Well, this is not the post I thought I’d be making at the end of the today. I made the Top 16!  I went 6-1 and finished 6th in Swiss.  Top 16 starts at 10am tomorrow morning and I’m playing for the Warhammer 40,000: Conquest World Championship title! I’m really kicking myself for not taking notes after each round.  I am happy to say that everyone I played against was extremely friendly and were a pleasure to play against.  My biggest fear about Worlds was that it was high profile enough that there would be players taking things so seriously that they were no longer having fun.  I’m glad that wasn’t the case. So, I’m back in my room now, having just ordered a steak to celebrate.  I feel terrible that I didn’t go out for the Cigars and Beers event hosted by the First Planet Podcast guys, but I’m exhausted after a 10 hour day of Conquest and I want to make sure that I get some rest before tomorrow.  I’m sure if I went I would have got caught up talking with folks and would have gotten home late. In the afternoon session I faced another Kith, a Nazdreg and two Ragnars.  I was happy to have a better result in my second Kith mirror of the day.  He got the Archon’s Palace out first turn, but I managed to still win some command and eventually reeled him back in for a victory. My match against Nazdreg was one of those matches that makes everyone hate Kith.  It was lopsided from the outset and the deck mostly played itself.  It’s not a knock against my opponent, but it was a case study in why Kith is such a strong deck. My last two matches were both against Ragnar.  Both were very challenging games, even though I went in to the tank far too long worrying about Kith being bloodied in the last turn of the first match-up.  I forgot that after I won planet 1, there would be no battle at planet 2. At 6-1 I was a lock for Top 16 so I was able breathe a huge sigh of relief after my last victory.  Reviewing the numbers after the fact, it looks like my strength of schedule was good enough that I would have made Top 16 even with a loss. The adrenaline is finally starting to fade. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a decent night’s sleep. Wish me luck for the morning! Travis is flying out to the FFG World Championships in Minnesota next week to play in the Star Wars: Armada, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest and Android: Netunner events. Conquest is his primary focus and he is going to share some of his thoughts leading up to and during the event here on The Tactical Squad blog.

I am three rounds into the Warhammer 40,000: Conquest World Championships and we are on our lunch break.  Well, the rest of the field is grabbing lunch.  I ate earlier after a quick loss against another Kith deck in the second round.  I decided that I didn’t want to rush around during the break so ordered some food before the crowd. I’m currently sitting at 2-1.  My goal was not to be eliminated before lunch, so I’ve managed that, even if I would have felt a lot better at 3-0.  My strength of schedule isn’t looking great so far, so I’m going to focus on winning my remaining games.  I faced Cato in the first and third rounds and lost against Kith in the second.  I made a lot of mistakes in my first game and only one space mistake in the third.  I’m not sure there was much I could have done in the second round against my opponent’s hand.  I don’t want to take anything away from my opponent, because he played it perfectly, but it left with me no opening to claw my way back in. As for the other Toronto players, Victor and John are also sitting at 2-1.  I know that Jon is disappointed that he dropped his last game of the morning session, but I have faith that he can make his way through the afternoon. A few of my opponents and nearby players have recognized the Tactical Squad playmat and said nice things.  My second opponent said it was an honour to play someone from the podcast.  I corrected him; it was an honour to demolish someone from the podcast.  But no one has tried to claim the prize yet. Anyways, I don’t want to spend my entire break writing, so I’m going to head back over to the Fantasy Flight Games Event Center. PS.  The player who beat me yesterday in Armada went on to win the event, so I can say that my only lost in Armada came against the eventual World Champion. Travis is flying out to the FFG World Championships in Minnesota next week to play in the Star Wars: Armada, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest and Android: Netunner events. Conquest is his primary focus and he is going to share some of his thoughts leading up to and during the event here on The Tactical Squad blog.

