Michael: Hello! Michael and Ben here.
Ben: In case you were not aware, the WTC occurred recently (wait, this was 1 month ago?) in Olomouc, a massive 5 player team tournament with 14 teams or 70 people in total. These are the game reviews from the Austrian Teams (both of which Michael and I are members of), with the planning and deck choices being discussed later ™. In case you need a quick refresher on the way WTC is paired or what the meta looked like, you can check out this article here. Without further ado, let’s get into the games!
Round 1
Michael: Team Austria A was paired into Denmark. I got the opportunity of playing against Jonas, a super good painter and someone I knew for a while already despite never having played together before! He was playing his ES/NoP Gardeners.
In Game 1, things started out pretty good for me having killed Squort and Slunge to get an early lead. However, I didn’t really score much stuff. Luckily neither did Jonas.
Going into Round 2, I failed to kill a single other gardener which didn’t do too well for my chances. Also Phelgmus got super stacked which was quite annoying.
Round 3 was super close, but I failed to land the necessary killing blow onto Strewg who was camping an Aqua Ghyranis. Sadly I also burned a warscroll ability to do so, leaving me quite starved for resources. I still had a chance to bring it back, for which I needed a Gallanghan charge, Total Collapse (3 dice) and Volcanic Eruption to connect. Sadly, Volcanic Eruption missed on two hammers leading to me losing the game with a pretty close 13-8 score.
Going into Game 2, I got insta charged by a very angry Squort who hit a Crit Griev into a 2 dodge flanked Ylthari leaving her vulnerable from literally turn one. Fun! He then went on Guard, but I did have Violent Blast to get him off the token. I actually was doing a great job of keeping Jonas off of tokens here.
Round 2 was a bloodbath with me managing to snipe 3 of the Gardeners off the board. I do have to say I got lucky with some of these rules, making some crucial mistakes such as forgetting to give Ghallangan Cleave before charging and hitting anyway, but never punished I guess. At this point it was super hard for Jonas to come back, but he tried in Round 3 anyway as I spent 3 activations trying to a kill a vulnerable Phlegmus with varying decrees of accuracy between 3 hammers surounded to 2 hammers. When I realized he wouldn’t die, I just teleported Ylthari into Jonas’s territory to score LIVING ON THE EDGE – and win by those 2 glory with a score of 15-13. I had done it already, Living on the Edge did something.
Going into Game 3, I had the momentum from last game. I also had a huge start with managing to kill a Guard’ed Squort instantly with Vicous Intent + Fault Lines + my warscroll for 4 hammers into the poor thing (he deserved it) and also managing to get one more kill in the round starting strong with only 3 Gardeners on the board. Jonas revealed Close the Vice in the end phase, but he actually didn’t make the three covetous attacks and he chose to keep it. Due to this I decided to just try get one kill in Round 2, and I failed to do so sadly.
Going into Round 3, I decided ‘screw it’ and tried to score Too Close for Comfort by charging Ahnslaine into a 2 Shield with a reroll Strewg and guess what, her mighty two hammer attack connected. Which was probably better for me in the long term. I then knew Jonas had Iron Grasp left so I made it my mission to deny the lone token in his territory, knowing I had Violent Blast still planted was a huge boon to me as the token was next to a Stagger hex. This did lead to me winning the game quite comfortably with a score of 16-13.
Thanks a lot to Jonas for the games! Happy to have finally played versus you, and would love to do so again in the future 🙂 See you around!
Team Austria A ended the round with a solid score of 3-2, meaning we ACTUALLY WON A GAME ALREADY which was wayyy better than last year. GGs to Team Denmark!
Ben:
So quick info, I did not take as many pictures during the games (definitely not because I forgot). Anyway, going into round 1 our opponents were Czech C. I got to play vs Robin who brought his DS/EotK Thorns, which was apparently supposed to be a bad matchup, but I quite liked.
Round 1 began and I had two treasures deep inside my territory, so I just stayed back. Robin teleported his fighters into my position and tried to invade on the right half of the board, however I simply moved my fighters to the left, with Otapatl descently far in the center.
