Cumquest

Another post, another tourney report; the past weekend was spent in Christchurch at the annual Conquest event. The title of this post is perhaps more disrespectful than intended, and simply reflects the level of maturity we're cultivating around these parts; the event itself was a smoothly managed 6-round steamroller, run by retiring PG Adam Oaky-Doaky Oakson. The pressures of working in the brutal Cantabrian salt-mines had got to the poor guy, and after years of battling chlorine allergies while scraping together a living for his wife and seven kids, he's decided its time to hang up his press-ganger shirt following this event, to focus on his other passion - macrame.

Glad I could attend Adam, its always been a pleasure having you Chch fellas up in Auckland events, so it was good to come down and see how you southern boys do it.

As for games themselves, I'll just run through some stray thoughts and observations I gleaned from my experience; I ran with Cryx due to my chronic faction ADD and desire to suss out what Scaverous could do. It was an exercise of dipping my toes back into the pool of the undead following the beating they took transitioning into MK3. With a 3-3 record, I think my toes got a bit chilly in said pool.

Going through a few dojo ideas, I concocted a couple of combos that I wanted to test out. This included recognising the interactions between Bloodgorgers, Gerlack, Telekinesis, Soul Harvester and Knowledge of the Damned. Theoretically, I could set up some decent soul-trains, hurtling either Gerlack or a single Bloodgorger a distance of 13" to pacman through units, gathering souls for Scaverous, and off-setting misses and fail damage rolls with KotD. In testing, this worked beautifully, where Gerlack whiffed his first attack (typical), landed the re-roll, and then promptly ate a unit of Sentinels and Lanyssa. I decided on a min unit of Bloodgorgers and Gerlack for pulling off these tricks, and managed to get it off a couple of times over the course of the tournament.

The other package was the jack-marshalled Seether - this little guy was so much fun, and always surprised people. Over the course of the weekend, he ate over half an Arcane Shielded Stormwall, two Drillers and a Gun bunny, and 1.5 Menoth jacks. He usually has to do this over the course of a turn, before opponents scramble to end this ridiculousness, but its fun.

I filled out the rest of the list with misc stuff - Satyxis Raiders, Deathjack, Withershadow, that sort of noise.

I paired this list with a Skarre1 concoction, with the idea I could potentially muscle through gunlines with a feated Kraken and choice models. I put the Aiakos1 and double Stalker package into  this, and had a great assassination package running around. Again filling out my points with Raiders and Soulhunters to taste. Playing the list, I think the Soulhunters were a wasted inclusion - they never seemed to have the opportunity to face against their ideal targets, and I found myself mis-using them as jam/interference. Would have prefered Blood Witches instead. I also left the Skarlock at home, determined to try and make Ritual Sacrifice work off the back of Skarre alone. It didn't. Or rather, I had to choose to cast the spell at times, which I suppose does not necessarily mean the lack of Skarlock is a mistake. It still feels a crime to spend points on something that casts one spell a turn, and often it wasn't that Skarre was particularly in danger anyway. Will mull this over some more.

Notable moments with this list, included assassinating Ossyan with a feated Stalker top of 2. Not bad. I also attempted a two-attack, 4-dice-to-hit Kraken assassination on Caine2 after I got ground out on attrition. Landed the first attack to put Caine to 2 boxes, whiffed the second attack by 1. Ouch.

Then there was this:

In that nice open space where Skarre is situated in front of is where a Mountain King used to be. My kraken isonly sitting on 4 boxes after getting its shit pushed in (completely blanked about the Axer and rush, when I was trying to gauge threat distances from a Mountain King). So Skarre up the front there just one-rounded the Mountain King on her lonesome. Pushing through that glass-ceiling. Toruk, equal-opportunities employer, making Immoren great again.

Following that I expected to be continuously ground out. However, my opponent David Cameron Sir Lord Reagent Duke of the United Kingdoms, attempted an assassination trying to leverage off a knockdown on Skarre, not realising the Raider Captain was just up there preventing this from happening. Assasination foiled, the Stalkers truffle-shuffled over to Ragnor and put him in the dirt with spikey dice. Ole.