Thursday marked the first day of official World Championship events for me.  The Star Wars: Armada event was scheduled to start at noon, but I had a bye in the first round courtesy of my victory at the Canadian Nationals.  So, our usual readers may have to bear with me for a moment as I divert briefly into Armada talk. I was very nervous about the Armada event.  It is not my primary event and I don’t spend as much time strategizing or practicing as I do for other games.  And with the first round bye, that meant I would be matched up against other winning players in the second round.  I didn’t want to embarrass either the Toronto scene or Canada in general by crashing and burning. Thankfully I was able to pull off a victory in my first actual match of the day.  Ironically it was against the player from New Mexico who had actually travelled to participate in the Canadian Nationals.  I made a few mistakes, but I felt pretty good about my performance, even if was low margin victory that only netted me only 6 out of a possible 10 points for the round. But a win moved me further up in the standings, so I was facing even stiffer competition.  Unfortunately I didn’t write down the name of my opponent in the third round, but he was very friendly - even after having a long day at the X-Wing event the day before.  He had actually made top 16, but was eliminated early enough Thursday morning to be able to play in the Armada event.  I ended up with a full loss in that match.  There were a couple key mistakes that would likely have turned the course of the battle, but I didn’t feel terrible about my performance.  And my opponent was such a pleasure to play against, that I still ended the day feeling great. I ended up with 15 out of a possible 30 points for the day, so it removed most of the anguish from the decision to drop from day 2 of the Armada event to play in the Warhammer 40,000: Conquest main event tomorrow. Now I’m just waiting for room service to bring me my burger before I head back to the Fantasy Flight Games Event Center for a couple more hours of Conquest theorycrafting and deck tweaking before we get down to business in the morning.  Many people have been talking about how the field with be bringing a lot of anti-Kith to the event to deal with the prevalence of Kith players, but even knowing that, there are still some top players coming over to the dark side and switching to Kith at the last minute.  I think I may swap a few cards around, but I’m locked in to Dark Eldar. Also, I want to take a moment to congratulate John Gobeil, a local Toronto Conquest player, for his 5th place finish in the Worldeater event today and his shiny new Broadside playmat. Travis is flying out to the FFG World Championships in Minnesota next week to play in the Star Wars: Armada, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest and Android: Netunner events. Conquest is his primary focus and he is going to share some of his thoughts leading up to and during the event here on The Tactical Squad blog.

I woke up this morning in the Radisson Hotel Roseville in the lovely state of Minnesota.  It’s grey and threatening rain, but that didn’t stop us from heading over to the Fantasy Flight Games first thing after a complementary brunch at the hotel.  We had to wait to let the X-Wing players register first, as their event starts today, but it didn’t take long before we had our passes and a few tokens to use in FFG’s league play.  Basically if you find another player with a stripe for their game on their badge, you can challenge them to a game, putting up one of your tokens as bounty.  It sounds like fun, but I’m not sure when I won’t be in another event so that I can participate. The first disappointment of the day was learning that the Hard Wired draft packs did not arrive, so the Android drafts today have to use one of the older sets.  That definitely dampened the enthusiasm everyone had starting the day.  But so far we’ve met the Australian Conquest champion, netrunner players from France and the UK, and Victor even brokered a trade with Quinns from Shut Up & Sit Down. I’m looking forward to the afternoon. Travis is flying out to the FFG World Championships in Minnesota next week to play in the Star Wars: Armada, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest and Android: Netunner events. Conquest is his primary focus and he is going to share some of his thoughts leading up to and during the event here on The Tactical Squad blog.

I’m sitting here at my computer on the Sunday night before worlds going over my checklist as I try to make sure everything is packed for the trip. After a disappointing finish in last Sunday’s tournament, I am bringing Kith with me. No more uncertainty on that score. Of course, now I’m debating last minute substitutions for that deck. I’ve finalized my Netrunner decks and I’m just deciding on the last few tweaks to Armada fleet. I still need to put together a deck for the Sunday wrap-up event for Conquest, but I’ve got my fingers crossed that Decree of Ruin might see an early release and I can play Starblaze. So that means the Conquest binder has to go in the luggage as well. I’ve got a couple prizes tucked away for any podcast listeners that track me down at the event. I have my alt art cards ready for potential trades or to get signed. I’m making sure all the relevant electronics have their batteries topped up and ensuring that I have all the necessary cables in my bags. I have my passport put aside as well as some US cash from my last trip to the states. I hope I’m ready. Travis is flying out to the FFG World Championships in Minnesota next week to play in the Star Wars: Armada, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest and Android: Netunner events. Conquest is his primary focus and he is going to share some of his thoughts leading up to and during the event here on The Tactical Squad blog.

I still can’t decide which deck I want to bring to Worlds. I’ve brought Kith to most high profile events I’ve played - including a top 8 finish at Canadian Nationals - so I know that she performs well for me. I’ve won a tournament with my Coteaz deck, but it’s always a bumpier trip through any event. There is a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me to move on from Kith. Not because it will increase my chances for a high finish.  It just feels like it’s time. That seems like a ridiculous reason in the face of a world championship event, but I can’t shake it. I tell myself that I’ll have a better shot at winning for top faction finish with Coteaz, even if I take a hit on my already slim odds at cracking the top 16.  That feels like a weak rationalization. So, on the eve of the last tournament before the big event, I make a last minute adjustment to my Astra Militarum deck, telling myself that my result tomorrow will determine who goes in my luggage for the trip to Minnesota. I’m hoping that at least it will be like flipping a coin and, finding myself unhappy with the outcome, I realize what I truly wanted to do all along. But I’m worried that it’s more likely that I just keep muttering to myself for the next week like I have for the past month, paralyzed by indecision and annoying everyone around me. Who knows, maybe I’ll luck into some big wins on Day 1 of Armada and all this agonizing will be for nothing. Travis is flying out to the FFG World Championships in Minnesota next week to play in the Star Wars: Armada, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest and Android: Netunner events.  Conquest is his primary focus and he is going to share some of his thoughts leading up to and during the event here on The Tactical Squad blog.