Moving to round 2, Robin attempted to murder Otapatl, but 2 dodge with a reroll held for two attacks. Otapatl then charged into an edge hex and found a Hidden Path to the other side of the board, reaching a treasure with Sidestep to score me both Sally Forth and Step by Step (this was the first time I have ever scored both of these off the same fighter). Robin scored almost nothing this round due to not getting the successes he needed while I scored Iron Grasp and Supremacy.
Round 3 was quite uneventful, with both of us mainly attacking the opponent for some kill bounty. I put Great Fortitude on Kixi to make sure she survived so I could score Skin of their Teeth and deny my opponent Hemmed In. That gave Robin Trial, however I still ended up still winning 19-11.
Going to game 2, I got to pick board, so I longboarded the Ghosts. The game started with Robin trying to get aggressive with two Chainrasps and Varclav, being able to body-block a feature token I needed to hold for Supremacy. However not before I was able to kill one of the invaders.
After my opponent was able to keep me off of tokens in round 1, the dice gods decided to abandon him completely, leaving him to hit no more attacks for the rest of the game, while Klaq-trok and Kixi were able to fend off my territory and Otapatl went to invade. This completely skill-based turn of events lead me to win game two 21-12.
Thank you so much for the games Robin!
Team Austria 2 also ended up winning this round with an incredible record of 2-2-1, being probably the only round won with less than 3 wins (don’t quote me on that).
Round 2
Michael: Our next game was against Poland B, a super strong opponent. I got paired into my third worst matchup in the entire tournament in order to set my team up, because as we all know, Spiteclaw is a super OP warband.
In Round 1, Pawel and his DS/PnP Skritch got hit by a couple of lucky attacks and pings from me. I was up in glory until the end phase when I couldn’t deny Torn Landscape. I don’t know what I was thinking, but when choosing to TP or not with Ylthari out of danger, I decided to stay in the fray. This would come back to bite me (spoiler). Pawel did a great job of Canny Sappering adjacent to the Aqua in order to deny my Wary Tread onto it.
Round 2 began with Pawel playing a mighty fine Skitter in order to push adjacent to Ylthari with Krrk, connected his 3 Hammers Flanked, and then scored Tag Team, Tandem Assault, and Helping Hand for a FIVE GLORY SWING OFF OF ONE KILL. I also lost my only inspired fighter. I tried to bring it back but all my warband was too far back, and they kept going in one by one and getting deleted. Start of Round 3, I focused in hopes of drawing Total Collapse cause it was my one chance back into the game but sadly it was my planted card so I had to concede knowing a victory was no longer mathematically possible with a score of 19-10. (also don’t gamble with Strip the Realm guys)
Going into Game 2, I tried a super different approach – play SUPER passively. I technically had more passive glory (dont question why CtC WnR does, I don’t know) so I should have had the upper hand. Round 1 was going great with me getting a lot of early damage and Pawel being forced to overextend KRRK HIMSELF into the fray!
Tragically I don’t have an image of Round 2 of this game cause I forgot to take it as it was SUPER intense. I managed to stall Pawel’s Skritch charge for 3 activations with the power of WnR and CtC to avoid and evade. I was biding my time to kill Krrk, as he wasn’t actually a threat and an early overextension would be fatal. I did kill him in the end, but also managed to take out the Lurking Skaven in the process. At this point, it was a 4 v 2 with Skritch and the Festering Skaven being the last ones alive and I even got to score Stay Close!
Going into Round 3, I had a huge lead. I was up in glory, had fighters alive, and was denying Strip very effectively. However, Pawel decided to make a what he claims to be ‘just a charge to get adjacent’ to Skritch to unite him and attacked a 3 Sword Burrowing strike into a 3 Shield/Flanked Skathael and that attack sadly for me connected 😦 . This put a huge spanner in the works, as I had one less body to deny Strip as well as losing Rock Splitting Tread which was necessary to one-clip Skritch. Pawel was able to capitalize on this super well, pressuring me around the board with Skritch and his pushes to score Tag Team and then charge into a lone 2 Shields/Cover Gallangan to drive him off a token and score Strip for a super close 17-14 win.
