2015 New Zealand Masters Results

2015 New Zealand Masters

2015 New Zealand Masters Results
with Rob Shirley

The New Zealand Masters Tournament was hosted by Isaac Henderson, formerly President of the Hamilton (NZ) Immortals, at the usual Immortals Tournament Venue of Fraser High School on 5 and 6 December.

 

Left: Tournament organiser Isaac Henderson.

This year, the Flames of War competition was Mid War and 1600 points. Eleven players participated in Flames Of War, with Isaac, even though he deliberately refrained from playing in enough events to preclude him once again qualifying for the event, playing the bye. He was a busy chap with being the overall organiser, umpiring/organising Flames and a tournament for another game system during the event and playing the bye in Flames. And of course, this was all happening through the assessment period in his final year of his academic qualification. Thanks. mate – I personally found fitting it all in when I had an “organiser-turn” two years ago a particularly busy time, and I didn’t have the overlay of assessments to juggle as well.

A point of difference here in NZ, our Masters is organised entirely by individuals and the three genres of Flames Of War, 40K and Fantasy (8th edition in this case) are held simultaneously and in the same venue. It is entirely self-funding. Players came from throughout the country, with the spread of home locations being from Whangarei north of Auckland, through to Christchurch in the South Island.

It began in Wellington back in 2008 with just 40K and Fantasy with Flames joining the event in 2009 – Flames thus having been played in Wellington thrice, Hamilton twice, and Auckland once.

In 2016 it is moving to the South Island, and Tim Adams (40K player) in Christchurch will be the organiser. He is planning it for the first weekend in December, being the 3rd and 4th, (this is the usual timing), as our Masters year ends on 31 October.

2015 New Zealand Masters
Right: Rob Torrance and Glen Horsman prepare to face off.
2015 New Zealand Masters

Our invitations are based on a player website called “Fields of Blood”; your best three events count, weighted for the size of the event and five rounds being the minimum number of rounds to have the event count as a full event (3 rounds being a 60% weighted event).  In all three genre, the previous year’s winner is an automatic invitation and then the next 19, or until the field of 12 is full.

In Flames there has been an attempt to get South Islanders to the event through a priority on two places ear-marked for them if they are anywhere in the x top 20. How this works in 2016 is still to be figured out.

This year none of the fields made the full 12 players. The largest concentrations of players in the Top 20 in each genre were Christchurch (40K), Auckland (Fantasy), Hamilton and Auckland (Flames Of War).

Left: Kevin King.

I played a six-platoon/company Strelkovy horde consisting of Fearless Conscript Red Army, HQ tooled up, a big Strelk, little Strelk, AT Coy (6 x 45’s),  2 x Tank Destruction Coys (4 x 57’s + ATR), 6 x 82mm Mortars and Limited Sturmi’s.

When the time was stated at 2.15 per round and 1500 points I thought it would be time tight and then when the points were modified to 1600 I shrugged my shoulders and thought I’d go for it. Even allowing for some practice games that I played, that decision came to haunt me at this event. Time was a decisive factor in both of the Meeting Engagements and one of the Mobile battles I played. We played a four on Saturday and Two on Sunday split of matches, so as to give the South Islanders time to drive back up to Auckland to get a flight home.  The costs of getting in and out of provincial airports are still considerably higher than the main-trunk routes.

2015 New Zealand Masters
Right: Andrew Karl.

My matches were against:

My club mate Kevin King in Surrounded.  Kevin and I had played the final of Rallypoint a previously, and his Trained German Infantry versus my Soviet Strelk was a maximum win for me when I lost the attacking roll in Pincer. This time he lost the attacking roll in Surrounded for a complete reversal of the result.  We got fewer than six turns played.

Next up was Andrew Karl from Whanganui, with his US Armoured Rifles in a Fee for All.  Turn one I sniped his Stuart Platoon with all of my AT, they ran, and in turn two the blob started across the table.  One more turn and it would have been Company break or objective held for me and time was up, for a 3-2 result.

