Here we are at the next round of Heroclix tournaments! Its winter WKO time! This time I’m getting to make it out to 5 different locations – so this write up is going to be a long one!
WKO #1 – 401 Games in Toronto, Ontario. This first WKO is a constructed one. I have been having fun playing with a Thanos-Copter team so I decided to bring that team for this event. It has the Thanos-Copter at 50 points, 125 point con Thanos, Trelane, Mud Man, retaliators Skyscraper Wonder Woman and Groot, symbiote and some ID cards. Round 1 I faced Tom. He was playing the new Captain Marvel title with the chase on the side, Lockjaw, Mangog, Groot, Haha Joker, Night Nurse, Tony Stark’s car terrain and ID cards. Tom pretty much stayed back near the terrain with everyone except Joker who could call things in as threats come forward while trying to get plot point tokens on Captain Marvel so she can turn into the other chase and healing her up with Night Nurse after taking the unavoidable damage for not having attacked. I kept attacking with call ins trying to take out his Mangog that was scaring me but I needed insane attack rolls with his having ESD next to the terrain. He ended up popping the copter and getting my retal which won him the game 93-43. Round 2 was against Shereef who was playing monsters. Poison, Cap Venom, Clayface with hidden identity, Jeanette, Dr. Frankenstein and Carnage with ID cards. Because he was such close combat, he had a little trouble getting into position with the -2 speed he was getting from the copter. Once he was up in position, I managed in one turn to take out Clayface because he couldn’t get any of his roll-outs. He rolled high enough to get the hidden identity out, but I had enough actions left to also finish him off. He managed to get the copter popped and Thanos only took 1 damage from vehicle damage. I was able to position myself for a single target pulsewave on Poison and then next turn was able to finish him off. I also managed to KO one of his call-ins for 50 points as well. He was able to pop the copter before time was called. I ended up winning 285-60. Round 3 was against Kyle. He was playing the ultra chase Captain Marvel with Starfox, Lockjaw, ID’s, the goblin glider and mjolnir. I typically do the same first turn set up but changed it for this match up. Instead of getting the having Trelane equip the symbiote, I had him call out Cyclops to shoot the goblin glider. This gave his ultra chase no move and attack. He had a really hard time getting to my team with no actual mobility on his pieces so that gave me a chance to equip and get my pieces all set up. He took out my retal and popped the copter. I got his Groot and Starfox. I knew time was coming near and I was looking over at the KO areas and in my head, I was only thinking about the Groot and Starfox and had my total as 100 and him at 101 because he hadn’t used any of his ID cards. Time is called and I tell him he has 101 and he turns to me and says I have 108. I had COMPLETELY forgotten about the goblin glider that I had taken out turn one. That changing my typical first move ended up winning me the game. Round 4. Win and make the top cut, lose and play side events. My opponent is Austin who’s running 250 Black Panther, Groot, Flora, Wakanda map bonus and ID’s. I did the same not typical move against Austin and KO’d his symbiote instead of equipping Trelane. One less roll out to have to deal with. I move my copter up, he moves BP up. He calls out Joker. I outwit Jokers mastermind, call in Wolverine to flurry him, get him to his stop click. I attack with something else.. a retal I think? I don’t remember. I hit, he masterminds to BP because the mastermind is no longer outwitted being in a stop click. I take out his retal, he takes out my retal and scores ID’s to win 48-39. It wasn’t until after the game that we realize that Joker can’t mastermind to BP because they don’t share a keyword and he’s higher points, so I should have won with the 140 points from Joker. It is was it is. Definitely a learning experience! I learn best from mistakes that are later caught, so you can be sure that I’ll pay more attention to that in the future. Austin ended up taking his team to 2nd place which I believe is his best showing ever, so I’m thrilled for him taking it so far and getting the qualification because the winner already had it! I played in side events while the top cuts were happening and ended up walking away with a Black Dwarf and got the Supergiant for fellowship.