Anyways, other things I learnt over the course of this tournament:

1. Don't engage with Constance Blaize's force on her feat turn. Or rather, identify the appropriate activation order of your stuff. I tried something new for me, where I marked out on tokens an order of activation, to try plan in a more efficient and timely manner. While this is cool, I got the order wrong, where I needed to get my Bloodgorgers with Soul Harvester going first, to give Scavs resources, and deny souls to Constance. Instead Gerlack and crew just bounced off the Percursor Knights like pinballs.
2. Properly identify unit match ups - against Scott who was running Ossrum, my Raiders would have been better off facing his Nyss and Deathjack, going into his heavies. While I wasn't deployed appropriately, my first turn could have been a big ol switcheroo, which I don't mind doing. I could also take this lesson to consider the importance of deploying certain units (Raiders) more centrally, to be able to respond better to their chosen match up.
3. Holy crap Cryx stuff is delicate. I had to coddle my pieces SO MUCH, to try and maintain threat, scenario relevance, and not just lose key pieces. This is a reason I see a lot of people not liking Deathjack, but it feels there's a lot of points that goes into building decent synergies and then something like a Charger can come along blow it the fuck away. I dunno, there's also space to just GIT GUD SCRUB, but sweet jeebus.
4. Minions look so grand right about now.

So that's it for my thoughts right now on Conquest. It was an enjoyable event with fantastic games all-round (including my losses, the games against Josh and Scott were definitely two of my favs), and mad thanks go out again to Adam for hosting me. My goals are firmly set around developing my skill with Minions, particularly in prep for Cancon next year, and this will mean focusing on getting some painting done adn seeing what the heck I can wrangle with a Minions ADR. Rask plus Helga is looking pretty gas at the mo.

Tournament report dumpipost

Its been a few weeks since I attended Lords of Ruin in Wellington so I better collate my thoughts before the whole event becomes even more of a distant memory. I'll just drop some photos I took, along with my thoughts of my games. The event overall was a straight out hoot, with about 45 attendees, and faced by the ever-effervescent Sean Lincoln and Jimmy Braid. Big ups to those guys, and to the Wellington gaming crew, its always a good time in the capital.

Especially considering how close butts were during the rounds

Overall I felt I had made a sort of break-through during this event, in terms of making plans for my lists and responding to what my opponents dropped into me. I find this kind of funny because a few days before the event I was telling my flatmate how I appraised my ability, where I tend to just throw shit at my opponent, and then work to dig myself out of whatever hole I found myself in.

My first game illustrates my feeling that I had progressed in some way:

Along with a pair of glorious thighs, my opponent Scott Avery sported a pair of Galleons in his own Magnus2 list. Instead of dropping into auto-pilot and sending off my Croes up a flank as per usual, I instead ran them up the middle, pushing a couple into each Galleon to force them to trample should they wish to advance further up the field. I was almost undone when Scott's Orin Midwinter tried to zap the butt of one Galleon, but he missed on a double 1, so yeah. Dice. From there I was able to take off one Galleon, and after a small to-and-fro I got a bead on the enemy warcaster with a Renegade rocket and Harlen Versh ended it.

My next game was into Chris Ford, who dropped Ossyan into my Thexus list. No photos to document the exchange, but I wrangled a scenario win in Outlast, feating to push models out of zones, tying up his troops with ambushing drudges, and slamming jacks around etc. He tried for an assassination attempt, getting dangerously close to ending Thexus with arced spell nukes into Thexus, but otherwise the amount of control and dude-swarm I had him stitched up.

The third round was against one of the local PGs Chris Otton, bringing his Coven list into Magnus. I got to say that Chris was an absolutely gracious opponent during our game, where it seemed there were instances where he forgot to make certain actions during activations, yet insisted we continue play. Bloody champ. For myself, this game provided me a lesson on threat ranges and scenario, where I wanted to remain out of range of an Infernal-Machine'd Kraken, but threaten the central flag on Incursion. With the Coven's feat denying LOS too, I wanted to make sure I could contest the flags, stay out of threat ranges, but also ensure that I had a walking threat into whatever he would send into to either claim the flag or contest it. Above, you can see Chris has pushed his Kraken into the Mangler I dangled out as bait, but forgot to feat afterwards allowing me to trade up significantly.

Day 2 and round 4 saw Richard drop Sorscha1. Below you can see where I got to, having cleared the zone on Recon, and have feated to prevent the juggernaut and iron fangs from coming into the zone. Richard spent some time figuring out how to draw a bead on Magnus, as assassination was his only out. After failing that, Richard only had 5 available Winterguard to rush the zone, which all got stomped on.

Round 5 was where all sense decided to leave me. I drew against Nikola, and as soon as he started describing what he needed to drop into me, and what I in turn had to drop into him. I had no clue. I pretty much followed what he said like some sort of Moccachino Pied Piper. I dropped Thexus, pushed my models forward without any real thought, and proceeded to get pulled apart by Nikola's Kallus list

I've included an obligatory photo to document my shame, and to remind myself of these instances where my thinking seizes up. Its happened a few times in the past, though this is the first time I really recognised it as it happened, so this is something to continue to reflect upon.