Thanks a lot to Pawel for the game! Our second one was one of my most intense ones of the tournament, hope to play again soon :).
This round we sadly lost to Team Poland B, which was a shame. I don’t remember out exact scores sadly, but they all played really well and gave us something to improve on 🙂 Thanks for the games folks!
Ben:
Going into round 2 Team Czech B came to take revenge upon their fallen comrades in Team C. I got paired into CtC/DS Gitz piloted by Vlad, which is a reasonable matchup.
Game 1 started off with me misplacing my fighters in development and leaving Klaq-Trok in charge range by the squigs after forgetting where they can deploy. Klaq-Trok got absolutely annihilated off the face of the universe in 2 activations while Vlad was also able to deny my inspiration by killing Otapatl.
My opponent continued invading me in round 2, with all my fighters being at the very back of my territory. As I only was on 1 treasure, I was not able to score almost anything and got immediately surrounded by a bunch of gitz. Huatchi and Kixi died, leaving me with no counterplay. I ended the game with the score of 5-16.
Going into game 2, I decided to play the game in a way where Klaq-Trok will not die after not being able to do anything in two activations. This time I learned from my mistake and remembered that all the gitz are on 1 dodge, so I went hunting. Sacrificing inspiration for the fourth game in a row, I managed to mark a kill into Bonekrakka and another gitz (I forgot which one) when they came to me. Round 2 I continued trying to kill the gitz and started getting on tokens and with Vlad missing a key attack for driveback I was able to score Iron Grasp and Skin of their Teeth. With only a couple of gitz remaining in round 3, Vlad had nothing he could do, winning me the game 21-14.
Game 3 I decided to try to alpha strike Snirk, as when he is on three dodge he is almost unhittable. Klaq-trok charges onto a treasure with Defiance and rolls two successes, which Snirk does not defend. Then Bulwark Celestial and a well timed Inviolate allow me to survive a crucial attack and inspire my fighters for the first game in the tournament! This extra accuracy on attacks and defence allowed me to repeat game two for the most part. I used the extra accuracy to hunt down the Gitz and while they were able to lock in two more kills than the game before, it was not enough, ending the game 21-17.
Thanks for the games Vlad! They were incredibly close and some of my hardest games into Deadly this tournament. Team 2 sadly ended up loosing this round, going 1-1-3. Czech 2 played incredibly well and definitely deserved that win.
Round 3
the fated Austrian battle with tons of definitely unbiased spectators (Clashmaster)
Michael: Just like last year, both Austrian Teams got paired into each other! This time it was quite early on in the tournament. I would be playing against Rudi from Clashmaster (btw credit to them for allowing us to use some of the images in this article!) and his BA/RF Wurmspat – what a super fun matchup!
Somehow, it actually did end up being a fun matchup as I got to use the full power of CataWrack onto Rudi. In Game 1, I deployed hyper passively and abused the living daylights out of Ylthari and Ahnslaine’s Ranged attacks which made me happy that I wasn’t taking Shadeborn (my other choice to the tourney). I scored a Grand Total of 1 Glory to Rudi’s 0 though, so I was in the lead.
Going into Round 2, I got an absolutely huge The End is Nigh off which discarded 2 of my cards to Rudi’s 1 BUT gave me Low on Options so it netted one glory! I unleashed something I like to call ‘Nuclear Bomb’ here, which long story short led to me deleting Fecula and Ghulgoch off of the board this round. Fecula died to a cheeky Sundering Weapon charge from Ylthari into a Sunder the Realm, while Ghulgoch got pinged to death by Improv Attack, Total Collapse (which missed), and Volcanic Eruption, and a Ghallangan charge. At this point Rudi conceded with a score of 11-1, as Sepsimus already charged, wasn’t inspired, and couldn’t reach a hittable target (as Skathael was at 2 Shields already)
Going into Game 2, I unfortunately was not allowed to deploy my fighters all at the back again. That didn’t stop me from ‘flipping the board’ by using my first activation to simply move Ahnslaine out of charge range of Ghulgoch, making him unable to charge out (wings of war doesn’t exist guys). I then barraged Sepsimus with attacks, dealing 4 damage to him while also preventing an inspire.
