The moment had come, the one where we trained for all this time.
I found myself in the Ad Fundum in Sint-Truiden, unsure which ones to pick. I made a selection as best I could, based on previous years’ experiences and recommendations from friends and family.
Then I came upon them. Unassuming in their brown box, a green streak and white lettering.
I found them.
The holy grail(s).
Without thinking twice, even after seeing the price on the label, I took them with me, giddy with excitement. I had been stressing about this moment for a while now. But this made everything better and my mood instantly lifted.
I found a box of West-Vleteren.
For those not in the know, ever since my first time attending the WTC I’ve tried to take with me beers and chocolates from my home country of Belgium – to share, to make merry and to gift to the Belgian teams’ opponents. A sort of salute, a thank you-gesture for coming so far and playing against us and a wish for a great time to be shared by all.
As with last time, I filled my trunk with beers and chocolates but this time I found one of the rarest beers in Belgium (possibly of the world even) – one that has won multiple awards for best beer in the world. The monks that brew it have taken a vow of poverty, they never make more than they need to survive (or to repair/maintain their monastery).
These reasons make the beverage exceptionally rare and expensive, even within the country. In previous years I tried to go through the usual direct channels, only to be met with occupied phone lines from the moment the line opened for weeks on end. Even if you can get through on the line, the quantities you can take with you are very limited per person.
And there they were, in a speciality store, just one six pack left and a couple of loose ones.
As a tradeoff, my chocolate haul this year was worse than last time, but I was still okay with the trunk load.
My WTC was off to a great start already!
We gathered at one of the organisers’ house for a meal and a plan of attack. Together with a few players and crew, we loaded up various vehicles with the mats, terrain, clocks and other assorted necessities, logistics, data entry and organiser tools and set off to Blankenberge – a ~2h-2h30 drive for us.
As an aside, distances in Belgium are a strange thing. Because of the usual traffic congestion around Brussels and Antwerp and the fact that we are a small country our tolerances for distances/time to drive are much lower than that of large countries like the USA or Australia. This is considered a long distance/drive for us – especially on a Thursday evening, with some work ahead of us.
We gathered in my room to prepare the welcome and gift packs, all the while waxing poetically about past WTCs and all of the good times that were had, speculation about MK4 and generally enjoying the positive buzz that was present for the 2022 event. At 02:00 in the morning we decided to go to sleep.
On Friday morning after a hearty breakfast we set up shop and terrain. Thankfully the venue staff already set up the tables, so we needed to get the mats, terrain and clocks set up, the data entry station and the registration table.
Many hands make light work holds true, and we were mostly done by lunch, so after having lunch with the Australians talking about Josh-dollars, buttplugs and camel scalps, I settled in across from the registration booth with some chocolates and beers, just vibing.
I got to meet new faces and familiar ones – a Finnish player shared some “Tyrkisk peber” – Turkish Pepper liquorice candy. Being mindful of the name, I took it slow and found it to be pleasant – though I suspect many will find it an acquired taste (protip: don’t bite down on it).
While the tournament is absolutely superb, these moments are golden – getting to know folks from around the world, sharing stories and making new friends.
Can you tell I’m excited about the WTC?
The welcome packet included some information sheets, wristbands for access to food, red/white dice (colours of Wallonia), yellow/black dice (colours of Flanders) and a beer for every player in a room – a specially crafted one, just for the WTC – with its own WTC label!
I’m told it’s quite delicious, but since I don’t drink I guess I’ll just keep this one for a special guest 😀
The Belgian teams had a few training moments, the last one being just a week before the event. Even so, I was very much nervous – especially since Klaw (https://twitter.com/klawspeaks) had thrown down the gauntlet and challenged the Norwegians. What with late arrivals and such, we asked Charles (read about his games here) if he could join us to which he replied “Who are you and how dare you speak to me?”. Such a kidder, that Charles. The hero that he is, he put his batrep in the aforementioned link so be sure to give that a read!
Challenge match just starting!
After a thorough and strategic matchmaking process (eeny meeny miney moe), I came up against Kuba (https://www.tiebreak.co.uk/2022-world-team-championship/player/43804).
