Sunday 31 May 2015

Check in


I mumbled in previous posts at how busy I'd be over this year, and true to my word, I've been wrapped up in several university commitments, which have left little time to keep adding updates for this blog. I'm determined to keep plugging away at this blog though, I still have multiple ideas of topics to muse on, and there will be all the reveals and excitement of Lock 'n' Load to get swept up in next week.

So what's happened since my last post in April? The Auckland Open was the first 3 list event in New Zealand I've attended, and allowed for some interesting list construction exercises. Particularly as I used the event as an exercise to be "devious" by actually bringing Cryx instead of Skorne. Through the lead up to the Open, it felt like a strange and somewhat egotistical thing to do; I deliberately put on the act of playing Skorne, hinting that I was going to persist with using the faction, whereas privately I knew I was going to bring Cryx. I had romantic notions of people at the event crying to the heavens in despair when I made the big reveal. But I also had thoughts of what the point of all this was; questions of why other's opinions was so important to me as to what I played at a tournament. I also just stood back and realised that what was truly important was recognising that I was having fun playing the game, and fuckit, I had Cryx lists I wanted to play. Playing my eXerxis and Mordikaar lists into the lead up to Ides had actually become quite stale, so I was fiending for a change.

So I went into the Auckland Open with a 3 list combo consisting of Denny2, Terminus, and Scaverous. The latter two casters I wanted to revisit as my safety blanket, being the guys I started this game with. I also had the idea that Denny would be my main list, Terminus could cover the bad gun line/ranged match ups, and Scavs would have the mirror match. My theories worked somewhat, but my lack of practice with the lists was pretty obvious. The one game I dropped Terminus was into Rahn, which resulted in my first tournament tantrum; I failed to totally cover the big guy and let him get Rahn'ed well and truly. Sigh. I thought I only needed the Rahn lesson once, but obviously not. Much apologies to my opponent and friend Luke H.

My two games with Scaverous into Cryx lists were interesting exercises; the first game saw me pitched into Dave Stent's 3Gaspy list. He wrote a more comprehensive breakdown of our game here, but I just wanted to mention that I kinda had all the tools I needed to pick him apart, except I tried to spread out to take on his infantry horde and found the list couldn't spread to cover the board. A total misplay on my part, and I subsequently went down like a sack of shit. But it taught me lessons to take into my game against Mike Thorn's pDenny list. I managed my threat ranges and priorities better here, with fewer fuck ups (pro-tip; remember to stay away from Orin Midwinter), but Mike reckoned he had a few decent early chances to get a pop and drop assassination on me. As it was, I got up attritionally, forcing Mike into TWO turns of trying to kill Scaverous. Oosh, I was lucky he didn't quite have enough gun to finish the job, before Tartarus sidled up and ended Denny.

Now Body & Soul; hooooo boy that list is juicy. So much fun to play, and so many options to work with on the table. I went into the event with only one practice game under my belt, and while she did go down to a cheeky fire roll in one game, the list just dominates. There's been plenty of discussion to date on what she can do in that theme, and I have nothing new to add, but I'm keen to continue playing it in the future. It was nice to just go into my games feeling a sense of control and having options again, something that I struggle to find at times with Skorne.

Speaking of Skorne though, my little soiree with Cryx has left me feeling some what refreshed and keen to play around some more. With the latest ADR roster and an upcoming Masters-styled event in July, I'm getting amped practicing with eXerxis again. I've essentially worked with the list I've mentioned in previous posts, except with more beef in titans. The sideboard has triple Drakes for infantry worries, and I'm excited at how having these options will play out in my games. The second list looks set to be pMakeda, and she's one that I've only lightly dabbled in, but have been keen to explore more. Her use as the off list came from discussion with Adam Oakson as to her as the Cryx drop. Besides that, Ive had fun just trying my list out, seeing what Defenders Ward'ed Keltarii are like (fucking awesome) and yo-yo'ing Rhadiem with a 22" threat range.

Amongst all this various friends went to Australia to compete in the Australian Team Championships. While the posts by Mitch below give a great blow-by-blow of the event from the NZ North team's perspective, what isn't mentioned was how hungry we were back here in NZ or info. Scrambling for any scrap of info from various tweets or the odd post here and there. The excitement distracted me from writing an assignment for uni, and the desire to participate was so raw and fresh. I am really keen to try and make it to a team event next year, it really does just seem like such a blast and an experience unlike any other.