Round 2 had me kill Sepsimus but not before he managed to get a third damage off, inspiring the Wurmspat. I then scattered my fighters to opposite ends of the board, as Rudi had already discarded a ton of glory and I knew he had to get kills to win, but by killing me he would give me my Stay Close and Alone in the Dark, putting him in a lose-lose situation. Ghulgoch still couldn’t reach any target as well, which was quite helpful. I also had a clutch The End is Nigh discard a Catch Weapon, which was REALLY helpful for me as now I could attack without worry.
Going into Round 3 I had a super comfortable lead so I just kept doing my thing. As in run across the entire board with all my fighters. It was a pretty boring round with not much happening, but did garuantee me a nice 12-8 win against Rudi.
Thanks a lot to Rudi for the games! We played a lot of practice games with Rudi already, so thanks to those as well 🙂
Team Austria A managed to take the win against Austria B just like last year. Shoutout to the Austrian teams for doing much better practice this year by the way, we got to step it up for next year though!
Ben: A recurring trend in this tournament is that my opponents think that Deadly Synergy is good into Stalkers (it is not), so I face my second EotK/DS Thorns this tournament, piloted by Christian. Sadly I do not remember a lot of this game, but I’ll share what I have.
Game one was pretty close in the beginning, with me not being able to inspire my fighters, but marking one kill on a ghost. Meanwhile, he killed two of the small skinks, however was not able to mark damage on Kixi or Klaq-Trok. However, in round 2 I started pulling ahead with a couple of missses allowing me to score my hold cards while my accuracy gained by Great Drake allowed me to cut through a couple of ghosts. This continued in round 3, allowing me to win 20-14.
In game 2 I was able to get an early inspiration, allowing me to defend many attacks. I also drew my guard ploys early, allowing me to get an early lead in round 1. Christian had a small comeback in round 2, marking multiple kills on my skinks, however I also killed some ghosts and my lead kept strong. This also held in round 3, leading to a similar score of 20-13 for me.
Thanks for the games Christian! We played a couple times already and this was one of the most fun games we’ve played so far. As you already know, we sadly ended up loosing this round with a score of 2-3. Well played to Austria A!
Round 4
Michael: My next game was against Petr and his Soulraid from Czech Team A. Which was quite a difficult matchup for me, as he was running PnP HG – he outpassived me but didn’t let me invade either.
Round 1 saw Tammael and Furiann take mid control from me and I didn’t really fight back cause I knew Hunting Grounds is scary to deal with, especially next to feature tokens. Instead I stayed back and sniped away.
Round 2 actually went wayyyy better for me than it should. All of my fighters were now one shot! I failed to kill a one-health Tammel twice, and had to sacrifice my own Ylthari by using Fault Lines to kill the fish because it could potentially force a Strip the Realm – a gamble I didn’t want to take.
Round 3 saw me instantly start the round with a 3 Hammer charge into Elathain, using my +X damage to one shot him and then gloriously whiffing and not even getting a driveback into a Sunder the Realm allowing for someone else to kill him. Even after that, I was doing my best to kill everything and everyone and I almost brought it back but then I very unsmartly moved Gallanghan a hex too close to Furiann allowing her to get a free kill on him AND get the Aqua – leading me to losing 14-13 😦 Still a super close game!
I sadly don’t have an image of Game 2 Round 1 but it began in a very similair fashion to previous game, with Petr’s fighters moving towards edge hexes to deny my Stay Close which I actually did have this time. I can’t recall much else to be honest haha, but we did manage to ‘flip the board’ from vertical to horizontal orientation.
Round 2 began with a Guard and a focus action for both of us, very tactical. I was biding my time for a charge into Tammael and did connect for a nice three damage, but lost Ylthari in turn due to an Elathain charge.
In Round 3, I was really trying to score my Alone in the Dark. I had to hit a two hammer surrounded attack into 2 Dice on Guard and THANKFULLY it hit – I was super hyped about that. After that, Petr moved Elathain adjacent to my Gallanghan, which would have been a shame if I hadn’t had Wary Tread! Unfortunately after I used it Petr asked if he could Tunneling Terror and he did do so in order to again win, this time on Tiebreakers.