I’ve encountered Kuba a few times before – Clogcon and a few German events I believe. He’s both a great player and an awesome person to hang out with – we shared drinks and games before and it was always a good time – this time was no different!
He chose his Madrak3 list and I dropped Xerxis1. Going second vs Madrak is scary though, but I tried to grind it out on Recon II, with a huge forest covering my flag and the middle of the board.
Unfortunately, the attrition was slightly going in his favour after my feat and putting up my Cetrati, some cats and Tiberion up there. Battle Lust, War Cry and Spellpiercer did a number on my army, even though I whittled his Funblades down to only a few remaining and removed several Champions.
In addition to losing Tiberion, several Cetrati and only having 2 cats remaining, I was down on clock a whole bunch. When we heard the games were going Norway’s favour and with only a few minutes on my clock versus Kuba’s 12+ we decided to call it.
The Norse gods smiled upon the Norwegians, but at least Klaw regained his honour for that other challenge 10 years ago at the then ETC (ask him about it when you next encounter His Sexiness).
Spirits were high, laughs and good cheer all around but I decided to get to bed as it had been a late night the day before and an early rise. What with 6 rounds ahead of me at that time I wanted to get some Z’s in to make sure I was fresh in the morning!
Getting to the good stuff now: the opening ceremony (which you can see some of on the WMH Belgium Instagram) had several people introduce themselves: the judge team, the organisers, the painting competition and Doug Hamilton of Privateer Press fame also had a few words for the crowd! No spoilers or teasers in his speech if that’s what you’re after, but he did convey the message of gratitude for being there together with John Swinkels and you could tell he was also energised by the crowd and the event.
He did already announce the WTC Torchbearers for this year – and deservedly so the winners were the WTC organisation and crew! See PP’s Instagram, Twitter and Facebook pages (also be sure to browse their followup photos to see all of the handsome people involved) for the awardening!
Look at all these handsome devils – you won’t believe how much work they have done for the WTC and the Belgian Warmachine community – well deserved all!
After the ceremony and my failed attempt to make an Infernal pact with DarkLegacy (who was playing on team USA Artemis) to be better at Warmachine, we set off to find our round 1 opponents!
See the Tiebreak link here for player and team information, as well as standings and other assorted information. You can also find my lists as well as my team’s lists under Team Belgium Billions of Bilious Blue Blistering Barnacles (say that five times fast).
Tintin comics’ Captain Haddock’s colourful curses make great teamnames. I’m also fond of ‘Millions of Murderous Maelstroms!’ or ‘Ten Thousand Thundering Typhoons!’
Unfortunately I can’t go through all of the pairings in this article as I can’t remember all of it and wasn’t there for some of it (emergency bathroom break or just having to move twice: once for models, once for gifts).
Round 1 versus France Idéfix
https://www.tiebreak.co.uk/2022-world-team-championship/round/round-1
Round 1 saw us matched up against our southern neighbours, France. In particular team Idéfix, who were unfortunately missing a player due to health reasons. We came upon the following pairings:
France Legion vs Belgium Grymkin
France Khador vs Belgium Cryx
France Skorne vs Belgium Circle
France Protectorate vs Belgium Skorne
After the ceremonial giving of the gifts, the matchup ended up being Kreoss2 vs Xerxis1 on Invasion. I got the second turn and chose the less annoying table side.
Just getting started!
We both ran up in the first round, with our respective upkeeps out (although mine weren’t super useful vs everything, what with all of that Blessed on his side of the board). I did have to remind him that the pseudo-Take Down from the theme gets around Sacrosanct.
On the second round he ran up some more, and I gave him some targets, but certainly not all/too many. So the second turn was also posturing mostly.
On the third, the action started. He ran up, mostly bricking, making a big blob of Exemplars to go through. My mouth watered at the sight, and I enthusiastically feated with Xerxis and sent him to go on a journey.
What a mistake-a-to-make-a!
