The von Trapps at the NZ Team Championships - Day One

A fortnight ago the inaugural NZTC was held here in Wellington. The championships were sponsored by this blog with the intention that they would become a regular fixture on the NZ Warhammer calendar.

The Spoils of War

The initial von Trapp Family was Jack, Tom and myself, along with Hagen Kerr. We wrote a really filthy Lizard list for Hagen which he started using at Skitterleap. Hagen's wife, Joy, is pregnant with their third child and unfortunately she was ill during Skitterleap, causing Hagen to withdraw. With her due date only three weeks after the NZTC, Hagen decided it was a little too close for familial harmony.

Enter Mal Patel. Mal is NZ's dirtiest Lizard player and was honoured to be called up for the von Trapp cause. So honoured, that he promptly forgot about it and went and booked a holiday for the same weekend. Softcock!

Well his loss was Joe Dixon's gain. Joe has been a regular guest at Chez Dunn when he and his brother Harry travelled from Nelson for Wellington tournaments. Now resident in Wellington, Joe indicated that it was the fulfilment of his life's dream to be part of the von Trapp Family with three Dunns.

Originally our intention was to run Daemons, Skaven, Lizards and one other. With Joe keen to run his Warriors and Jack having just finished painting 30 Corsairs those plans had to be amended. Tom kept his Daemons and I took one for the team agreeing to play Ogres.

Prior to the event we individually reviewed all the opposing lists and assigned a game result to them. This varied from 17 through 13, 10,7 down to 3 - representing the points we thought we could get. Based on these forecasts we approached the matchup process. In this we were helped with Jack developing an Android App that looked to maximise our round score based on these forecasts. It indicated who we should put up first etc in each particular round and then reacted to the other team's action. Where this was good is that it took all the emotion out of the process with the sole goal of maximising the team's round score.

For a runthrough I'll provide the team's scores and mention any points from my games that I remember.

Round One - Over The Hill

Jack (DE) 13 - 7 Dave Appleby (Skaven) - [Predition: 10-10]
Tom (DoC) 20 - 0 Simon Switzer (Dwarfs) [17-3]
Pete (OK) 9 -11 James Millington (WoC) [17-3]
Joe (WoC) 15 -5 Peter Williamson (HE) [17-3]

The rest of the team did really well in this round. I was cruising to a 13/14 point win having not lost any points until the bottom of Turn 5 when James had a comet land with an 11" radius. This took out 700 points and forced it back to a small loss. In retrospect I was probably a bit complacent about the effect the comet could have and should have paid it (and James) more respect.

We predicted a 60 point win and achieved 57 points - the deficit solely due to me.

Round Two - NZHammered

Jack (DE) 2 -18 James Brown (OK) [10-10]
Tom (DoC) 11-9 Glen Tibbles (WoC) [13-7]
Pete (OK) 15-5 John Wilenbruch (Lizards) [10-10]
Joe (WoC) 2-18 Antony Kitson (Brets) [13-7]

We predicted a small win here with some very tight games. Ideally we wanted Joe into the Lizards but his next best match was forecast as the Brets. In the end Jack had a little bad luck while, in retrospect, the prediction of Woc v Brets was wrong.

In my game, John had net list Skinks and played the "don't engage, blast with Banishment" strategy. It was very cagey the first few turns and John was unlucky not to take out my Maneaters. However he then got parts of his army isolated and I was able to pick up points while preserving my own.

Our prediction of a small win proved wrong and we took our only loss of the weekend.

Round Three - Team OMEN

Jack (DE) 10-10 Joel van de Ven-Long (Empire) [13-7]
Tom (DoC) 14-6 James Milner (HE) [13-7]
Pete (OK) 11-9 Sam Whitt (DE) [10-10]
Joe (WoC) 18-2 Glen Burfield [13-7]

Joe was the star here, picking up a major win. In my game versus Sam I was determined that if I engaged his three character bus of COKs then it would be with multiple units. I picked up his chaff and Hydra but lost both my Firebelly and BSB to Spirit Leech.

We scored slightly better than predicted and continued to stay in the running.

Round Four - Grumpy Old Men

Jack (DE) 7-13 Raymond Dick (DE) [10-10]
Tom (DoC) 11-9 Tane Woodley (Dwarfs) [17-3]
Pete (OK) 10-10 Mike King (Lizards) [13-7]
Joe (WoC) 15-5 Reid Pittams (DoC) [3-17]

Our matchups predicted a small win and in the end that's what we achieved. The plan was to get Tom into the Dwarfs but Tane played a very strong defensive game and blunted our main weapon. The shock was Joe getting up over Reid where we thought he would struggle. His efforts were instrumental in us getting the small win.

A Grumpy Old Man

In my game versus Mike - one we play every second week - I made a critical error when I accepted a challenge I shouldn't have - let's put it down to the fourth game on a long day. This held me up for two turns and meant I lost my big Mournfang unit and critically left Mike's ethereal Slaan on a single wound.

We achieved a small win which left ust in second place going into Day Two, nine points behind NZHammered.