Masters 40k entrant breakdown

Hi hi!

So we're now less than a month out from the 40k masters, so I figured we'd look at a break down of the field with a quick summary.

I assure you any jibes are tongue-in-cheek and come from a place of love with a well established friendship ;)



Hayden Korach: Hayden qualified after playing Eldar better than anyone else for yet another year. A large amount of his success has come from people chain shooting their inadequate amounts of ranged anti tank at a fortuned avatar all day long, but with a fair bit of anti psyker stuff floating around this weekend, it will be interesting to see how it pans out. That being said, Hayden recently had been looking at dropping the avatar and chunking his army out with a huge amount of s6 anti infantry firepower, so it will be interesting to see how he goes.

Matthew Robinson: No disrespect to Matthew, but I have no idea who he is. I've never played against him, and I've never heard anyone talk about having played against him. I don't actually understand his inclusion, as he's ranked 42nd, and has a season high of 19th at battlecry with his dark angels. *shrug* - it will be an interesting weekend for Matthew.

Daniel Hayden: Daniel has consistently played the pants off everyone hes come across all year, and year after year keeps improving. Daniel is the new Boy-Wonder on campus, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he brings to Masters. Dan has been running the Swarmlord, a brace of Trygons and a brace of Tervigons along with 3 units of Hive Guard and a bunch of chaff to fill out. It will be interesting to see if he brings the same list or an adaptation of it, or if he is working on something new. Hopefully he doesn't join Team Disappoint, more on this later.

Andrew Bartosh: Bartosh has produced pretty consistent results with his Chaos time and time again, and it's good to finally have him at one of these. That being said, when pushed quite hard he tends to roll over, and this is something he will need to overcome to do well at the event. His list historically has been quite generic, usually having a big unit of terminators, but this probably won't be enough to clinch it, with some almost certain losses in the match-up matrix.
Andrew has also been working on blood angels on and off, so he may toss the Chaos to run these. That being said, Hayden Korach is convinced that every time he loses with his new BA's he gives up and starts again, so perhaps he'll never finish them ;D

Mark Buttle: Mark got here with consistent results with his tyranids throughout the year, but is now looking to make this his first event with his new Eldar. They are looking fantastic, and did well at Armies on Parade, so I look forward to seeing them. He's working hard to finish them and I'm sure he'll get them finished to a point where he's happy with them. The alternative would be to join Team Disappoint, and he has too much self pride, and respect for his opponents to do this.

Henare Akari: Hen has been performing consistently all year long with his Chaos, but is now working on making the most out of the new Black Templar FAQ. Hen plays solidly and gives it everything right until dice down, so should perform quite well at this event.

Damien Avery: Damien performed awesomely all year, and plays a nid list and play style and focuses on board control. Damiens now working on GK's, but will be running his nids rather than joining Team Disappoint. He's improved all year long and on ability alone, is probably the best Tyranid player in the country now.



It's at this point I should probably explain Team Disappoint. Generally speaking, NZ tournaments mark on a mix of Painting, Sports, Comp and predominantly Battle scores. Historically, everyone at the masters has been running a decent enough looking army all year, so doesn't mark any painting, everyone get full sports because you don't make it to masters if you were a dick in the first place, and it has wound up being just Comp and Battle. That being said, this year is compless leaving just battle in the mix, which is fine - great even.
For the first time ever though, some people are looking at bringing partly, or completely unpainted armies and this really is a huge disappointment. There are many, many people out there (and many threads on the subject!) that find playing against an unpainted army absolutely no fun what so ever, for me it just seems disrespectful. In the past if I've just not been able to get a unit finished in time, at the very least I've managed to borrow a finished unit from someone else.

David Wilson: Right, back into the swing of things then. David Wilson is a hugely nice guy who has traveled to many tournaments and done fairly well with his Witchhunters. That being said, many people aren't a fan of the new WD list, and I can't say I really blame them, so he's moving on to Orks, triple battlewagons to be exact. That being said, Last I heard they were still in their shrink wrap, let alone not yet painted, so hopefully he doesn't become the captain of Team Disappoint ;)

Hagen Kerr: It's good to see ole Grandpa sneaking in the back door. Hagen runs a fairly typical mech guard list, but has a few variations that tend to be slightly less logical to some of us ;) I'm sure he will do well though and will be one of the few people who can give Doug a good run for his money.

Doug Sainsbury: For his first masters, Doug has broken the bank and purchased the national supply of Razorbacks. Doug performed exceptionally well all year long with smart objective based play and efficient mobile lists, usually using a lot of the ravenwing units. He's looking at running his next years tournament list, a fairly typical and extremely strong GK list. That being said, Doug can sometimes give up a bit early and be a bit doom and gloom, this could betray him at the event if he's not careful. The only thing that is certain is that Doug's list will change 900 times between this event and the week after, even IF he goes undefeated and cleans everyone up ;D

Jack Dunn: Historically I've backed Jack to win events, and this time is no different. The only thing that has changed is that this time Jack is also playing an incredibly competitive DE list that really plays to his strengths as a player. The 3 main challenges for Jack will be myself, Doug, and Hagen due to the match up. That being said, Jack is a much better player than all 3, and depending on terrain, mission, and the ever beloved first turn roll, Jack should have this event in the bag.

Charlie St. Clair: I'm still torn between running the orks and running the spacewolves. While the space wolves have the tools to fight their way out of any tough situation, I find myself doubting my own ability with them. That being said, the playing field has changed an awful lot since the last 2 times the Orks stomped all over the masters. Jacks style of DE can pop the vehicles and wipe out the numbers before I even get to imagine being close. I can't pop the razorbacks protecting Dougs purifiers before hand, so they can comfortably smash 30man boyz units and instakill meganobs while im forced to play defensively against an army that out shoots me by a lot. In the past though, the Orks have always come through and won games I really had no business winning, so I'm not sure I should doubt them.

I'll probably run the wolves because they're something new, and enjoy the school of hard knocks learning with them, but realistically I expect a new name to be engraved on the trophy this year - we shall see.

That being said, I could just join team disappoint and go out and buy a bunch of shrink wrapped boxes then just prod them around the table, why bother to even clip them off the sprues, that's all this game is really about right ;)?

Well, that's pretty much it. There are a few notable exclusions from the field this year, which is a little bit perplexing - but ours is not to reason why.

- Charlie