from a full roster of: Dart, Eclypse, Gata, Gaya, Koorie Queen, Maximus, Mendoza and Valkyrie after Valkyrie was banned by the Bad Wolves under the Koorie Queen Mod.
The Bad Wolves team: Maximus, Murtair, Shona Carano and Taowu
Selected from a full roster of: Bachnann, Bixie, Hammerhead, Kozmo, Maximus, Murtair, Parvati, Shona Carano and Taowu after Kozmo was banned by the Dragons under the Koorie Queen Mod.
Scenario: Broken Land
Losing Valkyrie threw me initially, as she was pretty key to my plans for how to play this scenario. Holding a Ziggurat AND bonus points for killing opposing Aristos in the Ziggurat AS WELL AS bonus points for killing while in the Zone?
Yeah, she was the right ban to pick.
However that just opened me up to picking Gaya, who I was probably going to hold back from in favour of Valkyrie. And boy, OH BOY, did Gaya work out well.
We have another match next Wednesday, playing Frenzied Dance against the Mollusks, streaming live on Twitch from 8:30pm New Zealand time. Join us for the latest action from the Tempest Hexadome!
Join me in the Tempest Hexadome for this throwdown between the Deepwater Dragons and the Cherry Bombs. This was our first match in the Regular Season of the Auckland Aristeia League, played with the Koorie Queen Mod, live streamed thanks to https://www.twitch.tv/knlghth00d
The Dragons team: Dart, Eclypse, Koorie Queen and Valkyrie
Selected from a full roster of: Dart, Eclypse, Gata, Koorie Queen, Maximus, Mendoza and Valkyrie after Mendoza was banned by the Thunderbolts under the Koorie Queen Mod.
The Thunderbolts team: Hannibal, Lunah, Massacre and Prysm
Selected from a full roster of: Eclypse, Gata, Hannibal, hEXx3r, Laxmee, Lunah, Massacre and Prysm after hEXx3r was banned by the Dragons under the Koorie Queen Mod.
Scenario: Witchland
I had walked in wanting to run close to what I actually put on the table, with my initial plan for the team being Dart, Eclypse, Gata and Koorie Queen. But in response to the Bombs Team selections I decided to put in Valkyrie instead of Gata.
As things played out I was relatively pleased with that choice, although in retrospect the relative mobility of Gata and her ability to Dazzle might have been just as useful as the damage output from Valkyrie as the Bombs didn't have a lot in the way of Displacement for Valkyrie to ignore.
We have another match this Wednesday, against the Bad Wolves, streaming live on Twitch from 8:30pm New Zealand time. Join us for the latest action from the Tempest Hexadome!
Join me in the Tempest Hexadome for this throwdown between the Deepwater Dragons and the Thunderbolts. This was an early taster of how the final game from the Otono Cup would play out, live streamed thanks to https://www.twitch.tv/knlghth00d
The Dragons team: Maximus, Valkyrie, Mendoza and Dart
The Thunderbolts team: Hannibal, Massacre, hEXx3r and 8-Ball
Scenario: Witchland
This match is actually from the end of April 2019, but I had another game of Witchland in the Tempest Hexadome against the Cherry Bombs streaming live on the 3rd of July which I'll have up soon.
On Sunday the 16th of June 2019 New Zealand saw its first ever Aristeia! tournament, at the Hobbymaster Event Center in Penrose, Auckland.
The Otono Cup was a three round AGL event with the Carano Mod, featuring Assault, King of the Hill and Carnage as the Scenarios.
The excitement, showmanship and action of the Hexadome dazzled as six teams battled for the honour of raising "The Bear", our beautiful trophy.
In our last article we covered the Deepwater Dragons team which I selected for the event. One point
which I did not discuss in great detail in that article was the need, in selection, to consider the full range of Scenarios being played and not just one matchup.
In selecting Maximus, Valkyrie, Mendoza and Dart I hoped to cover a good range of different situations on the table. Largely I saw Maximus as a literal shield, not really acting often himself except to get into position and take hits for the rest of the team. Mendoza was there to stop partway hits on Valkyrie and Dart from sticking, and keep bringing Max back up so he didn't go down. Valkyrie and Dart were both my killing pieces, and my scoring pieces. Both offered decent speed and the ability to prevent opponents removing them from the Scoring Zone.
When I stuck to that general outline, things went well. When I didn't (my third match in particular) the wheels started to come off.
Round One: Assault
Deepwater Dragons
VS
Bad Wolves
Our first opposition were our old friends and rivals the Bad Wolves, with whom we were very familiar after the Pre-Season AAL. They were bringing Maximus, Murtair, Kozmo and Parvati in their Team for the Cup.
With Murtair dragging down their Initiative Total the Bad Wolves were starting as the Underdogs, but they put us into a Starting Zone which allowed us an unobstructed advance and we set up relatively confident that we would be able to execute our plan to get up in the first round.
We pushed up our whole team into the Center Zone, with Maximus activating first and leading the way. Both Max and Valkyrie got into position and helped to block, 'though in order to prevent a tie I had to push Dart into the Scoring Zone (so the Wolves Max couldn't make it in).
