 Hello everybody, if it's Wednesday, it's Warhammer and that must mean it's time for another episode of Warhammer Weekly Joining me as always Is my one and only and best and favorite? Co-host Tyler and when I say that same thing next week about a different person. I don't know what you're talking about So Tyler, how you doing buddy? Good man. Good to be here excited for this As am I I'm excited to learn today. That's my that's what I'm gonna do Joining us first time on the show. I'm happy to have him somebody who I've Respected from afar for quite a while and had various and sundry conversations with but never had the pleasure to have on the show Tom, what's up, sir? How you doing? Hey, man. Yeah, I'm doing good. You can't say I'm your favorite Tom because You're gonna get in trouble, but oh don't worry. That's a low bar to cross. That's not No, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on Absolutely, it's very good to have you we're at it We're at an EU friendly time because we are gonna be discussing what is in my mind a very EU thing which is we're gonna discuss teams play and AOS worlds and We are going to yeah, you're very funny here We are going to have a discussion about why this isn't just some weird European play style that the rest of us Should also care about this is what we're gonna get into Okay But of course first as always the news Tyler what have we got? Yeah, rumor engine look I was getting a I'dn't a vibe from this one. I mean it could be a number of things I Nurgle I hear your engines like this What is this? What some kind of slug snail or a super zoom in on like a very little part of a Thing I don't know. I don't know. This is nothing. This is something. This is nothing Tom would you like to take a swing anywhere at what the heck this stupid little thing is? Yeah, could it be a front of a boat? Maybe like Could be the front of a boat the underside of a boat the underside front hole absolutely and This is nothing yeah, okay, cool great You might be right that it's like the underside of the front of a floaty thing as well because that's all very one color Like it's not a lot of highlighting or shading or anything down there Which so which would make sense if it was like sort of a hidden portion of it. Who knows? All right, but let's keep going because we got bigger news this week. We got bigger fish to fry. Oh My goodness there it is the announcement the book we all knew was coming, but we're excited to see and General's handbook pitch battles 2023 2024 confirmed to be a full Year, let's talk about that just a little piece of news first Are we all excited that we're back to year-long generals handbooks Tyler? What do you think? Yeah? Yeah, definitely. Okay, Tom. Where you living with this one? Same same. I think maybe the last six months weren't that great of a representation of a six-month GHB With all the new books coming as well. I think it's much more player-friendly to have 12 months Yep, yeah I mean really the only downside to a to a year-long season is if you get sort of a stinker Of a season you're stuck in there for 12 months Now that being said I am hopeful based on what we've seen so far that this will not be a bad Z I am because they did some other elements in there but Boy, oh boy. Did it have Did it also basically told us we're gonna have a wizard anti-wizard focus And we we got some little taste of that of our Antedilorian Locuses or whatever they're called whatever the they had that had in the thing. I didn't grab that picture Yeah, I mean overall Tom, are you excited for wizard season? Do you think this is gonna be gonna be a fun time? Yeah, it will be a magical season probably and I also I always wonder where they get like the keyword names from sure That's like they it seems like they have like this big beating meeting And then they almost like what's like one of the hardest words to pronounce sure still sounds mysterious I think yeah, but I think it's gonna be great 12 months season I hope and if it's magic focused my corn army might be very happy or they might not be Indeed Tyler turn the game down on your mic just a little bit right in front of you There you go. I'll let you mess with that. You were a little louder than everybody else the audience said Now talk Am I still louder than everybody else? You're a little bit louder, but it's better turn it out a little more Give me give me another crank there About now. Yeah, there we go. Now you're back. I don't know if I've ever been accused of being too loud I know right? That's that's right. No, I think yeah, I think you're well. I think you're good now You sound you sounded in line to me. All right Yeah, so I mean obviously more details to come soon on this and we'll cover it in detail as soon as it It happens, but it wasn't the only announcement in the article was it there Tyler. No, no Yeah, the Harbinger's we're getting for them each coming with their own little box set Don bringers so Fireslayers Nurgle bless you to courts and gets yeah, it's look pretty cool Absolutely, and these are like little regiments of renown that can be taken in their grand alliance even if they break the The normal alliance restrictions a more sort of Controlled way I suppose to do allies, right? And allow people to play around with mixing in some other forces So that's cool because they'll have they have their own distinct sort of rules and points and balance and everything there, right? So yeah, that's cool. I mean I hate to say it But that Nurgle dude Is just next level man that guy Yeah, he's sort of a knockoff homage to death dealer Yeah, but Holy Moses that guy's incredible that figure So yeah, good stuff What did you think about the flame or the fireslayer guy? It was kind of Something was off in his face. I felt That would have required me to look at the fireslayer box for more than like five seconds or even the original fireslayer hero Which I did not do because I looked and went oh fireslayers skip my brain Just immediately shuffles that information into the this doesn't matter. You don't care pile As opposed to this is something you need to be interested in The other three boxes fantastic. I was like, yes, these look really good. I'm excited. I like flesh eaters Nurgle looks cool. Gits are fun fireslayers out of here I understand they're the choice because of the most mercenary order faction, right? So like they they make perfect logical sense to be sort of the regiment of renown mercenary force It's just There's my opinion Yeah, there you go. All right, did we have anything else I think that was all the news. Yeah, I think that's it Okay, I'll shout out this last piece of news which is don't forget Last week uncle Adam and I's new game majestic 13 launched it's all about Defending the earth from an alien invasion a secret team of covert operatives that you're leading that's a Part of one of 13 factions trying to defend Us us meager earthlings from aliens and by the way all the viral marketing that's been going around recently about UFOs and all of this stuff I couldn't have couldn't have timed the release of our game