Rotation 2 - Sept 29th to Oct 13th

Two more weeks have passed and my experiences with three new warlords has been interesting, to say the least. This rotation I played Old Zogwort for the first time, revisited Commander Shadowsun, and started playing “The Swarmlord” - a deck I will continue playing into the next rotation. I played Zogwort eight times, Shadowsun five times and Swarmlord four times for a total of 17 games. Eight of those games were against “Old One Eye”, who seems to be quite popular in my local meta at the moment.

Old Zogwort

[table width=“250px”] Army (31)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x, Crushface 3x, Enraged Ork 3x, Evil Sunz Warbiker 2x, Goff Boyz 3x, Iron Guard Recruits 3x, Ratling Deadeye 2x, Rugged Killa Kans 3x, Shoota Mob 3x, Snakebite Thug 3x, Tallarn Raiders 4x, Zogwort’s Runtherders [/table] [table width=“250px”] Attachment (1)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x, Weirdboy Stikk [/table]

[table width=“250px”] Event (13)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x, Battle Cry 2x, Dakka Dakka Dakka! 2x, Launch Da Snots 2x, Squig Bombin 2x, Squiggify 3x, Suppressive Fire [/table] [table width=“250px”] Support (5)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x, Catachan Outpost 2x, Staging Ground 1x, Zogwort’s Hovel [/table]

Zogwort is a warlord I have always been generally down on. Not long ago, while listening to The Hive Tyrant’s “State of the Meta” review with Sam Mann, they revealed Old Zogwort has an adjusted win rate that ranks him fifth among the warlords that had been released through the end of the Warlord cycle. This came as a surprise to me so I decide that there was something I was missing and that I needed to look deeper into it. After playing a few games with him, I believe the statistics. While he still is not quite tier 1 - whatever that actually means - he is most much more solid than I had originally given credit for. One of the main strengths of the Ork faction is the powerful but still cost effective combat presence of their units. When paired with Astra Militarum you are able to build a very strong command presence and have every unit be combat ready. Borrowing Staging Ground, Catachan Outpost, and Suppressive Fire allows you to have a solid base of combat tricks, particularly when paired with the cards already available in faction. Zogwort’s ability to fight long protracted battles and continually produce more Snotlings tokens means that he is a formidable bully if you are able to keep him in the fight. To help protect Zogwort I included a couple copies of each of the double shield cards available. I found that Dakka Dakka Dakka! was used almost exclusively as a shield card and never as an effect. Because of the large number of units in the deck, especially lower health ones, and the importance Zogwort himself often plays in the command struggle the card doesn’t feel like it fits. I found that the deck was able to play both rush and long game strategies proficiently depending on the planet flop. I also realized that to take advantage of the full power of Launch Da Snots, you can trigger Zogwort’s Reaction to create an additional Snotling before triggering the reaction on the event. This allows clever warlords squeeze that extra bit of punch out of the attack. I think I will be revisiting Zogwort in the future. When I do I will be swapping out the copies of Dakka, Dakka, Dakka! for one copy of Squiggify and Battle Cry each. Or potentially newer double shield cards that may be released for Orks in Planetfall. I would also like to find some space for a couple copies of Promotion, though I’m not sure what I would take out. I was very pleasantly surprised by Zogwort and would definitely encourage others to try him.

Commander Shadowsun

[table width=“250px”] Army (31)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x, Bork’an Recruits 3x, Earth Caste Technician 2x, Fireblade Kais’Vre 3x, Gun Drones 2x, Pathfinder Shi Or’es 3x, Recon Drone 2x, Rogue Trader 4x, Shadowsun’s Stealth Cadre 3x, Tactical Squad Cardinis 2x, Vash’ya Trailblazer 3x, Vior’la Marksman 2x, Void Pirate [/table]

[table width=“250px”] Attachment (7)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x, Command-link Drone 2x, Heavy Marker Drone 2x, Ion Rifle 2x, Repulsor Impact Field [/table] [table width=“250px”] Event (8)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x, Deception 2x, Even the Odds 2x, For the Tau’va 2x, Squadron Redeployment [/table] [table width=“250px”] Support (5)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x, Ambush Platform 1x, Communications Relay 2x, Repair Bay [/table]