Thanks a lot to Petr for the games! They were super close – a whole 1 glory difference over two games despite it being a 2-0 🙂 See you around!
We as a team sadly lost this round 2-3, which was super close but not enough. We were all quite let down after this cause a) it was morning and we were all tired and b) we felt we had good matchups for once. Me personally, I felt pretty bad cause I felt it was kind of my fault since I made some pretty horrible mistakes especially in Game 1, but this is what comes from playing a team event and it is important to be able to bounce back – something that Tristan as captain helped us a lot in doing so shoutout to him!
This round we were paired into Spain A and I was paired into my most difficult matchup of the day, Elathain BA/ES piloted by Antonio, although I thought it was good at the time. I had a lot of practice winning into Elathain BA/PnP with ES/PnP stalkers, but turns out the loss of all the passive glory makes this way worse. Also from this game onwards our captain ended up taking pictures of the matchups, so you can see some of the beautiful pairing cards created for the tourney.
Credit for Flo for creating out WHU x MTG pairing cards
Game 1 started with him putting Fuirann, the crab and the fish onto treasure tokens in the first activation and annihilated Xepic off the face of the planet. I made an aggressive charge with Klaq-Trok, missing and he then walked onto the treasure with elathain and hit Klaq-Trok twice, killing him. Then I tried to get on the last treasure with Huachi, but got killed by Tammael. This left me in the incredible position seen below.
The incredible board state I had at the start of round 2
Suprising absolutely everyone, I got tabled shortly after this, with Kixi dying by two attacks by elathain and Tok being eliminated by an angry Fuirann, leading me to concede the game during the round 2 end phase with an incredible score of 2-16.
Game 2 did not go much better. During round 1 I played a bit more passively, keeping Klaq-Trok in the back where charging him is risky. However, Antonio still found kills on two of the skinks and positioned himself incredibly well, standing on three tokens compared to my single token.
Round 2 Antonio started tabling me again, marking kills on Klaq and hitting Kixi for 2 damage while being able to stay mostly on tokens to deny me glory. I did have a sidestep to score Iron Grasp, but that was the entire round.
In round 3 Antonio killed Kixi and the last remaining skink worth glory, leaving me with only Otapatl on the board and down a lot of glory. This game ended with a score of 22-6 for my biggest Bo3 loss I think ever with a -30 glory difference over two games.
Thank you so much for the games Antonio, they were probably my hardest this tournament. We also ended up loosing this round with a record of 2-3. Well played Spain A!
Round 5
Michael: This was after lunch and I tried to do my part in hyping our team up by telling everyone to ‘just win all 5 of your games guys’, which was very helpful advice. (unbiased) Personally it helped me so I was feeling way more hyped going in.
Team Austria A was paired against ANOTHER Czech Team, this time Team C. And I was up against what I thought was my worst matchup in the entire tournament – Cata/Wrack Wurmspat, piloted by Ludek. But in fairness, everyone was scared to play against them and I felt with my slightly ping-loaded reputation I had to be sacrificed so I could ping diff.
Game 1 saw Ludek and I both deploy on opposite ends of the board, which was maybe not the play for Ludek as I actually had passive stuff in my hand and knowing he was only playing 12 to my 13 objectives I knew I had the upper hand from the start. After a battalion of move actions, I scored 4 glory in the end phase from Stay Close and Spread Havoc to Ludek’s 0. And I only had one fighter damaged!
Yeah so sadly in Round 2 Ludek unleashed a Pingstorm to inspire in Activation 1 or 2, but I wasn’t sitting idle myself and got a good bit of damage onto his fighters, including a juicy 3 fighter Sunder the Realm. Also very conveniently Sepsimus was left on one health.