better So I'm thrilled to see it So check that out all the links for the new game are down there And while you're messing around and clicking on things to expand a description and pick up the new book and the new cards They go with it and everything like that. Why don't you also hit that like and subscribe button, you know all those fun things hit buttons It's real fun. Okay, cool Let's talk about some pick of the week Tom what would you like to share with everybody Well, I didn't really have a pick of the week per se, but I just wanted to maybe give a little shout out to the Stuff that the unidentified wargamer puts out Sam Not sure if you've heard him yet, but he's not that big yet, but he interviews like people from the hobby You know talks about how they got into the hobby and you know stuff that they do and some some community members I've been on there in the past as well, and he's also in He also interviewed the Danish captain the week before Yeah, it's really interesting content. So, you know, I always like it when When people help the community by making cool content. So I thought I'd give a little shout out back Very nice. Dig it. I will link that down below Alright Tyler, what do you got? Yeah, just two quick ones, of course. So the unisore gamer Rob He's got some videos that will be coming online here shortly with some of his stream games Those will be making the way to YouTube so look for those I don't know if they've got online yet, but they'll be coming if not and then always strike last I saw they put out a Podcast with a few folks who attended Worlds team Ireland's Mike or Mick Wendell and then two folks from Team USA Mike Vajnos and Joannos sing so I just started that conversation just came out, but it's it's great so far Yeah, just talking about their experience and perspectives having attended the events. So yeah That's about it Fantastic love it. I got two shout outs as well. So first off to I want to shout out Rob the honest wargamer and the T sports network and all the coverage of Worlds that they did It was it was I didn't get a chance to watch any of it because of the ridiculous weekend that was happening But there's obviously a lot of Amazing game coverage and stuff like that going there So if you want to see some more hammer played in an absolute top notch level, there you go right there It's got it got it on demand for you And then of course also if you're curious to learn more about majestic 13 I also linked uncle Adam's very cool video below of what is it? It's just a nice little three four minute overview of what the game is so you can check it out You can also go watch our video from last week where we answered questions and deep dived on the game Okay All right, so let's see Tyler they said you there say it some people are saying you're still a little too loud I know knock your gang down a little more there. Just keep keep knocking yourself down a little bit It's all the way down. Okay. Well, you should be fine. I mean like you don't sound any more loud to me So I don't have any way to control your sound individually push it back from you a little bit Yeah There you go. We'll do this the old-fashioned way move the mic farther away from you Yes, we're all high-tech solutions. That's what we're doing. We'll get it We'll get it balanced out It's funny too because I did a recording beforehand and everybody sounded normal But what I record in here is not always the same as what our viewers here obviously after it goes through all the magic pipes All right, uh, let's talk about a little hobby time So Tom obviously you've been pretty busy But have you had a chance have you did you did you walk away? Juiced ready. Did you want to do some hobby like have you have you worked on anything since you're you're extremely busy week weekend Days, whatever we want to say there Yeah, I I started a new army. I think about a month ago. I started playing corn So I bought an army secondhand and I thought, you know, what I'll just paint this in the next couple like two three months But obviously with the world's coming up like no hobby was done, but now I have an event in five weeks Okay, I've started to If I could show it but started to paint my my corn, but they're green so before before everyone tries to Shout at me in chat. So I'm really quickly painting up my corn. Luckily. It's mostly demons. Not that not that much trim To hopefully be ready for for the two-day or in a couple weeks. Nice. Nice. Love it So green corn, first of all, I support clearly pop and Nurgle got involved there somehow But I've always been a fan of people who do their their Demonic color schemes in unusual ways. It's not not everybody in corn has to be red. Come on now. Okay, like it's it's fine But also it's glad to hear you got the clock That's always that's always a good motivating factor when you're on the clock as it's ticking away and counting down. Yes, absolutely All right, Tyler. What about you brother? What you been working on? Yeah, so been doing quite a bit but not painting related working on vault wars working on work at a 2.0 Actually, so that's in the playtesting stages at the moment Yeah, work's been busy. So have haven't done a whole lot I'm still gonna do some custom at some point got to see what this new reality looks like with the GHB Sure, I'm gonna argue that towing and or making a new set of battle plans Does count as hobby? That's not like that's not like normal Tom's thing where she's like, oh, I painted a room. Shut up That's not anything. We all paint rooms Tom. Okay Well, like actually that's that's in the hobby. You're there designing battle plans is absolutely That that counts as hobby time a hundred percent. I think I think we've cracked a remake of relocation orb Oh, the spiritual successor. Yeah What everybody's been asking for it's been absolutely. Yeah clearly No, it's it's it's interesting. So anyway, yeah, we'll see what the timeline looks like for it Obviously with the new GHB coming out, you know, might be a little while, but yeah, it's been fun Fantastic, by the way, Mark Kuhn. Yes, that's that's actually exactly the idea of how they've how they've designed it. So a hundred percent My hobby time was actually finishing up this girl right here. She's all done and I'm not gonna lie I got back from my week of like week plus of travel all over the world I actually just sat at my desk for most of the day I couldn't bring myself to actually work on anything serious and I just assembled things Because it's very cathartic to just sit there at the desk and like scrape and glue and stuff like that Like that was it's a very relaxing sort of thing But I have finished up this girl. So here she is. This is Morgana Le Fay from mine works miniatures. So she's all done I'm really happy with how she came out. I think she looks super cool There you go. Everybody can sort of see that there and That was nice. And now I'm actually Don't tell anyone but I may or may not have 500 points of towel Sitting Ready to be painted. Okay, like when you have every AOS army, it's time to expand I don't have everything that