Ep.57 Warlord GT | Tabletop Tommies Bolt Action Podcast - Tabletop Tommies

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.

(00:05):
Welcome to Tabletop Tommies. I'm Jonny. And I'm Phil.
And in today's episode, we're talking about the Warlord GT, also known as BritCon,
hosted by the BHGS in Nottingham.
It really is Warlord's flagship event.
So for anyone who's listened to us on an audio platform, we are streaming this on YouTube as well.

(00:27):
And so if you want to see the maps, see the tables.
Basically see the tournament, all the photos from the
weekend jump over on the youtube channel and you
can see it in all its glory i guess the
big question the first thing you notice when you get there phil is the
venue what's the venue like for this so yeah
it's held at brickcom which is obviously one of bhgs's main

(00:49):
uh events of the year uh it's at nottingham
train university really nice campus bang in the
center of nottingham uh the gaming venue was brilliant um i
haven't been before i understand from previous years that um i
think people were underneath the glass roofs and they were
getting quite hot and sweaty during the course of the weekend we were
nicely tucked away um massive massive floor space

(01:09):
loads of space around the tables um yeah like the
venue was top quality really really good yeah i couldn't make
it this year but the previous years it was the
exact same venue and i did fall foul of
the sun coming in through the glass roof it was
less the heat and more just like sun in
your eyes and so when people are picking table sites sometimes you're

(01:30):
picking your table site based on what having the sun on your
back rather than in your face it was just quite an interesting dynamic to
play war games under yeah but yeah in terms of you know it's in nottingham it's
central central uk so it's great in terms of people traveling you know around
the uk but also coming from overseas so yeah really really good thumbs up there
for the venue yeah and as the flagship event they got a ton of players this

(01:52):
year didn't they so there were 70 players over the weekend i I think they sold more tickets,
but not everybody could make it for the actual weekend. But yeah, 70 players.
Well, it's certainly the biggest in the UK this year. I think it might even
be the biggest in the world.
I think the Spanish Nationals might be challenging for it.
But as far as I'm aware, it is certainly the biggest in the UK this year,

(02:12):
if not the world. So yeah, really, really good.
Yeah, I think it has been bigger historically as well.
And so there really is potential for it to break sort of 100,
even further than that, potentially.
And there's space for it you know there was a ton of space available so
if it stays at nottingham train i think it's been there for two two or three
years now so if it does grow and grow the venue can absolutely take more people

(02:36):
without any concerns about that yeah i think i could be wrong here but i think
you're right i think this is the third year and the thing that i really liked
about the venue was they throw in the accommodation as well because the students aren't there.
You can buy your accommodation with your ticket and
stay in the halls which i think is a huge huge win because
it just saves it's one less thing you have to organize isn't it yeah i

(02:57):
mean i think from the people i went up with half of
us stayed in the accommodation the other half stayed in the premier inn which is literally
across the road so whichever way you look at it you know
you've got accommodation which is a similar price bang on
site so yeah no no you know no concerns there
at all so yeah accommodation was good venue was good location in
terms of central uk all good so so far yeah so i

(03:18):
guess the format is the next question my
understanding it was was it six games and what was the
points limit yeah so 1100 points uh single
platoon generic so the pack was really straightforward you know
you don't need to say any more than that obviously there's
always you know interpretations as to what counts as a generic unit or
not but that's down to the list checkers to make sure that that all

(03:39):
the lists are fine beforehand um so 1100 points generic
eric six games so three or three on each day it was
two hour rounds and i you know had
a few practice games um locally and we did
obviously we were aware of the two hour rounds and we're thinking actually is
is that pushing it a little bit you'd expect to see maybe two hours to 15 or
two hours 30 as it was we basically had a 15 minute admin built into that so

(04:02):
the actual playing time was two hours but the admin side of things you had 15
minutes and it was fine i think i think.
Maybe one of my six games didn't get to turn six all
of them got to turn six other than that one and i think one got to turn seven
so no no issues there in terms of getting the games sorted if it was two hours
without the admin that that'd be pushing it you know because by the time you

(04:24):
got to the table talked about terrain talked through your lists especially for
submission with pre-deployment out the bag and prep bombardment that's going to cut in.
Yeah two hours of game time of playing time no issues at all
there oh that's really interesting so it's kind
of like the rounds are two hours 15 by the sounds of things than that you've
got you rock up to the table you've got 15 minutes to

(04:45):
do you set up etc and then two hours after that 15 minutes so it is kind of
like they're giving you two hours 15 yeah way how long were the intervals between
the games i think they were anywhere between 20 25 minutes and 45 maybe so So
more than enough time to clear down your stuff,
go and get a drink, go and get some food, pop outside, whatever, and then get back in.

(05:07):
I didn't see a huge amount of the show, which was disappointing because there
were some good traders there to bring and buy and so on.
And I think in the past, they've had the Friday night gaming and then the Saturday, Sunday.
If we had a bit more time, because obviously they're limited in terms of what
time they need to finish in the evenings.
If there'd be more time, I could have got to the show as it was.

(05:28):
We easily could have played on Friday night.
Yeah most people from the uk they're taking at least
half a day if not the whole day off on the friday to travel up we got
there from from hampshire and surrey but i know
six o'clock we easily could have played a game friday night
and if that had given us more time on the saturday or maybe
an earlier finish on the sunday i think that would have been welcome so
yeah that that was my my one yeah and

(05:51):
that's not nothing to do the tournament it's just about not being able
to actually see the show and and there was some good stuff going on around
us there was lots of lectures and talks there was some the great
and the good from the historical side of wargaming with giving lectures
and talks throughout the weekend saw a few people walking around
i recognized it would have been nice to maybe have had a chance
to pop into one of those or spoken to those those individuals but

(06:11):
as you know for the two days it was heads down and get on with the game but
you had enough breathing space to get some food get a drink go to the toilet
and so on in between rounds yeah it's interesting the friday night game i've
i've done that game both as a casual game and And there was one year he included
it as part of the tournament.
And when it was part of the tournament, I thought it was a bit of a problem,

(06:33):
to be honest, because if someone got stuck in traffic, it meant they didn't
turn up basically for the first game.
And it also meant that some people who were coming further afield,
like Scotland, were having to take a day off work, whereas they would have just
arrived at midnight instead.
And so I really liked the Friday night as an option rather than something that you had to do.
What is interesting is the fact it was six games Because at a lot of the shows,

(06:57):
like when we run one of the show, we'll run it as five games.
And then on a Sunday, you have a really long break in the middle,
as you say, to give people time to see the show.
And so it's interesting that we'll really squeeze the games in for this one.
Do you think that was because of the number of players that to differentiate them?
Or do you think it was just because the focus is on the game and for the weekend? Yeah.

(07:19):
I don't know, you know, Gaz would have to, you know, Gaz Betts,
who's the head CEO, would have to answer that one.
We did say when we did the Welsh Nationals review that having five games didn't
split the pack. You know, we had 52 players at the Welsh Nationals.
When you start getting over 40 or so
players, that sixth game really does differentiate your final standings.
If we'd only had the five games, given that day one wasn't Swiss,

(07:44):
so day one was random pairings and day two was Swiss.
Swiss if you only had five games and you had three games
against you know potentially top place players
or people who are going to finish towards the bottom that wouldn't
be as good as actually the way the way it turned out which was three three
games of random pairings and then on day two you started
you know by by round five round six you were playing against players who were

(08:06):
of a similar ability because it started to level out as as you got through into
those later rounds yeah that was that was the next thing I was going to ask
you about actually because I But I was aware that it was sort of what I'm going
to call semi-Swiss, where day one is random,
day two is traditional Swiss Rankins. Yeah.
And I wanted to know what your thought was on that, because it's branded as

(08:29):
a GT, which sort of in the tradition of, well, 40k, I think,
were probably the first sort of big brand to use the label GT,
which sort of has always been a very competitive environment.
We'd always associate competitive tournaments with full Swiss throughout.
And so to have the semi-Swiss, I don't know if that, did it,

