As expected, there’s still no time for a proper post this week. However, I can comment just a bit on our National Heroscape Day tournament. As per last year, let’s start with a few refreshers:
Refreshers:
- what Heroscape is
- the demonspawn: my eldest child, currently 19
- the Smaller Animal: my middle child, currently 11
- the Smaller Animal’s introduction to the game
- Previous tournaments: NHSD 2012, NHSD 2013, NHSD 2014, NHSD 2015, NHSD 2016
- tourney thread on our Heroscapers forum*
Last year I brought 6 participants to make a total turnout of 11, plus one person who arrived late; this year I brought 7 for a turnout of 13, but one person had to leave early. Which is fairly promising, all in all—
Anyhow, this year I lost all my games, which was even more crushing on account of they were all against people I brought to the tourney. First the demonspawn beat me, then the Smaller Animal beat me, then the Smaller Animal’s best friend beat me, thus leading to this conversation between me and my oldest:
“You got beat by a nine year old!”
“Hey! He’s ten!”
But I don’t mind. I don’t go to the tourneys to win; I go to have fun, and I think we all had a great time. The Smaller Animal was a bit disappointed in his performance, but I say he did pretty damn well: in his first game, he managed to take out half the army of the person who ended up winning the entire thing, and he only lost the last game because his opponent had a bit of a run of good luck. Not really all that bad for an 11 year old. This year he played an army consisting primarily of Quahon, the big blue dragon who breathes lightning bolts; Sujoah, the giant dragonfly with a poison stinger; and a few squads of giant spiders. It’s a pretty solid army overall, and I’m sorry to see him get down on it.
The demonspawn did better, winning two games with an army composed of Morgoloth (the demon darklord), mezzodemons, and wolves. But the day went to our old friend “hivelord” (his forum name), who won every game, beating out his own dad in the final round.
After the tournament, we went on to play a quite cutthroat game of Exploding Kittens, which the Smaller Animal and his best friend won: they deicded to work together after the best friend killed the SA by accident while trying to knock off his brother. All in all, a long day, but totally worth it. Hopefully we can manage to get together sometime before next year’s tournament.