So that's the jist of everything that's been happening for myself of late. I essentially fell off the Skorne bandwagon, to hop back onto it yet again. All the while with the support of great friends:
<3 Thanks Chuck

Saturday 9 May 2015

AUSTRALIAN TEAM CHAMPS - a Team NZ North captains log by Mitch Cowan, Pt.2

Going into day 2 NZ North was ready to continue the good showing we had given the previous day. We had run through the matchups of the final three teams and were confident we'd be able to place in the top 3. Quietly we all wanted to take this thing down 7-0.

Round 5 - NZ South - Incursion

Team
Opponent
Expectation
Result
Mitch, eKrueger
Will Wjinveld, eVayl
Bad
Loss
Chas, eHaley
Tony Djikstra, Bradigus
Neutral
Loss
Nikola, eVayl
James Glover, Rahn
Good
Win
Pete, pMorvahna
Dave Brown, Ryas
Good
Win
Charlie, Harbinger
Adam Oakson, Xerxis
Neutral
Loss


First up our brothers in NZ South. Before we crossed the Tasman we knew this would be one of the harder fights we'd have throughout the weekend. At least on paper we had the goods, but this one would be decided in the matchup process. It started terribly with a loss on the dice off. We would only get to decide 2 matchups and with the teams so evenly matched, that didn't bode well.

The really sad thing about this round of pairings for me is that the first 2 pairings actually went to plan. The idea was to take Tony and Will out of the matchup process early and rely on us being able to get more favourable matchups with Adam, JJ and Hooch.

It could have worked too but I didn't position Nikola well enough so he got matched up against JJ who had 4 really good matchups across the rest of our team.

Ideal matchups losing the roll off using the strategy above should have been, me forward into Will and Tony, pick Will then put Nikola and Chas into Tony, Tony probably picks Chas leaving Nikola receiving probably Hooch (Dave Brown) and JJ, pick Hooch leaving Charlie and Pete to be matched up against Adam and JJ.

We were definitely in with a chance however. Two swing games and my belief I could finally slay the beastie that is Will Ouijaboard.

Those two swing games didn't go our way sadly and the expected loss of mine to Will seemed all the more certain once I tried making plays that just didn't work out.

I know the guys took this loss really hard, as did I. We all wanted the Northern killing spree to continue into day 2 and I couldn't shake the feeling I had lost it in matchups. Thankfully, after this round we all broke for lunch and team NZ North got to catch some much needed fresh air.



Round 6 - New South Wales - Recon

Team
Opponent
Expectation
Result
Chas, eHaley
Nathan Frawley, pHaley
Neutral
Win
Nikola, pVayl
Jeff Traish, eDoomshaper
Good
Win
Mitch, eKrueger
Chris Davies, eIrusk
Good
Loss
Pete, pMorvahna
Dylan Simmer, Issyria
Good
Loss
Charlie, eFeora
Jack Ding, eVayl
Neutral
Loss


This was the team to beat, they had been tearing up the field prior to us, but again we just had to play the matchup. Personally I had heard of Traish, being on the WTC team and Will W from NZ South had given me a heads up on Jack Ding.

Again I lost the roll for team selection, meaning I would only get to chose 2 matchups vs a very evenly matched set of lists.

Coming out of the round pairing, I was confident we had the matchups that would at least give us the shot we needed. The big question marks were Chas and Charlie. In the case of Chas, discussions of this matchup previously had moved his expectations from Good, to Bad and back to Neutral.

Was really stoked to have Chas take out the pHaley double Stormwall list with his Sword Knight laden eHaley. The sportsmanship displayed by Chas in taking an incredibly long winded assassination run was legendary considering all that was needed was a dead journeyman. What a gentleman.

Charlie had some experience in the legion matchup with eFeora, but we all knew it would be dicey. This turned out to be true when he was unable to clear a single key Hex hunter preventing a charge on an Angelius. Charlie wasn't able to keep pace in the trade and Jack took it out over the next few turns.

Nikola put the hurt on Traish's eDoomshaper taking out I believe Mulg and the Earthborn in a single turn. Nikola continued his rampage cleaning up some champions and taking his opponent down on assassination.

Personally I was confident going into the Khador matchup with eKrueger, but this would list lock me for eMorvahna in the final round. I went with eKrueger as it gave me the best chance to help the team take at the very least 2nd and if I could use myself as a roadblock in the next round, take the whole thing out. While Una and the Rotters where just printing money all day long, I got caught out by an excellent Objective choice by my opponent (Stockpile) meaning Ghetorix wasn't able to sprint to safety. This turned a still very winnable game into an uphill battle, with the Iron Fangs flooding the zone and that god damned Fire for effect Mortar wrecking house.