WKO #2 – Comic Book Addiction in Whitby, Ontario. This was a sealed WKO. All the sealed events for this season are using Earth X boosters. I ended up making a team of Luke Cage, Spider-Man (with Web-Shooters), Red Union Jack and Captain America, Resilient. My first round was against James. He had Black Panther, Namor and Green Goblin (with Goblin Glider). We both inched up the map, just out of each others range. I made a HUGE misplay and chose to walk Luke up between Namor and Goblin, to tie them up with Plasticity, and I completely forgot about Black Panthers Outwit. So he proceeded to Outwit my defense and used Flurry with Namor to take him out in 1 turn and do some damage to my other pieces that I’d moved into strike range for next turn. James won, 306-0. Round 2 was against Stan. He was playing Karnak, Vulture (prime), Blue Union Jack, Clea and Man-Wolf. Stan moved his pieces up to near the middle of the map and he’d chosen Genosha, so we had the extended starting areas that helps be closer to the middle from the start. I was counting squares and realized that if I used title Cap’s +1 ability to move each friendly character 1 square, it would put me close enough to running shot with Red Union Jack to get an energy explosion off. So I moved up Spider-Man to have my prob within range and got my energy explosion off, injuring a few of his figures. I knew I wouldn’t be able to attack anyone with Cap that turn, so I’d be taking a damage for using the title ability – so I moved him up to base the guys who I just hurt, knowing that I have Combat Reflexes when I take the damage. Next turn I’m now in range to go after his Vulture and get him down to his last click and now he’s not so scary. We had a lot of back and forth but I ended up getting the win, 300-180. Round 3, I knew I would be facing Mike because we were both 1-1 with 300 points exactly. He was playing Blue Union Jack, Venom (prime), Police Sergeant and Black Bolt. Mike wins map and picks his favorite, Wizkids Office. He moves up and is behind the wall in the middle. I inch up to the wall on the other side. I move Luke Cage up the hallway to stop him from getting to the rest of the team. He knocks him down off his Charge clicks so I have no way to get after his team with him. He ends up breaking through the wall with Union Jack to let Venom Charge through and go after Cap. He takes him out pretty quickly and gains negative trait to re-roll attacks on my turn, which I quickly end up calling “stupidness” and that’s how it was referred to from then on. I managed to take out everyone except Black Bolt, so I got half his team with a loss of 306-150. Round 4 the WIN had paired me with Stan again. It also paired Mike with Dominic, who had already faced. So we ended up just switching opponents so I faced Dominic because I had already played both Mike and Stan. Dominic was playing Stegron, Spider-Man (with Web-Shooters), Red Union Jack, Lizard and Ezekiel Sims. We both inch up and I’m able to use Caps +1 title to move everyone 1 to get Red Union into range to Running shot, Energy Explode and Cap is also in range to Running Shot himself as well, so he won’t take the damage for using a title ability. We each end up taking out most of the pieces and by then I have enough plot points to have Cap do his -3 to go across the map to where Stegron is hiding next to the hindering. I knock him down but it’s not enough to get him. The game ended with both of us on last click going back and forth and whoever hit first was going to take out the last piece to win the game. We went at least 4 (quick) rounds until I landed a hit and took him out for the win of 301-226. Again, I play side events because I wasn’t in the top cut and today end up getting the Mandarin ring and I.S.S.A.C. So even though I haven’t yet made the cuts, I have all the prizing possible except for the 1st place prize.
