Reanimation Protocols Activated

While this game happened in May, I'm posting it now and incomplete. While I had finished writing it up, when I originally attempted to upload it there was an error that deleted half the post. That was quite a bit of work that was lost and it out me off posting other stuff for a while (as you can tell if you are regular reader). So, for the sake of completion here it is.

This week George and I scheduled a 1500point game. He wanted to try out large units of reanimating Warriors and had also remarked that he hadn't faced my Astra Militarum before. We built armies accordingly and squared off on Wednesday evening at Dark Star.

My Astra Militarum is an infantry-based force. I decided I wanted some Ultramarines to add some heavier firepower and come blazing to the rescue from the skies.

Imperial 1500 points   

Cadian Brigade Detachment     

HQ   

Company Commander, Warlord - Master of Command, Heirloom of Conquest - Kurov's Aquila

Company Commander, Heirloom of Conquest - Relic of Lost Cadia

Primaris Psyker, Heirloom of Conquest - The Deathmask of Olianius, Psykana - Psychic Maelstrom, Mental Fortitude

Troops   

Infantry Squad

Infantry Squad

Infantry Squad

Infantry Squad

Infantry Squad

Infantry Squad

Elites   

Platoon Commander

Ratlings

Ratlings

Fast Attack   

Scout Sentinel, Autocannon

Scout Sentinel, Autocannon

Scout Sentinel, Autocannon

Heavy Support   

Heavy Weapons Squad, Mortars

Heavy Weapons Squad, Mortars

Heavy Weapons Squad, Mortars

Ultramarines Outrider Detachment   

HQ  

Captain, Jump Pack, Thunder Hammer, Relic of the Chapter - The Sanctic Halo

Lieutenant in Phobos Armour

Fast Attack   

Inceptor Squad, Plasma Exterminators

Inceptor Squad, Plasma Exterminators

Suppressor Squad

Heavy Support   

Eliminator Squad

Operative Requisition Sanctioned   

1 Assassin

All the Command Points! The core of the army is obviously the Cadian Brigade. Infantry and Officers to do the heavy lifting, Mortars and Sentinels for covering fire and Ratlings to suppress characters. The Ultramarines are built to drop into the rescue turn 2, and the Eliminators are because the last time I tried them, George destroyed them first turn so I want to see what they do.  

I also brought one of each Assassin. This would allow me to look at George's army and decide which one to deploy. Obviously, the Culexus would be a poor choice and George says that most people he saw at the recent Dark Star tournament just ran Vindicares. Guess we shall see which I run.

Experimenting with large squads of Warriors, while also trying out the Monolith and the Doom Scythe, George's force looked intimidating. I wasn't sure I had sufficient firepower to tackle a Monolith. It could potentially cause me problems.

Reanimation Group Necron 1500 points   

Necron Battalion  

HQ  

Overlord

Overlord

Cryptek

Troops   

20 Necron Warriors

20 Necron Warriors

10 Immortals

Elites   

Triarch Stalker

Heavy Support

Monolith

Flier   

Doom Scythe   

A lot of bodies that can get back up and a lot of firepower to take out fragile Guardsman bodies. Not ideal, and flashlights versus a flier is not a great matchup. The Doom Scythe might have to be the Marine's responsibility.

The Game   

We set up the terrain and rolled for a mission; Disruptive Signals with Frontline Assault deployment. Both of us had quite a core of Troops, so Objectives were likely to be viciously fought over. His vehicles could give him the edge unless my Marines could take them down.

I was deploying first. I deployed the bulk of the Guard and put the Sentinels on my left flank. The Eliminators took advantage of a Bastion in the middle of the field and I prepared to set up the Ratlings after George's deployment. Being rather terrified of not being able to deal with the Monolith, I elected to not put the rest of the Marines in reserve but instead deployed them to hold my right flank. Finally, I requisitioned an Eversor. I believed I had enough Snipers to bully his characters and the Eversor could potentially make a mess of the Immortals if he can touch them in combat. So I put him in reserve.