I charged him into Errants, whose Self-Sacrifice ability turns off Overtake and Sprint, which means that I put my warlock in the middle of the table. I panicked a bit and Energizered backwards.
After that, my Cetrati took down 8 Exemplar, the Ferox took down 2 each, Tiberion got stuck on some tough guys and gals only taking down 3, Makeda took 5 and I had assorted support folks take down Exemplar left and right. Everyone had a great time, much Hoksune to be had!
Staring down the Exemplar force
We had a short talk about the pseudo-Take Down benefit getting around Selfsac (which it doesn’t, but I misread the rule at the time) and my opponent was gracious enough to agree to ‘sprint’ Xerxis back an inch B2B with the objective. After the game we took some time to read through the rules interaction properly and it turns out that pseudo-Take Down does not get around Self-Sac. It did not end up mattering in the end, but I did search out my opponent later in the day to clarify.
On his turn, he set his sights to my caster, camping one fury. Gravus and Kreoss cleared off some cats. His feat meant that the thinned out Exemplars did get a lot of work done. I was able to take down every Knight Exemplar Officer bar one. The one he needed to get three Knights onto Xerxis.
Everything in his turn was set to clearing the way and when the tough checks did not go my way, my sweating intensified. The three Knights were able to get on to Xerxis at an effective ARM 22, 19hp, tough and one transfer versus P+S 13 weapon master, additional die drop the lowest on both attack and damage, an additional attack and automatic hits. On average the charge attack would do ~7-8 damage and each followup attack would do ~2-3 if my dice math is correct.
Unfortunately one of his damage rolls was very subpar and only did a point on the charge, so it all came down to the last attack, which was enough to crack armour. My tough roll showed a ‘4’ and we shook hands.
First I want to say that my opponent is a very cheerful and pleasant one -it was a super enjoyable game with some laughs, helping each other out where appropriate and good feelings all around. 10/10 would play France again.
All in all I would have done a similar thing with Xerxis, only not blindly charging into the blob, but picking out a Knight Exemplar so I can actually sprint 7” (counting Push to the Limit) back and stay safe from retaliation. Luckily my team saved my behind and had wins versus Legion and Khador and thus we were able to achieve a 3-2 start.
France Idéfix achieved 28th place in the final standings.
We had lunch with other Belgian teams and were enthusiastically sharing our first round stories already!
Round 2 versus Italy Far From Home
https://www.tiebreak.co.uk/2022-world-team-championship/round/round-2
In round 2 we found ourselves matched up against Italy Far From Home, with some familiar and some unfamiliar names as in previous years we had played against Italians before (including the VTC!).
Italy Retribution vs Belgium Cryx
Italy Protectorate vs Belgium Grymkin
Italy Cryx vs Belgium Skorne
Italy Convergence vs Belgium Circle
Italy Mercenaries vs Belgium Trollbloods
First, the ceremonial giving of the gifts! Then we faced off over Split Decision, Skarre1 vs Xerxis1. I got the second turn and chose the less annoying table side again.
We both ran up, mostly respecting each other’s threat ranges.
I sent some Keltarii into my opponent’s right side Satyxis, however they mostly flubbed their rolls and only took down one sea raider.
On the counterattack he postured some more using the center cloud to cover the approach of at least one Stalker, the Scavenger and Asphyxious. The Satyxis thinned out my Keltarii some.
On the next turn I was able to walk up with my Cetrati 9” (Push to the Limit + Celerity) and take down one Stalker, put some light damage on the Scavenger (poor damage roll) and retreat back behind the cloud. My cats also got into two Stalkers, but were only able to take one down even with Puppet Master (I was trying to aim for heavily damaging, but one cat rolled hot and one cold, so the one Stalker was mostly active still).
Keltarii got into some more annoying positions and took down some more ladies
See that Troll over on yonder flag? Spoiler alert: he’s going to have a good time…
On my opponent’s feat turn he got rid of 3/5 cats, some more Keltarii, Tiberion… and all of my Cetrati. Gerlak was at exactly the distance he needed to charge, just 0.1” back and he would have been sadly waving at my shieldy bois. However, with Skarre”s feat he had no trouble cutting through effective ARM 22 Cetrati and to add insult to injury kill the Agonizer as well. Even Vorkesh with his 8 hp bit the dust.
