Everywhere you stood, you could smell the fetid stench of sunbaked blood and orc sweat and hear the sounds of impacting steel and death throes. The battlefield had been blazing with fire and hatred for hours now, and still the war between three races raged on. Many an army had fallen this day, yet somehow these two forces remained steadfast, defying odds, science, and reason. Exhaustion and willpower wrestled titanically with one another across the expanse as War's archon, Death, gazed implacably through its fleshless skull upon the carnage, dutifully shuttling the departed souls from this plane.
For the entirety of their existence, the Dwarves have forged their identity from fortitude and ironclad resistance, and this day extended their legendary legacy nobly. Despite the overwhelming deluge of the forces of Destruction that surrounded them, King Kazador and his stalwart warriors had impossibly hewn their way through a sea of evil, and stood now at the precipice of final victory. Nought but one army stood to challenge the mountaindwelling warrior-masons, and as Kazador scanned the field from side to side, he drew a galvanizing breath and exhaled defiantly before bellowing the warcry that spurred his legions on to the day's final fight.
Hour after hour, strike after strike, war raged with such frenzied ferocity that it seemed as if the very air had followed after every living creature that had long since fled the vicinity in an act of self-preservation. Only oppressive heat and bloodthirsty fury remained to be breathed, and Kazador's troops were beginning to falter. Flanked on every side by a de facto pairing of orcs and dark elves, the dwarves' ranks had thinned considerably. In truth, it was the orcs who were brutally assaulting the dwarves' capitol city with mindless ferocity, while the elves focused on infiltration, assassination, and avoiding flailing battleaxes and choppas. The coalition was less alliance than simultaneous siege. Vile sorceresses weaved their black magic and shimmering shades sabotaged set strategies as pump wagons and giant arachnids carried maniacal orcs through battered dwarven battalions. Dwarves fell in droves as crushing waves of inexhaustible numbers and foul enchantments ultimately trumped toughness.
As Kazador lay bloody and broken, the spearmen commander held Kazador's still-regal head up by the beard and hissed, "Submit, gnome!" Kazador spit forcefully into the commander's eye and growled, "I'd roast for all of time in a lake of fire before serving you, maggot!" The commander's face contorted in offended rage as he raised his sword arm and dropped it on the dwarven king's neck. And with that, Order fell to Destruction in the interminable War of Attrition.
The one, true Orlando Warhammer: Invasion Regional Championships was an intensely competitive and wildly fun weekend for warriors from all over. Travelling from various southeastern locales, thirteen generals marshalled their troops and waged war at Next Level LAN Center and Gaming Lounge on University Blvd. in Orlando. Here are the details:
The main event, dubbed The War of Attrition, was a double-elimination tournament preceded by a round of Swiss format to determine seedings. As the tournament floor rules afforded little to no real direction on how to conduct the proceedings, I drew from my own gaming convention tournament organizing experience (plus a little creativity) to frame the setting for the event. To satisfy the brief mention of Swiss formatting in the "floor rules", I ran the first round randomly, Swiss format, and seeded the players for the brackets based on their results. The top seed went to the player with the most decisive victory (damage dealt/damage received ratio), with the following seeds given to the winning players in descending DD/DR order. The losing players from the Swiss round were placed in the remaining brackets randomly, so as to not repeat the same matchups from the first round. As we didn't have 16 entrants, byes were awarded to the top seeds. Losing players from the main bracket, or front draw, were dropped into the consolation bracket, or back draw, matching their location in the front draw bracket. The first player to win 2 games against their opponent moved onto the next round, in both brackets. When a player lost to a second opponent, they were eliminated from the tournament. The winner of the back draw played the front draw's winner for the title.
Rounds were set for 50 minutes, but with no official tiebreaker system in place, I simply called time at 50 minutes and allowed players to finish out their games when necessary. Roughly a third of the matches went beyond the time limit, and became clear to all of us that 50 minutes simply isn't enough time for a 2-out-of-3 game competitive event. None of the players requested a tiebreaker system to be applied; everyone unanimously agreed to see who each match's true winner would be.