I have everyone I care to have So, you know, I was like it's been some some fun giant robots giant robots rule. I like robots I like robots. Yeah, there you go. You're mispronouncing it. Yes robots are are awesome. So Yeah, space space for yeah space robots So, yeah, I mean like I getting together a little stuff played a little game of 40k this weekend as well. So, yeah, it's fun 10th edition Interesting things and I wanted to get a little bit of experience with it more than anything because we're gonna do the show in the future about What should AOS learn like what should AOS 4.0 learn from 40k 10, right? And so I got I got to get in got to get in there got to get in the guts of it experience it test it You know get in there I've been talking for a while about getting that tabletop tactics crew on maybe we get Lawrence, Katie, some of those folks come on sounds like a fun time It's they play AOS too, right on tabletop tactics. So yeah more from a casual standpoint, but it's yeah, it's great content. I Think that sounds like a great idea. All right, so with that Let's let's pivot over here to our main topic. Let's talk about AOS worlds and teams games in general Because this is gonna be a little exploration of both I think I'm I'm I'm a complete newbie here. I'm gonna be honest like I'm aware of this I know the shape of it of what's going on like I can see the sort of outer edge of it But it's this sort of biz and team System and people and teams and coaches and pairings and matches and and and and I don't understand any of it Because I have long Submitted that this could only be a European play style Okay, like I understand there's a team America and Canada and all that but like This feels so much to me like the great leaders of Europe like pre-World War one getting together all the countries coming together and like You know making their little alliances and moving the pieces around the board, right? Meanwhile, I'm over here as an American with my 92 out of a hundred individualism score And I'm like be part of a team. I don't want to be part of a team. I'm me I'm playing for myself and no one else, right? And so I thought this would be a good chance for us to see this really cool way to play a Warhammer And I'll learn about it and stuff like that because it's obviously a lot of people around the world who do play in this joke aside who like this and it just seems like everybody's having a Tremendously fun time both at worlds and with teams play and team events in general. So that's the sort of setup and So we're just gonna jump right in this is gonna be me asking questions and Tom talking a lot I was letting him rest his voice a little bit here because Here's the here's the final standings team Denmark Bringing it home at 608 points in first place. There you go. You can see see if your country's on the on the top 10 But what is a OS world's Tom to like go? What is this thing? Yeah, a OS worlds is a eight-person team format where well Basically any country from around the world could participate in I won't go into much detail here But every every country has its captain and the captain can select the team of a total players and perhaps a coach Who's most of the time non-playing? And they can come over to Whatever country worlds will be in because every year there's a bit to see who was able to host worlds multiple organizations can try to bid and The winner the captain's can vote on it and the winner gets the host worlds and everyone will travel there to play this eight-man team format age of sigmar obviously 2000 points still but Yeah, all eight players bring a list and you cannot duplicate washcrolls between those lists And it just brings a different dynamic compared to singles warhammer obviously because first of all teams warhammer in most of the time is points first So the team with the most points will win the event and not necessarily the team who is undefeated this year Coincidentally, it was both they were both undefeated and had the most points but that doesn't have to be and The aim for teams is not really to well, of course it is to win individual games But the aim for teams mostly to grab as many points every matchup as you can So you will approach this building a little differently because there's a pairing process against another team So you can try to manipulate the pairings in such a way that your I don't know counter army will try to find their Meta army or of course the other team is going to try very hard to avoid having that pairing happen so I think that's like basically Kind of short but not that short version of what worlds is That's I love it. And by the way, I should state this is only the top 10 teams There were more than these 10 teams who participated because I was exactly 24 teams total So just so everybody knows it's just this is there there were there were many nations represented here But I just grabbed the screenshot in the top 10 because that That Nordic model still undefeated and You just had oh Nordic that Nordic model. You just yeah Absolutely, of course. Yes, absolutely all right, so exactly you said it's it's this big teams vent just happened recently obviously and Congratulations to team Denmark and everybody else who participated The question is though To understand worlds. I think we've got to understand team events in general. Okay, so you mentioned it There's a captain there might be a coach. There's all these players, right? So I got it just a series of questions here that I'm gonna ask and I honestly don't know most of the answers to these questions Because I've never played eight. I've never played a team's game. I've taken the Groucho Marks opinion I wouldn't be part of any team that would have me It would only it would only be a testament to the low quality of that team if they tried to recruit or have me on it So Let's just start here. How are the teams selected? So like how does that all go down? Yeah, so it varies a little bit per country because every community What happens in general? Let's let's let me explain a little bit. What happens in general is that some person besides Let's say I am from Argentina. There's no team yet from Argentina So I approach the world's council and I say hey, I want to rep Argentina I want to be their captain and I'm going to select a team Well, that means you're going to be assigned as the Argentinian captain, but we do expect you to actually Approach your community and not just bring you know, you're seven best pals I mean you could probably do that maybe the first year because in the end It might be very tough to find seven people who haven't even heard about worlds or never thought about going and convince them Like take take a trip with you. Maybe they've never met you before so The captain can select his own team and what happens in most countries They also write a charter and in that charter will explain what happens how the team is selected how a captain is selected And all these these little intricate things if I look at the Dutch charter, for example I'm part of the voting commission in the Netherlands. So after now