Going into Round 3, I played THE END IS NIGH despite being 3 Cata to Ludek’s 4. Because that is what you do. I skillfully failed to kill Ghulgoch despite him being stuck in the middle of my fighters, but I did snipe Sepsmius off the face of the earth with a nice pingstorm from myself. I then just played ‘run away for the hills’ cause I knew I was up in glory so I didn’t need to engage, winning with a nice 15-6 score.
Going into Game 2, I got an absolutely INSANE Round 1 with me not only killing Fecula but also not letting Ludek inspire, leaving Sepsimus stranded, and getting Strong Start. What could possible go wrong in this position?
Well, Round 2 saw me start to try to kill Ghulgoch but failing to do so. I then commited my teleport to get Ghallanghan out of range of Sepsimus, but forgot he had Great Speed to catch up and kill Skhathael. I also managed to get Ahsnlaine stuck in the back of my board. We also both scored Stay Close in this round.
Round 3 saw Ludek one shot Ahnslaine, then chase down Ylthari with Visions of Ruin and get her too, leaving Skhathael in a 2v1. There was a chance I could win if I connected one attack with +3 Damage and then a ping or two, but sadly that did not happen and I lost with a score of 20-16.
Going into Game 3, I was still feeling pretty good because I knew what my mistakes in Game 2 where. In addition I saw my teammates were doing pretty well as well.
Then Ludek wins the roll off, and inspires BEFORE MY FIRST TURN with a charge from Sepsimus, Total Collapse, and Improvised Attack all connecting. Which was not very good. I had Living on the Edge in hand so I was just dancing around and taking pot shots at Fecula (skillfully hitting 3 times into 2 Shields, with pings) because Ghallanghan was vulnerable, but sadly I forgot Sepsimus existed and Ghallanghan got charged by 5 swords and THANKFULLY managed to defend with 1 shield. I’m not going to lie, this probably (spoilers) set me up for the rest of the game as I tp’ed into his territory and scored Living on the Edge and Alone in the Dark.
Round 2 saw me finish off Fecula with a couple more instances of 1 Damage, but I did trade two of my guys for it. Luckily the entire Wurmspat were on opposite ends of the field, and even better, I had Visions of Ruin in hand and my teleport unused. I used Visions to get Ylthari onto an Aqua Ghyranis and tp Skhathael with me, scoring Stay Close without Ludek doing so.
Even though Ludek could kill all my guys I was mathematically winning here already cause Ludek got unlucky with card sequencing and didn’t have either Wrack end phase when I let him score it. Even if he killed Skhathel (on 3 Shields) he couldn’t kill both of my guys, so I would definitely deny Stay Close and managed to win this way with both fighters alive, thus asserting pingstorm dominance with a score of 20-13.
Thanks a lot to Ludek for the game! This was one of my more enjoyable guys due to the sheer amount of PINGS happening on the board – would love to get the same experience again someday 🙂
Our hyping up during lunch break worked and we won with a solid 4-1 score against Czech C. GGs to them!
Ben: For this round Team Austria B was paired into the other german speaking team, Team Germany. I was paired into Mollogs Mob BA/RF piloted by Frank, which is an incredible matchup for my skinks and especially Klaq-Trok.
Round 1 my opponent started with a spireshroom charge after which I was able to walk onto a treasure. He then charged Mollog, who missed, which allowed me to position my fighters onto treasures to deny a charge by the Batsquig. After Franks second activation I was able to pilferer Klaq-Trok onto a treasure to inspire, allowing me to hit Mollog with 3 hammers and cleave for 3 damage. He then decided to play Scream of Anger to get another charge off with the troll, but this allowed me to kill mollog the following activation. As I also scored Claimed and 7 glory in the EP, he conceded after round 1 with a score of 12-1.
Game 2 started off with me trying to inspire my fighters and score my hold objectives. Frank managed to hit one of my fighters off a token by killing Tok, but I still managed to get a first round inspire. In addition I was able to mark a kill into the Stalagsquig with a double-team from Kixi and Huatchi.
Round 2 went way worse for him, as I started off with a Klaq-Trok sidestep onto a treasure allowing for an attack into Mollog without charging, which hit. Then I was able to charge him again, hitting again with 3 hammers 3 damage with cleave, leaving Mollog on 1 wound, which ended up dying to the warscroll ping. After this, he decided to concede in the end phase, leading to a win by round 2 of 21-6.