With my chances of taking first place being dashed (gratz to Peter Williamski taking first, and one-listing the whole event with Gorten), I was paired against Adam Oakson, one of Christchurch's brightest and finest. The match up was Vlad1 vs Magnus in Take and Hold. Here my brain decided to kick back in. Sort of. We started with mandatory running up the board on the first turn, and I measured to remain out of the 12" of Behemoth and one of his juggernauts, should be alright, we have the same threat ranges right? Not recognising Vlad has Boundless Charge saw me lose my Mangler and Nomad top of two. However, my feat meant I was able to hold things in place and take pieces back for no reprisal. I also recognised that a cheeky Black Oil from Gorman would also take Adam's battle engine out for a turn. The Croes also got to work chipping away at Adam's Riflecorps and the attrition battle started to swing my way. After I managed to get up on Control Points, and further piece trading, the board was pretty bare,and Vlad started to bully his way into the centre of the table with Blood of Kings up. In the end, Adam decided to push Vlad all the way in, and I was faced with either scoring my last two CPs to win, or live the dream charging Magnus into Vlad's back-arc.

Holy crap that was glorious. Even with Vlad being Def 18 I had 4 dice to hit, 4 to damage, the first attack being armour piercingffffffffuu

That was all a bit gratuitous, so massive thanks to Adam for humouring me in doing this.

And thus concluded my Lord of Ruin. A nice 5-1 run with Mercs. I learnt heaps in my games, and by running different lists and factions. Next, my faction ADHD leads me to Minions, so the next post or two will document my soirees with them. following that, there may need to be further divergences into Cryx again.

You build it, I'll play it.

Last week I saw an entertaining post on the trollblood forums, where a player asked the community to construct a list that he would then play - the aim of the game as far as I could see, was to have a sort of "chinese-whispers" approach to list building, people taking turns to suggest model/units, but with the consideration that there must be at least be some reasoned argument for the inclusion of the unit. This should result in a list that most would not regularly consider, and hopefully expose some interesting interactions and unit combos.

The rules for the full process can be read here.

The final list that was decided upon was:
Rasheth +5
- Aradus Sentinel - 8
- Aradus Sentinel - 8
Zaadesh - 3
- Raider - 5
- Scarab pack - 5
Ancestral Guardian - 3
Extoller Soulward - 2
Max Unit of Immortals w/UA - 10
Max Unit of Croak Raiders - 8
Max Paingiver Beast Handlers - 3

So the first part of this process was a success - now to test this bad boy out.

I wanted to try and set up a game that wouldn't be too one-sided. Naturally, I line up a game last night with a Cryx player :| At least my opponent Peter was trying things on with Deneghra3, and things didn't feel too stacked against me, but I at least put the hammer down and demanded we not play a killbox scenario. It seemed obvious to me that all Denny had to do in that case was run up the guts of my army at full camp, and wait patiently till she could just jab ol tubbo with her pig-sticker.

Peter brought: Denny3 with two Helldivers, Skarlock, Darryl, two Soultrappers, Wrongeye and Snapjaw, Bloodwitches with UA, Nyss Hunters, Soulhunters and the Withershadow.

We draw Incursion, and winning the roll, I elect to go first and we setup thusly^^^. Swamp Shamblers are standing in for the Scarab pack, and the Keltarii leader is subbing in for the Extoller Advocate.
I have vague notions that the Croaks would be a decent counter to the Soulhunters on that flag, being able to ignore the water feature, and contest the flag while pelting them with darts. I had an idea of putting the Scarab pack into the Nyss, and have everything else in the middle working its way up. Tubby will spend most of the time next to the tower assessing the local property values.

First turn I run the scarabs thinking I needed to get the distance up the board. Things shuffle forward, and Rasheth puts Carnivore onto the Immortals. Much moaning about Croaks.

Cryx does things - Helldivers disappear and stay gone till the end of the game. Denny feats and wanders up - Blood witches run up and mini-feat. Peter face-palms at this point realising that he wanted to advance up his Soultrapper first for what is about to follow; the Nyss advance and pop three of the scarabs who were loitering around the flag. I can't really feel all that sorry for him though, having stuffed up myself, thinking it was ok to run the Scarabs up that far. Other stuff durdles around, one Soulhunter runs to engage the Croaks.

Turn 2 Immortals kick things off, one managing to get reach on the Soul Trapper in the forest, and three others dropping Blood witches. Raider and Zaadesh drop Snipe onto the bugs. Left Sentinel gets the nod from the Extoller, and drops his juices over 6 Nyss including Cylena. Much joy. The Croaks get cheeky and try to drop an oil onto Denny, and miss two shots to set her on fire seeing she had not been Gravewinded yet. Pete's butt muscles relax. Three other croaks try to gang up on the one Soulhunter, and scratch him for some damage, other Croaks move up and spray darts around to no effect. The right Sentinel ineffectually drops a shot into the Withershadow because ahh, reasons? Should have tried a direct shot into Darryl instead. Rasheth himself launches his juices at the Blood Hag, arcing a Breath of Corruption through a Croak. Last Scarab squats behind the flag, and Digs in with its animus, because I'm a lousy cheater and forgot he could only be forced for 1 being the last remaining bug of the pack.

