Went down to the FFG event center this past Friday night with one of my main W:I playing partners and got to play several games against James Hata (lead designer of W:I) and another friendly W:I player as well (Hi Rick! You lurker!).

Wow, did James' Orc Rush deck utterly destroy my goofy 3-faction Destruction deck (Orcs, Chaos, and Dark Elf Unit Removal "Sniping" Deck). It was sheer domination. He had some great combos that just worked super well. In fairness to me, I had pretty poor draws for the first three games (mulligan every time and got poor replacement hands instead, sigh) but really my deck just wasn't that great. Sigh.

Rick also whupped up on me with a tight Empire deck but I think my Tri-D deck could've done a bit better in subsequent games, had we had time to play more.

James is just the coolest guy and absolutely wonderful to play with - a real "players" designer, no doubt about it. Very down to earth. Got a lot of rules issues clarified, too, while I was there.

I encourage everyone (in the Twin Cities Metro area or beyond) to come down on Friday nights. There's starting to be a good group building up for our beloved Warhammer: Invasion. James also noted that we're not far from the Assault on Ulthuan release, either! He did mention that the Assault on Ulthuan set will take the place of the monthly Battlepack this month so we can expect Battlepack #5 to come out in late April instead of this month. Thought people would like to know that.

I also asked James about the upcoming new cycle - specifically I was worried that (based on the Cycle's description of cards that beefed up Faction rivalries) the new cards would be too narrow in their focus to help their specific faction. He assured me that the cards will still also be useful in general. Yay!

Could you give some more information on his deck?

Nothing terribly different from any other Orc Rush deck, really. He played it very well (of course, he's a former world champ at UFS so he's extremely good with card games in general) but in general, in my experience, Orc decks are the best in the game. Hopefully they do some stuff to bring them a bit back down to earth.

It's pretty frustrating playing those decks, in general. I know that there was an attempt for each faction's playing style to match up with the faction's personality but in the Orc's case, I think they could've been made to be great in combat or in groups but have a slow-to-build up economic style. That would have been a FAR better match for them, thematically, while providing a bit better balance.

I've been concerned since the beginning about the Orc decks and nothing I've seen recently has changed that. Sigh.

Wytefang said:

At least we have a supersize expansion this month, so that's a greater chance for a metagame shift than there would be with a battle pack alone; and if he's running an Orc Rush deck at least it means he's aware of its existence.

PS: I am also immensely jealous that you are able to go to the event centre without having to travel across a goddamn ocean

LordMalinari said:

I know the feeling! this is one of those occasions i wish we had something like this in the uk!

deviant-dj said:

Speaking of the UK, is there something up with the Squared Circle boards? I've been lurking for a couple of days but don't seem to be able to get on them any more :/

Its been migrated to a new board as the last one had a horrible problem with Spambots. Its now at :-

http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/squaredcircle/index.php

LordMalinari said:

who are you on sqc?

deviant-dj said:

No one yet, just an anonymous lurker hiding in the mists of the interweb

I'm sorry guys, which you could come and play!

I know people are starting their own league's etc. but these do not compare to where the game is made. i myself am trying to make a league in South Wales (UK) and its slow going. though i think people will come around to it once they see it being played... which you don't see too much of if you don't know where to look.

YN

It's nice having the event center but right now, due to it being new and due to the strange location (tucked away in a warehouse/industrial district area), it's not like the Event Center is packed to the gills. If anything, it's pretty empty save for weekends and even on the Friday night that I was there it wasn't all that packed out.

Hopefully attendance will pick up at the Event Center but I suspect that part of the problem is the cost ($20 a month for privileges that I don't think are really all that exciting). I think it's excellent, however, that you can pay $5 a night if you want to stay later. That's a fair cost for a single day, imho, and I like not being forced into paying the monthly fee. Choice is good.

I also dislike being limited in bringing my own snacks or drinks in to the center. If you're going to ever force people to purchase your snacks and stuff, please make the effort to offer a much larger, more inclusive selection of goodies and stuff. Why should I be stuck purchasing crappy products that I dislike due to extremely limiting rules. Bleah (pet peeve of mine).