Thanks for the games Frank! Even though they were very lopsided I really enjoyed playing with you. Sadly Austria B ended up loosing this round as well with a score of 2-3. Well played Team Germay!
Round 6
Michael: At this point we were ranked 5th (or 4th idk) but for some reason we got paired into the Final Boss of the event otherwise known as Poland A, currently undeafeted and ranked first in the event with a pretty much guaranteed first place finish. Which did wonders for our mental as a team as you might guess.
I got paired into something I really wanted to play against – CATACLYSM HUNTING GROUNDS played by Michal with Hrothgorn and yes I may have begged to play this cause like i wanted to play versus a good matchup and ctc hg isn’t good for the rest of my team rightttt…? (ok sry sebastian for stealing a good matchup for you but you advertised yourself as a ba/rf counter :)) )
Round 1 started with the most insane ranged attack battle of all time with Ahnslaine and Hrothgorn taking shots at each other. No one hit. Ylthari was then rudely charegd by Thrafnir, who tried to push her into a Sunder the Realm, but the ping missed and only hit Hrothgorn. Ylthari then charged back, connecting and then I played my own Sunder the Realm and absolutely ping diffed by hitting and both killing Thrafnir and wounding Hrothgorn.
Round 2 started with BUSHWAKKA hitting the first ranged attack of the game, and then Ahlnslaine joined in. Hrothgorn went in for a super risky charge into Ahnslaine a little early, killing her, but giving me the option to hit back with Skhathael (potential 3 glory) or just moving into his territory for a guaranteed two from Living on the Edge. I really didn’t want to but I did go for the Skhathael attack, and managed to hit cause of my fair and balanced warscroll and i think Sundering Weapon and oneshot Hrothgorn.
Round 3 saw the last 3 goblins all get killed. Pretty boring apart from Quiv getting killed through a Paths Unknown cause of Fault Lines + Total Collapse lol (i love pings). The game ended with a score of 18-10 for me.
Round 1 of game two started with Luggit and Thwack charging and hitting Ahnlslaine to score Back Off, which wasn’t annoying at all until I sent Skhathel back to punish and get a kill. I also put some damage on Hrothgorn who charged into a 2 Save on Guard Ghallanghan and thankfully missed.
Round 2 started with Michal getting super unlucky and me the opposite, so long story short Thrafnir died and Hrothgorn took a bunch of damage forcing him to retreat. I really wanted to chase him, so I gathered my force on the edge of neutral territory to avalanche into him next round.
Round 3 saw Michal win the roll off, opting to go first and put Hrothgorn on Guard as well as Utter Conviction. I did have Sundering Weapon, Vicous Intent, and my warscroll to use here and I was really considering going for it until I realized that Quiv was right there and next to a Waystone hex so I just charged him instead, killing him with The Perfect Cut. I was debating if I use my tp or not and then realized that I just win the game by running away at this point so I extracted Ghallanghan and ran in a circle for the rest of the game to win with a nice 13-6 lead.
Thanks a lot to Michal for the games! I appreciate you letting me do some missed actions (mainly my 62 missed card plants for inspiration) because to be honest I was getting a little tired towards the end haha, it meant a lot to me 🙂 hope we play again and thanks for bringing my favorite deck pairing to the tourney!
Quick interlude here. When I finished Tristan already won his game and both Stefan and Sebastian were looking quite shabby in theirs, so it was all up to Christian with his DS/EotK Thorns to beat Hasher’s DS/WnR Exiled Dead and oh my gosh watching that game was so insane.
Christian turned into the Magnus Carlsen of WHU for a round straight and managed to win the game with some absolutely stellar gameplay in a Round 2 that had to be cut due to time constraints, securing us the win, but watching that game made me sad that there isn’t more competitive WHU watching or anything cause that game was super fun to watch.
The atmosphere was very intense and Tristan and I spent the entire time casting the game between each other and it was just such a good time to watch, cause there are so many tactical decisions each player can make and I genuinely think with commentary this game could go crazy in like a watchable setting. That’s it!