Cryx turn 2 and stuff dies. Last Scarab bites the dust to Denny's melee prowess, so that's 5 points that did sweet fuck all. A Withershdow also lined up the Extoller UA and Dark-fired his proxy'ed butt, so no chance of seeing that guy in action either. Various Immortals get shanked after Denny puts Mortality on them, but one remains in contesting range of the flag.

On the right side, the Soulhunters see a nice line of croaks in the water, and after getting Ghost Walk, they charge in wiping out most of the unit. This is a placement lesson I seem reluctant to learn. The unit breaks, reminding me of the discussion as to whether to take an Extoller vs the Taskmaster. Le sigh. Wrongeye and Snapjaw advance forward, looking cool.

Skorne turn 3, and Vengeance moves allow the four remaining Immortals to cricket-bat  Nyss and Blood Witches. Carnivore is paying off. They subsequently finish off the Nyss, with some help from the charging Ancestral Guardian who also goes B2B with the flag. The Sentinels try to get the drop on Darryl, able to arcing fire over Denny, and de-horse him (DARRRRYYYYLLLLLL). Everything else pisses about, solitary Croak fails to rally, so Rasheth burns him as an arc-node to spite him. Tubbo also feats, and Beast Handlers run interference because reasons.

CPs: Skorne -1, Cryx - 0

Soulhunters merk the beast handlers converting them into tasty-tasty souls. Wrongeye takes a point of damage to B2B the flag. Denny 3 flaps over to the Ancestral Guardian, taking ineffectual free-strikes, and stabs fools. She Mortalities the right Sentinel and Snapjaw has a go at om-noming him. Under the feat and the Swarm animus, the Sentinel is barely tickled. Withershadow, Darryl and others put the kaibosh on the rest of the Immortals.

CPs: Skorne - 1, Cryx - 1

We chat for a bit about my options and it seems assassination is my best option. I start with Rasheth as my turn rides on him getting Bloodmark off, so him hugs the building more to block LOS from Denny and arcs through Zaadesh to stick the spell. From here, its about positioning and stopping push-back from poltergheist: The raider runs so he can stay in melee with Denny, and provide a pocket for Zaadesh to get jammed into. He flies in and scratches Denny for about 6 odd damage. An enraged Sentinel goes in next and drops her down to 5 remaining boxes. I get tunnel-vision at this point and send in the second Sentinel to try and get that last bit of damage onto her. She instead misses her attack and gets bumped back. Better play here would have been to focus his attack(s) onto Admonia, to get Unbinding off the table.

CPs: Skorne - 1, Cryx - 2

I missed out on taking a photo of Cryx turn 4, but the pic above changed little from his turn to mine. Pete tries to setup a Helldiver to fling into Rasheth, and Denny continues jabbing fools, taking a soul from the empty Zaadesh. He checks with me to see what Bloodmark does and takes note that I can kill Denny with the transferred damage, before activating the Withershadow and using them to cast Darkfires to blast apart my last remaining Beast Handler and Extoller. I sit very quietly. He removes the one Sentinel I can transfer to, before moving round and noticing the red Bloodmark token. Bugger. He switches gear, briefly considering if he can nickel-and-dime Rasheth to death without hitting the magical 5 damage I needed to kill him with, but instead decides to jam me up and run the Helldiver to instead block the Sentinel. He ends his turn going to 3 CPs, and come my turn I try to jam my Sentinel with my wild Raider, but I fail to gauge the distances properly. When the ensuing free-strikes take out its mind. my missed attack pushes me out of CC range, and Cryx go to 5 CPs .

Overall, a fun game with a new list produced by the forum community. The list had some decent legs and tools, and even with the inclusion of Zaadesh, it felt like it had options. Got to say the Immortal + Carnivore combo was great. I haven't played that unit all that often, so it was nice to have them accomplish things on the board and get involved. Sentinels did what they do, and even my problems with target-prioritisation, I still felt I got decent work out of them with Rasheth.

Pity about the Extoller UA. And the Scarabs. And my misplaying of the Croaks. And losing. At least I can also point at Pete's lovely bunching of the Nyss, and him forgetting to Unbind Bloodmark. I wasn't totally alone in with my brain-farts.

Rallypoint

This is going to be quitea long post to collect the entire event here in one summary, so I hope people don't find it too much of a chore to read. If it is, feedback would actually be appreciated, and I can cater post length or content for readers.