after worlds They can vote for who they want to be captain and I'm in the commission to oversee The votes make sure everything works fair and for us for example, they look at a combination of Who did well in our community in the events, but also They look at who are team players because you can bring the eight best players, but they might not make a good team So the way the teams are selected basically is I think captain will look at their community and look at You know, what players what armies do I want to bring? What does the meta look like? What players can really play that army well or those armies well and who can who can perform in in a team format and not just me You can't have 11 strikers on your football field. You know, you need to have roles So it will vary per country, but I think the way I just described is I think how most of the countries do it So you can there's probably some committee or captain you can approach if you want to play for your country And then he's going to look at your results, you know, look at Event you've been to maybe you will if you're at an event and he's too He might you know peak peak to your game at your games see how you're doing etc. And then after Six seven months about four months before world starts. They will probably select the final team And start training and writing lists, etc By the way, I do I do appreciate that in trying to explain this to me and American You decided that the perfect analogy would be to go to Would be to go Yes, exactly like Yet another thing I know nothing about and care nothing about but I do get the reference There we go. Okay. Oh, okay. Now I got it. Okay. Cool. Thank you yeah, so No, that makes sense and Like when you've got your this this team and it's selected and they also change year to year right like every year the Captain might like that person might stay captain or the captain might change pass it along and then they're gonna build a new team year to year Right, so it's not it's not as though like once you're in you're just in forever and ever and ever or something like that No, I well there maybe of course, I don't know all the captains that well So there might be situations where a captain just tells the community, you know, if you guys I'm just bringing seven buddies I don't know sure generally You will see a shift you can see the same core of players most of the time But that makes sense because they're probably the core of best players in their country But overall you will see people shift in and out captains change and of course a worse worlds the version We're playing now is only three years old So we haven't seen that many Changes happen, of course, but it does for example. I believe the US team USA team switched captains two years in a row now But you will still see the old captain, you know be involved in the team. Maybe you play with it except for this time because Bill Suza, I believe retired from the USA team this time so That you know my statements not true for for the USA, but generally the captain stays involved Most of the times gotcha. Yeah, I saw Bill Suza step down retired and Sean the stepping up to take his place is a big big shoes to fill for sure, but that's that's very cool All right, you mentioned this other role the coach Okay, so this is not a player So what is the what's the coach doing? How do you how do you how do you get a coach? What's the coach doing? Yeah, so I I have a theory where I think the coach for some teams is probably more important than the captain because as soon as the tournament starts because the captain selects the team and makes some pivotal decisions in When when the event approaches, but as soon as the game starts The captain will be focused on his game and should be focused on this game And so if you have a separate coach then that coach can walk around the tables. He can look at the game states He cannot intervene Except when the player asks for a timeout which they can He cannot intervene in the game state, but he can relay information about game states of other tables So let's say you are the captain of your team I would maybe walk up to you and just say hey just so you know we won game one and two for example Those things they can relate to the team members. So information about results and other games He can maybe say hey It's gonna be very close. So please don't take you know if the 12-8 loss is better than trying for the 20-0 and then losing So those little things they can relay And of course, they are very involved in the pairing in many of the cases The coach will make a big pairing matrix for all the teams and when they sit down to do a team pairing at the start of the round they will use the information he and the players gather to devise a pairing strategy and Try to execute that strategy. So and that's where you can win or lose rounds because if you pair badly You can have the best players in the world, but if they're all facing their rights like counter. Yeah, there are killies heel. Yeah Then you're toast anyway. So I think once the event starts to coach is is very very important Nice. Okay. Good. Good. So sure. It's it and it's sort of I can I can see it as being advantageous to have somebody who's Who is How do I say this like who can step back? Right effectively and and sort of take a broader view of the whole team and what's going on and everything like that because When you're in the middle of the game, it's not like you have that even if you walk away and go, okay How did everybody else do you just to you can't split your brain like that, right? I would imagine it's it's it's helpful to have somebody who's kind of just set aside from this and can start thinking more But the meta level of where the team's at and what needs to be happening and so on, okay This isn't my next question in order But it's my next question that comes out of what you just said Which is you mentioned pairing and I think obviously this is something that is gonna be for those only familiar with maybe like Traditional singles tournaments, right? This is probably gonna be one of the more foreign elements because obviously you go to a singles event it's just you know, your pairing is whatever the Software spits out based on some kind of score of your win-loss record, right? Traditional sort of Swiss pairing or something like that whatever, right, but this is very different. So Tell me about first. How do you decide or like how's it get decided what teams are meeting against each other? And then once that's been decided, how are the teams determining the match-ups therein for all the players? Right. So the first we use Swiss pairings for the teams, but the first round is determined, of course randomly and For this year we This year I was not only for people who don't know me I'm normally the head ref for worlds, but I was also the winning bit of last year So this year I was both the tournament organizer and the head ref for worlds Which meant I could also for example select my own streaming partner and we picked Rob He put network and I asked him. Hey, do you want to do the round one