Tournament Grand Finals Report

TTS Round 5 City States vs. City States!

This is it! The grand finals. After five rounds it is me versus a great guy Nick from Nevada. Nevada is thankfully really close to my home state of Utah and I am hoping we get to play in person soon at a big event here in the West. We both have a polemarch warlord but our lists diverge quite a bit from there.

Some interesting differences in these lists! Almost every unit in City States roster is in these two lists (18 entries out of a max 23)! I think that’s really cool. This round the scenario is Maelstrom and we rack up the armies.

Greetings to a Fellow General

I have a few thoughts pregame. I am much more fragile. I identify key things to kill as his Chariots and Phalangites (Duh). Scenario wise I want to play on the left and right flanks. Without having lights I want to snag the bonus points for rounds 5-8.

Early Game

Round 1 and 2

Alrighty we get off to a slow start. Both of us only rolling one of our mediums. Phalangites line up for the middle and left zone. Selinoi post up on the hill, and the Thorakites hide bravely in the forest. I line up some Companion Cavalry with the center and right sides

Round 3

I win supremacy here and I think that I can take advantage of the always inspired component of the strategic stack and just kill those Thorakites. Sadly I bounce off a bit so I send in the chariots, I wanted to send them into this flank anyway. We have a bit of a rules mix up here. It looks like the Auxiliary Stand of Thyreans don’t get the tenacious 1 special rule that the full unit has. Nothing that will change the outcome of the game but good to know. Honestly, it happens. No wargame is ever played with perfect rules, but the social contract between Nick and I was great and we played as best we could (It was pretty late at night)

Mid Game

Round 4

I start to feel pretty good at this point, the warlord unit is half dead, the right side is going well as I am positioned to take healable chip damage and nothing can charge clash me. Only march charge. The middle looks pretty scary for me and I plan to kill his warlord next round to deny him the ability to win the supremacy or negate my supremacy. Nick heads into the forest to get some cover from my silly chariots. I have given the Hephestian on the right side a six inch charge. But having 4 stands on the zone so that if he takes it I will still score.

Sorry about the score board. It should say 2-6 and Round 5 but I took the screen shot at the weirdest time possible to make this battle report as awkward as possible (I have a gift).

Round 5

Boy do I feel a lot less good about things. As you can see attrition does not go my way this round, and this is due to the really smart plays of my opponent. (notice how the Phalangites have actually more wounds than they used to. RIP ME) We’re in a very cagey positioning game and my opponent has a key advantage, more cards. He is able to out activate me BRUTALLY throughout this whole game, making it so that in order to contest objectives I must be in charge ranges of things that haven’t activated, a tough spot to be in. In a SUPREME display of skill and excellence the Phalangites on the right side just one shot the Promethean Oracle. Behold the power of man with stick! It was some epic rolls, but I believe they do actually just have the weight of dice and numbers to do that on average. Maybe not every time, but I really underestimated the Phalangites units this game to my detriment. My quick mental math says they hit like…17 times with the Phalangites, 4 times with the sacred band and 5 times with the aristarch (thanks to relentless blows). Meaning I definitely should’ve respected them more.

Round 6

The writing is on the wall this round. I will continue to score my right side as the cagey game of cat and mouse continues. But the left and center flanks collapse horrifically when the oracle isn’t there to anchor things. My chariots get engaged by units that absolutely will kill said chariots. We tally up the points and say GG!

Postgame

Whew.

Dangit.

I won’t lie I was bummed. I did not play up to my potential. I am a really competitive guy but I pride myself on not being a dick about it. I mainly am competitive with myself, I want to improve, play my best, but also be a good and fun opponent. I was very invested in the tournament just by my nature and I went in wanting to do better. I believe I’ll end up in second place depends on how the scores shake out for the round but 4-1 isn’t a bad run at all!

What I Did Well – I like my shape of deployment, I but I don’t like where they entered the field. I will cover that more in the next section. Basically I liked the questions I put forward for my opponent but I should’ve moved them more towards a declined flank (Fighting over the center and right) or a horns of the bull (Fighting over left and right). As it stands i’m awkwardly in the middle of those two styles.

What I Did Poorly – Alrighty, I’ll try to keep it brief. Going over this game has been extremely beneficial. First and foremost boy did I really underestimate the Phalangites this game. I just…was unfamiliar with their game and paid the price. I wish I had been more careful with my companion cavalry, or deployed them in a way they could support each other. As stated above, I played my general deployment strategy poorly. Instead of positioning my chariots to fight over his natural forest (A natural is a star craft term, basically, the forest he can take easily and safely) I should’ve had them fighting on my natural forest. Using the terrain to my advantage instead of fighting the terrain. Honestly if my whole deployment besides my Sacred Band and Promethean was just like…12″-18″ shifted to the right or a bit more to the left I think I have a much, much better game. Or at least a chance. Nick is real good at Conquest.

What My Opponent Did Well – Turns out a whole bunch! But specifically I like how he just ignored my big scary Sacred Band unit. He knew that he was ahead on scenario and he kept a solid force on my right side to keep me honest. He was more familiar with the damage output values of units. He was able to dictate the tempo of the game and the engagements of the game using slower play and card advantage. Just a ton of stuff. Hopefully we get to rematch soon as I’m itching to play a better game and redeem myself!

For now! It’s back to the drawing board. I am going to get some Weaver Courts going but that’s going to take a few months due to my wife being pregnant with twins! I have played 10+ games with my City States over the past 3 months and I am feeling the itch to swap around. It’s the curse I bear. I will have my Weaver Courts in hand by Spring hopefully so for the winter I am going to play some Sorcerer Kings, my “main” faction. I haven’t played them since the update and I am very excited to get back to my roots. The Trinvarta’s are calling and the Court of Air needs a champion. I guess I will have to answer!

As always thank you so much for reading. I do this to improve because I find a lot of fulfillment in simply getting better at things BUT it also is really cool to talk with people about gaming! Feel free to reach out to me with any questions, concerns, gossip, or to just talk shop. I love conquest and can talk about it all day. You can find me on Reddit as Iamarrest7, discord as Arrest, and Instagram as Arrest_Paints.