(08:50):
did it feel just as competitive even without Swiss throughout,
or do you think it should have sort of picked a side of the fence as it were?
No i think it felt absolutely competitive all the way through there
you know there were players there from from all around the world anyone who follows
you know competitive bolt action you if you look at the the list
of names marcus put an article up this week on the wall or community site
if you look at the list of names and where people finished you'll recognize

(09:12):
some some guys from wtc and world open war etc so
and they and they weren't bringing you know fluffy lists they were
bringing full-on hard competitive lists so there absolutely was
that as well i didn't have you know know any easy games
you know with respect to all my opponents they
all pushed me i lost two of my games over the six so
in that sense i didn't i didn't feel like it was you know

(09:34):
like a jump to the left system for example it was nothing like that at all equally
if it had been full-on swiss six games bring out you know bring whatever you
want i may not have gone because you know i get that from the welsh nationals
for example this year or or playing in wgc or world open war i as as we know from the pod,
I like this more historical thematic side of things, but that doesn't mean you

(09:56):
still can't play competitively within that framework.
So in that sense, I, it didn't bother me. I was, I wanted to go to the GT.
I wanted to see what Brickham was about.
I enjoyed it for some people.
Maybe they, if when you see the word GT, maybe they think, Oh,
actually what I want is, is, you know, the bring anything you want.
Ignore the theme, ignore the historical side of things.

(10:18):
Would we have got, would they have got 70 players? I don't know.
You know, i'm not i'm not sure if you would have had a field as
big as we did if it was you know
a replica of a wow pack or a replica of wcc or
the welsh nationals it was nice that there were so many different players from
from different countries and different experiences and backgrounds you know
you absolutely had some some really thematic cool lists and then you had you

(10:42):
know i played paul wickens for example in round three and it was like the most
horrific list you could build for the brits my list was
pretty bad as well to be fair i'm not you know and that was
fine like i didn't i didn't mind playing playing that list i didn't mind
playing you know more more fluffy thematic list
so because you can still play competitively with a
thematic fluffy list it's a mindset isn't

(11:04):
it rather than the creation of the list well it's also i think your pack
restrictions i think some packs and obviously as we're moving
to v3 this will all change completely but i
think some packs sort of breed very competitive lists if
it's just sort of like unlimited platoons completely generic
do whatever you want other than that that tells
the players this is a competitive tournament if it's the

(11:25):
other side where it's theater selectors only single platoon that tends to tell
your players this is like yes you can play hard but it's a thematic tournament
last year the warlord gt they'd also tied it in with the english nationals which
really told people this is a a very competitive tournament sort of no holds barred,
it'll be interesting to see if next year.

(11:47):
They do lean further into the theme because i
think you're right i think that is as sort of your premier
event i think it would be good we've got the other
we've got the nationals in in the uk we've got the national events
for the competitive scene i think
the gt could be but then for me it's
just that that name of the gt i think that could

(12:07):
probably do with a rebrand to tell people this isn't.
A no holds barred tournament bring your thematic lists
let's see what the system can do kind of thing or you
go the other way and go this is this is a full-on gt in the sense
of how people know it from 40k and other game
systems in which case bring what you want to be
fair the pack didn't have any restrictions you could have brought as many

(12:28):
flamethrowers as you wanted as many gurkha powers as you wanted within
the the single platoon limit as many multi-launchers and
some people absolutely did so you were you
were if you were choosing to to not do that
it was a choice from the player rather than it being the
pack that said no you can't do that at all so yeah i mean
potentially in the long run it would be good for them to have to have

(12:49):
both catered to basically you have your gt your competitive scene tournament
and then you have sort of a warlord open where it's just
basically bring all the weird and wackies from the whole system and
let's sort of have a fun weekend without worrying too much about
who wins and they have historically tried that i
think i think it was 2019 they ran
like a two-tiered tournament where you could either buy a

(13:10):
competitive ticket or a thematic ticket but then
i think that created a bit of friction because if memory
serves i think the sort of the prize fund lent
more into the competitive side so the competitive side sort of awarded first
second third the thematic side didn't have placings and so i think that they
had slightly fewer prizes because they just sort of had best themed best painted

(13:32):
and i think that caused a few grumbles and so i think they've tried the two.
Tiered tournament and it wasn't great.
So yeah, I think it'd be good to have two world tournaments a year.
And the only thing I only issue I could see with that potentially is it might
dampen your ticket sales because yeah.
You really just want one premier event don't you yeah and

(13:54):
my feedback to to marcus and to gaz
was if this is a warlords flagship
premier event and that's how it's been portrayed and
so on if that's what it is i personally think that
a full-on competitive no holds barred event will not
get the numbers as opposed to a more
open like you say you know warlord open event where you'll

(14:16):
get people who have been playing a few games i played against
at least one person this weekend who they were
playing since v1 but this was their first two-day event and that
was fantastic that was that's what you want you want people who who are
happy to come to the warlord gt in nottingham
the home of warlord the home of you know miniatures you know
gaming in the uk and feel like they can do that

(14:37):
and with the we'll talk about the list later but this was a 12 dice list with
a stern term tiger you know it's not it's not going to win any any prizes for
you know the most competitive list ever that was brilliant that game was amazing
and that was that was great to see i think if if the gt and to be fair they
have said as well that they're retiring the trophy.

(14:57):
This is the final gt for v2 you know next year it may look different i personally
would be in favor of a much more of an open event and you know if there's 100
plus people there that's amazing
if warlord also want to run an absolute you
know no hold bars bring bring what you want event fantastic i'd
have that as a separate event yeah but i guess who am i to say you know i am

(15:20):
simply some bloke on the internet of a podcast so there we go no but it's all
good feedback isn't it ultimately should we jump into having teased the list
though yeah i'm curious what you took so do
you want to run us through your list yeah so i as as
i've said before i kind of think about what nations i
want to take to what events during the course of the year i

(15:42):
knew i wanted to take the french at some point this year i knew i wanted to
take my japanese i didn't take the
japanese to the welsh nationals which was my plan so i was
like okay where the japanese going to fit in i did toy with
the idea of bringing them to to this i also toyed the idea of bringing the french
i ended up going british in the end because i kind and i made the choice based
on this is the the end of v2 and i want to run things that may not see the light

(16:07):
of day down the line so it's a british list i didn't take the filthiest list i possibly could,
it was still good don't get me wrong so i had it was based on the battle of admin box.
I've written this list like about 18 months ago, and I've been waiting for an
opportunity to take it. So the admin box was February 1944.
It was arguably a bit of a turning point for the Brits in Burma because it was

(16:29):
basically one of the first times they showed they could take the Japanese on and beat them.
The context of it is the admin box was essentially a defensive position in southern Burma.
There was a it was a kind of rear you know rear guard action but then the gurkha seventh rifles.
And a squadron of leads appeared basically so
my my essential army was effectively four regular

(16:52):
gurkha squads i'd say it wasn't that nice in that sense we
had some engineers we had the lee and then it was your 25 pound you
mortar and so on but it wasn't you know gurkha powers it
wasn't a daca stewart it wasn't the lmg bikes i had
a humber mark ii with the autocannon and so on it was
only 14 dice i think 14
or 15 dice so i knew i was going to get out diced

(17:12):
by by you know certain lists but it was a good list i liked it it was enjoyable
it was fun to play i did have a couple of warm-up games uh locally where i did
put the daca stewart in i did put some lmg bikes in i actually took a couple
of chindit squads in the warm-up games with lmgs to get the firing maneuver
and that's that listed really well but i was like,
don't really want to do that so i kind of lent into the theme wrote

(17:33):
it all up researched it and all that sort of thing so yeah four four
four lots of uh gurkhas engineers in the indian pattern carrier humber mark
ii ali and then your normal trimmings of sniper mortar 25 pounder ford observer
anti-tank rifle missile nice so kind of like 75 of the way to cheese basically