George put a unit of Warriors on each flank and put his Warlord Overlord and the Cryptek behind a rock with the Warriors on his right. The Doom Scythe and Triarch Stalker went to the centre and then he did something unexpected. He deployed the Monolith in reserve and put the Immortals in the Monolith. This would delay the Monolith until at least turn 2 and the Immortals until at least turn 3. The Monolith having a large footprint and needing to be 12" away from my forces when it arrives would also inhibit where it could arrive. If I'd known it wasn't going to start on the table, I'd have risked doing the same with the Ultramarines.

I elected to go first and George failed to seize. I then deployed the Ratlings forward with sights set on the other Overlord and the Scout Sentinels moved up to support them.  

Round One   

I moved up and prepared to hammer the Warriors with what firepower I could get in range. My cards were a little lacklustre, so I ignored them for now. The key one I could score, Supremacy, was denied by George using the mission Stratagem. I did have Defend 3, which was close to George's lines. At the end of my Shooting Phase, I had killed 1 Warrior from the group on my left, and 16 on the right. His Warlord had Immortal Pride, however, so that group wasn't running. The Snipers failed to hurt the other Overlord too.

Georges turn started with him getting 13 of the 17 Warriors back via Reanimation Protocols. He killed the nearest squad of Inceptors for First Strike and killed enough of the Guard squad to deny me the Defend 3. Already it looked like I would have problems.

Round Two

As you can see, this is all that Blogger saved. I did win this game, probably due to George putting so much into Reserve.

New Ynnari 2019

If you are a Warhammer 40,000 player, you've surely seen this month's White Dwarf with the new Ynnari Index. There are a lot of changes to the army, which I will look at more in depth shortly. Having been challenged to a 1000 point game, I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to start experimenting with them.

The new rules incentivise a melee-based force, with some heavy hitting firepower to trigger Strength from Death in the shooting phase.

Ynnari 1000 Points   

Reborn Harlequin Detachment  
  

HQ  

The Visarch, Warlord - Master of Death 

Troupe Master, Fusion Pistol, Power Sword, Relic - Hungering Blade, Exalted of Ynnead - Walker of Many Paths

Troops   

Troupe, 5 Players

Troupe, 5 Players

Troupe, 5 Players

Elites

Death Jester, Artefacts of Death - Mirrorgaze

   

Harlequins Fortification Network  

Fortification   

Webway Gate

Iyanden Super-Heavy Auxilliary Detachment  

Lord of War  

Wraithknight, Suncannon, Scattershield, 2 Starcannon

The Reborn Harlequins are the assault core. Designed to get to combat quickly and get +1 to hit via Strength from Death, their 4 attacks each can put in a lot of work. Add re-rolls from the Visarch and the Troupe Master and they should mince units.

The Wraithknight's job was to take out a small unit each shooting phase, triggering Strength from Death for the Ynnari. 

The Webway Gate both gives the Wraithknight protection and turns the whole thing into a "Distraction Carnifex", pulling firepower away from my fragile troops. 

That was the plan. A quick test to see if Strength from Death is worth the effort and try out some of the Stratagems.

My usual Wednesday opponent, George, is a Necron player. He built his force to try out some more mobile units for his larger tournament force. He feels that many of his opponents control the board, leaving him struggling to score points.

Mobile Necrons 1000 points   

Necron Outrider Detachment  

HQ

Destroyer Lord

Fast Attack   

6 Destroyers

6 Wraiths

9 Tomb Blades

High toughness, multiple wound models with mobility. This looked like it was going to b my worst nightmare. It would probably take my full force a combined shooting and assault phase to kill a unit, so Strength from Death was never going to trigger.

The Game   

We set up terrain and rolled for a mission; Strategic Gamble, with Dawn of War deployment. With such small forces, scoring cards was going to be interesting but both forces we also quite mobile. I felt George had the edge with much more access to shooting. The Necrons deployed first and elected to go first, with me failing to seize. George also used a Stratagem to put the Destroyers in Reserve.

