Despite the severe wind and rain storm warnings of Hurricane Bill, we managed to get a strong turnout of seven dedicated D&D Minatures players to hold a sealed tournament.  We set the beholder boosters aside as prizes, randomly placed the boosters at the tables and got started building our bands…

 

Rar
Balor
Bolraza
Minotaur Thug
 
Tomcat
Elder Iron
Adult Brown
Yochlol
Rabble
Cutter

Nephelim
Elder Green
Adult Brown
Hulk
Doomdreamer
Swarm
healing ointment thing on the doomdreamer

Heironeous
Storm Titan
Djinni x2
Yochlol
Swarm

Bonelock
Elder Green
Aurak Draconian
Chuul
Air Archon
Swarm
Scarecrow

Caldorna
Elder Iron
Chillfire
Salamander

Corinthius
Balor
Chuul

My first match was against Caldorna. I won map with Evermelt, and I ended up with the start area with the stumps and log pile. I spent the first round carefully positioning everyone in smoke. Obviously, the big trick was to keep the dragon from getting very many triple attacks in on the Balor. He was pretty agressive with his fodder going after my fodder, and with some lucky initiative rolls managed to take them both out while keeping the dragon from getting triple attacks in.

After that it got messy. I lost my champion to my own balor’s aura, and then it was basically down to whether or not I could keep his dragon immobilized and beat it down from a distance with the whip. If I recall correctly, I won with about 50 hp left.

Game 2 was against Corinthius. We played on Caves of Chaos. I took out his Chuul early, but he took the opportunity to get his balor into his victory area with the sacred circle. He effectively blocked the entrance so my Balor couldn’t squeeze into the room, meaning I could mostly only hit him with 10 damage whip strikes. It was looking like he could win a very slow game on victory points, but (to avoid a very boring game) he got aggresive in order to take out my champion, which brought him close enough for a few sword strikes from my Balor. After a bit of back and forth, I managed to get into the room and finish him off.

Game 3 was against Tom, with a very dangerous band against the Balor. He won map so we were on King’s Road. My balor got immobilized early by his Yochlol, but I managed to position my minotaur to block his dragon from getting in position to beat up on the balor. The next few rounds consisted of me trying to keep the iron dragon immobilized and not adjacent, while he continued beating up on me with the yochlol and dragons. I got a lucky break and un-immobilized my balor, and moved to base the brown dragon and hit both dragons with the burst attack. This left the brown dragon at 20 hp, and it hadn’t activated yet, so it would be finished off by the balor’s aura. The iron dragon was still immobilized, but Tom used his breath to try to pull me away from the brown. He missed by 1, dooming the brown. Shortly after that I screwed up forgot his iron dragon had passed his immobilized save, and burst the yochlol and dragon instead of immobilizing the dragon again. By this time the yochlol had applied the -4 defenses to the balor, so the iron dragon based me and hit 3 times for 75. This dropped my balor to 60 hp, one round from almost certain death. Luckily, my champion rolled the 15 she needed on a charge against the iron dragon before the end of the round, dropping it to 50 hp. If I could win initiative, I could hit the dragon for 30 with the balor’s whip, and it would die when it activated. The yochlol was at 10 hp by this time, and basing the balor, so it too would die when it activated. I won init, hit the dragon (both Tom and I forgot about his champion power, tragically for him), and staying in place. Both his creatures activated and died, giving me the win.