pairing? Oh nice and and you know be creative do whatever you want to do But just make sure it's it's random obviously right and then he started he decided to make it a dice game So that's how round one ended up being Being paired and then from there on it's just based on points. So let's say Two teams get maximum points. There's a big up big chance that they will play each other in the next round and so forth And we play six rounds in total. So and then once you're paired as a team Going to your second question once you get paired into another team You start this little mini game called the pairing where it's an attacker defender system And I'm going to try to explain it in an easy way, but both teams can put down one army The battle plans are known beforehand. Okay, so they already know, okay We're playing for they're playing for battle runs each battle plans each round It's what the captain's voted for personally I think it's insane, but that's what I wanted and it doesn't make my life harder or easier. So fine So not everybody's playing the same battle plan each round, right? Like it's yeah, it's split up Yeah, so out of eight tables you have four so two two two two battle plans. Yeah, the first two You already know the battle plan. It's it will be better plan a let's say sure both teams can put down one army already And they are guaranteed to play on that battle plan and then both teams also can put down two attackers And they're going to one of those attackers are going to face the army the other put down So the other team will grab two attackers pick which one they want their army to face and give the other card back Okay, and you play this mini game. It goes back and forth There are a couple of other things they can for example pick the terrain Set up we have different terrain maps so they can pick which one they want to play at it's one as an alpha Which is a more open terrain map and one as a beta. It's more closed So depending on if you maybe have an alpha shooting army, you might want to have this an open field Yep, they play this mini game a couple times seven times eight times Well seven times technically because then you only have one card left both both teams So they will automatically face each other and that's how the pairing is determined So then you know who you're what army you're going to face what battle plan and what terrain? Layout you're going to be reusing. Okay. I Want to get in so this is so so fascinating as a way because you're doing this sort of blind man's bluff thing, right? But yeah, also which two armies you're choosing out of your total stable each time to put up is very relevant Right because it's not as though it's all against all you're you're picking two and you're saying, okay Let's put these two forward and one of these is going to go here and so on So like I imagine that there's a lot of sort of tactics and thought and ways ways different teams and different people think about this This blind man's bluff structure, right? That's skill. Okay, so yeah, break some of that down for me Like what are some of the the what are some of the fun? Things you saw or like advice, you know, I'm saying like what are some of the fun Secrets to how people go about this or whatever Yeah, well what what you see what happened mostly or whether the big differences happen is let's say you're playing Your opponent has put down luminous the the traditional heel on build They think it's a good defender on a certain battle plan and your arm your team brought for example beast of chaos and Corn which are both great matchups into Luminous, but you also have a couple armies who are not that great into Luminous You can do three things you can either put two great matchups down. So whatever they pick They're probably gonna lose that matchup But for the opponent, they already know, okay, if I pick beast of chaos now my Luminous might lose but my Carrot on overlords player does not have a bad matchup anymore, right? For example, yeah, what you can also do is put two bad matchups down while so you're saying to your place I'm sorry, you're gonna lose but we'll get a better matchup. Yeah Panks. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It'd be or you can you know put a good and a bad one down and You know try to say okay, you guys can pick you can pick the good match up here But we'll get a better matchup there. So you kind of nullify their Pick and that's that's that's the minigame you play and in my opinion, that's I would say 50% of your round Of the chance of you winning that round Maybe even more is in that minigame because as I said before if your pairing goes sideways You're probably gonna lose the round, right? Because we're talking about people who are this like all these players who are showing up here are all extremely high-skilled players Right. These are these are like really at the sort of tippy top of the sort of skill pinnacle So these kinds of army matchups way way more heavily than they would you know Anywhere else in the world effectively, right? If you're just at your your local game store or you go to some random tournament and you're paired into somebody you know Sort of randomly in those kinds of situations the fact that you've got a bad matchup might not mean anything at all You know, I mean if you're if you're a decently skilled player and the your opponent is a low-skilled player That's gonna matter way more Than the fact that you know this army into that army is kind of like 60 40 to start or something, right? Or whatever Whereas here because you know everybody's gonna be operating at the highest level of Competency those matchups actually weigh super heavily on on what the outcome is, right? Yes, definitely and it makes for a different game because if you already if you know you're put into a matchup That you are probably going to lose the game You're not going to play and try to win the game You're probably going to convey with your coach and he's gonna be like look We know you're going to lose But if you could make it let's say a 14-6 loss in the differential system that will be great And then you can calculate and think okay So my whole game plan is he cannot be four points Ahead of me, right? So maybe instead of trying to kill some things that would maybe you know in a double-turn Possibly get you to win you're gonna play in the way that whatever happens He will beat you but it will be so close that it really didn't matter in the end in the right team process So if you add up to eight games, you might have lost 12-8, but it's only four points out of the 160 points you can get Gotcha. Yeah, no that makes perfect sense absolutely changes the entire sort of like goal You're actually going for so even the loser match Quote-unquote right can can still absolutely have a victory for the team if you manage to sort of beat Expectations as it were right if you sort of beat the market. Yeah, yeah Yes, yeah, and that's how teams approach the pairing they will pair in a way that Okay, we expect this army to get 14 points again That's army and then that's how the parent goes and