Apologies to those I played, I'm racking my brains to remember the names of everyone, and the names of teams, so I'm likely to get some wrong. I should really have taken a photos of the score sheets at the end.

The final list I decided on was:

Pirate Queen Skarre - WJ: +6
- Skarlock Thrall
- Helldiver - PC: 3
- Cankerworm - PC: 5

Satyxis Raider Captain - PC: 2
Bane Lord Tartarus - PC: 4
Saxon Orrik - PC: 2

Satyxis Raiders - Leader & 9 Grunts: 8
- Satyxis Raider Sea Witch - Satyxis Raider Sea Witch 2
Satyxis Blood Witches - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
- Satyxis Blood Hag - Satyxis Blood Hag 2
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls - Necrosurgeon & 3 Grunts: 2
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls - Necrosurgeon & 3 Grunts: 2
Bane Knights - Leader & 9 Grunts: 10
Mechanithralls - Leader & 9 Grunts: 5
- Skarlock Commander - PC: 1

The main reasoning behind this list, as discussed in the last post, was to have something that I could push into armour skews, beast and jack heavy lists, multi-wound infantry, colossals, that kind of bag.

ROUND 1: we faced a team that featured Rahn, Haley3 and Severius1; so no armour skews to roflstomp. We let them choose the first match because we figured that we'd be able to arrange the last two choices to guarantee at least two favourable games. In the end, they put their Menoth player into Greg's pHaley, and I elected to push Luke into Rahn, wanting to avoid any janky assassnations.

My opponent Mike didn't seem to have too much experience playing against Skarre, so I was able to bump and grind to an assassination on Haley. Luke also won his game, and Greg closed things out on the Severius player when he apparently accidentally started to kill him with blasts and electro leaps.

ROUND DOS: was against Dan, the organiser's Bye-team that consisted of himself and one other player, meaning one of us had to sit out. With Dan running a Lucant list, and his buddy sporting the new Legion twins, I elected Greg cheerlead us from the bench as I pushed into Lucant, and Luke into Legion. I ended my game on a scenario win in Incursion even despite my best efforts to fail, trying to out attrition Lucant on his feat turn.  Luke seemed to also comfortably push Runes into the Legion force, allowing us to advance.

Ol' Dan Shaky Hands. The vibrating maestro

ROUND TROIS: saw us play into another team of Hamilton locals - I recall Luke got to face Jason running an eXerxis list with gun bugs and drakes, whereas I got put into Brendon running eLylyth. Greg rounded things off going into Casey's Rask list, so I believe we all got the match ups we wanted In my mind, I didn't particularly want to go into Lylyth, but I spent the first couple of turns squatting in my own deployment zone so it wasn't like it mattered. My Satyxis Raiders tied up his Ravagores, knocking them down and wiping out their spirits. Brendon had a good go at untying himself in the bind I put him in, but accidentally kill boxed himself to keep Lylyth out of engagement, and vaped one of his knocked-down Ravagores by accident, trying to shake off the raiders. From there, Skarre decided to make her presence known by tenderly moving up to score and close the game for me. Luke was having some trouble playing into Jason, with a stray shot nabbing Janissa early into the game. In particular, a cheeky feralgheist was doing the rounds, jumping in and out of Troll beasts, and while Luke was up on attrition, he was starting to get low on the clock. In the end Xerxis himself was sent in to do some work, and was subsequently squashed. Over on Greg's table, things weren't shaping out that well; Casey had done a great job of grinding Greg's list down, and won in scenario with seconds to spare after Greg ran out of things to contest with.

I neglected to take many more photos at this point because I am scum.

But we got the wins we needed to win the round, and advanced to face on o the other 3-and-oh teams, Finding Nemo; a team consisting of Mitch Cowan, Nikola Jaksic and Joshua Warne, all sporting one of the Nemos. Their approach to the event and the way things played out for them was both inspiring and hilarious; and also the reason why I've rambled so much about practice and preparation. Here you have three guys playing the same faction with a caster that is hardly considered worthy in competitive circles, and with little-to-no practice; just a quick and rough idea of how to make Nemos 1, 2, and 3 work with particular lists, and with very little practice beforehand. And then you have us, Team Ninja, trying to pick a combination of the most broke-ass casters out there, drawing up little charts detailing match ups, guessing and second guessing what people will bring.

