The Sophomore Tournament
This past Saturday I competed in the Dice Dojo Winter Open. This tournament was being used by most competitors as a warm up for Adeptacon so the skill of field was rather high, and I found myself as one of the 4 newer players. Despite these factors, this was the first tournament I had signed up for with hopes beyond "Have some fun."
I didn't take pictures, nor really note down map layouts as the day was really long and moving fast overall, but lets see if I can break this down game by game briefly.
The first game I was playing Sally who was using Inquisitorial Agents. I had not yet played this team, and as it was a horde style team, I knew it would be rough for me. This game though, was the first time I really felt confident playing on Tomb World. Any enemy operative that gave me any opportunity to charge or fight was immediately wiped off the map. The issue with this was that there were so many enemies, any kill I would make would result in a retaliation. Usually playing Wreckas, this deal usually works out for me, but he had so many models on the table, it was like pissing into the ocean. I ended this game on a loss at 12-6, which for me in this setting is better than I have ever done against a more experienced opponent.
Game 2 was by far the worst rolled game I have ever played. So bad in fact, I won an award for worst roll of the tournament. My pulsa rocket on turn one landed beautifully, but every roll after that resulted in no damage done to an enemy, and any time I was dealt damage, it was the maximum available. Despite this, I feel all of the choices I did have control over I made correctly. In the future I think I need to have more of a contingency if this starts happening again. 21-2 loss.
It being the small world it is, I got my former doubled teammate Cooper for game 3 on Volkus. This was the opposite of game 2, every roll went well for me, and most importantly, I played to capitalize on this. I table wiped him before turn 4, but didn't get to maximize my Dominate Tac Op as I was mostly charging in, getting a kill or 2, but in an inopportune placement for Coopers response. I did my best to maximize scoring and it ended with 18-2 in my favor.
The final game of the day was a Joe v Joe mirror match. Joe felt like he has played a similar amount to me, and he really did well. He placed a sniper on the top of his sides Volkus terrain and was able to dissuade me from doing most things in the center of the map. This forced me to play the two sides. One side, he wiped me out easily by catching my off guard on an aggressive turn 1 play, the other I got many kills, but too little too late. Another loss, but again, closer than I've ever been in a tournament game against a player who isn't newer than me. A 11-6 loss.
Conclusion
Overall, I finished 18 out of 20. Of the newer players, only Knut did better than me, and I secretly suspect Knut is very good with his Angels of Death in most scenarios. I am very happy with most of the plays I made, and there were very few single moves I made that I regret or that stick out as "yeah you really fucked up" unlike the tournament before.
I think my take aways from the weekends mostly are strategy now, nothing basic like before. Against more horde-y teams, I need to set myself up so if I go for a kill, I'm not exposed after. Really focus on Tac op and Crit ops and let them come to me, as it feels any engagement I can atleast get a kill. Maybe moving to a rocket rack over a pulsa would be the move.
The other thing I'm hung up on is how shut down I feel from an enemy sniper. Sure they ping me for a little here and there, but I can't for the life of me figure out a way to deal with it besides just taking cover. Or an attempted rush for melee, but I don't know how that would play out. I guess I just need to play more games :)
Stoked to be playing more, stoked to be getting better. Ever forward, on to the next one!