NZ Masters 2015 – Picking a list

by | Nov 18, 2015

The 2015 New Zealand Warhammer Fantasy Masters will be held on 5/6 December. 12 players [EDIT: now likely 9/10 :(], 6 games, 2400 pts, ETC comp.  

It promises to be a tournament in limbo for two reasons. 


  • The tournament calendar has been relatively sparse this year which has affected the dynamics of qualification.  I received an invite after finishing 17th (due to drop-outs) based on only two tournaments in the qualifying year (although I did come 2nd and 4th at those).

  • Next year the Masters will be Kings of War and many of the most competitive tournament players in New Zealand have moved that way.  There are still clubs that play Warhammer 8th edition, and they will probably continue to run tournaments and small hobby events, but not with sufficient numbers or adventure to carry on. 
While a divided Warhammer community could see these numbers drop further, it will be interesting to see whether there are enough Warhammer refugees to join the existing KoW players in making a viable national tournament scene.

But enough crystal-ball gazing for now, the focus is on this year's Masters.

Picking a list
From my perspective, and given the time until the tournament, I have two choices for my list. 

Option 1 is to run the same list which I used at the last ETC event I attended.  The list revolves around Grimm, a large block of Irondrakes and the other war machines.




The advantages of this list are that I have already had a reasonable amount of practice with it (which is important given I haven't played 8th edition in about 6 months) and it is all painted. If I was to go with this option though, I'd be tempted to drop some of the Irondrakes as they were far too unwieldy at times (13 wide and 2 deep with characters).

Option 2 is to use Mikey Newman's ETC list.




The attractions here are (1) I haven't run the vanguarding dwarf list in 8th (2) it would incentivise me to finish painting my Hammerers and (3) one more gyro to play with :).  But I'd realistically be walking in with no practice and very little time to finish the units given I will only have two weeks or so to paint. 



In terms of likely opposition, I expect to see hard as nails WoC (#dronestrike), Chaos Dwarfs, more dwarfs, Slaneeshi daemons, and plenty of Elves of all three flavours.

I'll mull it over.  But given I have no expectations of anything other than mid-table stubborn dwarf-ness, I'm tempted to push it forward and make chopper noises :)