ROUND QUAD: Anyways, we elected to choose the first matchup, and I pushed Nikola's Nemo2 into Luke's Trolls.  I had played against his list prior to the event, and he was able to tear my force to shreds with ease. I figured I wanted to make sure we had something to take out his Stormwall, as that was the only colossal in the three lists. I ended up facing Mitch with Nemo1, and got a sharp lesson in getting my shit handed to me again; the opening rounds he was able to drop heaps of my supporting pieces. I was feeling pretty crap about my chances at that point, but switched gears to push hard towards his objective and feat defensively. This created this high-armour lump parked right up on Nemo's doorstep, and it may have won me the game too... if I had the foresight to clear one cheeky Risen that was stopping me from scoring on his flag. From there, Mitch switched things up himself, protecting Nemo and bleeding my army till I had nothing left. In the end he had to race to remove a contesting Cankerworm, but was able to do this and score enough CPs to win. This game was a real nail-biter, and easily my favourite game of the weekend with how huge the swings were in terms of trying to get one up on one another. Love your work Mitch.

Luke finished up Nikola with little trouble, but Josh being the more experienced Cygnar player ground out Greg. We finished the first day with a score of 3-1, feeling rather battered after that last round. Nemo = OP.

ROUND CINQ: Rolling onto Sunday, we paired against a fair group of Wellingtonians hell bent on achieving the fastest assassinations possible; Mike Snook with Mortenebra, Chris Ford with Lylyth2, and someone else with Rahn. Luke was the first to drop, getting assassinated by an Overrun Nightmare on the 2nd round. Blimey. I ground Chris down, with the same tactic I employed above, of Skarre runs away while the rest of her army runs forward. Worked a treat a second time. That meant the round rested on Greg's lofty shoulders; we figured he'd be ok time with a greater number of shots going into the Ret army, and Arcane Vortex serving to protect her from any nasty Rahn surprises. The actual match ended up being a real grind, with the Ret army edging up on attrition. In the closing minutes however, with everyone watching, the Ret player pushed Rahn out into the open to sling spells and clear the zones. Greg sauntered Haley up for an assassination run, banking on two boosted Arcane Bolts to finish Rahn. Casually, he decided to roll the hard 11 needed to smack Rahn with her hand cannon. The following Arcane Bolt also landed and that was game, with a scant few minutes to spare. My anus was puckered to hell I tells you.

It was interesting to see teams members pounce onto both the players of that game to figure out what the heck was going on through their minds in those closing moments.

ROOND 6: We were matched against familiar faces from my lil gaming Shed, Robert Power, Chas Roberts, and Dan Lister, making up Team: Why So Serious? It was meant to be Why So Issyria, but nah lol. Winning the roll off, we elected to pitch Greg into Chas who was running Scaverous, thinking that no matter where the next two match ups went, we'd be able to squeak out another win. Rob was running Issyria and Dan Lylyth2 and upon reflection this was a hard choice for them to make; Rob could potentially go into Runes and Dan go into me, to give themselves a couple of yellow match-ups. It wasn't a choice guaranteed to produce a win, but I feel it would have been the best one to wrangle two wins if Chas was going to go down to pHaley. Instead, Rob elected to face me giving him a safe game. He proceeded to tear my army to shreds, with Halberdiers and two squads of Invictors reaching out and touching me in all the wrong places, and a Hyperion that wouldn't quit producing crit-consumes. There were a couple of tense moments, particularly as I overheard Dan exclaiming about some quad-sixes he rolled on damage, but ultimately Luke closed his game. Greg did as well, sniping Scaverous with Eiryss and assassinating the Cryxian head-librarian. At this point, I threw caution to the wind, feated with Skarre, and sent her into he Hyperion to finish it off for lols. After cutting herself down to 2 boxes to finish off the Colossal, Rob finished her off with an 8 man CRA to her face. RIP Skarre.

Which brings us to our seventh and FINAL ROUND. Revenge match v Finding Nemo. We got stung once, twice shy. How will we possibly manage to beat all 3 Nemos? This is bullshit. Well, we used our team feat at this point to choose the match ups: we again plopped Luke into Nikola (much groaning) to deal to that pesky Stormwall, and I chose to face Josh this time after the butt-whuppin' Mitch gave me. Josh's list was far more friendly to me; Thunderhead and Dynamo with that battle engine swanning around. Very little massed, long ranged infantry clearing. Josh went first in our game, and with the scenario being Destruction I pushed hard at the bottom of two to go up 3 CPs. Josh's response was to try to kill Skarre sitting around ARM24. And he got damned close to it too - after the dust had settled Skarre was left on 1 box, after which Josh conceded. Unraveling my tightened butt for the second time that day I checked on the other two and finally remembered to snag a photo

Greg's looking a little too casual. Mitch pretty much had things well in hand, grinding down Greg's force, and chasing Haley around the board with his Blazers. Things were pretty hairy over on Nikola and Luke's table, where Nikola was going for an assassination on Doomy with various shots and angles and whatnot, but it was pretty much a foregone conclusion; Mulg hit Nemo, and Team Ninja won Rallypoint. Nikola seemed miffed at having to play into Runes twice over the weekend, and to be honest I was being way too wary of his list. Not knowing what the other lists could do, his Stormwall was the focus of my match-up decisions. In discussion with him afterwards, he stated we should have tried to arrange the match-ups by aiming to put me into Josh. This was a green match for me that I didn't recognise, and Luke could comfortably go into any of the other two lists. Just goes to show how much I can get railroaded into a particular way of thinking and completely miss other opportunities and options. We got there in the end though, and I'd like to think it wasn't purely through luck or the strength of our lists/casters.

