We're back!

The Return of the Giant Hogwe... sorry, the Return of the NZSWM Champs has begun. This Saturday (so, like in 24 and a half hours from now!) will see our NZcon back after missing 2017. Its another venue change too as we are hosted this year by the Lower Hutt Wargaming Society so we will be alongside a number of other games tomorrow.

We have a few key absences this time around. Its fallen at a rough time in the calendar for a coupl'a peeps, DarthO in particular, and it goes without saying the we'll be missing Darth Rattlehead as he's off at some other Minis thing... in the States, I think.

Anyhoo, this will be the 6th edition of our Nationals and we'll be looking to either awarding Dr.Daman/Dave with his 4th title, Graham/TheHutts with his 3rd, or crowning someone new! We'll be sure to keep you posted with all the squads and results. I'll also post up the current NZ rankings soon too, but now I have to go teach a class!

Mauri ora, mauri mate!

Awesome (both).

I dig old Genesis, so as songs getting stuck in my head all day go, that was a really good one.

And for some reason this made me recall that time the Atlanta guys made a (tourney) road trip video that was pretty funny.

We all need the sun to photosynthesize our venom.

Haven't been able to update the NZ Rankings, but I've got a rundown of the overall performances of all 38 of our National competitors over the past five tournaments (Weighted for 3 tournaments plus):

1. Graham: 4 NZs (20-5) best: Champion (2012, 2015)
2. Daman: 5 NZs (24-7) best: Champion (2013, 2014, 2016)
3. Tim: 2 NZs (11-2) best: Finalist (2012)
4. Aaron: 5 NZs (18-10) best: Finalist (2015)
5. Mike: 3 NZs (9-6) best: 3rd/SF (2016)
6. Kezza: 4 NZs (13-5) best: Finalist (2013)
7. Paul: 5 NZs (15-11) best: Finalist (2016)
8. Oli: 3 NZs (10-6) best: 4th/SF (2014)
9. Bevan: 3 NZs (8-7) best: 8th (2013, 2014)
10. Robin: 1 NZs (3-3) best: 3rd/SF (2012)
11. Dave: 2 NZs (6-4) best: 5th (2014)
12. JP: 3 NZs (5-9) best: 6th (2015)
13. Ian: 4 NZs (8-10) best: 7th (2015)
14. Bob: 2 NZs (6-4) best: 7th (2014)
15. Rich: 5 NZs (8-14) best: 9th (2013, 2015)
16. Stuart: 4 NZs (7-10) best: 9th (2016)
17. Hayden: 3 NZs (5-9) best: 11th (2015)
18. Zakk: 3 NZs (3-9) best: 8th (2015)
19. Glyn: 2 NZs (2-6) best: 13th (2013)
20. Henko: 2 NZs (2-7) best: 12th (2014)
21. Hone: 1 NZs (2-2) best: 6th (2016)
22. Kade: 1 NZs (2-2) best: 7th (2016)
23. Alan: 2 NZs (2-6) best: 17th (2013)
24. Brody: 1 NZs (2-2) best: 8th (2016)
25. Vankov: 1 NZs (2-2) best: 10th (2016)
26. Zavier: 1 NZs (1-3) best: 10th (2015)
27. Ethan: 1 NZs (2-3) best: 14th (2014)
28. Andrew: 1 NZs (1-3) best: 15th (2012)
29. Nick: 1 NZs (1-3) best: 15th (2014)
30. Danny: 1 NZs (1-3) best: 16th (2012)
31. Flin: 1 NZs (1-3) best: 13th (2016)
32. Derek: 1 NZs (1-4) best: 15th (2013)
33. Jacob: 1 NZs (1-3) best: 13th (2015)
34. Alex: 1 NZs (1-3) best: 14th (2016)
35. Dan: 1 NZs (0-4) best: 18th (2012)
36. Kahu: 1 NZs (0-4) best: 18th (2014)
37. Cameron: 1 NZs (0-4) best: 14th (2015)
38. Jamie: 1 NZs (1-3) best: 15th (2016)

Interesting to note the number of competitors at each event: 2012 - 19, 2013 - 17, 2014 - 19, 2015 - 14, 2016 - 15, 2018 - ???

Squads to follow soon

BFG

Round 4 is finishing up. Looks like Mike’s fringe with Boba, Morrigan is through to semis, as are the Rebel Enoka with Ham Smiggler cannon. Joe Gandalf and Daman are playing out the top table game right now.

I don't know if kezza is going to post an update or not so I'm taking it on myself. Daman bested me 3-1, so me, Dave, Graham, and Mike were the top four (not in that order). The Club hosting us was finishing up at 4:30pm, so the choice was to either move to another venue for the semi-finals and final or postpone them to another day. Dave was going to drop out if we didn't postpone it, and there was a general shortage of available venues to finish the competition, so the semis and final were rescheduled for Wednesday 8th of August at kezza's house.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=703927476345775&set=a.703926266345896.1073741827.100001855882732&type=3&theater

I called that squad 'Roots'. Alas, I was better running that squad (2-2 in the Mystery Map tournament) than I was with green thumb skills. Sarlacc did not live through the winter.

Good luck to everyone there today and if any of you are X Wing players, I am a member of your Wellington X Wing group. A couple of years ago in fact 2 of my local Capa Squadron guys went to NZ and played X Wing with some members of that group.

Happy birthday to Graham!

I played this:

--That time Luke stayed for the Battle of Endor--
27 Han Solo, Smuggler
27 Lobot
27 Luke Skywalker, Rebel Commando
20 Princess Leia
16 Chief Chirpa
14 General Rieekan
11 Ithorian Commander
9 General Dodonna
8 Wicket
5 Killik Drone
36 Ewok x12

(200pts. 22 activations)

I was trying to think of something high activation (to keep up with Daman) where the pieces could do something, so I went with this. It's pretty similar to Echo24's 2010 Gencon championship in some ways, but instead of Rebel Commandos/Crix/Gha Nachkt, it has Chief Chirpa and a swarm of ewoks. It was fun to play - the ewoks can clean house against some squads. I usually bought in the Ewok Chieftain for more power against low acts, and if everything lines up (Gregarious, Momentum, Traps, IC) they can hit for effectively +17 for 30s), but sometimes just went for more ewoks.

I made the top 4, but didn't have a great tournament in some ways - the only game I played against a top tier player, I lost - I couldn't quite knock Mike's Talon Kardde out of the way - I wanted to get rid of his disruptive so my ewoks could clean house, but he was left on 10hp for most of the game. I also scored 99 in that game, and missed out on a point.

My availability for next Wednesday's finals is looking doubtful, so I might end up having to bow out and let Ian take my place (we agreed before the tournament this is how it works). The pool game between Ian (Palps, Vader, Death Trooper, Kylo) and Daman (Durge, Snipers, Poggle) was super exciting, and Ian should have closed it out, but he got all deer in headlights at the end, after having the game in his grasp by killing Durge and the MTB early. Vader was a pretty good meta call, as most of the other top squads were pretty shooty, although I think he would have been massacred by Darth Moore's Vong.