Sideboards were allowed. Players brought 8 cards to be registered on the decklist and substituted into their main deck, on a card-for-card basis, after the first and second sets. Players had to reset their main decks to match their registered decklist before the beginning of each new round. Since the rules directed players to register their decklists and not make any changes to the registered list, players could only use the deck and sideboard as filed with the TO (a decklist is both the main deck and sideboard combined). Players were in unanimous approval, some enthusiastically, with the rule. In an environment dominated by two (some say three) deck types, sideboards are absolutely essential for equitable competition.
It's my personal opinion that the TO for a Regional, or higher, Championship should not play in his own Main Event. With the event's heightened intensity, plentiful demands on the organizer's attention, and potential for complaints of unfairness, a Tournament Organizer needs to be available to his players when they need him and not have any stake in the outcome of even one match. For that reason, I am unable to give any complete recaps of individual matches. Because I oversaw so many games at once, though, I did get a pretty good feel of the overall environment, and saw more than a few interesting plays.
There were 13 participants and, as expected, blitz and counterpunch ran the show. No one tried UBT, which wasn't surprising, given its complexity. That was left to me in a later, local tournament. As I suspected, the distillation of "top-tier" decks is really more a function of the message boards and its hyperdedicated contributors than a true snapshot of the overall scene. The player pool at large is mostly unaffected by our musings, and there was a peppering of many different deck types present. Every capitol but High Elf was represented, and there were a number of direct damage, control, mass destruction, and turtleshell (super-defensive) decks. Ultimately, 4th place went to a Chaos/Skaven blitz (my deck played by a friend who learned the game 2 days before), 3rd went to a Chaos control (only because he coached and permitted takebacks from...), 2nd place, a Dwarf turtleshell, and the winner was a Dark Elf (striped with Orc) blitz/disruption. Players sideboarded heavily, since many maindecks were built to combat blitz. Sideboards, sadly, are made indisputably necessary by the pervasive Destructo-blitz imbalance.
The guys weren't too keen on their decklists being posted, which I don't mind in the least. Card-by-card lists only allow netdecking, which is the most insidious plague to infect cardgaming since Kinko's. The concepts of the Top 4 were as follows:
4th: SN4VES, Chaos board - Pure Skaven blitz with Chaos support for removal and board control. Sideboard had Pillage, Mob Up, and Burn It Down, among others.
3rd: Shea Houser, Chaos board - Chaos control striped with Dark Elf disruption. Nurgle's Pestilence/Call The Blood, Brutal Offering, and Tzeentch's Firestorm slowed down the attack flood, with heavy-hitting units for KO.
2nd: Goeff Malouf, Dwarf board - Straight Dwarf resistance. Board healing and Toughness abounded. If it had Slayer or Mountain in the title, it was in this deck.
1st: Boyd Dodgen, Dark Elf board - Brutal Orc/DE smashy. Zone-burns on turns 1 & 2 routinely. Sorceress/Har Ganeth sucks.
The side events were the true belles of the ball. There were folks in the sides who didn't even play in the War of Attrition. The War of Attrition and Vortex were both played on Saturday, and Genocide, Blitzkrieg, and the Battlefield of the Bands were played over the next two days (yes, the next TWO days!).
Vortex was a limited format in which players bought one Battle Pack at a discount (to assure deck integrity and offer players a chance to fill in gaps in their collections on the cheap), started the game with one support card from it in play (for free), shuffled the pack, and started play. If the starting support, called the Citadel, had a loyalty icon, then the Capitol Board had to match. Otherwise, the player could choose any board. The pack breakdown was: 5 Path of the Zealot, 1 Skavenblight Threat, 1 Tooth and Claw, 1 Deathmaster's Dance, and 1 Arcane Fire. Path was so popular because of Gate of Sigmar. Most folks couldn't resist a free, 2-hammer damage preventer to start the game. Me, I went with ST primarily because of Spider Riders, but there were a number of other great cards in there. All sides except the multiplayer were single-elimination bracket tournaments. The Vortex semifinals featured 3 Paths and my ST. My match was a runthrough because of Riders and Gurni's Elite (I ran a Dwarf board). The other match was decided on one player's insistence on relying on Bolt Thrower and losing in Game 3. In the finals, I was defeated by the vexing appearance of Arrer Boys IN EVERY GAME! Gurni's and Riders don't hold up well against missile attacks, it would seem. Neither does Thanquol. I lost in 3.