Yeah as I spoiled already we did manage to beat Poland A to be the first and only team to beat them and securing a nice 4-2 game record over the whole tourney!
Ben: In round six we were paired into France with a lot on stake. The loosing team would end in last place in the tournament. With this pairings began and I ended up being paired into Cadwe’s EotK/DS Briar Queen, making this the third game this tourney into that pairing (not as bad as Michael last year though).
Starting in Game 1, as I “won” the roll off, I needed to play aggressively, with multiple tokens being in his territory. I ended up moving Tok to the right to hold some tokens, however he was ambushed by two ghosts, killing him instantly. However, the rest of my fighters were on the left side and I was able to use a sidestep to secure a somewhat early inspiration. This kept the scores pretty even going into round 2.
In round 2, my opponent managed to find kills into Klaq-Trok and Otapatl, turning the tides slightly to his advantage. However, I manage to split up his fighters with three ghosts being stuck on the far left in my territory and two ghost being in his territory on the far right. Thus, I started keeping my fighters somewhat in the middle, attempting do disallow good charges from the thorns on the right. The score at the end of this round was still neck-in-neck.
Going into round 3, Cadwe managed to find a kill into kixi, however I was able to deny him good activations while equipping Xepic with a bunch of good upgrades. The game was looking good for him, but he accidentally forgot about the range extention from Cautious Attitudes on Xepic, moving the briar queen into his range. Xepic hit the attack and was able to secure a kill into the queen, resulting in a win of 17-15.
Going into Game 2, I deployed my fighters in the back of my territory. I immediatly charged Otapatl onto the only treasure in enemy territory, expecting him to stay there. Instead, Cadwe used two mugz to try to annihilate Otapatl, in which he succeeded. However, as he moved most of his fighters away from the right side, I moved my fighters on the tokens there, picking off two of the ghosts with my range 2 attacks. This left him with only 1 fighter to control two fighters on tokens, leading me to score supremacy and Inspire.
(sorry for the terrible quality)
He then conceded in round 2, as he used all of his mugz to move his fighters to the top left of the board. I simply moved my fighters out of charge range, leaving him no good activations and with me still having 5 remaining fighters, he determined that he lost, ending the game 10-3. Thanks you for the games! We have played online a lot and it was great to finally meet you in person.
For our team this round was also extremely down to the wire. I was already done with my game and so was Flo, leaving us with two required wins. After Rudi lost his game and Luba won hers, the game came down to the wire. In the end, Nikola found his way onto an Aqua Gyranis for two battle rounds, leading him to take the win with a score of 19-18, winning us the round and leaving us with the somewhat respectable score of 2-4.
FINAL STANDINGS
Michael: Team Austria A ended up in 4th place, which I was super happy about as we trained a lot as a team for this and were quite happy with the results because despite training arguably less as a team than last year everyone individually put in a lot more work and thus we did wayyy better.
Thanks a lot to my team for playing so well! Shoutout to Tristan for skillfully winning every single one of his games in a 2-0 fashion except 1? (correct me if im wrong!) as well as for being a great team captain as well as to the rest of my team for playing and training together – it was a great experience and I’d love to run it back next year (where there WILL be a WTC – stop doubting)!
Ben: Team Austria B ended up taking 11th place, which is quite descent. Our team was way more casual, and while we did a descent bit of training beforehand and wanted to win, we were not expecting the best placement. This was the first major tournament for many of our team members, and while some players lost almost every game, everyone has that first experience (just check out my play in 2025. I did not do much better). In addition, Flo was an incredible team captain and was undefeated most of the event (until that last round).
Michael: Also special thanks to Honza for organizing this event, it was superb and the venue was great! (it was an abandoned castle or something like that, like training grounds)
THEY LOCKED US IN TO PLAY WHU
With that, thanks everyone for reading 🙂 Thanks to all WTC players for playing as well – I hope to see you there again next year!
If you have any feedback for me or Ben or just want to chat, please join the Staggerers discord server, we are all super friendly there! With that, thanks for reading and I hope to see you again soon 🙂