WKO #3 – Eternal Games in Warren, Michigan. It’s time for another carpool, yay! Jay picks me up after work Friday and we head out to Michigan to crash at Adams house. This is a sealed WKO. I end up under building by 31 points to keep theme. My team consisted of Medusa, Silver Sable, Black Panther, Ox and the Symbiote. Every round I equip Black Panther with the Symbiote. My first round opponent was Calvin. He had crazy pulls! His team was Venom (prime), chase Captain Venom, dad Spider-Man and Black Bolt. He comes up with Black Bolt and targets Medusa with a Hypersonic attack and I manage to roll a 6 on my Super Senses. I don’t remember exactly what I did next but I got 4 damage off on his Venom. Then I Running Shot with Silver Sable to target his Spider-Man with Energy Explosion because he’s next to both Venom and Captain Venom. He goes to roll Shape Change with his 2 Venom’s and I tell him that splash targets don’t get Shape Change. He disagrees and we call over the judge, who sides with him and he gets his Shape Change. My attack would’ve KO’d his Venom with 2 clicks of life left (pending Super Senses of course). I’ve since learned where to look in the rule book under “becomes” to show why I was correct, but it was it was after the game ended, so I ended up losing 50-30. Round 2 was against Jonathan. He was playing Black Bolt, Venom Black Panther, Red Union Jack, The Hydra and Vulturon. I inched up the map with free moves and sidesteps. He moves his team halfway up the map. I come in with a multi-target Quake with Medussa and hurt a bunch of his figures. I follow up with outwitting Shape Change and charging in with Ox to severely hurt him. Next turn I come up with an Energy Explosion with Silver Sable and take out a bunch of his figures who were now hurt and push Medusa to Quake the group that’s left. It comes down to his Black bolt against my team and I manage to chase him down to KO him. I won 300-0. Round 3 was against Jay who was built a team with Captain America, Resilient, The Hydra, The Skull, Clea and Police Sergeant. We both inch up a little. I Charge in with Ox to try and take out one of his little guys and miss-remembered the dial so I chose to not use the object I was holding and don’t end up killing it. He Mind Controls me to move him around for his other guys to kill. I come up with Silver Sable to try an Energy Explosion, miss the attack and the next turn he KO’s her too. His Clea see’s my stealthy Black Panther and is able to take him out and I lose 269-55. Round 4 was against Timothy. He was playing Clea, Jackal, Karnak and Beetle with Beetle Pod. Timothy positioned early in such a way that I was able to get a multi target Quake off with Medusa and then charge in with Ox, easily getting the first kill in. He chose to heal Beetle with Jackal, putting him back to top click, but the rest of his team was very hurt. I ended up being able to finish them all off only losing Ox in the process winning 308-50. Last round of Swiss was against Andy. He had a team with Madame Hydra, Captain America, Resilient, Blue Union Jack, Police Sergeant and Tinkerer. He moves up with them, putting them on a rooftop where I can only see 1 person and he’s got the defense perplexed up. I move up so I’m ready for striking position next turn and he moves up a little and clears. I don’t remember the exact play by play of how it went down but we had a great battle that was close with each of us taking out pieces in a close game. I ended up wiping his team for a final score of 290-175. That’s it for the Swiss rounds. They put up the final list with the cut to top 8 and I’m in 9th, missing the top cut by 42 points! So close! Jay made the top cut so I sign up to play in a battle royal and a Captain Venom gets pulled in our pod! I end up coming in 1st with the most points, so I won a Cap Venom!! Jay makes the finals against Adam! So I play in another battle royal and wouldn’t you know it, ANOTHER Captain Venom gets pulled. I end up being 1st target and all my figures get killed in the first 15 mins. Huge congratulations goes out to Jay who wins the WKO! Our long day isn’t over though because we have to travel back tonight so I can make it into work in the morning. Today was a really fun day and totally worth the travel.
