Hi, people. 
I'm proud to write a bunch of lines for our first "official" tournament. I'm the italian organized play coordinator for "Giochi Uniti", now. Not a job, just passion.
We have a "customized" (so to say) official national league and yesterday (sunday 14th) the first tournament (qualifier, that's how we call it) took place.
I'm not writing all my personal tournament report, but a little analysis on the decks I saw and the "funny" top 4.
WHERE?
It happened during a big events (one of the biggest events in Italy): "Modena Play".
It's a great convention/meeting/everything where you can try new games, play the old ones, have some good time with the family and play a bunch of tournaments (boardgames, card games, RPG and so on).
SO: WHAT HAPPENED?
We were 10 players (the maximum number was 16, so, not that bad). 2-3 players didn't come for some "weather" issues (we had snow for three/four days).
We played 3 swiss rounds, then TOP 4.
These are the decks, with numbers:
- Orc Blitz (classic mono Orc);
- Orc Aggro-Control (mine...I did pretty bad. I didn't play for a month and a half and played Orcs 'cause they're simplier than other decks I had...But they're definitely not my race 
);
- Empire-Control (mono Empire, with some Developement interactions and movement);
- Caos-Control (big stuff, lot of removal/corruption);
- Destruction Aggro-Control Deck (3 races deck, with Caos Capital and some splashes for Dark Elf/Orc control stuff);
- Dwarves (good mono-Dwarf control deck);
- Dwarves (mono-Dwarf deck);
- Empire/Dwarves (built with a Dwarf base, but with Empire's Capital. Basically, a JOV deck);
- Caos (mono-caos aggro-control Deck).
- Caos Total Control (big control deck with lots of developements and cheap stuff).
HOW'S THE TOURNAMENT?
As I said, Swiss Round and TOP4. Classic "best 3" matches. Sideboarding is allowed in our league.
During the swiss rounds happened lots of interesting things: The mono-Dwarves control deck did pretty well against a couple of Caos match.
Mono-Empire was strong (good player) and won the first 2 rounds without any trouble.
The "Caos Total Control" did a great job against almost any race it faced (very good player). It's lost against ORC BLITZ during the semi-finals and went 3rd.
Orc's not that overpowered, just too fast, but things are going to change...It's more a matter of "learn to play well against them" I guess.
THE TOP 4
The Great thing was that in the top4 we had all of the 4 Capitals of the Core Set: Orcs, Caos, Empire, Dwarf (with splashed empire, but basically, Dwarf).
Great thing, IMHO. 
FIRST SEMI-FINAL: Orc Blitz vs Caos Total Control
Nice Game. Caos did well first game, but the Orcs were too "solid" for him. A couple of bad choices and bad draws and...2-0 after 14 minutes of play.
SECOND SEMI-FINAL: Dwarf/Empire vs Empire
Long, neverending game with lots of developements on the table, insane control interactions and endless battlefield phases.
In the end, both players had 3-4 cards in the deck.
Dwarf/Empire players lost for "deck end". Just 1-0.
THE FINAL: Orcs vs Empire
Great Match. Orcs started well. Classic opening with Grimor's Camp + Excavation. The player used to play Squig Herders (or bigger Stuff) in the early game in the QUEST zone, then play "Wolf Rider Assault" to bring them out and close the game. He won almost any game this way, with the proper "Waaagh!". 
The Empire played perfectly second game. The guy was strong and lucky, Orcs did well but not enough to stop the early empire JOV and the quick restart.
1-1.
The final game lasted 10 minutes. The Orc player started pretty fast (more than usual) and burned down a zone. Empire came back from the void and played a JOV and some stuff.
Quick turns, but difficult ones. Stuff moved from zone to zone, destroyed Units, discarded cards, developements, heavy support-destruction.
In the end, the usual Wolf Rider Assault + Waaagh! quit the game.
ORCS WIN!
A couple of ideas...
- Orcs are fast, but things are changing...Know your enemy, someone said...And someone is going to know them pretty well...
- Caos is a good faction, anyway. Plays well, lots of nice interaction, sideboarding choices and play variety.
- Empire is going to be a great, powerful race, more than ever, but it needs lot of "awareness". The "bad part" is making it work well. There are different options (Support/Developement based decks, JOV decks, aggro-control archetype with the newest stuff).
- Dwarf ARE NOT weak. Are just "difficult". The mono-Dwarf control of a friend of mine works pretty well. If he allows me to do it, I'll post the list, if you want.
- Sideboarding, even if not that useful right now, is pretty interesting. We allow a 12 cards sideboard and in a couple of situations it changed the game.
GREAT GAME, guys. It's gonna be even better than this, pretty sure about it.
Cheers.
DB
Just out of interest which battle packs were released at the time of the tournament, so we know what card pool there was for the decks to be built from. You mention Wolf Rider Assault so I'm guessing you at least had Path of the Zealot?