Round One   

The Tomb Blade's shooting and the Wraith's assault did a bunch of wounds to the Webway Gate but failed to kill it. On my turn, I used a Stratagem to deploy the Wraithknight and he attacked the Tomb Blades while the Ynnari assaulted the Wraiths. The Wraithknight did very little damage but the Harlequins kill all but 2 of the Wraiths. 

Amazingly, neither force had scored First Strike, although George got a slight lead on cards.

Round Two  

The Tomb Blades and Wraiths fell back, and the Destroyers arrived. The Tomb Blades destroyed one unit of Harlequins, the Destroyers deployed their Stratagem and obliterated the Wraithknight and then the Wraiths charged the Visarch, with my Troupe Leader Heroicly Intervening. The Visarch lost a couple of wounds, but the combination of characters finished the Wraiths off. Killing the Wraiths was good but I could tell the loss of the Wraithknight was going to cost me.

My return punch had me gamble into Supremacy, so I sent the Troupes and the Death Jester to 3 different Objectives. Meanwhile, the Visarch charged the Tomb Blades and the Troupe Leader charged the Destroyer Lord. Amazingly, the Destroyer Lord fell, the Mortal Wounds from the Hungering Blade being the nail in his coffin. The Visarch killed enough Tomb Blades that they failed their Morale test. I also used the Souls of the Strongest Stratagem upon the Destroyer Lord's death to have Strength from Death be permanently turned on.

This amazing sequence of events allowed me to get ahead on points and left George with only his Destroyers. 

Round Three    

Sudden Death doesn't give you the automatic win in this mission, so George needed to play for points. The Destroyers we able to get to a Defend Objective and still have the range to kill the nearest Troupe. 

My turn was focused on scoring points, I was unable to reach the Destroyers in one turn and feared their firepower. I did have to send the Death Jester out on a limb to reach one Objective, using Fire and Fade to gain enough movement to reach it, but risking the Destroyers moving to get a line of fire on him.

Round Four  

The Destroyers moved to get as many guns pointed at the Jester as possible, and four of their number could see him. The Mirrorgaze put in a lot of work, and only 4 hits wounded. I checked his Wounds (5, I wasn't expecting to see a number that high) and then proceeded to make all 4 saves! That was probably the final turning point, as it stopped George from getting points that turn and allowed me to score some more in my turn.

Rounds Five and Six   

George killed the final Troupe, but I was able to run ahead on points. The dice dictated that turn 6 was the final turn.

The game ended with victory to the Ynnari, 18 - 12.

Aftermath   

The game was brutal in the early turns and then became cat and mouse in the later turns. Georges force was small, but each unit is difficult to kill in one phase, stopping a lot of the Ynnari power. Neither force had many models/units so each loss would hurt.

I honestly thought the game was over when the Wraithknight fell. Only passing 1 save didn't help my morale. It was a statistically unlikely set of shooting, but entirely possible with the Destroyer Stratagem re-rolling hits and wounds. So when the two characters put in work the very next turn, it gave me the opening I needed. It helped that the Destroyers were the other side of the battlefield at this point.

The victory came down to Playing the Mission. You can't win games if you get distracted by trying to kill the opponent's force or dismayed by losing a key unit. You should always keep the mission's victory condition in mind and act accordingly.

I will try some more games with the Ynnari, I really want to get some more use out of the melee-centric parts of the Aeldari. I should probably get some Wyches to help.....

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It's Been A While

Well, like the title suggests; it's been a while

I've had a lot of things going on in my personal life, and as a knock on effect I haven't had the motivation to write stuff for the blog. I'm going to try and get back on track now and get more stuff written this year. Look out for gaming reports, photos of stuff as I get it painted, reviews and the opinions you've come to enjoy.

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Working on a Tournament logo

Branding is important, so I'm currently trying to design a logo for Baron Administrator Tournaments.