Commander Shadowsun is a warlord I’ve played a lot in the past and who has grown a reasonable amount over the first cycle of the game. In particular, both cards Tau received in The Great Devourer were very big additions to her arsenal. Unfortunately, I don’t know if either Pathfinder Shi Or’es or Repair Bay actually have given Shadowsun the boost she needs to become a more consistent threat. Looking forward I think an avenue of potential exploration is pairing her more heavily with army units from the Space Marine faction. Tactical Squad Cardinis, with an attached copy of Gun Drones can prove to be a formidable threat. And Repulsor Impact Field can be a particular pain when attached to either Blood Angels Veterans or Firedrake Terminators. This also opens up the possibility of using cards like Crushing Blow to add even more hitting power to your deck. I had already begun thinking more in this direction during this rotation and the inclusion of Cardinis started to pay dividends almost immediately. Ultimately I didn’t get as many games in with Shadowsun as I would have liked and currently I’m torn between continuing to experiment and just giving up on her all together. Currently I think I will put her aside and see if she gets any help in the new couple War Packs. Hopefully I’ll feel inspired to revisit her down the road.

Swarmlord

[table width=“250px”] Synapse (1)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x Stalking Lictor [/table] [table width=“250px”] Army (29)[attr colspan=“2”] 4x Brood Warriors 2x Hunting Gargoyle 2x Ravenous Haruspex 3x Ripper Swarm 3x Scything Hormagaunts 2x Shrieking Harpy 3x Strangler Brood 3x Termagant Sentry 3x Toxic Venomthrope 2x Tyranid Warrior 2x Volatile Pyrovore [/table]

[table width=“250px”] Attachment (3)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x Bone Sabres 2x Promotion [/table] [table width=“250px”] Event (15)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x Clogged with Corpses 2x Consumption 2x Dark Cunning 2x Indescribable Horror 2x No Mercy 2x Spawn Termagants 3x Spore Burst [/table] [table width=“250px”] Support (3)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x Leviathan Hive Ship 2x Spore Chimney [/table]

Finally, I started playing with “The Swarmlord”. I did not get many games under my belt, so I’ll keep this brief. I began by experimenting with how the Venomthrope Polluter worked as the synapse creature for the Swarmlord but I found, at least to start, that was a very confusing and seeminged inefficient. Because of this I decided to switch to the Stalking Lictor. When paired with Brood Warriors and Toxic Venomthrope, the deck felt like it had a very threatening early command game. So far I’ve found I’ve enjoyed the deck quite a bit and I will continue to play and tweak it for at least a few more weeks.   I’m quite happy with the number of games I was able to log over the two weeks of this rotation. A lot of the players in my meta are currently quite enthusiastic about Old One Eye, particularly paired with the Savage Warrior Prime, so almost half of the games I played ended up being against it. Moving on to my next rotation I will be building Baharroth and Torquemada Coteaz, and continuing with “The Swarmlord”, so look out for some final thoughts about those decks in a few weeks. Until Next time! Thanks for reading.

[table width=“208px”] Zogwort[attr colspan=“2”] Win v Old One Eye (Planet 5) Loss v Old One Eye (Planet 5) Win v Eldorath (Planet 5) Loss v Old One Eye (Planet 6) Win v Nazdeg (Planet 5) Win v Old One Eye (Planet 4) Win v Old One Eye (Planet 5) Loss v Ku’gath (Planet 6) [/table]

[table width=“208px”] Shadowsun[attr colspan=“2”] Loss v Old One Eye (Planet 5) Loss v Aun’shi (Planet 3) Loss v Ku’gath (Planet 4) Loss v Swarmlord (Planet 6) Win v Old One Eye (Planet 5) [/table]

[table width=“208px”] Swarmlord[attr colspan=“2”] Loss v Eldorath (Planet 3) Win v Aun’shi (Planet 5) Loss v Ku’gath (Planet 3) Win v Old One Eye (Planet 4) [/table]

After playing in nationals at Gencon this past summer I spent a few weeks taking a break from playing conquest. During that time I caught up on a bulk of conquest podcasts and spent a lot of time thinking about results at nationals and the possible shape of the meta to come. I realized that I have spent nowhere near enough time playing as many of the warlords in this game. I resolved to work through the list and wrote down a schedule of what warlords I will play when. The War Journals blog series will serve as an open space for me to talk about this exploration, my findings, and really anything else I find to be relevant to the process of playing with the full breadth of different deck options available to this game.

Rotation 1 - Sept 17th to Sept 26th

To start things out I decided to build Aun’shi, a warlord I hadn’t managed to really touch yet, and Urien, a warlord I had played a little bit but was eager to try more. I played 13 games total, 9 with Aun’shi and 4 with Urien.

