Elysium Championship Event 16-01-2022

Elysium Championship Event 16-01-2022

Hey folks :)

Welcome back to another written version of my adventures in MCP. Todays blog post takes me down to Pontefract in England to the Elysium Wargame Store for one of their ongoing store championships. Like Boards and Swords, I'd never heard of Elysium til lately. I was not disappointed, the store is easy to find (not far from the A1), loads of well priced accommodation in the area and free parking on Sundays (very cheap any other day of the week) very close by all add up to an attractive gaming location.

Image shamelessly stolen from Google Maps as I forgot to take a pic

Upon entry I found a great store with loads of gaming space, from the front room as you enter to more gaming space through the back. I was instantly drawn to the amazing wall art around the perimeter. Fantastic pieces and really makes the room pop. The store owner, Ellis, was a great host and very friendly and approachable. If your ever in the area I'd highly recommend making a visit and if you can't you can find their online store here: Elysium Wargames

                       

Some of the fantastic wall art at Elysium

Team Composition:

So I will preface this whole thing with this one statement: I went into this event with the honest view that maybe Inhumans weren't as bad as they were made out to be.

Recently I have been playing a lot of Brotherhood and A-force, but all of those lists involved Juggernaut who is still officially unavailable. So I thought I'd try something I had zero practice with prior to this event, what would go wrong?

The choices I made I feel, in regards to Inhumans, were fairly straight forward. Black Bolt for his leadership. Medusa, Ms Marvel, Crystal, Beast and Lockjaw for their various positive traits. I was stuck between Beast and Quicksilver and going by how the event went for me maybe the latter might have been better haha. I threw in Winter Soldier as he is still a solid choice and may help with affiliation triggers in tight spots. Hulkbuster because he is a fantastic control piece and can take a few punches, Toad for his scenario play and Bullseye because he is a fantastic cost 2 to sit on a back objective and cause issues for passersby.

Tactics Choices:

My list of tactics cards. Out of 10 cards there is only one affiliated one and thats Last Minute Save, but this is affiliated to Lockjaw rather than Inhumans. This really should have been my first warning sign. Stuff like Advanced R&D, Medpack, Climbing Gear etc all are fairly standard especially if you watch my videos on YouTube. 

The Helios Laser is just too good to leave out and can sometimes be brutally effective. However, in Inhumans not so much as they all like to spend power like its going out of fashion. Mission Objective I have found to be more and more useful with more of the scenarios like Crashed Spaceship appearing. No Matter the Cost is great for Black Bolt as it helps him get his spender attack off early.

Avengers Assemble I included as the Hulkbuster is an Avengers leader and there are some options there to take a Hulkbuster led Avengers team, so how knows? Maybe itll be useful.

Tactics Lineup:

Id like to say I thought this through for ages, but I didn't, lol, sorry. I chose higher points stuff as I like the bigger games really. Terrigen Clouds was a choice as most of the Inhumans are immune to poison so I felt it could be very helpful. Intrusions I just like as a scenario and have had a lot of fun with it so decided to throw it in. 

When I played Inhumans in the past I always felt Black Bolt was power hungry and starved, so Infinity Formula might help mitigate some of those issues.

Round One v Chris. Inhumans v Defenders

I haven't played v Chris before but I've seen his presence online before. Lovely guy and was a very fun game. We ended up with Crashed Spaceship and Demon Portals, I don't think we could have picked a potentially slower scoring scenario. I thought I maybe had a good chance of doing something here til Chris put down Dr Strange, Hulk, Ghostrider and Hawkeye. Oh dear. I only really have one heavy hitter on my team which is the Hulkbuster, asking him to deal with both Rider and Hulk is a big ask so I was hoping I'd be able to control Ghost Rider with Medusa. Unfortunately Beast found the power core and was subsequently gibed by Dr Strange and Hulk. I brough Mission Objective for this exact situation, and decided not to use it in this game, so when Beast went down instead of passing the core to Hulkbuster he dropped it, and Hulk picked it up. If Hulkbuster took it I could have potentially kept it and used repulsor blast to keep away Strange and co. Chris won this game a very comfortable 16 - 4.