If any FLGS or Event Centers want to really have a good chance to replace gaming in a home environment (usually preferred, in my experience, by most gamers due to the comfort at home) they need to provide close to that same level of comfort. For some reason some FLGS and gaming centers don't quite grasp that concept and we end up seeing rules about food and snacks and so forth, that limit the comfort level rather than enhance it.

Just a few rambling thoughts that really aren't related to the original post here but that reflect on some of these recent comments made here.

I agree with Wytefang, though i have never been to the FFG Centre and most likely never will (being in the uk and all), having been to events at GW HQ the big appeal is that of Bugmans, where you can play,eat, drink and be merry. Though it will take alot of people to regularly turn up to warrent the range of food/drink mentioned by Wytefang i think it would take the comitment of the gamers to make it happen.

To get things roling you could keep to subcription of $20 per month but entice people by offering a discount on the food/stock. If people are tied in for a minium of a year and you have a great package.

YN

UPDATE - Played again last night with my 2 buddies and James Hata. We all cycled back and forth. I finally avenged my losses from last week to James' tougher Orc deck (not a full rush deck, it's about 55-57 cards he told us). I lucked into a win with my Skaven/Dark Elf deck but we played best of 3 and I didn't lose the second game that badly and in our final game, I really hung in there and lost by the thinnest of margins. So close!

James said that how turns will work for best of 3 would be roll dice (or use some other random generator) to pick who goes first in the first game of the series, then the loser of that game picks if they want to be first or not for the 2nd game. After that game, it's the same thing, the loser picks if he or she wants to go first in the last game. (Just sharing that tidbit with everyone.)

We played again and I used my Chaos Corruption deck (pure Chaos) and really held my own...was winning all the way up until the last minute. He had one zone burning (the Battlefield, surprisingly) and 7 damage on his Quest before he pulled out the win in a squeaker by playing 3 Spider riders with a Waaaaghhh. Sigh. It was also insanely close. I probably should have played a bit different in a few spots in hindsight but for a deck I had just thrown together earlier in the day I wasn't too disappointed.

Played my friend Earl for the next 3 games - he was running with my Orc/Skaven deck vs my Skaven/Dark Elf deck. It was a slug-fest back and forth but Earl won best of 3, 2 games to my 1.

Really fun times. Some dude was there who actually had the Assault on Ulthuan set but my other gaming buddy (annoyingly) neglected to ask him where he bought it (why you wouldn't do this is beyond me!!)...since my friend was there before we got there, and the guy left by the time we'd arrived, I didn't have a chance to find out where he discovered them for sale. SIGH!!

That's awesome wytefang! super rad to hear that mr. hata is present there to play and you can have the experience! you know once you get something together to beat him reliably, he'll pull out a Dwarf deck and start mopping the floor lol

Probably. He's darn good but I hope to improve enough myself to give him more of a challenge. It's hard for me to play as much as I imagine he does, so I'm always a tiny bit behind the curve - but I'm improving.

I'm extremely stoked about playing in the GC tournaments. I have no expectations of going very far but I'm excited about the opportunity nonetheless. Hopefully the Orcs are nerfed a bit by then otherwise that's all we'll see at those Tournaments (I'd imagine). Sigh.

I guess I will chime in and just say, after years of CCGs and TCGs, surprises happen at these mega tourneys. Some deck combo a guy thought up and never revealed always ends up in top 8. That deck is usually built on with community curiosity in the months that follow. This game has a new BP every month so chances of this happening are even greater. You will see about 4 or 5 meta decks, 2 of the rival meta deck, 1 theme meta, and 1 surprise deck in top 8 USUALLY.

I think with the focus on chaos next cycle we will see a chaos bump. Not sure though. Next time you play with James ask him about how many BP are planned out a head of time. Is the entire cycle planned out? Do they use feedback to build in the next cycle? Just curious to how they plan the cards.

Curator said:

AFAIK the entire Corruption Cycle was printed at once, meaning they had all six sets finished out before Skavenblight Threat was even printed. I'm guessing this is the case with the Enemy Cycle as well, and to deal with printing times etc. My only concern with this is if an unexpected deck become dominant and there won't be any answers printed during the Cycle as it wasn't foreseen, but from what I've seen so far this should be a minor concern.