There was also a touch of controversy to this otherwise excellent and hard fought game. A judge call on a key Gorman black oil left us about 10 minutes behind the round timer. My last turn, which ended up being a truly terrible assassination run was cut short by the round ending causing a double loss and a headache for the TO.

So we were now 2-2 with no provision for round tie breaks. Yaaaay.

Conferring with my team, I asked if they would be ok with my conceding to Chris as it was clear I would be very very unlikely to win our game. While the gesture was, I hope, appreciated, the TOs decided not to take the concession. It ended up being ruled both teams lost the round with no tie break to speak of..

This was by far the hardest fought round of the tournament. NSW has gone on an absolute tear over the weekend dropping at most a single game against the other teams, eventually taking out the whole damn thing.

I'm really proud of our team for putting on an absolutely heroic effort to go essentially 2-3 for gameplay and 2-2 in terms of scoring. Get a taste of the Kiwi! 

To my opponent Chris, I hope I get the chance to play you again mate. It was such a tight game and very well played. Congrats to you and your team.

Round 7 - Queensland - Two Fronts

Team
Opponent
Expectation
Result
Pete, eKaya
Luke Van Kyyck, Lucant
Bad
Win
Charlie, Harbinger
Sheldon, 3Butcher
Good
Loss
Nikola, eVayl
Dave Lancaster
Good
Loss
Chas, eHaley
Tobias Ford, Ossyan
Good
Win
Mitch, eMorvahna
Dave Potts, pXerxis
Bad
Loss


Final round and we were now in this for Second place. Losing the dice off for the 3rd round, we are again put in the position of being able to only guarantee 2 pairs. POSIEDON!!!!!!! Why do you curse me?!?!?!
Nikola was put forward first this round which drew Khador and Circle from QLD. Taking Circle he eliminated a really bad matchup for 2 members of the team which was awesome.

We put Chas and Charlie up against the Khador player who chose Charlie. Another green light on paper.

They presented Retribution and CoC next. To Chas's delight we got to pair him with Tobias's Ossyan list in a very live scenario for our third green lit matchup.

Pete and I were then matched up against the CoC and Skorne players respectively. Thinking back I should really have just counted myself out due to having to play eMorvahna who was geared for Legion, but I remained hopeful until around the 2nd turn.

Pete was going to have a really hard game ahead of him no matter what list his opponent chose.

Charlie was the first to report back losing out to the Butcher Unleashed with a key Bulldozer play by Sheldon which caught him off guard and ended with Harbys head on the ground.

Next was Chas who was living the eHaley dream against the hapless Ossyan closing it out in short order by scenario.

My game dragged on against a surgically played pXerxis Tier 2 Fist of Halaak list containing a truly ridiculous 296 boxes across his unit choices alone. I think I got through a measly 96 boxes based on AP. Dave took it out after going through all of my beasts to and finishing off Morvahna with a Incindus CRA.

It was fun to see just how many Cataphracts a Wold Wrath and Morvahna herself could get through, but the Bloodtrackers were Incindus rocket magnets and the Skinwalkers were totally outclassed by the Arcuarii.

Nikola was the next to report his fall to eKrueger. While he had started to pull ahead slightly, some really conservative play by Dave L forced Nikola to make plays that didn't go his way. eKrueger slowly pulled it back into his favour and sailed away. This one sounded like a really tough game for both sides.

We were now waiting to see whether we were going out 1-4 or a more respectable 2-3. Pete had ended up in an eKaya vs Lucant match and had managed to get into a position where a scenario win was on the cards. The clock was now in the 5 minute combined range and van Kyyck needed to clear a pair of Rotterhorns and a Stalker from his zone to win. The last attack roll was resolved with a second on Luke's clock but Pete's zone remained uncontested at which point he gestured defeat with a handshake.

Final thoughts

Team NZ North ended up 3rd overall. Which after some reflection, I'm pretty stoked with. I won't lie though, we all wanted the top spot really badly and it made our performance day 2 all the more painful. We got so damn close. Literally 2 games from 1st place. One against NSW and QLD was all it took.

The results breakdown really speaks to how much of a threat NZ North were:


We were 1st in CPs and 2nd in overall table wins and AP. Those 2nd places conceded only to the winners, NSW. We really did carve it up and every member of the team contributed to that effort.

Every new person I got to meet over the weekend was a pleasure to play. I'd happily play any one of them in future. Hopefully I get the opportunity. I don't doubt the rest of NZ North feel the same.