Aun’shi

[table width=“250px”] Army (32)[attr colspan=“2”] 3x,Aun’ui Prelate 3x,Bork’an Recruits 2x,Carnivore Pack 3x,Earth Caste Technician 4x,Ethereal Envoy 3x,Experimental Devilfish 2x,Fireblade Kais’Vre 3x,Gun Drones 3x,Recon Drone 3x,Vash’ya Trailblazer 3x,Vior’la Marksman [/table]

[table width=“250px”] Attachment (4)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x,Honor Blade 3x,Ion Rifle [/table] [table width=“250px”] Event (11)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x,Deception 2x,Ethereal Wisdom 2x,Exterminatus 2x,Even the Odds 3x,Kauyon Strike [/table] [table width=“250px”] Support (4)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x,Aun’shi’s Sanctum 3x,Ksi’m’yen Orbital City [/table]

Aun’shi was an exciting prospect to explore. When he first came out Alex, Jon, and a number of other local community members all jumped on board to try him out so I avoided hopping on the bandwagon and blanketing the meta with Ethereals. As a result I’ve only played a couple games with him up until this point. His deck has evolved a reasonable amount since Gift of the Ethereals was released. With the addition of Ksi’m’yen Orbital City he has much more staying power and a couple more tricks under his belt. Starting out I found him quite brain busting. Having to plan out an entire combat phase ahead of time proved to be very difficult and slowed down my play substantially. Successfully assassinating the enemy warlord was much harder than I expected, and ultimately ended up serving as a fall back plan if I was losing control of the game in the first half. I also found that the results of a game largely depended on my ability to play out an Orbital City in the early turns. If I wasn’t able to get the tools I needed I would fall flat very quickly. In several of my games the copies of Earth Caste Technician I played failed to tutor any drones or attachments and then put an Orbital City on the bottom of the deck. I don’t think I won any of those games but regardless it was dismaying. For deck includes I really liked the power of Experimental Devilfish and Carnivore Pack. I felt both proved to have excellent cost to effect ratios. The Devilfish constantly arriving from HQ with Armorbane ready to attack and adding to the command struggle was a tremendous benefit. The Kroot are also a hard hitting unit with an effective cost of zero. If they die in the middle of combat they help finance the deployment of an Aun’ui Prelate or other effects like Even the Odds and Kau’yon Strike. I also tried  running For the Tau’va in an iteration of the deck but realized that I rarely had enough attachments in play to benefit from its use. All told I learned a lot from my games played. I think that, even though skilled player can get a very large amount of power out of this deck, because of the nature of the Ethereals there will be games where you won’t be able to win no matter how well you play. Realizing now the weaknesses of Aun’shi I find him far less intimidating to play against.

Urien

[table width=“250px”] Army (30)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x,Baleful Mandrake 3x,Bloodied Reavers 3x,Chaos Fanatics 3x,Incubus Warrior 2x,Khorne Berzerker 3x,Klaivex Warleader 3x,Rogue Trader 3x,Sslyth Mercenary 3x,Syren Zythlex 2x,Twisted Wracks 3x,Void Pirate [/table] [table width=“250px”] Attachment (3)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x,Ichor Gauntlet 2x,Promotion [/table]

[table width=“250px”] Event (15)[attr colspan=“2”] 3x,Power from Pain 4x,Rakarth’s Experimentations 3x,Searing Brand 2x,Soul Seizure 3x,Visions of Agony [/table][table width=“250px”] Support (3)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x,Crucible of Malediction 1x,Urien’s Oubliette [/table]

The other deck I played for this rotation was a Urien Rakarth deck. Urien is a warlord I had played previously so I decided to try playing him with Chaos and trying a few new cards. Pairing with Chaos provided marginally more of a command presence but ultimately seemed an uneven trade to lose the combat ability of a couple Warlock Destructor. I also found that while Crucible of Malediction created an interesting degree of control it didn’t really impact the game enough to be worth the resources and deck slots. I didn’t get to play many games as Urien but I think that unfortunately he still just doesn’t have the cards required for consistent success. With a few more key cheap tortures this deck could potentially sing and I will revisit and keep tweaking the deck later on.   In the end I didn’t get quite as many games as I would have liked with these decks but I think it accomplishing my goal of expanding my horizons a bit. Next on the docket I have Shadowsun, Zogwort, and Swarmlord so look forward to my reports on these decks in the near future.