This is my current first draft, done via Inkscape. It's useful to give an idea as to what I'm going for. I've even found a Font for the text. Now to actually find someone skilled to improve it....

Quick(ish) Hits - March 2019 Assassins

Our first Quick Hit of 2019 is Index Imperialis Officio Assassinorum. As there are only 4 pages or rules, this will be a slightly more in-depth look than a regular Quick Hit.

Special Rules

Execution Force  
The standard way to add the Assassins to your army. It's been updated to still give you the Command Point bonus for the Detachment if it contains one of each Assassin.


Independent Operative 
Assassins can't be your Warlord or gain a Warlord Trait via other means. They can also Deep Strike.

Lightning Reflexes 
Their universal Invulnerable Save, letting them shrug off 50% of hits.

Elites  

Vindicare Assassin
A Sniper par excellence with his ability to pick out Characters and ignore Invulnerable Saves. He always hits on 2s unless he moves now, and can do additional Mortal Wounds if the initial shot didn't slay the target. He is much improved over the original Index version, but still has a 1 in 6 chance of missing the target, and then a 1 in 6 chance of failing to wound the target when he does it. The flipside is he is more likely to one hit kill lesser Characters when the dice are average.  

Callidus Assassin 
She does the least damage on the tabletop still, although she can be pretty good in melee. Where she shines is the Reign of Confusion rule. This potentially increases the cost of your opponent's Stratagems across the first Battle Round. With the FAQ change to Command Point regeneration, this can really demolish opponents that are reliant on a bunch of costly Stratagems during the early game.
With Polymorphine, she has a decent chance of coming in from Reserve and being able to charge a key target. She'll probably be gunned down the turn after, but by then the job should be done.

Eversor Assassin 
The melee blender, with the explosive centre, the Eversor is still a monster. Adept at killing elite units of single- or double-wound models. Killing Rampage increases their attacks as he slays models in the unit and increases their Consolidation move to keep them in the thick of the opponent's force.

Culexus Assassin  
The anti-Psyker, Abomination makes it much harder for your opponent to cast and deny powers by subtracting 2 from their tests. Etherium makes them hard to hit, although the weight of fire will still kill them.

Stratagems

Operative Requisition Sanctioned  
This allows you to add an "Assassin" to your army and decide which one during deployment. The flexibility of this, 85 points and 1 Command Point to have a toolbox of whichever Assassin you think is best against your opponent.

Priority Threat Neutralised  
When your Assassin kills a Character, gain some Command Points. A solid way of getting them back, though it isn't currently clear how it interacts with Tactical Restraint.

Double Kill Vindicare
After the Assassin shoots, it can shoot again at a different target. Great for killing multiple support characters in a turn.

Turbo-Penetrator Round Vindicare  
If you hit a Monster or Vehicle, do some Mortal Wounds. Good for finishing off a Flyer, as the Vindicare will always hit it on 2s.

Acrobatic Callidus  
Allows you to Advance and Charge, as well as giving your opponent -1 to hit the Callidus. Makes it easier to reach targets, while slightly upping survivability.

Supreme Deception Callidus
Re-activate Reign of Confusion for another round. Great for really punishing the armies with high-impact early game Stratagems.

Stimm Overload Eversor  
Have your Eversor fight again. This can let them make a mess of more units in a  turn.

Hypermetabolism Eversor 
Give your Eversor a 4+ feel no pain. Critical for surviving Overwatch.

Soul Horror Culexus 
Make nearby units strike last. Useful when your opponent gets to the Culexus in melee.

Pariah's Gaze Culexus 
Ups the damage of the Culexus' ranged weapons to D3. Good against armies like Thousand Sons.



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Baron Administrator Tournaments - Standard Star Wars TCG Events

As I and a few local players love the game so much, I'm going to rededicate some time to running monthly Star Wars the Card Game events again. These will be held at Dark Star Gaming.