(17:53):
yeah 75 75% of the way to cheese,
but with a historical nod. Yeah. Yeah. Very nice.
Jumping into game one then, what was the mission for game one?
So game one was key positions and I was playing Will.
Never, never played Will before. So that was a nice, nice bonus there as well.
I just will say on that note, I was really looking forward to playing different

(18:15):
people over the weekend and I played four new players who I haven't met before.
So that was fantastic because there's always a danger if you
go to enough events and I've been to a lot in the last couple of years you
start to see the same faces and start to see the same people and and
the two games that i played against people i played previously were great but
it was really good to play play um new people so yeah
i played will he had a soviet list really nice list it

(18:36):
was higher dice count than me which you'd expect from soviets he had uh engineers
in body armor in a comms omelette he had a mounted recon squad in a brain carrier
so that's two flamethrowers he had a flamethrower team so it's three flamethrowers
he had a storm group so they They get the benefit of ignoring defended position.
They get strike first in assaults.
He had a Katusha. He had two squads of straff bat, which I was quite pleased

(18:59):
to see, given that I was running Gurkhas.
I was like, yep, that's a nice, easy kill potentially in close combat.
The free and experienced squad and then, you know, Mortar and Howitzer and so
on. So we played key positions.
We had four objectives, kind of like three or five.
I'd give him the choice. I'd rather have an odd number than an even number.
I think I won the roll off. I was looking to place my objectives, or when I get the choice,

(19:26):
12.1 inches away from each other basically and i
didn't want them stuck behind cover because i
wanted to go because i had up an atom as my national characteristic i wanted
the ability to to bounce from one one assault
or one area of the board to another and start contesting or
controlling objectives but you sort of put them down the
middle rather than stacking one side or one quarter

(19:47):
yeah so i nicely strung down the middle wasn't it
yeah and that and that was kind of how yeah i think my
the first one i placed was looking at the map it's just
to the right of the number 17 so it was basically in
a gateway but you could see it there's enough
enough openings to get to it but if you needed to you could probably hunker down
i placed that one we'll place the one on the left of
that which is in the courtyard so that's going to be a bit of a nightmare to

(20:10):
get into because this this courtyard had like three entrances to it the next
one i placed was the one in the center so about 12.1 inches away from from where
i placed the first one and then we'll put the last one in on the right hand
side of the map in the field area so So they were all pretty close, which I was happy with.
I think Will won the dice for the table.
I can't remember which way around it went. But on the map, I'm attacking from top to bottom.

(20:34):
In terms of how the game went, I won that one.
I think it was two objectives to me and two contested, but it might have been
one and three. I can't remember which way around it was at the end.
But I basically was able to. So looking at the map, there's two small buildings
and a small courtyard just above the centre line.
That was kind of like i kind of pushed my gherkas up it's

(20:56):
kind of fanned around either side of that and to basically
give my ability of give me the ability to to threaten
those three objectives which are center and to the right i ignored the one on
the left i wasn't interested in going for that because it was tucked away there
was there was these walls you can't see it from the picture but the walls are
you can't see over them as infantry so you can't fire onto that objective i

(21:17):
was going to ask about that as well how did you rule that in terms of advancing did you allow the
troops to sort of hoist each other over there or was it you had to go through
the gateway had to go through the gateway so there was there was you can see
from the map where his engineers and the
they've gone through the gateway into that space his inexperienced god they
were in a truck they went through the gateway into the building and then pushed
into the objective in the middle so i kind of ignored that one on my on on the

(21:39):
far left as we look at it focused on the three in the.
I would say got lucky because will chose to do this but
will put his storm group of flamethrower team and i
think his lieutenant in a truck and ran it
down the road on turn one before my lee
had come on and i had my lee on first wave so my lee
rolled on later on in the term and i could basically put

(22:01):
10 machine gun shots and the big gun into it pop the
pop the vehicle didn't manage to kill any of the units inside
but it did it forced them all down
before he'd able to activate them i think he got the
flame for a team out before i managed to do that he got the he put
the truck on then he got the next ice got the flame for a team out then i
popped it which was a huge help to me because it
obviously kept kept the storm group and the the lt

(22:23):
down with a load of pins as well he pushed up on
on his left with the engineers and the console mallet
and then he pushed up the mounted recon and the brain carrier through the
middle i was able to basically set my gherkas up
in and around the center kind of sticking out you know they're behind terrain
rain but with one person sticking out so i had the whole 12 inch i
had the visibility to do the whole 12 inch assaults and yeah

(22:44):
and and you know the way the game went the gherkin my gherkin in
the middle pushed up we dropped the forward artillery
observer into the middle bit of a danger close moment but managed
to to get away with it in terms of not taking any any major casualties i
took out i think both of the straffbat squads and the inexperienced
squad so i was fairly kind of comfortable in those
two central objectives i ignored the one on

(23:06):
the left as we look at it for the moment had a
Gurkha squad pushing towards the one on the right by the end of the.
Game he'd managed to throw I think like two or.
Three men across two units into that center.
Right objective so that was contested the one
that is just just to the right of the number 17 that was mine.
And then the bit that threw it at the end and this was

(23:26):
it was bad luck for Will slash it was lucky dice
rolling for me so my I had a Gurkha squad in the
Humber which had pushed with the intention that they could.
Either swing into the middle or if needs be they'll threaten that far
left objective i couldn't get
close enough to contest it because his engineers had pushed
beyond the objective so i couldn't get within the whole three inches and so

(23:46):
on so the only way i was going to clear them off that was a double hit so the
humber went in i think the five the auto cannons took out maybe one or two and
he took them from the front men rather than the back which then allowed me to
then basically assault into them with the gherkas,
killing on sixes because there's engineers in body armor which
i managed to do i won that assault cleared off the engineers it was still contested

(24:09):
because there was an officer there was a i think yeah he had a lieutenant and
a captain so one of his officers was was still in that vicinity but my gherkas
were able to contest so that was a a good win but it was it could have been
the draw yeah was the dice count quite close as well.
Uh eight eight six eight five not much
in it his storm group on on the far right i

(24:31):
think they failed an order test in the final turn so had
they had they passed that order test they would have pushed up
and either shot the gherkas who were sitting on
that right objective or you know gone into close assault and
obviously with their special ability it wouldn't have been a foregone
conclusion that the gherkas were going to win but yeah i won that
one i said before on the pod i really like objective missions and i was yeah

(24:53):
really happy with the start and how that went yeah good game moving into game
two then was it another good mission game two was game two it was point defense
and it's i'm not i'm not a fan of point defense generally,
and in a tournament setting if this was a full-on swiss tournament and we were

(25:14):
playing point defense in round two i don't think it's the best mission you can
play to be fair i think even in casual games i'm not a big fan of it it's it's
one of the attacker defender ones where it really.
Is asymmetrical and it's quite it can really lead
to sort of four drawn conclusions and so i think
if you are going to put it in you have to mix it up in some way

(25:36):
just to give an edge and balance
it out a little bit yeah which gaz had done so he changed
it from the rulebook mission so what he said was once
the defender had put the three objectives down and deployed
their units the attacker in secret nominates one
of the three objectives if they hold that single objective at
the end of the game then they've won so you still

(25:58):
had the whole you need to hold two or if you manage to get the one that you've
pre-selected so that did that does change things and i practiced this game in
the week beforehand and that was a really close game i only just won on turn
seven as a defender in the practice game so it is absolutely possible to win
as the attacker attacker,
if you have the whole, you only need to get one, one objective.

(26:22):
So I was playing Ed, who is a member of the Warlord staff. He's in the Warlord
resident team. I played Ed before, three good men this year.
He had a British 8th Army list, and that was the same list again.
Ed won the dice roll and elected to attack.
Interesting. Yes, and I was very happy with that. Yeah, obviously.
Yeah. So Ed had, I think he had four infantry squads.

