Fantasy Flight Games 2016 Regional Runner Up

3 crushing blows:)

Thanks for the input/questions Caldera, 

The swiss round I did go 3-2:

Round 1: Won, I used my store champ bye 

Round 2: Lost, Kith/ Chaos. I play this match up way too much and it seems to always lead to who has the better hand. The first three planets had the win on them so I decided to go more aggressive and sadly got burned out more than what it should have and just didnt recover. Honestly I feel Mavros can be a great match up to Kith with his ability to delay which gives you the chance to play more off of Kith than the other way around. Also cuts out Kith using sslyths on you and taking more command. Also with SM being more costly you dont have to worry about Sowing Chaos as much if they play it and with the unstoppable ability on some of your units it helps towards reducing the taking damage for the Klaivex. 

Round 3:Lost, Anrakyr/No Allies (if he had allies I did not see them). This was going to be a toss up from the beginning. Seeing as Necrons just came out two days before the regional I tip my hat off to him for deciding to play them(he did end up in top 8 as well) I really didnt have enough knowledge on Necrons to have a real strategy on them so I pretty much just tried my best and used was knowledge I did have( I continued to look at his discard pile for tricks he could use on himself). The major thing I learned from this match up is Necron dials say alot on what they may be playing. He kept his dial on SM the whole time and using his deck to take over my SM like my Honored Librarian. It really backfired having to face my own SM and it ended with him just having more dudes on Planet 7 and him winning by planets.

Round 4:Won, Nazdreg/No Allies (again, if he had allies I did not see them) This match went really fast and won it in the first three planets. I do not worry about this match up at all because SM may be a little costly, orks are still way more. I had him not only in command, but also in card tricks in hand.

Round 5:Won, Eldaroth/Tau. Sadly I cant say much on how this game went due to I was facing a younger opponent and she wasnt playing Eldar to their potential. She had initiative and ended up deploying all her units to planet one as did I and we both sent our warlords there too. I won the command there and the battle ended with a bloody Eldaroth. Then next round we loaded up again on planet one and surprising she went there with Eldaroth and I ended up finishing her there. 

Top 8:Won Kith/Chaos. This was definitely the hardest and closest game I have had in awhile. I had mulligan to a worst hand of just playing one dude so I had to work around using deploy delay to be able to get a start in this game. Luckily planet layout had no wins until later in the game. Even with the crappy start I was able to recover and actually keep commands coming to ties and or one or two wins for each of us(taking sslyths helped) and even with most of the time ending up with no cards in hand I would always get at least dudes to play. My big hero of this game was the use of Righteous Initiate with The Black Sword on him. Most of his dudes could not attack him without dying first like his tokens so most of his terrors were used on him leaving most of my bigger units to keep fighting and him not having the resources then to Klaivex if he had the chance to. Also continuously being able to reduce damage and take none helped as well with this match up. I believe that Mavros is a huge power player vs Kith than Worr is just by so much damage reduction. I've debated on Steel Legions in here because of that.

Top 4: Won Worr/Orks. This game looked like Worrs playground with the flop of Planets 2-5 having green icons but there was a win of red in the first three. Planet one was just red and I feel where the downfall was for the Worr player. I kept up with command with him and we both ended up putting our warlords at one. He used up most of his resouce there which ended up putting him behind on the rest of the game( I had plenty of the usual SM tricks:drop pod, primal, crushing blow etc). He also forgot that even when I won the first planet it wouldnt have matter to him being as it was the rout planet. I ended up taking the next two planets and having the better board.

Top 2: Lost Kith/Chaos. This match up just wont leave me alone lol. Sigh, I frowned upon myself on some of my choice in this match. I should have played the planets better and used Mavros's action more because I had the chance to bloody Kith on planet one but missed the opportunity due to worrying about being Klaivex and should have went all in. I got Kith to be exhausted and drop pod in a white scars biker. It was a blue planet and should have hit him with Mavros's action to swing for more damage( Kith already had 1) so I left her with 5 damage running around the board still making tokens. I couldnt recover from this and his command kept getting bigger with soon getting the palace and the den(destroyed it a turn too late). 

Overall I felt pretty average at the regional. My swiss playing could have been better and so could have my top two match. I didnt feel like I struggled much with command. I felt I always got just what I need until my top 2 match. he choked me real hard from cards. Definitely my MVP and favorite combo was the Righteous and Black Sword. This is the 2nd time it was the way for me to win the game. Ive alway been a huge fan of crushing blows. I have realized many SM decks have kinda swayed away from them but they have yet to let me down and be a negative in my deck. Its just way more efficient being it cost 0 and your units will almost always get at least one damage on your opponent giving you opportunity to use it more. I prefer to also save my resources to use on Drop Pods, Indomitable, Eager Recuit than for like Rally the charge or Vengence. Plus Mavros's actions is like a free plus atk power so you are saving resources there.Vow of Honor has been a huge card too but most of the time when I do use it especially vs Kith I do get terror and then I am a resource down. I cant really say I have cards on the chopping block since I did that just before turning in my deck list( I was running 2x Teleportarium and 1x Inquistior Caius Wroth but exchange them to 2x Promotion and 1x 10th Company Scout) which helped in my keeping up with command. Overall I feel this is a well rounded deck and can be versatile in changing to either go more aggro or more command. Either way I am happy with it staying right in the middle and being what it needs to be when I need it.  

The Necron player can't keep the dial on the same faction from turn to turn. He MUST select a new faction each turn. Did he do that? 

I reread the rules and you CAN DO THAT. HA that's a change from playtesting.