WKO #4 – Jacks On Queen in Elmvale, Ontario. It’s carpool time again! Kyle comes to my house nice and early and Mike picks us up for the the trip to Elmvale, about 1.5 hours away. This WKO is the only other constructed one in the area and I’ve decided to change my team. Today I played Vulture (Prime), Unseen, Lockjaw, The Rose, Big Tony x2, Stark Tower map bonus (hoping to lose map roll, spoiler – I did lose map every single game) so I could get the prob pog and some ID cards. Round 1 I’m paired with Aden. He’s playing Witch Queen LeFay, Sheriff Strange, Alex Wilder, Dormammu, Tri-Sentinel and a Goblin Glider. Aden puts us on the Underground Caverns map and turn 1 we both grab our objects and inch up a little. Next turn I’m able to TK Vulture into range to start my chain of Charge/Flurries. I hit both Dormammu and Tri-Sentinel and get his Sheriff Strange too. I attempt hitting Alex but he rolls Shape change and so I go after Witch Queen. He takes out Vulture and the Big Tony’s and time is called with him just having Alex left on the map. I won the game 273-108. Round 2 I’m facing Jay. This was my most feared match of the day because I honestly didn’t know if I could take it down. He’s playing full point Black Panther, Suited Henchmen, Skyscraper Wonder Woman, Wakanda map bonus, Loki Staff and a few ID’s. Jay wins map and puts us on Wakanda for his bonuses. I know my only chance to get him is if I can hit him enough times without him getting some of his roll outs. My I get my Vulture up to a 12/5 and come after Wonder Woman, hit her, get my 2nd attack on Black Panther but he rolls out with Super Senses. I get the Suited Henchmen, 2nd attack on Black Panther and this one connects. I just kept trying every attack I could between Unseen calling in and Lockjaw attacking. I got very lucky with rolls for Lockjaw keeping him on the Hypersonic/Presision Strike click, which helped against the Super Sense rolls. Just a few minutes before time was called, I got him onto his last stop click and he tried to keep me from getting to him by placing a Zombie in the way of the stairs. I used the prob pog to shoot it and then came in with Lockjaw for the final hit to KO him and won 300-75. Any other roll outs for him and time would have been called and he would have had the game. So close! Round 3 was against Devin. He was playing a funky team of Lord Chaos and Master Order, Zatanna, Dr. Strange (shifting focus), Tri-Sentinel, Alex Wilder, Tony Starks Car (terrain) and ID’s. We’d been doing some playtesting and I know my chances of winning against Devin is very low. I’d need to win map and I’d need to get the first hit in. That didn’t happen. He knew exactly what he needed to do to kill Vulture on turn 2 in my starting area. He needed an 8 to hit with 2 probs in his favor and out of range of my probs. He had to use both his probs to do it, but he hit on his 3rd try at rolling. He puts us on the hedge maze and it’s very difficult for me to get the rest of the team to him. I do take out his Tri-Sentinel and something else and ended up losing 350-88. Round 4 and my opponent is Tom. We’re both at 2-1, so we both need the win here to guarantee the cut and we’re both hoping to take enough points so the person who loses can be one of the 2-2’s who make it. Tom’s built a team with Phil Coulson, Sam Cap, Foot Elite x3, Ameradroid x2, Mouser, Pym Pocket Tank, Boxing ring and ID’s. Tom moves up into the boxing ring and calls out Jean Grey. He perplexes up her range and has her TK my Octopus Arms back to basically his starting area, meaning no Flurries for my Vulture. Because of the distance he’s moved up, I am able to get to him turn 1 because I no longer need to equip. I TK Vulture up with Lockjaw and Charge into the ring, taking out the Pym Pocket tank. I then charge over to KO Mouser pog. Which lets me do another Charge and there is a Heavy object near by so I use it to take out the Jean Grey. There was no one else in the ring who I could one shot, so I just did a bunch of damage to one of the Foot Elites. I don’t know why I didn’t choose to go after one of the Ameradroids, I think I forgot they were back there in the starting area. My alpha strike worked tho and I’d taken more points than Vulture was worth. We went back and forth with our attacks and when time was called I had won 229-93. When they announced top 8, Tom had enough points that he made it into the cut as well. In top 8, I was facing Aden again. This time we remembered that I needed to take double power actions because of Sheriff Strange because we had both somehow forgot that in our first game (Round 1 is for practice and learning your team, right?! lol). We both inched up and equipped our objects again. I found a way to get to his retaliators again and killed them both off, as well as Sheriff Strange. I get 1 hit on his Witch Queen, taking her off her awesome top clicks and then don’t manage to hit her again with any more attacks the whole game. Aden gets more from my team this time and when time is called he wins 141-115. Mike wins the event (Congratulations!!), so I’m there until the end again and play a battle royal with Tom, Jason and Amber. We pull nothing that anyone is interested in so it’s just a really fun game with lots of laughs and Tom dominating. All in all, I feel like I played my team well and I’m having a lot of fun with it. I may do a little tweak to it but I think I’m going to continue to play this team for States/Provincials.