Its still hilarious to consider the amount of close calls we encountered, and times where we got thoroughly out-played, whilst running arguably some of the strongest warcasters/locks in the game. But my thoughts on this will have to wait. I've been siting on this post for almost two weeks as it is :)

Prep, practice and rallypoint

Token statement about time, commitments, psychological anguish (my own).

But I've been itching to write about a local teams event I attended recently; teams were 3 people, one list per person, with a simple match up process of roll-off get's to decide whether to choose the first, or last two match-ups. Me and the two guys I played with won the event, but before I discuss that I'm keen to first write about the preparation process leading up to Rallypoint (if you can call an extended facebook chat and 2 games prep?).

With me, Luke, and Greg, Team Ninja formed once again, a name forged through a process I wasn't a part of so I don't know how to explain it, but what ever; ninjas are well known for their team work or something.

Preparing for Rallypoint became an exercise between the three of us, deciding what was the strongest combination of casters we could bring from our available collections, and balance out our weaknesses in preparation for what we expected to face. I went with my Cryx and pSkarre because fair and balanced. Luke has had much practice running Runes of War, so we determined that as our 'armour brick'. Greg had recently acquired a bunch of Cygnar, so he was lumped with the burden of pHaley as our Cryx drop. With casters in mind, we built rough lists (so much variety to consider for RoW) to begin practice with and see if we actually were able to counter each others' weaknesses. I had a rough go at making a grid for ourselves in terms of covering opposing factions;

Yerp, crude as flip. This was all largely theory as well; my own experience with Skarre was playing her in a couple of tournaments when I was green as all heck a couple of years ago, and Greg had only just started with Cygnar. I can safely say we were banking  hard on the obvious strengths of those warcasters to carry us through our games if we got the match-up process right. Looking at the chart above, we assumed that we would have a hard time into Ret, particularly in relation to Rayvn's tier, but again; this was all theory and conjecture.  It made a bit of sense to try and practice our lists. Right? Right.

First, me and Greg played into one another essentially to test the theory that pHaley > Cryx, photographing the game on a turn by turn basis and let Luke know how we did and expose ourselves to sideline ridicule. After my second turn I had the pace to push up through Temporal Barrier. I had most of my force occupying the mid-zone, and was feeling good that I'd have sufficient resources to attrition Greg out of the game.

Then Cygnar things happened:

Fuck.

Ok, hypothesis holds strong. pHaley can remove single wound infantry pretty trivially. This was also a lesson for myself of when to time Skarre's feat; I've been stung before feating defensively, but against a list like this, it definitely would have been the right call.

Unfortunately for Greg, there was also a lesson to be learnt about standing to close to the Helldiver's burrow token:

In the end I had the feat and Dark Guidance up, and BARELY enough resources to clear the jamming Forgeguard to allow the Helldiver to walk into Haley. Greg tried to block the real estate around Haley, but those burrow rules are hard to plan around. Apart from those complications, it otherwise felt like Greg's list fit into a nice slot in our team, and I got to experience the joy of pushing a single wound infantry melee hoard into what felt like a 2 hour dick punch.

In a couple of days, I had a follow up match against Luke's Trolls, to test the theory behind my list: Skarre plus dudes > Armour. And that's essentially how the game went, being able to trade small models for larger pieces, and Luke not having sufficient infantry removal to clear everyone out. Things did get hairy though, when the Earthborn trampled and goaded over to where I thought Skarre was safe behind her wall

He whiffed his attacks, but it was certainly a lesson on needing to keep her safe. Otherwise I felt my list was humming; it was skewed the way I wanted it to sit, and was able to be trotted out against the armour heavy lists I anticipated to see at Rallypoint the following weekend.

AUGUST 2015 WM/H ERRATA: IN DEPTH ANALYSIS, CRITIQUE AND FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

It's frikkin sweet eh

Journeymayngs: Rnd 1

Report of Day 1 of the Official SHED Journeyman League, a mild Monday evening disrupted by backs cracking as they bend over tables, wrists creaking as dice are rolled, and the characteristic shuffle of plastic against skin as models are moved. Ah yesss, the smell of 8 men packed into a barely insulated space. The stuff dreams and shattered hopes are made of. And much learnings.