(26:46):
He had two chunky 10-man regular squads, LMG, SMG on the officer,
two SAS squads five man and brain
carriers and then he had a medium house a mortar sniper
the Humber mark to a crusader and so
on so yeah I defended there's not
a huge amount of variety in terms of where you can put those objectives
because of the the restriction so I tried

(27:08):
to kind of push away from the edge I wanted to put them as
in the center as possible because I flanks in
play in this yeah outflanks in play and Ed chose
not to outflank so I was doubly happy at at this point so i'm defending
and he's not outflanking the way i set my
guys up i had one gurkha squad on one on one side you
know by on the left flank with one objective another

(27:29):
gurkha squad on the other side with another objective i had the the lee and
the 25 pounder in the middle i had two gurkha squads in reserve i think the
humber was in reserve and the engineers and indian carrier were in reserve so
depending on where where he was going i could bring on two more go-kart squads,
the Engineers and the Humber.
I rode my luck a little bit with the Lee in prep bombardment.

(27:49):
I was like, yeah, do you know what? We'll go for it because yes, it can go.
And that is like, obviously a lot of points to go, but I felt like actually
I'd rather have it on from turn one and start dishing out some shots.
As it was, I got pinned. The Lee didn't do anything on turn one. He just rallied.
And then I think he dropped his, no, then he basically, the Lee did nothing.
The Lee basically got pins on turn one.

(28:11):
He brought the Crusader on. He managed to kill it. he
managed to hit it on a you know long range hit he needed a six
to penetrate to in a world not to penetrate but in
order to do superficial damage he got that then he needs to
roll six to set it on fire he got that and then i failed the morale check so
the lead did nothing uh yeah but not much you can do about that to be honest
not much you know it was it was you need to roll a lot of sixes in a row and

(28:32):
i was thinking well i'll get it on the board and i'll sort it out you know if
you get some pins my officer was hanging around at that point in order to try and shed the pins
but it didn't work out well I thought you were going to say you'd lost it in
prep and then I was going to say that putting it on in prep is actually.
Fine, because the chances of losing it to a prep are so low.
Armour 8+, you're generally all right during prep. That's a very slim chance,

(28:55):
but you managed to lose it in an equally unlikely way.
Managed to lose it in a bit of a face-off with the Crusader.
And I think my 25-pounder went fairly early doors as well. Was that a mortar hit?
I think it was from his medium howitzer, which I then managed to take out with my medium mortar.
Now, it didn't matter because he had his SAS in brain carriers in reserve,
and they failed to come on until turn maybe

(29:18):
four and five that's really interesting so.
He didn't outflank and he didn't bring them on.
In first way but he and he reserved them yeah yeah so
i basically spent three turns kind of sat there waiting for
him to to show his hand and then once i realized which objective he was
going on to i had two gherka swats to come on i brought
the engineers on the other side because i'd managed to pop
well no he dismounted sorry his sas from the

(29:41):
brand carries so he put them on nine on an advance
then ran them 12 because by the time they
came on his only real choice was just to run everything towards
that one objective so i used my engineers on the
other flank from from the objective that he chosen to put
some pressure on and flame the uh the rifle squad that pushed
up so that was that was a six turn game that was

(30:02):
a win for me didn't get a huge amount of dice i
think i maybe got three dice the whole game because i didn't
have a lot to do basically was kind
of sat there waiting i spent a lot of time going down because i didn't want
to lose any dice and i was comfortable that i
wasn't going to end up with you know him
clearing the objective he could have contested but you have

(30:23):
to obviously hold the objective to win that to win that mission so yeah
no problems there yeah yeah it sounds like you got a
bit unlucky with the reserve role there and then sort of combined with
the fact that he he didn't have a second route onto it it's really just sort
of held him back yeah definitely yeah absolutely i think if he'd if he brought
them on the first wave or if he hadn't failed you know on the reserve roles

(30:44):
it would have been a different story do you think if he'd outflanked it would
have caught you off guard or would you or do you think you could have handled that.
It absolutely would have made me hold back and check because i'd have to have obviously
you know being mindful of either side and then
it's a it's at what point is he outflank and then i've
got to then bring on my reserves are they going to fail their roles and so

(31:05):
on so in in the practice game i played in the week before it wasn't clear from
from ben my opponent which side he was going to come on until he did so i absolutely
had to hold my guys back in reserve he then brought four or five units on that
one flank very quickly and then it became a slugfest So it had the potential to do that.
I think Ed could have been more aggressive. I think with the Humber and the

(31:28):
Crusader, once the lead gone, the Humber was there. Obviously the Humber is not going to hurt the.
It's not going to hurt the Crusader because they only have an also cannon.
So he could have been more aggressive and pushed them up, but he held back a little bit, I thought.
Well, maybe as he saw his unlikely tank kill against the Lee,
and he thought it could swing back the other way. So let's be careful here.

(31:49):
Brilliant. So was that two wins so far then? Yeah, so two wins, yep.
So obviously happy with how that went going into the final non-Swiss game.
Before we do jump into game three, one thing I've noticed.
And i could be wrong here is i don't see
any secondary objective so were there no secondaries in this
so there's no secondary so we were recording our

(32:10):
wind draw loss and we were recording the dice taken yeah i
guess it will be interesting when we come to kill points i'll ask
you then if you felt like you could have done with
a secondary but let's jump forward to game
three i guess what was game three so game three
was sectors this was against paul wickens and we both
said at the start of the game we didn't want

(32:31):
to play each other with respect to each other in a non-swiss situation
like if we're going to have to play each other let's play each other
on day two when you know when it when it's the sharp end
in swiss yeah we had we had very very similar
lists so paul had four gurkha power squads and
then engineers in transport i had four normal gurkhas
and engineers in the transport he had a

(32:53):
daca stewart i had the lee he had the lrdg jeep
i had the humber we both had 25 pounds
we both had mortars he had i think 18 dice we
had three three or four i think uh 50
yeah three more dice than me because he had a flamethrower
team in the jeep he had a pia in the jeep and so on so he
he found ways of getting his dice count up so yeah playing paul obviously very

(33:16):
very very good player international player we've played each other four times
now so the first three games were all draws so it was no let's see who comes
out on top off in this one we're playing sectors he's got the dice advantage we both roll for prep and.
I don't get prep and he does. Oh, I hate that. I really like when the house
rule that it's one dice. For both of you, they're no one, not everyone.

(33:39):
So I did ask Paul at the start, should we just roll one dice to see what happens?
And Paul's like, no, Phil, it's in the pack. We both roll. I'm like, okay.
So I obviously took some pins. I don't think I lost anything in the prep,
but I did obviously take some pins.
And then basically just turned into a massive Gurkha punch up in the middle.
I think at one point Gaz came over to watch, because we had a great game.

(33:59):
We were just laughing all the way through it was the most ridiculously funny
game paul referred to it as two heavyweights just
smacking each other in the middle of the ring and that's what it turned into
paul won it comfortably because i basically ran out of stuff to stop him i think
it became clear on about turn four that i wasn't going to win this because he
could just walk into into my zone so i just went hunting dice i i purely focused

(34:22):
on the kill points at the rest of the rest of the
game yeah he started with maybe 30 gherkas
i think he had two left at the end of the game
i started with a 16 28 gherkas i
had three left so the gherkas just smacked each
other around the engineers kind of rocked on and flamed a
few things and if you look if you're watching this on youtube basically

(34:44):
you'll see the map is a massive explosion in the middle of the board saying
gherka punch up and that's effectively what happened we just ran at each
other and then whoever was was standing at the end of that
turn had another go the next turn yeah not
much to say great great game it sounds like you decided
to play kill points instead of the mission well i
meant to play the mission i i plan to play the mission i got prep bombardment

(35:06):
and then he dropped his um artillery observer at the start of turn two so i
was like okay i've got two turns here where i've got a lot of pins so i was
shifting the pins by using up an atom but i'm upping atonium towards Gurkha Paras.
So it's not as though I'm like going, oh, I can, you know, I can go and pick up something easy.
There was one point actually, I think it was on turn three, or maybe even turn two, Paul brought his.