To add insult to injury Kharybdis came in and tickled the Krea to death as well.
A rough feat turn for sure, both down on attrition and scenario (behind 2-1). However, my feat turn arrived.
Makeda took out one of the Stalkers that took down Tiberion and left the objective on a few hp, but stubbornly kept missing the other Stalker next to her. Luckily I had a bunch of people around to help out. I managed to clear off one Stalker, the Scavenger and Gerlak that were in my face between the remaining Keltarii, Xerxis, Makeda, TyCom, Beast handlers and the kitchen sink.
Kharibdys sank due to a combination of Archidon and the Legends. My remaining cats were mostly ineffective in hitting the remaining Stalker and Satyxis unfortunately.
In addition to that last unfortunate bit, one Stalker was left (the one Makeda kept missing) next to my flag so I couldn’t score that one. My opponent weighed his options and found the scenario option to be the better of the two.
The Stalker rolled hot, even without focus (disrupted by the Thrullg) and killed the objective (even under Xerxis’ feat with a model B2B with it, but it only had 3hp left so any spike would have done it).
He cleared his flag from the sole Keltarus easily and Asphyxious was able to tank Cidaar’s Defensive Strike and take down the Archidon and three Legends, with a little help of a Stalker. The cat was petted by the ladies in the back and he scored 4 to my 0 and won the game by scenario.
An absolute gentleman of an opponent, that last turn was executed surgically. Well played all around and again a very enjoyable game! Would play Italy again 10/10!
On my side I just blanked on Gerlak’s threat range. A big blunder to be sure, which may have cost me the game. Kharybdis would have been able to tag a couple, but not all of them. With Cetrati still in the mix, I would for sure have been able to clear my flag and get more into the left zone.
Unfortunate, but luckily the team pulled me out of the fire by winning all of their games, making the final tally 4-1 for this round!
Italy Far From home would go on to make 36th place.
I was feeling a bit distraught at that point, not going to lie. The two matchups I played we had put down as advantaged for me. I still believe that to be the case, and I did not play to my full level.
After getting some peptalking to from familiar & friendly faces, I was ready to get back on the horse for round 3!
Round 3 versus Canada Goose
https://www.tiebreak.co.uk/2022-world-team-championship/round/round-3
Oh dang. OH DANG..
So for round 3 we got paired up against Canada Goose – the stakes were getting higher! We ended up with the following pairings:
Canada Trollbloods vs Belgium Grymkin
Canada Minions vs Belgium Trollbloods
Canada Khador vs Belgium Skorne
Canada Mercenaries vs Belgium Circle
Canada Circle vs Belgium Cryx
After handing over our gifts to our opponents, we headed off to our tables. I faced Khador’s Malignant Fusion: Karchev/Deathjack on Recon II vs my Xerxis1. I chose the second turn and picked the side without quicksand in my face.
Both of us rushed up the table, and my opponent presented two Devastators, one under Death Ward but both under Mortal Fear and Locked Horns. I decided to feat and try to take both of them (or at least one and severely damage the other), thinking I would have enough output to grind through the rest of his heavies on later turns.
I made some order of activation/placement mistakes earlier, which meant that the Cetrati had to go before the Thrullg. Thankfully Tiberion smacked the formerly Death Warded Devastator down without too much issue.
On the other side I had a potential combination of cats, Legends, Krea, Archidon and Makeda0 to go after an effective ARM 27 clamjack. However, I messed up some placements and the Krea charged out of Makeda’s CTRL, so the plan went out the window afterwards.
On the clapback I lost several Cetrati, the Krea and assorted models from units here and there.
On my return turn, I had a Death Warded Juggernaut under Locked Horns and Mortal Fear in my face. I was able to take out the Death Archon first, but I overestimated Tiberion’s output onto an effective ARM 24 heavy, and with Xerxis right up there and only 3 minutes on my clock, the game was sorted fairly quickly in my opponent’s favour.