[table width=“250px”] Aun’shi[attr colspan=“2”] Loss v Coteaz (Kill 6) Win v Zogwort (Kill 5) Win v Swarmlord (Kill 7) Loss v Kith (Planet 4) Win v Straken (Planet 6) Win v Nazdreg (Kill 7) Loss v Straken (Planet 7) Win v Zarathur (Planet 3) Loss v Ragnar (Planet 4)[/table]

[table width=“250px”] Urien[attr colspan=“2”] Loss v Ku’gath (Planet 5) Win v Coteaz (Planet 5) Loss v Ku’gath (Kill 7) Loss v (Planet 3)[/table]

Two weeks ago the 2015 Canadian National Championship for Warhammer 40:000: Conquest took place in Toronto at Fan Expo Canada. We had 21 players sign-up for a full day of Conquest. Two players had byes from regionals events so they went straight through to round 2. There were plenty of temptations on the convention floor, but our entrants were there to conquer the Traxis Sector. While Fan Expo ended up being a terrific venue for the tournament, the $50 entry fee to the con on Friday had a definite impact on the numbers for the event. I personally know a number of talented players that didn’t play simply because of the cost. We’ve had twenty people show up for local Toronto events, so with travelling players I believe we could have had at least double the turnout had arrangements been better. But you’re here to read about tournament results. Let’s get to it …

Faction Breakdown

[gdoc key=“https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IaNrzjS2oDBlvrnhl1buP4UefzhCC6B6bE28oHxLRy4/edit?usp=sharing” chart=“Pie” chart_colors=“purple red yellow blue green orange gray” chart_legend=“none” chart_pie_slice_text=“label” chart_height=“300” chart_width=“300” chart_chart_area=“left:0,top:0,width:‘100%‘,height:‘100%’” chart_tooltip_text=“value”]

  [table width=“250” th=“0”] 7,[whc mode=“short”]Packmaster Kith[/whc] 3,[whc mode=“short”]Captain Cato Sicarius[/whc] 3,[whc mode=“short”]Eldorath Starbane[/whc] 2,[whc mode=“short”]Aun’shi[/whc] 2,[whc mode=“short”]Ku’Gath Plaguefather[/whc] 2,[whc mode=“short”]Nazdreg[/whc] 1,[whc mode=“short”]Torquemada Coteaz[/whc] 1,[whc mode=“short”]Zarathur\, High Sorcerer[/whc] [/table] Generally we don’t see a lot of Kith in Toronto, but she made up fully a third of the field at Nationals. Cato and Eldorath are also no strangers to high level Conquest competition. But the story of the day was all about Kith. The interesting part was that very few players - most were from Toronto or Montreal - had a lot of experience with the Kith mirror match, so how well players could make the necessary adjustments there factored heavily into their results. Top 8 [table width=“350” th=“0”] 1,Stephen Kerr,Cato 2,John Gobeil,Eldorath 3,Travis Provick,Kith 4,Michel Corvino,Eldorath 5,Julien Vasquez,Kith 6,Colin Marshal,Kith 7,Alex Cybulski,Kith 8,Carl Dupuis,Cato [/table]

Congratulations to Julien Vasquez, Canada’s National Warhammer 40,000: Conquest Champion for 2015! We asked Julien to share some thoughts on his victory:

[whc mode=“short”]Packmaster Kith[/whc] made up one third of the field at Canadian Nationals. Why do you choose her?

I’ve been playing Kith since Store Championship season, and I’ve yet to find a better deck then her. She fits my style of tempo control. The choking elements also greatly help and she has access to the two best cards in the game right now: Archon’s Terror and Klaivex Warleader. The fact that her Khymera allow you to rush and win planets, she’s just a no-brainer.

Any matchups (warlords or players) that you were nervous about going in?

Nervous? No. I knew my good and bad matchups through and through. I had a lack of playtesting of the mirror match since there’s only one other player in the Montreal meta that plays Kith, and he’s not part of my core group.

With your deck, what were you looking for in your opening hand?

As many low cost high command units as possible. I guess Archon’s Palace and Khymera Den are good too.

What was your favourite moment of the day?

Winning? Meeting Eric Lang was rad.

Eric Lang presents Julien Vasquez the Warhammer 40:000: Conquest Canadian Champion tropy

What was your toughest matchup of the day?

Toughest to me means I had a shot of winning and lost. That would be round 5 versus Michel Corvino playing Eldorath Starbane. Long drawn out game where he just drew better.

What was your biggest mistake of the day?

Semifinals against Stephen when he dropped in a Tactical Squad Cardinis into play for a strike. I couldn’t see any play around getting AOE’d, but then realized a minute later I could have moved away my two Khymera with the Khymera Den. That bothered me.

How were you feeling heading into the elimination round?

If I could beat Michel in Top 8 after losing to him in round 5, I felt I had a good shot. To be fair, I felt in Top 16 at GenCon that after going 6-1 that I could win the whole thing, but I just drew so poorly in that match. I didn’t feel that way with 3-2 at this event.

It was a long day, between 5 rounds of swiss and 3 rounds in the top 8. How did you stay focused?

That wasn’t the long part. That was the six hour drive to Toronto the night before and the six hour drive back to Montreal after the tournament. And then getting up after three hours of sleep before working the next morning. I thrive on this type of event. I’m used to playing non-stop four days at GenCon or two days of Magic Grand Prix. The size of this event was equivalent to most of my store championship and regional attendances. I wish FFG OP would incentivize tournaments with 1000-2000 players. But staying focused wasn’t a huge issue for me.