(35:30):
Engineers on and the truck on the right hand side of the map if you if you watch this on youtube,
and my i had a gurkha squad behind the farmhouse on
the right hand side i didn't think i was in 12 inches so i was like i'm not
going to declare the charge because if i was in 12 inches i could declare the
charge dismount the engineers beat them up in close combat the other thing i

(35:51):
was mindful of at that point the stewart hadn't come on so let's say i was in 12 inches and i'd won
the combat and then exposing those gurkhas to to attack
a stewart so i didn't do that i basically ran across or
advanced across across in front of the truck but away from 12 inches because
i didn't want to get him to pop the engineers out and flame it and hit it with
rifles we did measure afterwards after we resolved that dice just to see if

(36:15):
it was within 12 and it was just in and that paul said that was potentially
a turning point i don't think it was i think to be.
Fair the dice were against me and and so on but
yeah that was maybe one point where it might have gone differently but
brilliant game it was so much fun games against paul
always are yeah we just you know punch each other in
the middle you'll see from the map i did a little sneaky lieutenant forward

(36:36):
observer and mule flank attack paul stewart
didn't come on until right to the very last turn so i
kind of ran out behind that hill i was like i'm not gonna
go over the crest of the hill because if i do he's gonna
roll on with 18 dice and you know split split
fire and all that kind of thing so bit of tongue-in-cheek there my
little flank attack with my solo left my solo forward observer
and my mule so did they make it in the neutral zone by the

(36:59):
end of the game they're in the neutral zone i didn't bother putting them into
his his i literally abandoned the mission on turn four it's like there's no
point me trying to trying to get anything into that zone and i just went hunting
for dice because i knew that you know come the end of day two potentially dice
count was going to matter and that's why he ended up with two gookers and i.

(37:19):
Trading dice and taking taking models of each other because
it was dice killed wasn't it rather than dice difference
yeah yeah dice killed so i wasn't fussed about how
many dice i was losing yeah i was just just going for it which is not like me
normally obviously play quite conservatively and you know get the win but don't
go all in whereas in this mission and at times during the weekend i was like
nap throw caution to the wind and go and get some dice so correct me if i'm

(37:43):
wrong but this was on the same table as game two is that right yeah we i played on the same
table which i could have swapped and i said to
paul at the start of game i played on this game last round do you mind
and paul was like i don't mind i didn't have a problem with it
we could have swapped with people either side and and that was going on so the
bcp was doing the pairings and obviously people weren't playing the same same

(38:04):
opponents but it didn't necessarily do the same tables we had to manually do
it it wasn't a problem i didn't have an issue with it paul didn't we just carried
on for the sake of let's just play the game and get on with it so nice Nice.
How were the tables generally?
They were good, yeah. All six of my tables were good.
I took photos of all the tables, and we'll maybe drop some of these into the show as well.

(38:25):
There certainly weren't any tables I looked at and went, okay,
that's a horrible table.
There might have been some missions where, some of them, if you were playing
surrounded, there was an airfield table, for example, where it's obviously quite
empty in the middle of the board. I wouldn't want to have played surrounded on that.
But in terms of just the tables themselves, sales they look
good and obviously because gaz and colin both play a lot and are you know very

(38:47):
experienced twitios as well as players they were playable it wasn't as though
we were going to an event where the tables look great but they're not playable
and equally we weren't going to an event where they don't look good but they
weren't playable and it ticks both the boxes nice well should we move on to game four.
Yeah so day two it's a game four so we're now swiss so i've
gone into day two with two wins and a loss i played

(39:10):
graham from scotland haven't played graham before and we
were playing surrounded which again is
not one of my favorite missions if i'm honest so no and
when you're talking about the tables there i was thinking the problem is more
the mission than the table from what you're describing because i don't
know anyone who really thinks surrounds a good
tournament mission i think there's people who enjoy it as a mission but not

(39:32):
many players would say it's a great tournament mission especially
when you're in a row of tables because you can't like it's
very hard to get around the table to use that confused fight rule
yeah and that wasn't really an issue because there i think every three tables
there was a gap maybe four at the most so you weren't walking along like eight
tables to get around i don't like surrounded just because i i'm not a massive

(39:53):
fan of killpoint missions and i've said this you know numerous times on the
pod i like objective missions because
there's a tactical element to it.
I like the movement missions. I need to be somewhere by turn six in order to achieve something.
Kill points, I'm just not a big fan of them.
Graham was great. We had a really good game. I haven't played Graham before.

(40:14):
I won, so I made him defend. He had a really nice German list.
I think it was like 14 dice, veteran heavy.
So he had two big veteran squads with LMGs and rifles, two veteran squads of
SMGs and a pioneer squad.
He had the daca panzer three he had
a 222 he had a i think it was a dual

(40:34):
light auto cannon rather than single light auto cannon and a
mortar and so on sniper that kind of stuff so they're
quite different you know veterans obviously and they were big squads they weren't i think
i think his smgs were maybe six six guys in each squad maybe seven the pioneers
were they weren't five you know they were six or so and then maybe eight or
so in the in the lmg squad so they were going to take some shifting basically

(40:55):
so Graham won that it was 8-6 on dice so you know close and you need two two
points I think to win surrounded.
The i guess the it wasn't the turning point because it happened in
like turn six but on the right hand
side i'd brought the humber on the between the humber
and the at rifle i'd taken out his 222 and i'd managed to swing around from

(41:17):
my right towards the center and it was turn six and his 222 was sat in hard
cover so whenever it was shooting it was shooting at a minus two because it
was and it was basically giving me hard cover i basically just brought pretty much.
As much as i could on from my table edge i never really went around
to his side of the table so i was playing very very tight with
the gherkas and the lee and so on this to

(41:40):
the turning point if you can call it that was he
took a shot with or he declared a shot with with the auto cannon against
the humber now i could have escape moved around
the corner in order to preserve the dice i
decided not to because he was going to hit me on fives with the hard cover
then he needs to roll what fives to
glance and six to penetrate with the auto cannon i thought you

(42:02):
know what i'm probably going to be okay and i and
i didn't wreck it i didn't use my escape move because he had
i think one officer solo man at that
point if i'd got that dice at that
point in in the game it would have been a victory for me yeah so
i decided and normally more often
than not i probably would escape moves and have gone for the draw i decided

(42:23):
not to i decided to stay up go for the win obviously hit me and he penetrated
and he managed to blow up the Humber so that then I think put us equal on dice
or maybe one I can't remember the exact details then he nicked another dice so he did win.
I could have drawn, but I kind of decided on Saturday or Sunday morning that,

(42:44):
oh, let's go for it. You know, we've gone Swiss now. Let's go for the win.
If I don't win, hopefully get a draw as it was. I lost, but it was a great game.
Like the end of it, we were both, you know, knackered from it.
It was, it was a good way to start a Sunday, but also quite an intense way to start a Sunday as well.
Um, yeah. Did he deploy his whole force?
No, no, no. He basically, so he, he is 50% in the middle.

(43:05):
So that's not, that's not everything. I could, I didn't put all of the units in.
And basically, I came on from my table edge first wave as much as I could in reserve.
If I didn't come on from my table edge, I came on from either flank,
but very close to my table edge. So I was playing it really,
really tight. And then where did he come on from?
Basically next to me or behind me. All right, so he was playing the sneak behind

(43:26):
you game. It was the sneak behind me game, yeah.
I was really conscious of not losing the Lee early doors. And so I didn't want
to be too aggressive with the Lee.
We ended up with the Lee and the Panzer III four inches away from each other.
Shooting each other but not not penetrating so yeah
i think there were two turns where they were both shooting each other but neither of
them managed to blow the other one up so yeah so that
was great game against graham really really nice opponent if you

(43:49):
look at his list you didn't look at it and go this is an
amazing list it was just a really solid solid tight strong
you know well built german you're all comers list yeah yeah
so yeah so going into game five this is now two wins
and two losses game five was kitty hawk down which
i really like as a mission oh really i was expecting you
to be on the fence with this one like with surrounded how i was saying it's

(44:12):
a fun mission but generally not a great tournament mission did you find that
this was in fact a good tournament mission i think it is a good tournament mission
because you you know what's going to happen you know that on turn four something's
going to happen it's going to come along the center line okay you don't know
where along the center line it's going to come and you
know that if you're within 12 inches of the center line or six inches either side.

