Spring Recruits 13 Freeblades Tournament

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A Hero Shall Rise!

A report from Jon – 14 June 2013

And look for DGS Games at Origins!

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Ed Note: don’t forget to check out DGS’s current Kickstarter campaign!

Our third official tournament was a great success. The format was 200 gold Freebands, with the twist that only the Leader and Caster heroes could be taken. The rest of the freebands had to be followers, with one surviving follower rising up to hero level after each round. The format brought about some interesting situations, seeing massive pile-ons, but also mass panic! And then there is the rise of the Thug follower to hero status, which due to his END of d8 made him a 3 LP hero, with Die Hard on a d10!

Jeremy McKean (Champion) extended his reign of terror with a solid 4-0 performance showing us all that trying to get past well-commanded Trilian defenders remains a very tricky business indeed.

Trever Leikam (Best Painted) stunned with his extremely well painted County Vasilar Haradelan freeband.

Tim Gaffney (Best Sport) set the standard for class and grace. I walked the tables often each round and Tim’s was always the one with the highest comfort level and the most laughs.

I have played in and run literally hundreds of game tournaments in a dozen game systems and while biased obviously, I can’t tell you how smoothly Freeblades events go. There’s no arguments, no dice throwing, no frowny faces. I think I maybe had to answer three rules questions in 32 games.

Grular, Haradel and Trilias were all represented, but only one Bandit freeband. We at DGS find that a little surprising with the only two attack follower, heroes that can attack followers when also fighting the enemy leader and Caster and Thugs tying up the enemy so well once advanced to heroes. Of course our local Bandit players could not make the event and all the Freebands have something to recommend themselves in this format.

The players played four scenarios: Beast Hunt, Treasure Hunt, Area Recon and Skirmish, in that order. Area Recon is a new scenario still being playtested. While it worked fine, we are discussing some possible tweaks on the playtest forum and appreciate the help the players are giving us in expanding the number of scenarios we have.

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Terrain ranged from the deep underground through ruined villages to a mammoth graveyard and the infamous “ambush hill.” In 32 games, I ended up putting two players on the same table twice through not being careful – my own personal lesson learned. It would have been easy to avoid. The good news is that the two double ups were on the Ruin table and the Mammoth Graveyard, two of the most fun tables to play on.

While we had a clear winner, after that it was a very tight group. With a three-way tie for second and a two way tie for fifth after that got resolved, both having to go to the second tie-breaker.

We gave out a ton of prizes. Everyone got a model for playing. Winner, Best Sport and Best Painted all got a nice cut stone plaque and a six model freeband and Mike Hall won our Creature Pack raffle and walked away with a Golat, Vekul, Grush, Alpha Plakhra and four Plakhra – everything one needs to play the Beast Hunt and Demon Infestation scenarios.

You guys are an absolute pleasure to run events for and we at DGS look very forward to our next tournament in May where the Urdaggar will make their debut on the field. Watch for the announcement soon.

Gamers Rule!

Jon

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