How did it feel to win the 2015 Canadian Nationals for Warhammer 40,000: Conquest?

Not winning anything beyond the Store Championship level was frustrating. Not winning at either the World Eater in 2014 or North American Champs in 2015 was really frustrating. I got to Top 4 Canadian Nationals for A Game of Thrones in 2014. Being able to surpass that with Conquest was heartening. Finally winning a title was something I’ve been striving to do since I started playing card games in 1994. So, I feel happy, rewarded and validated.

Any shoutouts?

I really want to thank the Montreal metagame for enjoying this game as much as I do and supporting us at BD Cosmos with your attendance. I want to thank John Gobeil and his family for hosting us for the night. Thanks to Liz Malette for keeping her end of the bargain. Thanks to Alex Cybulski for a super enjoyable finals match. Thanks to James for always being able to spruce up a conversation. I want to thank my meta mates in the Kool Kids Club for all their moral support: Stephen McNamara, Philippe Paquin, Alex Godlovitch, Peter Wilson, Alexandre Chiappini, Salim Hammoum, Sean Emberley for waking me up. You are all big guys and definitely wear pants that go with it. I especially want to thank Carl Dupuis for driving us down to the event. Couldn’t have done it without you. Next time, we’ll definitely take a ride on the train. Finally, thanks to The Tactical Squad for the interview!

We also have Julien’s decklist to share:

Packmaster Kith (50)

[table width=“250px”] Army (26)[attr colspan=“2”] 4x,Kith’s Khymeramasters 3x,Incubus Warrior 2x,Inquisitor Caius Wroth 3x,Klaivex Warleader 3x,Rogue Trader 3x,Sslyth Mercenary 2x,Syren Zythlex 3x,Void Pirate 3x,Warlock Destructor [/table][table width=“250px”] Attachment (7)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x,Agonizer of Bren 3x,Promotion 3x,Suffering [/table]

[table width=“250px”] Event (14)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x,Pact of the Haemonculi 3x,Archon’s Terror 3x,Foretell 3x,Raid 3x,Searing Brand [/table][table width=“250px”] Support (3)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x,Khymera Den 2x,Archon’s Palace [/table]

Thank you Julien for sharing your deck and your thoughts on the 2015 Canadian National Championship. It was a pleasure playing against you. We actually have footage from the event. We’re getting up to speed on production, so we hope to start bringing you video with commentary in the next week or so See you at World’s in November!

This is the first article in what we hope will be a series about the local Warhammer 40,000: Conquest meta in Toronto, Canada. This past weekend saw the first tournament of the Summer Kit season at 401 Games, a gaming store in downtown Toronto with a huge upstairs play space. We had a strong turn-out of 17 players, which was great. But it was also the hottest day of the year and the place was packed with players for a half dozen other events. The humidity was brutal and things got a bit “fragrant” by the end of the fifth round of swiss, but we persevered.

Faction Breakdown

[gdoc key=“https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RRCNc-PZ458PXNh-NrT4W2fKO0acMC6o93RF3srd7g0/edit?usp=sharing” chart=“Pie” chart_colors=“blue red yellow green orange” chart_legend=“none” chart_pie_slice_text=“label” chart_height=“300” chart_width=“300” chart_chart_area=“left:0,top:0,width:‘100%‘,height:‘100%’” chart_tooltip_text=“value”]

  [table width=“200” th=“0”] 5,Cato 3,Zarathur 2,Ragnar 2,Nazdreg 2,Eldorath 1,Ku’Gath 1,Baharroth 1,Shadowsun [/table] The Space Marine numbers were not surprising, but the absence of Kith was a bit of a shock.  She doesn’t have huge representation in the Toronto scene, but there are a usually one or two players bringing Khymera to the table. In the interest of time, there was no cut to an elimination round and the results after five rounds of swiss were used to determine the winner. At the end of the day, with a record of 4-1, Kevin Geurtin was crowned the victor. Top 4 Warlords [table width=“200” th=“0”] 1,Nazdreg 2,Zarathur 3,Nazdreg 4,Eldorath [/table] We asked Kevin to share some thoughts on his tournament performance:

How do you think the Ork faction, and particularly Nazdeg, fares in the current meta?

I think my success in this tournament hinged on avoiding both Eldorath and Kith. Out of the consensus tier one warlords I think Nazdreg fares very well against Space Marines. A lot of key units have four health and can survive a Cato with a Tempest Blade attack and the damage can be used to hit back at the Space Marine units. Chaos also has been seeing some love with a lot of play in the Toronto meta and some regional wins for both Zarathur and Ku’Gath. Chaos is a solid match up for Orkz, specifically Nazdreg, as the damage flying around often leads to Orkz being able to hit back hard. I would say in a Space Marine and Chaos heavy meta, Nazdreg is a solid choice.