In terms of my effectiveness as captain I definitely lost the matchup process to NZ South, Adam did an awesome job positioning his players. In all other rounds, we had the 3 green matchups I was aiming for and those losses to NSW and QLD could easily have gone the other way. At the end of the day, the team let me know when I made a bad decision and were nice enough to let me know when I did good.

All said NZ North were a pretty easy bunch to do matchups for really with such good list pairs and ability to back it up. Personally I couldn't think of changing a single thing about the teams makeup. While a little more practice for myself and a couple other members wouldn't have been missed, this  is something that will definitely be happening should we get the chance to represent NZ again.

I know each member of NZ North would like nothing more that to return in 2016 and take it out 7-0 as it should have been this time around. Based on this performance, I don't see why that couldn't happen.


Will close with a big thank you to the organisers and hosts for putting on such an epic event, as well as the other teams who showed up for us to smash, champions all. Cheers!


And a massive thank you to Mitch for sharing his insights and taking the time to write this up. you're the bees knees brah.

Tuesday 5 May 2015

AUSTRALIAN TEAM CHAMPS - a captains log by Mitch Cowan, leader of Team NZ North. Not a fly guy. But a shy guy. The kinda guy. Who will always be mine (Pt.1)


I really have no direction, rhyme or reason that I was going with the title and music video, except that I started humming it while I was copy and pasting text and writing the title. Except maybe that its book-ended by Will Smith and Martin Lawrence from Bad Boys, and just like them our boys from NZ North showed up gun blazing. Michael Aue Bey fuhuhuhu!

Mitch Cowan, the captain of the NZ North has kindly shared an account of his experiences and thoughts being a member of one of the two NZ teams that ventured to the Australian Team Champs for the first time. Cheers Mitch, and without further ado, here are his words to chuck into your eyeholes:


For those interested just thought I'd give an idea of how the matchup process played out over the weekend for NZ North (AKA Team funsies).

The process itself was pretty straight forward:

Basics are one team got to pick 2 matchups and tables games would be payed on while the other team got to pick 3 matchups.

My initial thoughts were that the B team would have an advantage being able to chose the first 2 matchups as well as all of the tables. As the weekend played out it seemed the A team being able to decide 3 of the matchups was super important when the teams were evenly matched or if you had a lot of bad matchups.

The week before the tournament lists of the teams were made public. So we went through each set of lists individually and gave an opinion of the matchup.

Round 1 - ACT - Destruction

Team
Opponent
Expectation
Result
Mitch, eKrueger
Ed Sykes, eSorscha
Good
Win
Pete, eKaya
James Moorhouse, Bradigus
Bad
Loss
Nikola, pVayl
Taylor Dean, pDoomie
Bad
Win
Charlie, eFeora
Chris Johnson, Ossrum
Neutral
Win
Chas, pHaley
Aaron Harwood, eDenny
Good
Loss


I felt we did ok in the matchups but I did go too fast during the process. Didn't repeat this again thankfully and was saved by some excellent play from the team.

Winning the dice off I put myself forward into a choice of Moorhouse or Ed Sykes. Taking the Khador matchup I then put forward my special Bradigus weapons Mr Pete and Chas esq.

Moorhouse took the Circle matchup and put forward Cryx and Trolls. Was surprised to see Cryx, but looking at the rest of the potential matchups the cryx players options weren't very good against our team and he must have been thrown to the wolves on this one.

So Cygnar gets the green lit Cryx matchup leaving Charlie and Nikola to be paired with Mercs and Trolls respectively.

Moorhouse tried to get into our heads early after matchup selection with something along the lines of 'How do you guys felt that went? Cus we have 5 greens'

Personally I was confident we had at least 2 solid games from the get go, myself and Chas, based on our matchup preferences. Nikola didn't want to take on the Madrak2 list but it ended up being Doomie Runes of War so there we got another green after list selection.

Pete was drawing the short straw but it was actually the matchup we wanted against Moorhouse's 8 Watcher Bradigus list. Cus if anyone could drop a random list into that caster for the first time and take it out, my money would be on Pete. Alas he could not, making a key mistake I know he wouldn't make ever again (Pete's pro tip: 'Don't give Bradigus free synergy stacks on shifting stones kids!').

Charlie and Nikola both played excellent games to take their opponents down. While I was putting the big hurt on Sorscha2 with Kruegs I nearly went down to a last ditch wind rush assassination, thankfully it failed.  Chas nearly got there with pHaley vs eDenny but couldn't remove the dastardly Withershadow for the win. Still 3-2 and we definitely had made our mark taking down the #2 team from the previous year.

Onwards and upwards for team Kiwi Fun team!