The third match of Saturday was Hold the Line with me defending against my club mate Glen Horsman.  Glen was using an army he had designed and I had loaned him for the event.  He was playing an Confident Veteran up-armoured Mark III force with Armoured Recce and Marder I’s for the heavies(and range).  In he stormed, and with twelve volleyfire shots from the ZIS-2’s I bailed three tanks.  The sappers held the line, and after he had munched the rest of the Tank Destruction Platoon, I revealed the second TD Pl in the same place.  This time the Mark III’s disappeared and once the advancing blob killed the Recce Mark II’s the Company breaking gave a 6-2 result.

The last match of the day was against Lee Reygate from Auckland.  I don’t play in Auckland a lot, and I don’t think Lee has ever ventured out of Auckland for a tournament.  I got to attack him in a Hasty Attack Mobile Battle.  Hmm, Fearless Veteran Finns defending against Soviets (remember the Hatred Rule).  Again time was the factor, the first reserves (naturally the Blob) arrived in Turn three and off across the table it went, and the objective was ready to fall when time was up.  This one was a 2-6.
Below: Lee Reygate.
2015 New Zealand Masters

Most of the guys went off to the usual watering hole of the “Good George” for dinner and drinks, I got to go home and spend three hours looking after the cats.  Yes, 28 of the blighters.  My wife (and I) had been up at 0400, for her flight to Melbourne to judge at a Cat Show, and we have three litters of kittens to deal with.  By the time Russell (Flames from Wellington) and Adam(40K from Whangarei) got home I was well off in the land-of-nod.

Sunday, and after only an hour of pussy-cat duty, it was off to the venue.

First up was Dust Up, a Meeting engagement against Pat Gribble from Auckland.  Like Lee, I don’t think that Pat had ever played outside of Auckland.  A high-light for me, he was my second person in the event that I had never played before.  Pat had Kiwi Infantry and my blob was the first reserve on my side of the table, unfortunately it was on Turn Six.  The match timed out with me on the objective and Pat having nothing mobile within 10” to contest it. A 3-1.

2015 New Zealand Masters
Right: Pat Gribble. 
The last round was with my third club-mate of the event.  I had expected to play at least three.  And this was against the only other Rob (Torrance) in the field.  Rob Sadler (from Auckland) had turned down his invitation to attend. I defended in Cauldron against Rob T’s seven KV-85’s.  We played 17 turns in 2 hours and the game ended with my blob and reserves having advanced in a sweeping (at 6” a turn) move to have his final platoon pushed off the short back table edge after he had been thrown back from his assault on an objective. A 6-2. 

In 2014 I turned down my invitation to Masters in Wellington, thus ruining my 100% invitation record, but I am planning to get down to Masters this coming year.  It will probably be at the cost of going to Conquest in early November.  My results have varied from dead-last to 5th in the five that I have played.

Planning for my 2016 is well underway. One event per month pans out as my next possible tournament match being against any of the Masters crew is Sofia at CanCon in January (I think she has also entered EW) and then the two events in one weekend in New Plymouth in late February (Five matches of 750 points EW on the Saturday and 750 LW on the Sunday), as lots of us Immortals travel to that event, and Andrew from Whanganui pops up for at least one of the days. Mike and Sofia have made the long haul on occasion as well.

Dunedin's first-ever NatCon is in March. Eight games in three days at Easter sounds good to me.

And then my own event in Hamilton fills the April slot. May could be a blank, but the first weekend of June is NICon (here in Hamilton for the first time in a few years), with the themed Normandy Morganfest planning and commitments to supply armies well under way.

It looks like another good year ahead.

~ Rob Shirley.

 

 

 

 

2015 New Zealand Masters
Right: Tournament winner Mike Haycock.
2015 New Zealand Masters

Above: Paul Mounsey's Soviet Horde.


Last Updated On Wednesday, December 9, 2015 by James at Battlefront