Any matchups that you were nervous about going in?

Kith and Eldorath are both scary match ups. Kith has the swarm to be able to pick off exhausted units without allowing brutal to build up. Archon’s Terror and Klaivex Warleader are also really effective ways to deal with the larger Ork units. Eldorath is problematic because of the ability to exploit the Orkz already weak command game and Eldorath’s ability to manage bigger units. Gift of Isha and Empower are also good counters to an Ork player that gets to aggressive on a tightly contested planet. Aun’shi could also pose a problem as you no longer have shields to manage the damage on your Orkz. Kustom Field Generator great but the Orkz use of two shield cards is helpful in keeping units alive to hit back with brutal.

Ork is a faction with a number of strong supports, why did you choose the supports you did?

Having to pass on Ork Kannon and Ammo Depot hurts, but there just isn’t enough space to run everything. Tellyporta Pad is a auto include in any Ork deck in my opinion. The ability to move units to planet one after contest command is great. Furthermore, the tellyporta allows Nazdreg to command snipe and then move over to planet one. The flexibility is great. Kustom Field Generator is also a must as it allows you distribute damage, protect key units and effectively use brutal. I ran a reducer but I don’t think it is necessary, on they games I drew it early it was really effective, but you don’t want to see it late game. Mork’s Great Heap is fantastic but expensive. I think you have to run one, if you get it out it can change the game.

With your deck, what were you looking for in your opening hand?

I want to see one of Kustom Field Generator/Tellyporta Pad, Bigga is Betta, and two to three units. I don’t mind dropping two three cost units (one reduced with a Bigga is Betta) and a support.

What was your favourite moment of the day?

The Ork on Ork match in the second round against Mark Tang was a lot of fun. It was a lot of combat math and it was interesting to see two different Nazdreg builds do so well (Mark deserves credit for going 4-1 with Nazdreg as well, I think that proves that Orkz are pretty competitive).

What was your toughest matchup of the day?

My only loss came to a Zarathur deck that effectively used flamers, warpstorm and ork kannons to wear down my Ork units, while also picking battles only at key planets. He also took advantage of a stronger command presence to limit my options. I think he played a very solid Zarathur vs. Nazdreg game.

What was your biggest mistake of the day?

I held on to some bad opening hands, and it did cause me to play catch up in some games. That is something I will have to work on.

As in most Toronto tournaments, we draft from the prize kit. As the tournament winner, you had first pick. Did you go for the playmat or Zarathur?

I had to take that sweet Zarathur alt art. Can’t wait to get to use it soon!

Kevin also shared his winning decklist with us:

Nazdreg (52)

[table width=“250px”] Army (30)[attr colspan=“2”] 4x,Nazdreg’s Flash Gits 2x,Bad Doc 2x,Crushface 3x,Enraged Ork 3x,Evil Sunz Warbiker 3x,Mekaniak Repair Krew 2x,Rogue Trader 3x,Shoota Mob 3x,Snake Bite Thug 2x,Void Pirate 3x,Weirdboy Maniak [/table] [table width=“250px”] Attachment (4)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x,Cybork Body 3x,Promotion [/table]

[table width=“250px”] Event (11)[attr colspan=“2”] 2x,Bigga is Betta 2x,Battle Cry 2x,Dakka Dakka Dakka! 2x,Squiggify 3x,Suppressive Fire [/table] [table width=“250px”] Support (7)[attr colspan=“2”] 1x,Kraktoof Hall 1x,Bigtoof Banna 2x,Kustom Field Generator 1x,Mork’s Great Heap 2x,Tellyporta Pad [/table]

401 Games offers a Sunday FFG stream on their Twitch channel - other weeks offer Netrunner, Star Wars X-Wing or Star Wars Armada - and we were able to stream a match from each round. Unfortunately the mic was not working and we didn’t notice until the fifth round, which we’ve embedded below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqkif1r-J10

You can review any of the recorded matches on Youtube. Round 1 (Cato vs. Ku’Gath) Rounds 2 (Nazdreg vs. Nazdreg) & 3 (Nazdreg vs. Cato) Round 4 (Nazdreg vs. Ku’gath) Round 5 (Eldorath vs. Ragnar) Please let us know in the comments below if you’d like to see more tournament reports like this or if you have any suggestions on how we can improve them.

Upcoming events in the Toronto Meta:

Summer Kit - August 9th, 2015 - 401 Games, Toronto Summer Kit - August 15th, 2015 - Legends Warehouse, Woodbridge Summer Kit - August 22nd, 2015 - Face to Face Games, Toronto Canadian Nationals - September 4th, 2015 - Fan Expo Canada, Toronto Summer Kit - September 13th, 2015 - 401 Games, Toronto