then in the end They want to have more than 80 points because that means they got more than their opponent, right? But then if one of those games doesn't Provide the result that they calculated in that's an issue And that's why you can't only have centers in your basketball team because what are they going to try to do? They're going to try to score and they're maybe going to take a risk that they shouldn't have which they would have taken in singles because Win or lose it doesn't matter when you lose you won't be able to win the tournament So let's go for the big play and see if it pays out if you do if you try that in teams Your coach is not going to be happy sure That makes sense. That's a big difference. That makes sense Yeah, so Tom you've given a really clear explanation of the Structure of it was worlds and you've mentioned that you think it has I think you said 50% or more Impact on the pairings process right on an outcome set around so do you know of alternative systems? that don't give as much weight to for example the pairings process or something like the pairings process because I could see that as It's kind of like we're operate, you know like Anyway, this is operating from a clear set of first principles that could be you guys could imagine a different format, right? That's giving less weight to to the pairings process and it's giving more weight through the Individual performance, but then within a team context. So anyhow, just curious if you know if alternatives or if you guys have looked at alternatives Yeah, yeah, most of the systems you see are defender attacker pairing systems But if you only have let's say four person teams The mini game becomes so much smaller That it changes the dynamic a lot. So Just for and it's also the high skill cap like Vince said earlier Which makes a big difference because also in maybe a normal team event. That's not worlds You might fluke your pairing, but it might matter less because your team is just bad is just Just comprised of better players. So in that way, it also makes less less of an impact. So here It's just everyone is at this level. So the parent is going to put you here or here And that might not be for a regular tournament But I do think pairing is always important because you can only bring an army once so you can't bring the best army four times so in the end You can bring the best army, but if your pairing sucks, you're not going to get the points you wanted So I think it's always important, but the higher the skill cap the more other variables are going to matter and then this certain In this example, it's the pairing Cool, I want to talk later about how this is influencing list-building, but that'll be on a later slide because I'm fascinated by that as well because There really is such a different structure here that I that I have to imagine it's it's it's changing your thought pattern Just the whole the whole way, you know top to bottom, right? So one of the things Tyler you you said because I've been admittedly I knew so little about this Tyler had to give me a set of notes to prep up from I'll be completely honest and he mentioned that there's the rounds are four hours long. So so That's long. I Also know the chest clocks are being used right at the event. So why four hour rounds? Is that including the pairing process in there as well? Is that what's going on? Yeah, okay. Yeah, so it's indeed including the pairing process and of course because we're using different types of terrain maps We want to make sure the players have ample time to wait for the pairing to You know to have taken place and then you know your coach is gonna come up and he's gonna say hey You're playing this army and this is the battle plan and this is the terrain map You're gonna have to set up so your your opponents can set up the terrain map and then you have One one hour and a 40 minutes per player So a little over three hours to play your actual game And you have to set your clock on that time So even if you're let's say the pairing only took five minutes because both of the teams like shuffle their cards and just like I don't know. I thought, you know, sir. Just through it through it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly You would still set your clock on one hour and 40 minutes because that's just the Designated game time. So you just have more space to maybe drink a beer after your game And it's it's still amazes me because we still have people that time out the rounds are that long at this level so Yeah, because I think in a lot of countries you have two and a half hour rounds even sure in my in my community mostly three Yeah, I think three has become the sweet spot in and at least I heard for things I enjoy going to I'll say it's it's three at minimum. I just the nature of the current game is it's a three hour game Like that's just yes Yes, and it's like you don't want to have new people come to a tournament and then I Feel like they were rushed into playing three or five whatever games of Warhammer So I think three hours is the perfect spot and yeah, we added an hour just because terrain pairing etc. Yeah So and it's and it's Gareth just answered my question the chat. It's two rounds per day Right because this happens over three day events six six games total basically two rounds per day So eight hours per day. Yeah Yeah, which is great as for me as a to because and also I think for the players because Your your mental fatigue really gets you in the third game I always notice at when I'm playing a GT. So playing two games per day. It's it's I think much better To you to play your best Warhammer Yep Makes sense makes sense Okay, cool. This is and you kind of mentioned this are you you hinted around the edge of this But here's now. I want to get to a thing. I am super fascinated by Okay, which is the missions that were being used All right You you mentioned that they already the captain's all voted for this this different different battle plan system and look I think we all probably have a feeling to some degree or another that maybe just maybe Not all of the missions in the general's handbook are on equal footing When it comes to tournament readiness, I know this is a very controversial statement Okay But did you use all of the battle plans in the GHB like was this 12 out of 12 where you're you're They're all going to be used at some point. Oh, it was even worse. Oh, okay Yeah So what this is what happens? I joined worlds last year March Couple months before the event rules back was already out, etc And we played all 12 missions and everyone complained because last year we had Two different missions one also the outer one, you know, I'll the wind on turn yeah Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember the name I don't remember the name either But yes the one where you could because you like a thing would end up getting going away And then you'd have three of them and you just flip to the wind Yes, it was super. Yeah super sketchy. Yes. I think yeah, exactly. So Everyone complained and said look this is way too swingy. We want to