I will charge for the events to pay for prizes, time and tablespace. This will recoup the costs of the prize kits I've already bought.

As I have a complete collection, this will allow me to experiment with different deck ideas and as there isn't a competitive scene anymore I can try really outlandish decks.

The event will be 3 rounds, as per the FFG Tournament Regulations, with no top cut and run as per the Relaxed tier;

"Tournaments at this level are welcoming to all players, regardless of
experience level. Players are encouraged to help each other improve and
learn, so long as it does not significantly disrupt the game. The focus is on
creating a fun and friendly environment. The Relaxed Tier is used for Wave
Championship-level events."

Price will be £5, and prizes will be drawn from our available prize pool. All players will get a prize.



That's the event structure I'll be using. Let me know your thoughts, especially if you are planning on attending one.

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Baron Administrator Tournaments - Standard Keyforge Events

I'm going to run twice monthly Keyforge events. While the event style and Prize Kits are aimed at weekly league play, I feel the time is spent better over two tournaments a month, one Best Of One and one Best Of Three. I'll be running these at Dark Star Gaming.

I will charge for the events to pay for prizes, time and tablespace. This allows me to keep ordering prize kits for Keyforge from Asmodee themselves, through G.I. Games.

Initially, I'll be running Archon Format, Solo Play, to gauge the player base and to see what they want both format and variant-wise. As the game grows and interest is shown I can look at the other ways of playing and talking to Dark Star about stock for a Sealed Format event.

Archon Format, Solo Play, Best of One

In the Archon format, each player brings a deck to the tournament. This deck must be an official, unaltered KeyForge Archon Deck that the player either obtained ahead of time or bought at the event itself. 

The standard way to play for both Archon and Sealed formats is referred to as Solo play. In a Solo tournament, each player uses the same single deck (that they either brought themselves or received at the event, depending on the format) for the entirety of the tournament.

Typically, each round of a KeyForge tournament is a one-game match with a 35-minute time limit. 

The event will be 3-4 rounds dependant on attendance, as per the FFG Tournament Regulations, with no top cut and run as per the Relaxed tier;

"Tournaments at this level are welcoming to all players, regardless of experience level. Players are encouraged to help each other improve and learn, so long as it does not significantly disrupt the game. The focus is on creating a fun and friendly environment. The Relaxed Tier is used for Store Championship events."

Price will be £5, and prizes will be drawn from our available prize pool. All players will get a prize. 

 
  
Archon Format, Solo Play, Best of Three

In the Archon format, each player brings a deck to the tournament. This deck must be an official, unaltered KeyForge Archon Deck that the player either obtained ahead of time or bought at the event itself. 

The standard way to play for both Archon and Sealed formats is referred to as Solo play. In a Solo tournament, each player uses the same single deck (that they either brought themselves or received at the event, depending on the format) for the entirety of the tournament.

Typically, each round of a KeyForge tournament is a best-of-three match with a 90-minute time limit. 

The event will be 3-4 rounds dependant on attendance, as per the FFG Tournament Regulations, with no top cut and run as per the Relaxed tier;

"Tournaments at this level are welcoming to all players, regardless of experience level. Players are encouraged to help each other improve and learn, so long as it does not significantly disrupt the game. The focus is on creating a fun and friendly environment. The Relaxed Tier is used for Store Championship events." 

Price will be £5, and prizes will be drawn from our available prize pool. All players will get a prize.
  


That's the event structure I'll be using. Let me know your thoughts, especially if you are planning on attending one.

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Baron Administrator Tournaments - Standard X-Wing Events

I'm going to run monthly X-Wing events, aimed at local players but welcoming anyone. There are two good venues for this, Dark Star Gaming and Antics Model Shop.

I charge for the events to pay for prizes, time and, in the case of Dark Star, tablespace. This allows me to keep ordering prize kits for X-Wing from Asmodee themselves, through Antics and G.I. Games.