Hulkbuster wasn't paid enough to deal with this.

Round Two v Anthony Poole. Inhumans v A-Force.

My second game was v Anthony who I have played before back in October at the Element Games event and have seen at the Bearded Card Trader events in the past. Was looking forward to this game as I like A-force and SheHulk. Once again the Crashed Ship scenario came up, and this time I brought Mission Objective (not repeating the same mistake again :D ). Having Lockjaw just teleport the Hulkbuster around was very helpful and allowed him to threaten early. The game was back and forth a lot with not much in it but I eventually managed to pull a 18 - 9 win out of the bag. The game was closer than the score suggests. I feel the crashed ship scenario, and ones like it, sometimes make the score look different from the actual game itself.

Round Three v Michael. Inhumans v Avengers (Steve).

Round 3, third time I have drawn the Crashed Ship scenario. Michael drew the Overrun portals scenario which meant even if I don't get the core I could try and keep in the game from the other scenario. The game was a brutal bloodbath with most of the action taking place across the right handside beside the cement mixer truck. Hulkbuster got ejected to mini-Ironman and *almost* managed to rebuild the 'Buster before he was ended by a plasma cannon shot by Cable, even after Lockjaw played Last Minute Save to keep him alive. Once the 'Buster went down most of my team went too. I couldnt hit back at the same level as Hulk with Steve taking bodyguard blows and Cable with his shield. The game ended a tight 16 - 12 to Michael.

Round Four v Gerard. Inhumans v Guardians.

My last game was v Gerard. He was playing Guardians who I very much enjoy playing. No Crashed Ship scenario this time either, this time was Wakandan Herb and Infinity Formula and I had a plan. My plan was to use Ms Marvel to get the herb across the board quickly, using both Lockjaws teleport and her transformation ability to close the distance. Which initially looked like it was going to work especially after Medusa dazed Ghost Rider on round one causing him to drop the herb. Gerard quickly changed tactics and Drax used my team as clubs and beat Ms Marvel, Medusa and Bullseye to death with each other. Between attacks and throws across multiple turns they all perished the same way. Black Bolt and Lockjaw fared no better and Gerard won by tabling my team with a cool 16 - 2 victory.

Overall.

Great day, I will emphasise that a lot. I love going to events and playing new people and seeing old friends no matter how I do. The store was great, the staff were great and I had 4 very fun games vs 4 very nice people.

Inhumans. I honestly don't know where to start. Black Bolt, that seems like a place to begin. For a 5 cost leader I feel he might now be the worst model in the game. His leadership is his only saving grace, otherwise he is far too power hungry to get any real work done. His defensive buff is almost key to his survival and his offensive buff is too much power for what you get. For a guy who is meant to be able to level mountains with his voice he is very underwhelming, even more so vs other characters in his bracket. I don't know how to fix him, maybe giving him the ability to get 2 power in the power phase might help?

In regards to the rest of the Inhumans they were all great, even Medusa with her recent changes did a power of work in the games she was in. Part of my problem obviously was that I hadn't played them much since prob Spring 2021, but the problems that they had then are still there now. They feel like they might be a character or two, or a small tweak away from being acceptable. I know some people will read this and say "well not everything is meant to be amazing", and that's fair and I accept that. Butt Inhumans are just so bad that you could take literally any other affiliation and the Inhumans that are good would be good for them; the affiliation doesn't make them any better, if anything it makes them worse.

Going forward I will be going back to Brotherhood and Web Warriors I would imagine, maybe even Midnight Sons if the feeling takes me :)

If you are interested in the event at Elysium the final standings can be found here.

Thanks for reading and speak to you guys next time :)