have it a different way. So new GHB came out January which is the GHB we find, you know, we will be going to play because there were six month periods or seasons So I went to the captains We have a captain's discord where we can do announcements and you know convey some stuff make rulings, etc And I just said look guys last year. You didn't really enjoy playing some of the missions So I will give you some options. It doesn't matter for me as a ref because you're playing them not me So I don't want to Everything that I don't have to decide I'll let them decide if it doesn't influence my work So I just told them look we can play six battle plans So you have everyone plays the same same battle plan every round or we can do a 2-2 split So You play two battle plans per round So the first four tables play battle plan A and the second four tables play battle plan B And we do that for six rounds or we'll just do it the same thing the same way we did last year And I thought well, I gave him the option, but it's probably gonna be one or two and then 16 out of 24 I said no, let's do it the same way we did last year. So I literally made an announcement in the discord Okay, but I don't want to hear any captain complain About the battle plans and they didn't but the players did Yeah, they came up to me and said whose idea was it To be honest in teams I love I actually don't hate lurkers below because that's that's a biggie in the pairing Like that's a 20-0 pairing right there if you fluke it piston turns. I hate because you there's zero opportunity to express skill You could play the best game of Warhammer. You will ever play And still lose the game. I don't know if you've heard the story about Tom Guant. Yep playing against England He he got tabled start of turn three, but he won the game because the last three rounds his opponent had the zero active objectives So for three turns he was standing on the board. He couldn't score any primary point as most of the battle tactics He couldn't score because his opponent was dead so Yeah, and Jack Armstrong had the same he had no active objective for the first three turns of his game Yeah, so I don't like that mission lurkers below I think makes for an interesting pairings. Please don't use it in the singles GT But for teams I can understand I wouldn't have put it in just to be very clear, but I also don't hate it How did you do the differential? Did you like 15-5 for a minor or something? Yeah, yeah, so exactly so that's that's the option we gave them they voted for it so so we went with it and Yeah, we're gonna try and see what they want to do what to do next year Okay, I don't I suppose it'll depend a lot on the battle plans the way that we're gonna see here Hopefully not too too long from now That's really gonna be the option Yeah, traditionally speaking though. I think every GHB had like two missions that are sketchy, right? So like I'm going to assume we're gonna have the same again So yeah, let's see what they do for me as a to in the ref It's fantastic because you know those those make great stories those As an outsider And like I said, it doesn't make my life easier or harder. So I'm fine with you know with running the missions and my only Problem problem was how am I going to divide the missions? Between the rounds sure obviously if you're playing all missions and you have six rounds You're going to play all missions twice because then you have four missions per round because that's what they wanted So I can either skew four of the six rounds by putting lurkers below and twist and turns in separate rounds Which will skew Right rounds or and that's what I did. I put them in the same round So then one round is going to be completely mental. Yeah a nightmare round. Yeah Yeah, but it doesn't skew the other rounds that much So I'm not sure it was the right decision, but that was really the reasoning behind why I planned them in the same round Nice nice and you know Gareth mentioned in the chat He said what's fascinating is that some missions are bad because they're just random to twist and turns the example He gave us your story saying that and it's a tactical decision to put your losing matchup on that mission So that like potentially that losing matchup either goes Exactly how you thought it would right like well We thought we were gonna lose and basically get not much out of this and in fact, that's how it worked but there's also the potential that Oops the ray of the complete randomness the dice just worked in our favor and now we have a huge over performer On that spot. So that is really interesting how you can like turn what would normally be a bad Scenario into a potential upside, right? Yeah, it's like you're short selling the mission Yeah, I did put twist and turns at the and the final two tables just so that you have basically almost zero control Over the cards you have left in hand So it's not that easy to do that, but I did give it some a little bit of fun. Nice. Nice. Okay. All right so then The final question I had written on this slide before we go to the next before we go next is just like What do you think is the key to success for a team like obviously? This is an extremely competitive event, right? So in your mind, what's separating? you know The winning team from not like what what is what's helping what's contributing? Yeah, we there's no single factor, of course, this is gonna be like a broad-based thing I we've got a lot of contributory factors But what do you think are the sort of contributory elements that that allow a team to sort of rise or to put them in the position to? Capitalize best perhaps is another way to think about it Yeah, right Well, I think the top let's say eight to ten teams are all good teams. So the way they can Set themselves apart is in preparation, for example Denmark for example this year Prepared extremely well if you want to know what they did actually the Danish captain Runa on Twitter posted short blog where he explained how they approached the matchups list writing and stuff like that and The big mistake people make is Writing a good singles list and then bringing it to teams where Because you're gonna get paired into hopefully good or probably terrible matchups Can sometimes be more beneficial to write a skewed list that will absolutely demolish a good matchup Not just win it like absolutely demolish because your your captain and coach are gonna try to put you in that matchup, right? so doing the preparation well and also making good estimates about how good your Army a BC and D are playing into their army a BC and D That's that's the biggest difference and that's why I said the 50% Come from the pairings because it just shows what team prepared better basically Interesting it blew my mind saying on Twitter Yeah, some of these sheets with the pairings and the level of detail that some of these teams went Yeah went into it. It's yeah, it's really it's really cool It's impressive very nerdy like just a whole new level of nerds. I'm nerdy It truly pays off. Yeah By the way, if people are interested AOS worlds itself has a