As we have two venues, I feel now is a good time to try running two different formats for events, alternating venue each month. Hyperspace and Extended. This keeps the events different, as I will often run them back to back on the same weekend, and allows people to practice for events like the System Open and Hyperspace Trials. It also provides an event for the players that have started their gaming experience with Second Edition, and feel overwhelmed by the selection of ships available in Extended.

Extended 

"Explore all the starfighter battles X-Wing has to offer. The Extended game mode encompasses every component for X-Wing Second Edition, including the ships only found in the Conversion Kits. Choose a faction, then select up to 200 points of pilots and upgrade to create your squad."

The event will be 3-4 rounds dependant on attendance, as per the FFG Tournament Regulations, with no top cut and run as per the Relaxed tier;

"Tournaments at this level are welcoming to all players, regardless of
experience level. Players are encouraged to help each other improve and
learn, so long as it does not significantly disrupt the game. The focus is on
creating a fun and friendly environment. The Relaxed Tier is used for Wave
Championship-level events."

Price will be £7, and prizes will be drawn from our available prize pool. All players will get a prize.

Hyperspace   

"The Second Edition game mode is an ideal introduction to players new to X-Wing. This game mode includes only those components found in the second edition Core Set and ship expansions. Choose a faction, then select up to 200 points of pilots and upgrades to create your squad."

The event will be 3-4 rounds dependant on attendance, as per the FFG Tournament Regulations, with no top cut and run as per the Relaxed tier;

"Tournaments at this level are welcoming to all players, regardless of
experience level. Players are encouraged to help each other improve and
learn, so long as it does not significantly disrupt the game. The focus is on
creating a fun and friendly environment. The Relaxed Tier is used for Wave
Championship-level events."

Price will be £7, and prizes will be drawn from our available prize pool. All players will get a prize.



That's the event structure I'll be using. Let me know your thoughts, especially if you are planning on attending one.

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2018 - 2019

It's that time of year when the Roman God Janus encourages us to look back at the year we've just had and to look forward to the year ahead. Following this tradition, I shall be discussing what I have achieved over the past 12 months, and what I intend on doing over the next 12. As I did this last year, I can also compare what my hopes were versus what I managed to do.

2018  

It's been an interesting 12 months.

I've been juggling trying to find the correct format for some events against working more events away and also some personal life stuff. This lead to me being a little hit and miss on things in 2018.

I only managed 50 posts this last year, falling 2 posts short of the 52 posts a year target. Failing by two posts isn't a huge deal, but I want to make sure it doesn't become a habit. Everything I said about the purpose of the Blog last year still holds true.

The Quick Hit series helped, not only to give me a regular source of content but to allow me to analyse all the Codexes as they released at a break-neck pace. Thanks to all the people that let me borrow books from them to facilitate this effort. I've had positive feedback on the series, so will be looking at something similar to replace it.

Local events have been a little bit wayward compared to my intended amount as well. Star Wars X-Wing has managed to be regular, but others have fallen to the wayside. This is far from ideal and something I seriously need to rectify. The Christmas Star Wars Day events was a success though, and so were the Store Championships.

I worked quite a bit with Asmodee and had a great time doing so. From judging at Nationals and Euros to demoing at Tabletop Gaming Live and Insomnia, it's been fun. The best bit is the colleagues, there are some wonderful people at Asmodee and on the Judge and Demo teams. I look forward to seeing more of them all.

I played more at my own events. This lead to those events being more enjoyable for me and let me get back into playing those games properly. I still have the option of building more fun decks/lists, but now when I don't I end up playing games against people on a similar level. The easy solution to get around claims of dodgy rulings on my own games is to not claim prizes. This leaves me only playing for pride while not actually denying people a prize. if it's a semi-important event and I do well, then the prize I would earn gets passed down. If it's a regular event, then any promos I would win simply stay in the prize pool.

I've attended a few X-Wing and Final Fantasy TCG events run by other people in 2018, but other than that mostly failed to play outside my own events. I have gotten in a tonne of casual 40K games as well as some Keyforge and a lot more MTG Commander than previous years though.