WKO #5 – Millennium Games in Rochester, New York. More carpooling! Jay and I head off nice and early, doing this one as a day trip. This is a sealed WKO. I don’t manage a theme team this time. My team consisted of Lizard, Tinkerer, dad Spider-Man, The Hydra (Sharon Carter), The Skull, Doctor Octopus and the Mini-Slayer equipment. My first opponent is Charles and he made a similar team to mine, consisting of Lizard, Doctor Octopus, Luke Cage and Morbius. We had a really good close game of back and forth and the dice were the deciding factor in this game. He positioned really well for most of the game, hiding his figures in stealth so I couldn’t get Mind Controls off with The Skull. I was really scared of his Luke Cage so I put all that I had into him to get him out quickly. I picked the rest of the pieces off one by one and he was able to talk out half my team in the process. I won 285-155. Round 2 was against Steve who was playing Vulturian, Sandman, Silver Sable, Fancy Dan, Montana, Alister Smythe with Mini Slayer and Daredevil. He wins map and comes right up to basically the middle point. I pull off a Mind Control with The Skull, which he Masterminds off to someone with Invulnerability that I didn’t realize they had, making it basically a wasted attack. I move up the rest of the team to get into position. He kept trying to tie me up with Daredevil with Poison but I kept Mind Controlling him to get him away and rolled some 6’s in the process, taking off his Six tokens. His dice were really terrible and he missed most of his attacks. I ended up taking his team and won 294-90. Round 3 I played Joe, part of the winning team of 2018 Team Worlds. He made a team with Silver Sable, They Hydra, They Hydra, Karnak, Karnak, President Osborn and Man-Wolf. We were joking around before the tournament started and talking about maps. Hedge Maze was mentioned and I expressed how much I hate that map. As soon as he won map roll, he chose that one without even looking at my team because he knew I hated it. Then he realized that I have The Skull and it was a great choice against me. He positions really well, working his way up, just out of my reach. He gets his little guys just behind and ready for using theme probs. He gets the first strike off, but has to use a few of his theme probs for missing, but one connects and knocks Sharon down her dial. I used dad spidey to move her out of the way so I have room for Doc Ock to come in. Next turn I have fun with Sharon’s improved targeting characters and shoot through my figures to Energy Explode on his group of figures, but miss the attack. It was still fun to do and surprised him. A bunch of using Support to try and heal Sharon back up only prolonged the game to let me live just that little bit longer. I ended up taking down the 2 Karnaks and he got the all of my team because it ended up coming down to just The Skull and he kept Man-Wolf as the only target with Battle Fury so there was nothing I could do. I lost 289-100. Round 4 was against Ricky. I’ve faced him once before in a top 4 game and knew he was a really good player. He made a team of Loki, Electro, Karnak and Sandman. He kept his stealthy people in hindering so I couldn’t see them with The Skull. I tried coming up the map and attacking with the others, but EVERY.SINGLE.ATTACK that I made missed. The only ones that hit were the few that The Skull got in when he could see, but the resulting Mind Controlled figures couldn’t hit any of their attacks either. Ricky felt really bad about how badly my dice were screwing with me and we had good conversation which made the game still enjoyable and as usual, I just kept laughing through all the misses. Ricky wins 289-0. Jay came in 5th, but the venue had decided to cut to top 4 instead of top 8 so no battle royals this time because we didn’t have to wait around for anyone in the top cut so we just left to make it back to Toronto earlier.
That’s it for this round of WKO’s. Had a blast playing the game as usual and can’t wait for States/Provincials coming up in just a few short weeks!
Until next time,
xoxo