One week left. Usually at this point in the tournament tree of life, you are either locked on a team or narrowed down to one of two, maybe three teams to play. You've run the gauntlet and playtested like mad. Then, something funny happens. You see something you didn't think about.
Last Friday before my local Battlegrounds, I was working from home and was perusing Vassal, during my lunch break of course. Whilst perusing said wonderful program, I ended up looking at the core set minis. No particular reason was driving this, I just was.
Then I saw her.
And something clicked with me and it was like a flash. The team was perfect and I had to try it out.
So who goes with her? Who else but the usual suspects of powerful minis:
So what's the deal here you say? Well first, let's go over the main ABCs I played with:
Magistrix Kiala
Thangal
Haruka Skycaller
In short, here's how this flash came to me. Hm, Kiala. Hey, she can summon Piztog, I never use him though. Hm. Wait. Why not park Piztog on the opponent's spawn point? It forces them to come after Kiala.
The team is only 22 honor, so it's not super low, but for teams like Vashj or Jaina, it forces someone to come to you. But Steel you say, Hunter's will destroy Kiala and remove Piztog. Nay I say! Even if they have hunters, you can effectively block LOS to Kiala if need be. Don't believe me?
Think about this. If you have lower honor than your opponent, all you have to do is choose the right side of the board, and you are guaranteed to block LOS:
Notice anything else about that picture? With Piztog on the board, Kiala has 10 health, Haruka has 9 and Thangal in Bear Form has 10! That makes the already dynamically hard duo of Thangal and Haruka so hard to kill, it's wild!
It was interesting at the Battleground, as all my opponents did the same thing I thought people would do as a natural reaction. Once they saw Piztog come out, they kept one of their minis back to sit on their spawn point, thinking the same thing I first did, that if they hover on it, they stop Piztog from getting on it. Thing is, that no matter what you do, Piztog can get on it. Let's say this is the set up:
Elanna Starbreeze has stayed back to hover on her spawn point, thinking that she can keep Piztog from getting on it. Parvink in this instance, has the flag and has brought it back and is uber confident she is about to score 7 valued VPs! However, in order to cap it, the blue player HAS to move Elanna first. The turn ends and Piztog then goes, and steps on the spawn point! Since the Imp always ticks 1, you will almost always, unless you play it wrong, end up on their spawn point! They can not stop it.
So far in almost all my games, the strategy was almost comical. Someone stays back, which makes it a nice 3 on 2 already. I DOT someone, fear them, and then have Haruka and Thangal go to town on the third mini coming to me. Meanwhile I literally LET my opponent take the flag with no issues. They run it back with the DOT'ted mini thinking they will score 7 VPs with it before it dies to the DOT, only to realize they have played themselves into a trap. Yes, it's a TRAP! and oh how nice it is to spring!
So far, in a 9-0 record playing this team, the only feasible way to stop Piztog from being on the opponents spawn point is to play moronically, or have them kill Kiala. Now, think of all the ways they have to kill her? They either melee her, in which case you position Thangal in Bear Form and say "RAWR!" which means, you have to kill me through 3 armor and 10 life, with my green friend here healing me. Or, they have to hit her from range with hunters, which we've already gone over, you can block LOS to her almost permanently, and if you aren't on that side of the map, you can still do a good amount of blocking and healing to keep her up.
Oh, and the FEAR! Don't my friends, forget that you can fear people with Kiala the whole time! Ironically this turtle idea of a team came out of trying to be a flag capture team, and they can do it, but they are great at dotting someone, wearing out one mini, getting a 4 or 8 build of VPs, and then laughing in your opponents face as they try and catch up in time to beat you.
So far to date, the closest anyone has come to beating it was our very own Wulfgar5150 piloting Zoo against it, and he only got 12 VPs. Meanwhile, I got 12 as well, and won on the time limit and being closer to honor.
If you like controlling teams, I highly suggest you try this warband out. If you have a team in mind, I HIGHLY suggest playtesting it against this. If you want a go at it, just hit me up sometime when you see me on Vassal, I'm Steelwing on there and always happy to play.
So I guess sometimes, rarely, right before a huge tournament, you can find a stroke of brilliance and something new and fresh!