Round 2 - Victoria - Close Quarters

Team
Opponent
Expectation
Result
Nikola, pVayl
Jamie Saxon, pGrissel
Bad
Win
Mitch, eKrueger
Dan Schmidt, 3Butcher
Good
Loss
Charlie, Harbinger
Luke Henry, pSkarre
Good
Win
Chas, eHaley
Matt Hickling, pSorscha
Good
Win
Pete, pMorv
Nick Owen, eLylith
Good
Win


After the last game against Trolls, Nikola was pretty confident he could take down the troll list so when given the opportunity we matched him up there to take away the only truly terrible matchup for the rest of the team.

I can't remember the order pairing was done this time around, but for every put forward we were just able to pick better matchups as we had the right tools across everyones lists. We were ready for eLylith and Cryx just wasn't going to work against our teams set.

If I hadn't died to that bastard Butcher3 we'd have taken down another respectable AU team 5-0. That said we were of course stoked to take a 4-1 win and continue the momentum.

Round 3 - South Australia - Fire Support

Team
Opponent
Expectation
Result
Charlie, Harbinger
Jerry Mason, pButcher
Good
Win
Mitch, eKrueger
Nic Equid, Borka
Good
Win
Nikola, eVayl
Jason Ly, Goreshade3
Good
Win
Pete, pMorv
Marty Kay, Terminus
Good
Win
Chas, eHaley
Sean Stevens, eKrueger
Bad
Win


Our estimation of this team was pretty much how the results show. We simply had the goods in list pairs and we had a lot of coverage.

Having no clue as to the skill level of the cast majority of the field we were free to just think about the matchup phase based on conversations in the dojo. I'm confident this mentality really served us well throughout the weekend. We only focused on the list pairs rather than any extra player info that might skew expectations.

Coming out of this matchup process I was happy we had solid games against all of our opponents and it showed with the 5-0 record.

Round 4- Western Australia - Incoming

Team
Opponent
Expectation
Result
Pete, eKaya
Aaron Thompson, eVyros
Good
Win
Charlie, Harbinger
David Bray, 3Nemo
Good
Loss
Nikola, eVayl
Chris Swain, Terminus
Good
Win
Chas, eHaley
Ryan King, Lucant
Bad
Loss
Mitch, eKrueger
Nic Chapman, Jarl
Bad
Win


When we were looking at the lists a week out from the event, this team was marked across the board as a really tough set of lists for our team. Aaron T was rocking a super scary 30 Strike force Ravyn list and we just didn't know what to make of the Cygnar they were bringing to the table. There were a lot of hard counters on all sides of this matchup.

If I had one achievement as captain for the weekend, it would be this round of pairing.

Wining the roll and putting myself forward the Troll and Retribution lists were presented. With both being serious problems for our team I took the Trolls. This freed up Nikola for 4 green matchups across their lineup and Charlie from the prospect of Harbinger being shot to death by 30 pointy eared bastards (as a former Ret player I say this with no love. That unit is trash, as are Sentinels). 

It also put us in the most glorious position to place Pete, the hardest of hard counters to the Ret player, and Nikola's Vayl fun times circus in front of their captain.

Their captain, being that Ret player, took the most amount of time choosing which flavour of bad to pair with. Apparently he hates Legion (this can be understood) and chose to take on Pete. Oh happy day!

We then ended up with the matchups above. The scenario was one where I felt Chas could take down Lucant with eHaley so the Red matchup expectation wouldn't reflect this, so I felt a win might be on the cards there. That game came down to a boosted 10 with rerolls not connecting.

Tragedy stuck again when Charlie was caught out by 3Nemo's feat and a key chain lightening which the book should have not allowed. Charlie won't be caught out again by this and definitely took something away from the game. He was tabling his opponent before this happened.

Pete pulled through as expected leaving his opponent needing 'time to seethe'. What a champ.

Nikola assassinating Terminus made it 2-2 with my result to come in.

My opponent surprised me by dropping Jarl into Krueger. It was a meat mountain style list which had Jarls feat as a delivery system. Pretty scary stuff when you factor in Quicken, but he couldn't get any work done with Jarl and Ghetorix did too much work next to a gallows grove. Krueger took it out on scenario turn 4.

3-2 and team NZ Fun Squad goes through to the second day undefeated. We were told our matchup for the next morning would be our Southern counterparts. It would have to happen some time, but we were riding high and ready to take them down. We spent a relaxed evening having dinner and drinks with NZ south and then back to the hotel for some classic Monty Python.


Next post will finish up the remaining 3 rounds and some final thoughts on how NZ North worked as a team.