After a last minute recruitment drive, Luke Harvey managed to net two more fresh and naive players in the form of Ray and Jordan. Welcome to the Shed boys.

welcum

My first game was played against Ray who had turned up an hour early. +1 for enthusiasm Ray. He was running the basic Skorne BBox, and we managed to hustle two games as other people arrived and started their own games. Overall, we had 4 games running simultaneously, with most sneaking in 3 games each.

Morghul gets Wrecked

da fuk?

Ret vs CoC 

Morghul's revenge

Deathripper being mates with Kreoss

My own experience was one of feeling rather refreshed by the games. Approaching the game again with a stripped down number of options and exploring a new faction,meant the freedom to try out different moves and tricks, and order of activations. I hope the others felt the same, and that when we meet again in a couple of week's time we get the same chances, except this time with 15pts worth of stuff. An Agitator is definitely the first thing to go into the list.

As for results, here's where everyone is currently ranked based off my recording of the collected game and hobby points.

So Ray leads the pack, to no small part due to having his BBox painted. Jordan was the other person to have done some painting and follows up in third, and Dan sits at 2nd having somehow snuck in 4 games, and winning them all with an Iron-Fleshed pButcher.

You can tell he's stoked about the whole thing.

Or at least, Nikola seemed to be

Oh dear lord...

See you in 2 weeks guys!

Journeymayngs

Just a quickie to begin the documentation of a small journeyman league I'm running out of my garage. The idea came from David Smooth-Hands Wilson, who would sporadically show up for our regular gaming and cuddle nights on Thursdays. He had a conflicting sports commitment which meant he had trouble finding time to game with the rest of us. This was further compounded by his relative unfamiliarity of the game, so starting from the battlebox level seemed like a great way to start over, relearn the basics of the game, and really see what sort of stunts you could pull out of the bag.

For myself, this seemed to be a great way to approach the game anew, and really test what could be done with a limited palette of options. Additionally, a bunch of us have a backlog of minis that we have neglected to attend to, so the Journeyman becomes a way to start painting our models from a modest and manageable base, and to expand the forces over the next few weeks in a steady and reasonable pace. We're also opening things up to allow people to make their own battleboxes with 11pts. We'll try to keep that under control so there hopefully won't be anything too heinous but #yolo.

We'll be doing this unofficially due to having no easy access to a press ganger and a journeyman kit, so we won't have swish badges to show off to our respective partners, girlfriends, and pets. But using this blog I'll document and chart our progress, so while there won't be badge prizes there will be the very real and tangible shame of being exposed for being a slack fuck on the worldwide web.

SO WHO'S UP FOR IT?

First we have Mr Wilson himself

I think he mentioned at one point wanting to use Convergence. I guess we'll find out if he is.

Then we have Luke H bringing his own variation on the Kaelyssa battlebox. 

Next up to the plate we have Dan L, running an eCaine battlebox. I predict all his games end with a top-of-two-feat assassination. 

I have no idea what's up with your profile pic Dan, 

Nikola will be pThagging it, though I think he's making his own variation on the suggested bb.

Only guy playing Hordes. Oosh.

Ol' Greg F is doing something with dwarves. Gorten I believe with all the lights.

This post allows me to reuse this gif I made of Greg two years ago, bonus.

And we also got Peter H, bringing along the obligatory pDenny bb. Someone has to be that guy.

There are few snaps of Pete on the interwebs, so here's one of him I took, on his way to go for a piss.

And then there's me.

My backlog of models has included a full 50pt Cephalyx force, so Exulon Thexus and his boys it is.

Looking forward to giving this guy a spin; the monstrosities are such neat models, and the tricks Thexus has available for him will likely make my face implode. I had my first go at magnetizing too, making the Wrecker's face and arms interchangeable with the Warden's. The Subduer on the left I thought would be too tricky to magnetize, until I fully assembled him and glued him together, and saw that his net launcher arm would have been fine magnetized.

*oh well*

Huh. I said this would be a short one, didn't I?

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

I get a child-like glee whenever PP drops reveals.

I guess I should acknowledge this guy too:

Ret caster on a medium base? What a tough guy. Guess its a good thing they spoiled he'd have Martial Discipline on the Primecast; won't trip up on Halbadiers or Mage Hunters.

More relevant to the factions I play is the reveal of the Steelhead Merc, who may find places in Cryx lists if I decided to go down that path. Or heck, even down the Merc path seeing I got the stuff to start in that direction too. Also I was confused looking at the solo with the blue Cygnar armour, thought he was meant for that faction, but now see he's a Thamarite Merc solo rocking about in Cygnar gears.

Cheeky.

EDIT: the Meat Thresher apparently has been revealed too （　ﾟ Дﾟ） WANT

EDIT 2:

GUZZIT

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

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.