(44:32):
Something bad's going to happen in terms of pins or a light howitzer or
a medium or heavy howitzer hit so it in
that sense it's balanced it's not going to happen to one of
you if you choose to run onto the 24 inch
line at the end of turn three and go and sit
there and wait for it to come down will more fool you because there's
a chance that the kitty hawk's going to land on top of you if you

(44:53):
choose to stay you know somewhere around the 12 inches from
your table edge at the end of turn three with the
ability to go one way or the other depending on where the where the
crash site is then that's how you play the mission so i
really like it and my only hesitation with it is i think it really does benefit
fast armies so people who are sort of like recce platoons because they can respond

(45:15):
quickly in your left right direction yeah then they're less likely to get caught
off guard by landing on the wrong flank compared to your slower lower forces
who sort of like plod forward.
Yeah. And so that's where I could see potentially there being some asymmetry.
Yes, true. And I guess my response to that would be when you build a tournament
list, you probably do need to think about, well, have I got at least one unit

(45:36):
in a transport that can act as a reaction force? Yeah.
Effectively you're thinking about the way the mission works
you randomly choose a side and then you roll 10 d6 and and
you measure the number of inches from that side as to
where the crash site is statistically it's going to fall somewhere between
30 and 40 inches from one of the table
sides so it's basically going to go somewhere in

(45:58):
the middle off center yeah so if
you stack one side of the board and you know in the first three turns and
it comes on the other well you've chosen to put your units on that
side of the board and and you've made a calculated risk and
so on i wouldn't outflank in this mission unless you've got
a nice road running along the 24 inches line or
an airstrip because it's too much of a risk yeah

(46:19):
saying you should build your list accordingly were these
missions pre-released before people submit the lists uh
no they won't but just generally speaking i think if you go well
it's not telling people what to do here but if you go into
into an event with foot
sloggers and and slow vehicles and there's a
danger or a chance that you might play double envelopment

(46:40):
or you might play sectors or you might play something like kitty hawk
down you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot at the list building stage
well i think that's unfair with the other two because double envelopment and
sectors you can't just play as kill points and so even when you are really slow
you don't have to play the movement game like i've i've seen people successfully
play double envelopment as single envelopment basically where they just stand

(47:00):
on their back line and kill anything that comes towards them.
And so you can't play like that. Whereas Kitty Hawk, you definitely do need
that fast response unit.
And so I think I do like, basically, I think what I'm hitting at is I like tournaments
when, if you're going to do quirky missions, just put them in the pack nice
and early for people is my thought on it.
My only response, my final response to that though, is that we know how Kitty Hawk down works.

(47:23):
You sit on the 12 inch line from your table edge with the ability to then advance
to where the crash site is.
Yeah but that's not my point my point is that it's very
rarely included and so it's it's very peculiar
for it to be in there like you wouldn't go to a
gt expecting to play kitty hawk down is my point and
so that's why i would if i if i turned up and

(47:43):
it was in there i would have liked to have known beforehand yeah yeah true but
but knowing it was in there you plan for it when you deploy and play your first
three turns of kitty hawk down absolutely we knew what the missions were in
advance after the list had gone in so we all had the opportunity to play the
missions and think about how we were going to play those missions come the weekend itself.
So, yeah, as it was, playing Ben. Again, not met Ben before.

(48:07):
Ben had been playing since V1, but this was his first two-day event.
He had a really thematic list. It was sort of the last levy list based on Jojo Rabbit.
So you had a Sturmtiger, a couple of LMG squads with various different sort
of armaments along the LMG, a big squad with AR, his German Shepherds,
which were the Volksgrenadiers.
Is that the right one? on the the kind of last

(48:28):
levy yeah inexperienced green all assault rifles they're the ones that can maybe
go fanatic i think they're the funny last levy list anyway he had them but they
had the storm tiger so once he basically put the storm tiger on on my left hand
side obviously my lee is going completely on the other side of the board because
i don't want anything to do do with that.

(48:50):
I effectively had two Gurkha squads either side of the woods that are near my
table edge in order to be able to go around the woods and then,
depending on where the crash site was, cross over the railroad.
And there were two roads crossing the rail track, and I could also cross in
the middle where there were flatbed trucks.
Oh, so you drilled the main carriages. So the main carriages were impassable.

(49:14):
But the flatbeds you can climb over.
Flatbeds you can climb over, yeah. So I had the ability to go over the side.
And i played once he put the stone tiger on on
my left his right all of his squads
have panzer fouls so i knew that you know he did have an at threat but
i played really aggressively with the lee and i basically just shoved
it the other side i shoved it onto his table side on turn

(49:35):
three but far enough beyond the center
point so that if the kitty hawk did come down i was
probably going to be okay and i just put a
load load of pins out load the machine gun shots out i did
well with my prep bomb i'm not so my forward observer was
able to again put a lot of pins down and i just basically
focused on sticking a load of pins and taking

(49:56):
away his his infantry men because obviously if
they've if they've got a load of pins on them on turn four turn five they're not
going to get towards the crash site and i've got potentially four gurkha
squads who are going to advance into that area one mistake
i did make i think was on turn four i advanced
a gurkha squad up onto the the flatbed then i advanced my forward observer who'd

(50:18):
already by that point fired his artillery shot behind them the stern tiger hadn't
been at that point he then fired the stern tiger hit the gurkhas and obviously
because it's a four-inch template clipped the forward observer and.
And both squads went so it didn't matter because i
still had i still had you know two gherkas and my lieutenant in
order to be able to get onto the crash site but that was a bit

(50:39):
of a rookie error on my behalf i had my engineers in
reserve in the humber by this point most of his squads were either either dead
or or had pins on them so i was confident he wasn't getting towards a crash
site so i decided to try and make his stern tiger run away and the only way
i could do that was by hitting it with the flamethrower i obviously couldn't
penetrate it because it's a armor 11 so So even with the top armor, it's armor 10.

(51:01):
But what I could try and do was put some pins on it, assuming that it accepted the pins.
There's a chance it could shrug them off. And then see if it would fail the morale check.
It didn't. I lost the engineers. Ended up losing the Indian carrier because
he ran his LMG squad towards it. But it didn't matter at that point.
Did it take the pins at least?
I think he did take the pins, but he still managed to pass the test.

(51:22):
So it was a bit of a Hail Mary.
I was happy to do that. Turn five. let's you
know but lovely lovely guy and great game
really good fun and a really cool list it was you
know nicely painted nicely thematic he's written up
the justification behind the units as well so that was really good to see yeah
did he have many panzerfausts everything had panzerfausts i think there was

(51:45):
at least one or maybe two in every squad because that's a surprise with that
league getting right in their face if they've all got fat there were so many
pins yeah it's just pins everywhere. Everyone could have a pin basically.
Yeah. Um, cause I, I took out the hound and cow and the mortar with my 25 pounder
and, and my mortar fairly early doors.
So I was playing really aggressively with the Lee, but I was just,

(52:07):
yeah, fairly confident if I stick enough pins on, it's going to be all right.
And if it doesn't, well, he spent a turn shooting the Lee rather than actually
rallying and getting towards the crash. So, so that's the thing is that it's a nice distraction.
Like you baiting them sideways when he needs to go forward. So yeah.
Nice cool so what are we on now is that
three wins two losses yeah three wins two losses

(52:28):
yep yeah yeah so final game was against colin and japanese i hadn't played colin
before nice japanese list it was a couple of snlf squads with an lmg in each
squad he had an engineer squad a militia squad type 92 tankette which i absolutely
love i use that a lot when i play
japanese at the type 89 wygo which has got the the light howitzer armor eight but it's slow.