The Bad Wolves then scored unopposed as a series of bad disengagements, combined with my own Aristos failing to hold anyone in place, along with an excellent shot from Parvati (taking out Valkyrie entirely before she activated) but while Murtair went down from the Wolves, so too did Dart.
In the third phase the Wolves made a brilliant play to counter the unopposed Mendoza in the Scoring Zone, using "Track" to cover the remaining space his move wouldn't allow for while the rest of the Aristos were largely still tied down in a swirling melee in the center of the field.
In the fourth phase the Dragons Max moved up to his counterpart and managed to displace him using "Scram" to clear Valkyrie (after his Shield failed to do the job).
This allowed the Norse Goddess to move down and attack Murtair, 'though she failed to put the Wolf-boy out of commission to free Mendoza.
Thankfully Dart came around and Mendoza then disengaged and double moved across to win the Zone.
This meant that the final score would depend on the last phase, with the Dragons going in on 5 points to the 4 of the Wolves. Successfully saturating the Scoring Zone in Smoke meant that Kozmo wasn't getting anywhere, and Valkyrie managed to move close enough to the Wolves Max to drop Frostburn, giving us the chance to win. But with Mendoza out of range and Dart failing to Disengage from Parvati it left just the Dragons Max to move into the Zone and tie it up for the phase.
Final Score: Dragons 6 - Bad Wolves 5
Frags: Dragons 1 - Bad Wolves 3
Round Two: King of the Hill
Deepwater Dragons
VS
Thunderbolts
In round two of the cup we met another rival from the AAL Pre-Season, the Thunderbolts. They had stuck to their well tested team combination of Hannibal, 8-Ball, Massacre and hEXx3r.
The Deepwater Dragons started as the Underdogs but the choice of starting Zones wasn't too critical for the match. The Dragons took a relatively dispersed approach, while the Thunderbolts stayed in a slightly tighter formation.
The key element which decided this match was well timed Frags. Massacre was taken out twice to prevent him activating to eliminate Dragon Aristos, Hannibal just before he ordered 8-Ball to clear out the Scoring Zone and while hEXx3r spent much of the match frustrated by Valkyrie and Dart (with Hidden making it difficult to play games with her either) she, too, went down at a critical juncture.
Keeping 8-Ball in the Zone for most of the game, while the Dragons targets were largely outside the Zone, slowed down scoring so that the game ran to Round 5. But despite a good last moment hEXx3r play to pull Max out of the Zone and put herself in for a Draw things still ended up in the Dragons favour.
Final Score: Dragons 8 - Thunderbolts 4
Frags: Dragons 5 - Bad Wolves 1
Round Three: Carnage
Deepwater Dragons
VS
Cherry Bombs
The third round is where the wheels came off in terms of my personal performance as a Manager. A couple of dodgy early decisions followed by an entire game of playing Max wrong (moving him into opposing Aristos rather than to his Team) was only barely pulled back at the very end.
But, before we get to that, our opposition were our third regular opponents from the Pre-Season League (yes, there WERE two other players there with their Teams but the Dragons didn't meet them on the Hexadome) the Cherry Bombs. They had revised their lineup from the Pre-Season however, and now fielded Prysm, Lunah, Laxmee and Gata.
The Dragons were the Underdogs and I selected a Starting Zone with good total cover to prevent an Aristo who had not activated being picked off. With the tighter restriction on deployment offered by the Scenario Maximus couldn't make it into the Zone, and was then cut off from Mendoza, who advanced in and to the cover on the edge of the Zone, by Prysm moving past and between them. This set Mendoza up to drop from a well executed Lunah shot, while Valkyrie totally whiffed her attack.
In the following round Dart and Mondoza put Prysm down, but the Dragons failed to score the Zone, as none of their Aristos moved back sufficiently and another round of sharp shooting from Lunah sent Valkyrie to the infirmary. Max wombled meaninglessly around the table center.
In Round three Mendoza went to work, moving up and blowing Lunah away, while Valkyrie pinned (and was pinned by) Prysm. Max wandered in the center of the table for some reason, while Dart moved to score, only to have Gata flash across to counter and draw up the zone.
Dart now failed to clear her Dazzled State, leaving the scoring zone locked up, Lunah respawned and shot to no avail before being put right back into the Infirmary by Mendoza. Max finally started to move, but still didn't reach anywhere useful and Valkyrie picked off Laxmee.
In the last round the re-spawned Lunah had Max next to her, but shot anyway BECAUSE THAT'S NOT HOW MAX WORKS! She got her shot off, put Mendoza down and prevented a kill on Prysm. Which lined up a face off for the ages, Gata tried to Contender Dart, but didn't quite finish her off, leaving her Dazzled. Dart used her own Contender and with a mutual Frag both Managers were left with their teams on 8 points.
Somehow this entirely lackluster performance (seriously, what the HELL was I doing in that last round?) was nevertheless enough to earn me first place in the event (I was the only undefeated player).
