Now is the Winter of our Discontent!
As winter starts to grip and the weather closes in on Troll Manor, forcing all but the hardiest of the Manors denizens into shelter, it is the beginning of the time to look forwards to the new season of the Kings of War Masters. As my Reader is hopefully aware the Masters system in the UK is a rankings table run by Volunteers that collates information from Tournaments and uses the scores of individual players from events that meet the criteria to participate to publish a list of all the Ranked players in order from first to last. [Link to Kowmasters] The Top 16 (or about 5%) are invited to a once a year Tournament to battle it out to become the UK’s Master Kings of War player for a year.
Anyway the Ranking season currently runs from 1st January to 31st December ( I still want to run a Tournament on New Years eve just to upset some smug BFT who thinks their Masters invite is assured only to be gazumped at the eleventh Hour, but that’s just my sense of humour) and Mantic release the seasons list and rules updates around the beginning of November, This results in an increase in activity while players try to fine tune their armies, paint any new units that may have been released and generally try to get ready for the new season. The current problem is that, although the new rules etc are available in November, Tournaments are still being run under the current set of updates until the end of December so there is an overlap of seven weeks or so where players are attempting to adapt to the new updates whilst trying to win Tournaments under the old regime. Currently this will be the position BeerTroll finds itself in as there are still three Tournaments to be attended before the end of the season and he is easily confused.
Needless to say this is a time of frenzied Hobby activity and here at Troll Manor is no exception. There is the new Northern Alliance/Free Dwarf army being built and tested for the universal troll usage, also there is a time of regeneration for older armies to be used again. One of the major changes has been the official “Frowning upon” of allies in competitive play in the current rulebook. As the Trolls have habitually used allies to both start new armies, try out new tactics before committing and as a way of adding variety to our games, this is a hefty blow to the general enjoyment of Kings of War at the Manor and was, in fact, the cause of a lot of discussion about the continued involvement in Tournaments of the Trolls. But Trolls are slow to adapt and gradually this issue may be overcome. The Trolls were not fazed by the other issue of the removal of the Withdrawal rule (it is listed as optional but the all powerful “Southern faction” in the UK scene means that because they dislike it, it will go) and the Trolls have not really missed this at all.
So with the prospect of a new, albeit reduced Tournament season approaching (reduced due to a combination of lack of TO’s North of the Midlands and a reduced Travel budget for the Trolls) Troll and Trollette are looking at alternatives to the (almost) Monthly events they were taking part in.
There will still be the Chez Troll Dojo for the enjoyment of linking to local Kings of War players and the new Troll Manor has expanded facilities for such and there will be increased activity in the research and Development wing of Troll Manor to bring new and innovative Tournament scenarios and themes to continue the success of events such as the Easter Beaster, Winter Wonderland, Krampus Karnage and The Swords of Summer as well as the Trolls involvement in the exceptional Clash of Kings event. All this will result in increased production and a resultant increase in Bloggery and maybe even Vloggery as an old Troll learns new tricks (lots and lots of Youtube tutorials are being watched in order to upskill our biggest Troll) As well as documenting the progress of the Trolls army builds( both for BeerTroll and Trollette) there will be a Tournament report for each event we attend. The reason for this will be twofold, as entertainment for You , our Reader and as a memory aid and post battle debrief for the Trolls to enable them to work out what works and what doesn’t work for us, which may result in more development and production and in turn more Bloggery, it’s a vicious circle but Trolls are the best creatures to do this IMHO.
So keep an eye out for some more Blog posts documenting the trials and tribulations of the Trolls during this turbulent period and maybe you can share in some of the successes of Troll Manor. Hopefully there are plenty of things that will keep the Trolls going and most of them should be Blogworthy.
Anyway time for a quick Wart inspection and a glass or two of Swamp water ! Till next time !
Comments