(52:54):
Medium howitzer and so on so nice nice little
squad we're playing nuts although not the
nuts from the bolt action alliance it was you know
basically yeah new nuts i think it's pretty similar if
not the same as penetrating strike which we played in
the wtc so you need
to get into your opponent's deployment zone you get points for

(53:14):
that and you get kill points i basically played kill points
i had absolutely no intention of going across
the board because it was it was a starting grab board there was
lots and lots of ruins and rubble in order to block line
of sight but there was also lots of open ground in between and i was more concerned
about him using banzai to get across the board quickly and if he really focused

(53:35):
in on on one side or the other i wasn't going to be able to stop him he had
a higher dice count than me and so on so i basically had two Two Gurkha squads
in the middle, one on one flank, one on the other flank.
I had the Lee and the 25-pounder where his Hauser and his Weigau weren't.
My Humber went on the side where his Hauser and Weigau were.
I did kind of run my luck a little bit. He had his Hauser on ambush.

(53:59):
I put a run order on the Humber to basically bait the ambush,
but also to try and get in behind the ruins on the side.
I got away with it because if I'd been hit, that Humber would have taken a lot
of pins, potentially. And it ended up being a slugfest in the middle.
He took out one Gurkha, so he had a heavy mortar, which is not on the map.

(54:20):
As you look at the picture, it's on the right-hand side, but it's clipped on the image.
He fired at the Gurkhas on my right of centre on a six, obviously.
I went, I'm not going to go down. He rolled the six, took out seven of the eight,
and then obviously they failed the morale check.
So the Gurkhas there were basically protecting the Lee because his AT guys were
hanging around outside of 12 inches, but close enough within two turns to get to the Lee.

(54:45):
So i didn't go down because i wanted them to stay up
and protect the lee so they went i ended up with one
gurkha squad my engineers an at rifle and an
officer and a sniper just putting everything into
those ruins in the middle because he pushed forward with his
i think an engineer squad had gone up his oh he had a scout squad as well so
scouts had gone up uh his lt had gone up his flame thrower so we ended up just

(55:09):
basically just stuck in the middle close assaults or him firing it by a point
back range it was a draw in the end i think it was seven six on the dice to me,
so yeah and i i've by the end of it i think he had maybe two engineers left
in in that central ruin area all i needed to do was was to kill one they had

(55:29):
a ton of pins on them lucky it is that they would have um failed the morale
check that would have given me the dice which would give me the win so very very very close draw.
But, you know, great game. I haven't played him before. We went all the way
through to six turns, played in a really nice spirit.
And for the final, you know, game at turn six or game six on two days,
playing something like effectively Dublin Vellement or Penetrating Strike,

(55:53):
but playing it as a kill points mission was not mentally taxing. So, yeah.
It's why we usually have meeting engagement last, isn't it? On the terrain front,
how did you play your craters?
And did you play that building in the middle just as a ruin rather than a six-story building?
Building yeah so all so everything was a
there was a ruin there were no buildings on this board yeah that's
a good i've played that as a building before the air is a pavlos

(56:15):
house yeah and it's it becomes carnage
because of the way the v2 building rules work where you can only go
down i think you go down two floors at a time run run
down to yeah and so it becomes real if someone
puts a sniper on the top floor and decides i want to get out it takes like three
or four turns yeah so we played that as a ruin craters
we played as rough ground hard cover if you're in them but we played them as

(56:38):
soft cover if you're firing over them so the reason was that effectively the
craters are going to be semi-embedded yeah and if you don't play them as no
cover at all firing through them,
there's hardly any cover in the middle of that board so we looked at it and
when we kind of need some cover otherwise we're just going to stand at either
side of the board and take pot shots at each other.

(57:00):
Obviously, vehicles weren't getting cover unless they were inside the crater
because they're 50% rule, that kind of thing.
But we did feel like we needed to have some kind of cover going across it.
Did spend a bit of time talking about it. We agreed on that.
The militia and the engineers on his right hand side, the reason why they are
stuck there is they got hit with the.

(57:22):
Bombardment from the air observer and the lee just kept putting out shots and
i was very happy that he didn't move his engineers or his militia up because
by the time he'd taken out that gurkha squad with a heavy mortar i had a lee
over there my 25 pounder had gone by that point.
Seven gurkhas a medium mortar and an air observer there was no way i was stopping
you know 14 militia and and eight engineers just

(57:45):
banzaiing up that side of the board so yeah i was quite quite happy
that he didn't really get beyond the halfway line otherwise i was going to get in
in trouble because i was running out of men towards the end of the game yeah interesting
and i presume there was no outflank in this one much like
double environment i think you can because i think
i think it's effectively the penetration strike mission where you can outflank but
we just went interesting yeah we went we went full send

(58:06):
i think i kept back my engineers in
the in the indian carrier i think he put everything on
first wave it was just like do you know what we'll just go for it and we'll see
what see what i'm surprised no one outflanked if it wasn't play
i wonder if part of it was with it being game six everyone
just wants a nice yeah you know it
didn't really matter in the sense of the standings it was.

(58:26):
Like not going to be top 10 kind of
thing top 15 so well let's just let's have a fun game at the
end so nice so i guess spoilers there
where did you place in the end so 26 overall so
i had three three wins one draw two losses i think
if the game four against graham if that if
that had been a a draw for example maybe i

(58:48):
might have been a bit more aggressive in game six and really really gone
for the win as it was i was a bit like well i'm having
a nice time i'm having nice games i didn't go there to
to finish top 10 top 15 you know and so on i wasn't i
wasn't taking a wtc or a world open war list i
went to experience brick on ideally to play new players which is what i did
and to enjoy myself so yeah more than happy with how it went three wins in a

(59:12):
draw and two losses is more than happy with that overall yeah the other thing
that i thought was interesting as i noticed correct me if i'm wrong here but
i think drolls were scored as half a win is that right.
I think so yeah i don't actually know i think i
think if you look at bcp you can probably work it out i don't actually
know if i'm honest i just looked at where i was and was like okay who
am i playing next so i didn't i didn't pay a huge amount of

(59:32):
attention during the weekend to well they were i was
just curious what your thoughts were basically they were okay fair
enough yeah because it's not
a full-on competitive swiss tournament if if
we were playing a full-on competitive swiss which was announced in
advance where you didn't play point defense you didn't play kitty hawk down
you didn't play surrounded and we all knew what we were playing for then having

(59:57):
a draw is half a win is slightly yeah that feels not quite right you want to
go three one zero or five two one or whatever yeah make the win like worth fighting
more than kind of thing over yeah,
and potentially you might say well you want to have secondaries as well but
in the context of what it was which was you know fun fun competitive play without

(01:00:17):
being you know foot to the floor etc.
Didn't bother me so nice well who
won overall so overall top
five so i'll do it in reverse order oh exciting drum
roll please drum roll please and the reason i'm doing it into reverse
order is each of the top five were individual unique nations which i thought

(01:00:38):
was really cool oh that's interesting yeah yeah so fifth place was michael carrick
he was playing soviets so mike had a great weekend and he'd been playing really
well recently he did really well at the welsh nationals has been playing a lot
of games in between and before the Welsh Nationals and really,
really, you know, wanting to push on as a player. He did fantastically well.
Fourth place was Adam with a German list. And the list is really interesting

(01:00:58):
because if you look at it, there's, that is not, you know, the best,
most competitive German list you can possibly take.
There's half tracks in all that kind of stuff. But yeah, a cool, cool list.
Third place was Paul Wickens with his Brits. Great, great list.
Like I said earlier. Second place was Ben Andrews with Japanese.
Ben again has been really working on his game in the last few

(01:01:21):
months he's been playing a lot of players in and around
the south coast a lot of england england players and so on so and
ben's japanese list it's not the bamboo spam bamboo horde
you know it's a combination of there's manchukuo dismantled manchukuo so tough
fighters in there there's veterans and he's got the type 92 tankette which i
said already is you know really like that there's engineers there's he etc so