Genocide was a very cool variant in which decks are built using ONLY cards that share a racial symbol. This had the refreshing effect of blacklisting Warpstone and all Skaven, at the least. There were 2 Empire players, and 1 each of Dwarf, Dark Elf, Orc, and Chaos. The semifinalists were both Empires, Orc, and Dark Elf. I beat my Empire counterpart in straight sets with superior unit movement and denial (Iron Discipline and Bright Wizard Apprentice), and the DE wrecked the fragile orcs with hit point reduction and bounce. In the finals, the Dark Elves took me out with Shades and Caught the Scent. My deck was slower than the Orcs, so my hand had far more cards in it on average. Two finals for me, no titles.
Blitzkrieg was, without a doubt, the most epic of the sides. Multiplayer combat using normal deck construction, but players were only allowed to attack to the right or left. We seated the players randomly, and effects could target anyone. One Kill Point was awarded to players who dealt the killing blow to another player, two KP's went to a player who eliminated a racial archenemy (Empire/Chaos, Orc/Dward, and the Elves), and 1 KP went to the last man standing. Everyone basically played their Main Event decks, with a few tweaks here and there to maximize the multiplayer effect. Since I didn't play in the War of Attrition, no one saw my deck coming, and it may have been a factor in my ELIMINATING EVERYONE! Yes, it's true. I took everybody out, though not without help. See, I was running a full Destruction army based off of a Chaos board and I was the first to have a burning zone, plus I was behind the curve on units-on-board. Almost as a granted wish, someone drops a J-Bomb (Judgment) and only my QZ and the bomber's BZ and KZ were developed on the whole board. The Mad J-Bomber, however, failed to acknowledge the 2 Lobber Crews across the table, which were subsequently sacked to kill the bomber's only 2 units. This left my QZ Valkia as the only unit left standing. I outraced everyone in filling my hand and proceeded to drop everyone one by one. Victory. At last.
The Battlefield of the Bands was the most unique side event of all the Regional Tournaments worldwide. Participants played one another in Xbox Rock Band. Only 4 guys felt they had the chops, so we decided to all play on the same song - 2 guitars, one drum, and one vocal - ranking finishers on their ratings. We played Pearl Jam's 'Alive', with me on vocals, and we tore it up! I placed second (again!), but the thing that gets me is this: the winner played the guitar...with only 2 fingers! The dude was born with a congenital disorder that stunted the growth of his hands, so only his thumb and one finger are fully formed. His nickname is Stubs, go figure, but the dude's a beast on the axe! Scored 98% on Hard and shamed us all! Crazy cred to ya, Stubs.
The WoA winner received the Trophy Board, Champion playmat, and first choice of the six race icon pins. Of course, he chose DE. The runner-up got the other playmat (Core Set box cover artwork) and 2nd pin, in this case the Dwarves. 3rd place got a pin, picking Chaos. The winners of Vortex, Genocide, and Blitzkrieg received an icon pin of their choice, and the runner ups each got one of the frameable card art prints. Each band member of the Battlefield of the Bands got one of the four uncut Core Set card sheets, choosing in the order that they placed.
Everyone had a blast, and the event has served as a launching point for weekly tournaments and robust social play. Thanks to every one of the players (especially SN4VES for letting my deck get some playing time in the Big Show) and everyone at Next Level LAN Center in Winter Park, FL (especially Chris of Player Slayers. Get some sleep, foo'!) for helping to make the show so much fun for everyone! And be absolutely certain to visit nextlevellan.com for info on upcoming events.