Not enough oomph after feat turn and losing Thrullg
You may have heard of this gentleman’s reputation before and he sure does live up to it. Both as a gentleman and a great player! 10/10 would play Canada again!
We ended up 1-4 this round. Canada Goose would go on to play the finals and end up in 2nd place.
The stresses of both the past week and the day certainly got to me at this point in the day. It definitely didn’t help that I put too much stock in reputation/authority so with those stars in my eyes I kept second, third and fourth-guessing every move I did or didn’t make. Was it a playable matchup? Definitely, but I didn’t play this game very well.
A week after the WTC I was able to think a bit more clearly and sober about all of my matchups, and I now wonder if I shouldn’t have dropped Xekaar into this drop. With the centre house and model placements getting in the way of multiple ‘jacks on to my Hydra and the Hydra having an effective +6 POW when spraying (Mortality, Whispers at the Gate and Bane), even Devastators would have to watch out for its output.
We’ll never know now of course, but something that I analysed afterwards and to think about.
The team’s only loss this day was to a very strong team, so our spirits were generally high! We hung out, had dinner, shit talked, exchanged shirts and all in all had a great time. I finally got to gift some West-Vleteren to the fine folks from Privateer Press – they were so grateful! And also great to hang out with!
I tried to not go to sleep too late as I wanted to do better on the second day of the WTC.
Round 4 versus USA Pioneer
https://www.tiebreak.co.uk/2022-world-team-championship/round/round-4
After a hearty breakfast, we met our 4th round opponents in the big room. We paired as follows:
USA Mercenaries vs Belgium Cryx
USA Minions vs Belgium Trollbloods
USA Infernals vs Belgium Skorne
USA Circle vs Belgium Circle
USA Skorne vs Belgium Grymkin
We shook hands, exchanged gifts and started our rounds. I came up against cleverly disguised Infernals (my opponent had Lukas and Feora4 in Hearts of Darkness for his pairing), going second on King of the Hill.
Both of us moved up, but I was fairly quickly put on the defensive foot as he had far-reaching guns. I hugged the rubble as much as I could and moved up.
On the following turn some fire was exchanged and some Keltarii hit the dirt. My Thrullg on the left died to a Suppressor moving up into the zone and Howlers got into my grill.
On my turn I decided to feat and get Xerxis up there in order to have my Ferox stay in the feat area as I wanted to get them going after my opponent’s Vindicators.
Xerxis clobbers down one Howler, moves up with Overtake/Lightning Strike and orders his forces to surround him.
With some charging and repositioning I get (Defender’s Warded) Cetrati clustered in around him, Tiberion, Agonizer and Krea also huddle up with their respective buffs and protections.
The cats do great work on this turn, taking out the Suppressor with ease (rolling hot), but leaving the targeted Vindicator alive with its melee weapon, cortex and movement intact.
The rest of my forces try to get in as annoying as possible positions to hopefully make my opponent’s life as difficult as possible.
On the following turn Lukas decides he’s tired of Xerxis’ bull****, and plans for the assassination. First things first: the full health Vindicator and Dragon’s Breath Rocket put their Withering Humor all over my brick. One of the Dragon’s Breath Rocket grunts even manages to get the headshot off on one of my Ferox (who was damaged already, and thanks to the Hermit’s Whispers at the Gate).
The Howlers flail about, the Umbral Guardian stabs a dude and the Liberator also manages to liberate an offending Cetratus from their life. Regna gets in on the action but her little knife isn’t quite up to the task of breaking through Defender’s Warded, Xerxis1 feated and Agonizered Cataphract.
Action shot!
Then the Assault Troopers and Prospero decide they’re not feeling it, and can’t quite clear the Ferox from his lines. So Lukas decides to go for it himself – TeleKinesising himself, getting some good rolls in on the offending Ferox and putting them in the dirt. He charges the Cetrati that were in the way and then decides to make it exciting and flubs his first couple of damage rolls. However, he gets it on his last attack before he TK’s Xerxis over, out of B2B contact and out of protective bubbles.