There was a lot of support, because our local Aristeia! WarCor did an excellent job drumming up prizes. And did you see how awesome that trophy looks?!? There were prizes for First Frag of the day, Most Frags Scored, Least Frags Taken, Best Painted... and then the category that I benefited from. My fellow players voted the Deepwater Dragons their favorite Team of the event (I can't help but feel all the blogging I've done on them has helped).
For another view point on the tournament I recommend the Aristeia! Tempest Hexadome video:
Now, where to from here?
The Auckland Aristeia League or AAL Season starts now and runs 'till mid August. We've already decided we are using the Koorie Queen Mod for the Season, which means I'm expanding out my Bench for the Dragons.
And I need to get ready for bans!
After that, we'll play one capstone tournament, which will be our farewell to Season Two of the Aristeia Global League.
The next few "Aristo Analysis" writeups will be on the Aristos I'm adding to the Bench for the Dragons to make up my Starting Eight. After that we'll move on to the remaining PanOceanian Aristos and finally we'll take a look at non-PanOceanian Aristos in the "Rivals" series. But that isn't likely 'till Season 3, or even 2020.
There will be more Infinity content coming up soon as well, as we prep for the next Global Campaign, which Heart of the Hyperpower will cover in detail.
Tonight in the Varunadome the Deepwater Dragons met the Cherry Bombs in a match of Scorched Earth.
With the Carano mod still in effect the Deepwater Dragons team is unchanged, with the linup of Maximus, Valkyrie, Padre Mendoza and Dart taking the field for this, the third round of the pre-season league.
The Cherry Bombs linup is, likewise, unchanged from what you may have seen in their earlier preseason matches. They bring Prysm, Miyamoto Mushashi, Bixie and Parvati into the match.
Round one sees Maximus taking up a dominant position in the initial, central, scoring zone, to be joined by Prysm and Padre Mendoza. Mushashi moved up into a flanking position and launched an pair of attacks on Mendoza, but was unable to deal enough damage with Maximus in position to protect the good Father.
Dart then sniped out the Bombs key striker, with Focus and great aim for the First Blood of the match. Bixie jumped over the two Dragons guarding the edge of the scoring zone, only to meet a messy fate on the wrong end of Valkyrie's axe, leaving the Bombs two Aristos down at the end of the first round.
With the Bombs trailing on the scoreboard they retained the Underdog and made zone two scoring for the second round. Prysm lashed out at Padre Mendoza, but thanks to his healing managed only to Taunt Maximus. Then Valkyrie charged, but dealt no effective damage, although her Frostburn on Parvati would prove decisive. Parvati was forced to Reset in order to move, preventing her from reaching the scoring zone. As Bixie and Mushashi dropped into potential future scoring zones Dart and Mendoza failed to achieve much other than Taunts for their efforts against Prysm, while Maximus strolled unopposed into zone two to score.
Picking zone six to score next the Bombs did what they could to lock down the Dragons, while keeping Bixie and Mushashi in position for a 3-4-5 sweep to victory. With most of the Dragons forced to attack Prysm this seemed to be working well but a one-hex miss-positioning of Bixie prevented her, with -1 Energy, from reaching the zone and Dart dropped Ambush to double-move into the scoring zone and pick up the points for the Dragons.
Playing to keep the margin down the Bombs picked zone three to score in the fourth round. Parvati activated first and Dart chose to Switch in response to a solid attack in order to achieve a mutual Frag. While Mushashi scored unopposed, Valkyrie and Mendoza double-teamed Bixie to eliminate her and Maximus finally finished off Prysm.
With two Dragons standing beside the only possible final scoring zone there wasn't really much of a chance for the Bombs to pull the match back. Dart and Mendoza tried to take out the returning Parvati, but couldn't pull out the damage in this final round for the extra frag.
After a tough night in the Varunadome the Cherry Bombs ended with only two points and just the one Frag, on Parvati.
The Deepwater Dragons finished with two Frags each on Dart and Valkyrie (only one token got placed in an error) while Maximus managed to pick up one Frag of his own.
Although Prysm did a good job of keeping the Dragons marked up in the mid-game, the early losses proved hard for the Bombs to overcome.
Some rough luck in several of the facedowns certainly didn't help.
Key moments in the match included:
1: The first turn elimination of Mushashi and Bixie, as well as Padre Mendoza surviving the attacks from Mushashi. Good dice helped with the Dragons Frags, and the poor rolling streak of the Bombs started early here, but it was the placement of Maximus and Mendoza's healing which kept Mushashi from getting his kill.
2: The Frostburn from Valkyrie on Parvati, preventing the Cherry Bombs from getting an Aristo into the scoring zone on round two, along with Maximus ability to simply walk away to score himself.
3: The impact of the Energy penalty on Bixie, as well as her one-hex miss-positioning, preventing her from scoring in round three, along with the well timed Ambush allowing Dart to secure the win for the Dragons.
4: Allowing the Cherry Bombs to score on round four, in order to secure the only remaining zone for round five, ensuring a solid margin overall and giving time for extra Frags (even 'though that didn't play out).