(01:01:42):
a nice japanese list that isn't your your bamboo spam horde and then first place.
Drumroll for the second year in a row the only person i believe
to have won back-to-back warlord gts was gary morgan
with his u.s list with his u.s marines and and
it's a great u.s marines list you know if you had to
say to somebody write the best u.s marines list you can you put what is it five

(01:02:05):
four four squads of u.s marines you put an engineer squad in you take the the
engineer squad that goes into the flame for a slot you take some transport you
take a multi-launcher you take a daca stewart But you take a recce jeep,
MG recce jeep, yeah, it's a brilliant list.
And Gary plays that a lot.
Well, that's what I was going to say. Even more importantly than how good the
list is, the fact that he's been playing probably a slight variation on this

(01:02:30):
list, but in essence, the same list for easy three years now, I'd imagine.
And so it just goes to show that once you know exactly the strengths and weaknesses
of your list, you really can make it work for you.
Yeah. You know, Gary, if it's a generic reinforced platoon
event and it's full on competitive we know that gary brings his us
if it's a thematic theater list he brings

(01:02:51):
his dac with his ships and you know those of you who have played in the uk for
the last couple of years we know what gary's going to bring but great list so
what was really nice was that ben and gary were playing in round six and they
both had five wins going into that game obviously whoever won that was absolutely
guaranteed to finish first if it was a draw draw,
then it was going to come down to kill dice. It was a draw.

(01:03:13):
Gary pips it overall with with kill dice over the six games.
But yeah, that's what you want to see. You know, the final round,
first or second place, going into the final round, playing off,
knowing that whoever wins that is going to walk away and be the GT winner.
As it was, it was a draw. And talking to both of them afterwards,
you know, it was a massively hard-fought game for both of them.

(01:03:34):
Could have gone either way.
So, yeah. Yeah. And that's quite nice.
That's one of the big benefits of Swiss, that by the end, you are playing someone
who's sort of tiered appropriately,
and it really is an important match rather than the swings
of random draws and it does looking at
the strength of schedules the higher place players did play generally

(01:03:54):
more difficult opponents yeah especially on the
second day but there is definitely a trend there it's probably slightly
more spread than it usually would be yeah the
trend is there and so it is interesting
that actually like i don't have as big a problem with
semi-swiss as i thought i would before we'd
sort of seen it used at a big tournament and because

(01:04:14):
generally with normal swiss on day one you bounce up
and down anyway you might lose your first game go all the
way at the bottom of the table then go all the way back to sort of
like top three and then until game four
you kind of bounce it anyway and so actually the random draw if it's six games
i think it actually it does work yeah when when we looked at the strength schedule

(01:04:34):
afterwards the you know the guys in the top 10 top 15 deserve to be there you
know they They had difficult games and it deserved to be there.
Several people who didn't go to the weekend asked me afterwards,
do you think the whole random draw had an influence overall?
And obviously there's an element where if you pick up three wins on day one

(01:04:56):
against random draw opponents who may not be as experienced or as skillful as
you as a player, you may well pick up three wins.
But by going Swiss on day two, by the time you get to round five and round six,
if you if you've punched above your weight for want of
a better phrase you're probably going to get punched a bit down equally if you've
had a rough day one because you've played players who are who are more experienced

(01:05:19):
and so on at the game than you day two should then start to level out because
you start to find your your niche kind of thing and i think that's it being six games.
Obviously helps a lot if it was five games and only three games on day one non-swiss you could
have had a rough weekend because you may only have kind
of found your your sort of level as it were on get on

(01:05:41):
on round five and if that was the last the last round
that might leave a bit of a sour taste or vice versa you could have a really
easy day one and then find yourself out your depth day two so yeah i was just
thinking about that and i was thinking if it's five games i think i'd only want
two random games or maybe it's even just the first game random well yeah which it always is anyway,

(01:06:02):
but just the first two random. Yeah.
Cause I, yeah, I think if you go more than half random, then it does allow chance
to play a bigger input than, than.
Then it should really and i think going back to
a point i made earlier that i was looking forward to playing new people if
this was a full-on swiss you know situation from

(01:06:24):
from round one chances are by rounds
three four and five i may well have played people that i have played at the
nationals or beachhead or warfare or what have you whereas i got the opportunity
through the random pairing to play people that i may not normally have played
which which was great and And that's what I wanted was six fun games,
get a chance to see the GT and BritCon,

(01:06:46):
and ideally play people I don't normally play.
And I think the big help with that is just the quantity of players.
And also we had people traveling a long way to get there, didn't we?
Yeah, we had people from all over the world. So there were three guys came over
from Thailand, which was amazing.
And they all got games on Friday night. So Paul Wickens played one of them.
And I think, I can't remember who else played, but all three of them had games on Friday night.

(01:07:09):
Um they collectively won the most sporting prize which i
thought was brilliant for coming all this way there were
guys over from from germany manuel thomas and
sebastian were over from germany there were other players from europe
who i didn't get to meet but i know that they come over and there
were players from all over the uk and there were players that we
don't see at you know uk tournament events like beachhead warfare and and you

(01:07:32):
know the nationals and so on and welsh open which i go to so that was brilliant
it was a real mixture of of people from in and around the uk europe but then
yeah fair play to the guys from thailand for coming over as well so yeah i think with it being.
Sort of branded as the premier tournament
if you are going to do one a year i can totally

(01:07:52):
understand why you would choose that one because you
would expect it to be sort of the highest caliber wouldn't you or you've
you know i didn't i didn't talk to the guys from thailand but
or or you've come over because it is the warlord GT it's warlords biggest
event and you want to experience that without it
necessarily being because you want to come over for a fully competitive
event the three guys I mean by the highest calibers in

(01:08:13):
like the highest caliber events like the got the
best tables the best run all that stuff you
know what you know you're going to get a good weekend compared to if
you go to a like I don't know Welsh nationals is always good but
if you didn't know that yes you just you don't really
know do you yeah yeah no yeah absolutely yeah and
the tables are great you know gas between gas and colin they've got

(01:08:34):
you know more than 50 tables they can rock up to a
tournament with and like i said they're nice tables it's good quality terrain
so and that in itself is a massive achievement to be able to to put on you know
what we have 35 tables this weekend 36 tables as one spare but with this the
capacity to do more it's brilliant nice anything else to report.

(01:08:56):
No, I'm just interested to see what happens next. Talking to Marcus over the
weekend and talking to Gaz as well,
this definitely seems to be a feeling amongst the Warlord staff and the TA team
with Gaz that V3 is getting a lot of attention and the Warlord are expecting
the player base to increase and increase.
And they're really hoping that next year it's an even bigger event.
And that would be brilliant. I would love to see a huge event.

(01:09:19):
It's in summertime in England.
You can never guarantee the weather in England, But if you're going to guarantee
it, August is probably one of the better months to come over.
Nottingham's nice and central. It works for the UK. It works for airports internationally
as well. So, yeah, I would love to see a really big event next year at BritCon.
Is that the Warlord GT? Is that the Warlord Open? Who knows?
That's down to Marcus and the TA team to decide on the name.

(01:09:43):
But, yeah, I really enjoyed it and thoroughly recommend it. Yeah, absolutely.
I think historically it's had even more players. I think there's been a couple
of years where it's gone even bigger. And so with sort of the flood of new blood
from V3, hopefully, hopefully we will see it as an even bigger tournament next year.
But either way, I imagine it'll be at least as good, if not better.

(01:10:07):
So that's it for this episode. That's it really for V2 for us.
We are going to go to the Welsh Open, so I'm sure that we'll report back in September.
But in terms of V2, that's it from us in terms of Tommy's.
We've been working behind the scenes getting ready for v3 and we're looking
forward to talking about that as and when we can in september but in terms of
v2 thank you very much it's tata for now from me and tata for now from him.

(01:10:29):
Music.

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Ep.57 Warlord GT | Tabletop Tommies Bolt Action Podcast

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep.57 Warlord GT | Tabletop Tommies Bolt Action Podcast