Regna’s Shrieker opens up and forces a transfer and the Vindicator only has to lift his hammer once to put Xerxis into the dirt.
A super pleasant game and gentleman opponent, we made sure we made our meanings clear and helped each other where needed. We called a judge when we needed to verify a few things but everything was in good spirits. 10/10 would play USA again.
We ended this round 2-3, and it sounds like some of the other games were also close, so we were super stoked about doing this well against a team that would ultimately end up in 4th place!
So many Warmafriends!
Round 5 versus Spain Rogue
https://www.tiebreak.co.uk/2022-world-team-championship/round/round-5
After a small photoshoot at lunch (people wanted pictures of everyone’s jerseys, including ours), we headed off to one of the side rooms for our 5th round. We found our opponents already smiling to play against us! We came to the following pairings:
Spain Protectorate vs Belgium Circle
Spain Retribution vs Belgium Grymkin
Spain Trollbloods vs Belgium Cryx
Spain Circle vs Belgium Trollbloods
Spain Grymkin vs Belgium Skorne
The smiles got even bigger when we handed them our ceremonial gifts! We headed off to our respective tables, with my opponent and I facing The Child and Xerxis1 off against each other on Spread the Net. I ended up as the second player.
My opponent moves up full bore – the Clockatrices were just shy of the middle line of the table!
I respond by posturing a bit more defensively, but still offering up the Cetrati and Tiberion to his Clocks. I was sure he would be able to take one, but not fully the other if he commited all of his metal birds.
The Thrullg and some Keltarii take cover in a trench on my flag, facing off against a Defiled Archon.
He decides to commit the mechanical menaces, with all of the buffs available to get through my defensive tech. A provoked freestrike from a Keltarus does one point of damage and procs the ‘Wrath’ arcana, giving him +1 FURY stat on everything. I’m not going to lie, I was caught out by this. I’m not sure it would have made much of a difference in the end, as all of the targets the Clocks reached died anyway, but it would have made resource usage a bit more constrained as the assault sprays were able to take down or damage some of my support (goodbye Agonizer and Krea).
Like I said, Tiberion went down to a duo, and some Cetrati also decided to take a nap. With the Wrath arcana, he was able to put up the Clockatrice animus all around my forces though, which was unfortunate for me…
The rest of his turn he made sure to be able to follow up on this first strike.
I carefully planned out my activations, starting with Xerxis getting his feat up and smashing a Clockatrice aside. I can’t remember the exact play-by-play as the birds Time Stuttered around and made me rethink a couple of activations here and there. In the end, a combination of Xerxis, Archidon, Makeda0, Cetrati, Legends and a couple of Keltarii managed to kill all three Clockatrices in my face and to put the cherry on top, with some leftover charges I destroyed the Death Knell in the middle of the table.
However, with only an Archidon and Xerxis left to score my rectangle zone, I did not manage to score there, so scenario play would be slower on my end.
On the counterattack, with fewer activations and a Defiled Archon missing a 6 on Cidaar, he had to do a couple of suboptimal plays to get a Skin & Moans onto my last remaining beast, but he managed to get there and destroy my poor flying reptile. A Cage Rager also got onto my Cetrati but some good tough rolls meant only one of my Cataphract died.
His other forces repositioned and The Child herself postured fairly aggressively at the edge of the centre zone.
I was able to get rid of the Skin & Moans in my face with Cetrati, Keltarii and remaining Legends, but I needed to keep Xerxis safe at all costs now. My cats and the other Cetrati with some help from Makeda0 managed to take down the Cage Rager in my zone. One cat also removed a Gremlin Swarm from the field with some Guidance from the Extoller Soulward. My hold on the right side of the board was solidifying.
Meanwhile the Thrullg kept within contesting range of my flag and I kept feeding him Keltarii to contest his zone.
Afterwards, the other Skin & Moans came up to wreak havoc on my forces, killing Cetrati, Legends and Keltarii with ease. The Child herself threw both a tantrum and a Force Hammer at Xerxis in order to whittle him down.