On the personal side, I have had 3 close relatives pass away at various points during 2018, an Aunt, a Grandmother and a Grandfather. Between funerals and my mental state around those events, it's been difficult to focus on doing the gaming side of things.

The lowest point was the Cornish Nationals. My Grandfather had recently been diagnosed with Terminal Cancer, and that weekend had been readmitted to the hospital. I debated not going to the event, as I wasn't in the best of moods, but it was for Charity so I did travel down with the rest of the Marauders hoping that the team's presence would help.

Round one, I got smashed largely down to zero evades present on my green dice. My red dice were hot, but I was only managing to do 1-2 damage a round versus losing a ship in return. A bit jarring, but whatever. I spent the rest of the round forcing myself back into a positive attitude, watching the games around me. Pairings for the next round were called and, due to a player having to drop out, I received the bye. 20 mins later, all my enthusiasm dropped away. With a lunch break due after the round, it was going to be 2 hours before I'd get another game of X-Wing in. I went outside for a break and an attempt at clearing my head, but it was too late.

I played the next round with the intention of dropping and did so. It wasn't worth forcing myself to continue to play a tournament when my heart just wasn't in it. I relaxed for the rest of the day and played in the Hanger Bay side event in the evening.

It's a sobering lesson; if you aren't in the correct headspace to play in a tournament, don't force yourself. Nothing is wrong with just hanging out and spending time with fellow players, and that in itself can prove to be a helpful escape. But the point to playing a game is to enjoy yourself, and sometimes outside issues will make that impossible. Don't play for the sake of playing, make sure you take care of yourself first.

2019  

So moving forward, it's time to put the bad stuff in the past and get back on the improvement train.

The blog will continue. I still feel like I have plenty to say and the written form is my preferred way of expressing myself. What I need to do is both promote the blog more and make an attempt to get more engagement from you, the readers. Currently, I'm basically putting my thoughts out on the internet, and I'm not getting much in the way of online response. It would be nice to see more comments from readers on the Blog, especially if they disagree with me. I want to see more alternate viewpoints on things, rather than come across as some sort of all-knowing oracle, even though I do give that impression some(most) times.

Local events need more work. I need to get better on the promotion side of events, as well as improving the visibility of my "brand" Baron Administrator Tournaments. Going into 2019, I will be focusing on running weekend events for the following games;

• Star Wars X-Wing
• Star Wars the Living Card Game
• Warhammer 40,000
• Keyforge

With these core four games, I can focus my efforts on getting them running monthly and promoting them across social media. I also want to use the Blog to help with this, putting up reports on the events. It's going to require a lot of discipline on my part, as well as a lot of time, but it should be worth doing.

More work with Asmodee is on the cards. I had to turn down a lot of Christmas Demo work due to the aforementioned family issues, but I will get back into doing it soon. I'm also on the Judge team for the UK X-Wing System Open in Milton Keynes. It's going to be a great opportunity to hang out with Judge friends and see some of the best players from across Europe play X-Wing. I can't wait.

UK X-Wing System Series Open - Milton Keynes 2019 

I'm going to continue to play in my own events, and try to get more gaming done in general. I enjoy gaming and have stuff for plenty of games that I found zero time to play last year, so I'm going to make a concerted effort to play more of them this year. Especially games like the Game of Thrones Card Game or VS2PCG where I keep buying new cards, but failing to find time/opponents.
I'll also try and reflect this in the blog, posting about a wider variety of games as I play them.

Finally, I want to try and get to more events run by other people. There is always something to learn from seeing what they are doing, as well as how the players are enjoying the event. It also lets me play against people I wouldn't normally see, in the case of events that require travel, or play games I don't normally have the time to play, in the case of Yugioh.

All in all, I'm taking a positive outlook on 2019. As an aside, it's kinda weird that I'm writing and publishing this on the 7th of January, exactly one year after the last one. Here's hoping I can manage the same thing next year.


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