Repositioning all abound, trying to prevent the scenario to run away from the Grymkin.
On my turn I turtled up in the centre zone after killing the last Skin & Moans with remaining Cetrati, Keltarii, a cat and Thrullg.
Xerxis stood up, healed himself and bravely ran away to score my zone, all the while I ran some support pieces to score his flag.
Thrullg finally went down, so he was free to try and score my flag, but the last couple of Keltarii contested where they could.
Baron Tonguelick was also a hero at this point for the Grymkin, with Parlay up and my beasts down I had no way of killing him in a cloud. Very annoying.
Ultimately that last part did not matter as I was able to contest for long enough to score out 8-3.
Such amazing opponents, the Spaniards. All of us had great games, and our game was no different – truly a scholar and a gentleman! 10/10 would play Spain again! The final score of this round was 4-1 in our favour. Spain Rogue ended up in 29th place overall.
All in all, I think we both played it well. I should probably have not triggered Wrath when I did and my opponent remarked perhaps King of Nothing would have been a better list against mine, what with all the defensive buffs the King is able to layer (between clouds and the Malady Man’s monkey).
Players that finished their game huddle up around the stream
Round 6 versus USA Apollo
https://www.tiebreak.co.uk/2022-world-team-championship/round/round-6
There was some confusion on round 6 but we met our opponents from across the pond in another little sideroom, and had pairings as such:
USA Convergence vs Belgium Skorne
USA Retribution vs Belgium Grymkin
USA Crucible Guard vs Belgium Trollbloods
USA Minions vs Belgium Circle
USA Circle vs Belgium Cryx
A final ceremonial exchanging of the gifts, and we were off to pit Aurora1 versus Xekaar on Bunkers. I got handed the second turn and we were off.
Aurora (either) is terrifying when going second against her. I was put on the defensive right out of the gate. I also had the same issue as round 3, where the reputation and the stars in my eyes did more to hamper my own play than anything else useful. Again, nothing that is the fault of the other player, but I did play very slowly and… well certainly badly this game.
On the following turn he put everything out of my threat ranges and passed clock, after zapping my Master Tormentor using a Gaspybot as ‘spark node’ for a Storm Tower.
I had the plan of putting Mortality on the Asphyxibot, triggering Alpha Hunter, getting the Hydra up there to spray down Asphyxious himself. Except that I completely ignored/did not hear/understand/whatever that he put Asphyxious outside of my threat ranges. So after a missed Mortality and my opponent makes me aware of this, I put Mortality on a Swabber that was in range to attack.
I definitely killed that Swabber good with my Hydra and Brutes. But did f** all else. I put Xekaar in the middle of the table with his feat up, but did not get anything to protect him, the Hermit was only tangentially available for sac pawn and no transfers either.
He hums and haws thinking I have a clever trap somewhere (I didn’t) but goes for the assassination with a Swabber getting my Hermit out of the way, his Hermit coming up and the ranged attacks that were able to stay outside of my feat area shooting me down.
My opponent was gracious throughout the whole thing, and would definitely play USA again 10/10. I just wasn’t completely there I felt. In fact, I was ashamed that I couldn’t give him a better game at that point, but we shared a drink and all was well again.
We had our assets handed to us, going 0-5 against a team that ended up in 6th place. Both our Cryx player and USA Apollo’s Circle player earned themselves a new nickname as a result of this round, so you should definitely ask them about it the next time you see them!
After the final round, we attended the closing ceremony, the link for which is also present on the WMH Belgium Instagram page as well as Privateer Press’ Facebook page! Laughs, congratulations and shoulderpats, handshakes and hugs all round followed by some goodbye tears.
The Australian (and other assorted) teams partied like it was 1999 and a great time was had by all.
I stayed a bit more to help clean up and get everything ready for the WTC’s next destination: Denmark!
I hope to see you there next year! I hope you enjoyed this rather lengthy writeup, but I will leave you all with an invitation to come to the Warmachine WTC as there really is nothing on the planet like it. The atmosphere, the camaraderie and general great vibes are something that you have to experience at least once in your lifetime!