Twitter account I'll link it down below in the descriptions people go check that out And if you go there AOS the AOS worlds Twitter account has links out and retweets all of the other because every country's Team also has generally. I think I don't know ball 20 40 But I'm pretty sure most of them do have their own Twitter as well And they they share out stuff from from their individual teams and prep and experiences and stuff like that It's so it's really good So that central AOS worlds Twitter accounts a good good place to check out if you want to see Like a lot of stuff out of the event and just cool fun photos and things like that And then go find your own countries, you know team Twitter from there, right and see how it's yeah They didn't yeah experiences were Yeah Okay, cool All right, let's talk about lists I wanted to I wanted to I purposely separated this out because to me This is a hundred percent its own thing and you you said you already set us up for it pretty well Okay, because you said that like The difference between how you write a list for a singles event and how you write a list for this kind of a teams event Could be often extremely different right and that's what I'm saying like I think this the nature of sort of the pairing process and how you're gonna play and what you're trying to actually accomplish is Often different. I don't know if it's fully like a Line that doesn't touch Right, but but there's it but it's definitely out off at an angle here, right? And so, okay, let's talk about list building So the first thing I want to get down is you and you mentioned this a little bit But the list building restrictions. So so what kind of list building restrictions are are in effect here? exactly so a team has eight army lists obviously and every army lists can Note war scroll can be duplicated among army lists. So let's say I'm playing forn I can have multiple blood letter units in my list, but a Nurgle player cannot ally in blood letters because One you don't want to do that and two I'm I already have them in my list So you cannot duplicate you can summon in some units later. So if I'm Allying in a unit of gorse and you're playing beast of chaos and you have the trumpet that can summon a unit Of course the artifact you are still allowed to summon that unit But in your initial starting list, you cannot duplicate anything. No war scrolls. No endless spells No general a universal enhancements Triumphs because there are not enough times to go around of course and for this year We also allowed them to duplicate up to three times their What's it called? tunnel master Oh, they're Galatian their Galatian champion like a bonus. Yeah. Yeah, that's it So they were allowed to have three of those in their army lists So you can have free people with stubborn as a Rhinox or or whatever that thing. Yes, exactly and then Triumphs and then Enhancements are restrict like I said and battalions you can just use we didn't restrict the battalions because I Do think it could be an interesting thing limiting battle regiment because that's gonna sure five things up But I don't think that I think I don't think we should do that But it would make for a very interesting It would but you're right right now the challenge is you basically got like two and a half functional battalions outside of Army book specific battalions and realistically those army book specific battalions are so all over the shop With like some being highly playable and some being just like complete Nonsense you would never actually put together as an as a feasible list in any kind of game like, you know They just get written like they're there's lunatic battalions. Yeah Okay, the thing there that's fascinating to me is the whole like and that no duplication of war scrolls is really interesting because I think of like Let's say you've got some amazing banger ally and and the the easy go-to here Although he's not actually good, but there's been points in time where he's been good Let's you know, you think of somebody like Celestin Prime, right? The the all-star ally I'm gonna say him, of course never Like there was a period of time where he was showing up in like five other different order armies, right? Not the case now It limits anybody ability to do that, right? You can't have like, oh, here's our three order armies We're not playing any stormcast, but all three have taken prime time, right like that that goes off the table, okay? Yeah, I got it. I got it. What's interesting about that is if you look at that from a list perspective Let's say you're bringing zinge and luminous only one can bring a spell portal. Yeah Influence your list or The new seraphon we weren't playing new seraphon, but for example new seraphon those players are going to Really really put pressure on their captain to say hey, I should be the one with the spell portal, right? So that those that also makes for interesting picks Yeah, that's a good point because just the the nature of some of those endless spells, especially like those those game plan Defining endless spells where it's like, okay my you know a lot of we when we talk in singles You'll often just talk about the list You'll be like well obviously you're gonna have spell portal in your list and so block right and just so just like it's just Assumed as part of how the army functions. Well, of course They just have spell portal because like 95% of the competitive list will just have X endless spell in it, right? And that's very much not the case. You necessarily can rely on here. Yeah, okay. Okay, cool So When it comes to the list building you you mentioned this like like leaning towards potentially more towards of the skew Right. Yeah Because you're trying to like either either win big or you're just gonna get sort of thrown to the sharks as it were Or whatever where you're like, okay, you've got the losing match. We don't stand a chance here We're just gonna use this skew into this one that we know will lose and it's fine if you pull something out great, right? So Where do you think like where the rubber meets the road in list building? How do you think that actually manifests? It's like what are the different choices like and you can use like a specific army if you want as an example like oh In singles you would this would be perfectly fine, but that's just death in this kind of a team event, right? Just let's make that a little more real for people. Yeah, exactly. Well, I sometimes for example, the Dutch team I helped the Dutch team a little bit with some I Love writing lists like I'm not a great painter. I'm not a big hobbyist. I'm really someone who is really Interested in the gaming aspect of Warhammer. I love writing lists. I I write a couple army lists every day Probably for multiple books. So You know the Dutch team captain Jeffrey asked hey when we're writing our list could you maybe you know help and see if you can give some insight and One of the things that I mentioned for example is for blooms by Gitz Of course a very popular army fair an army that's doing very well But one of their big weaknesses was the luminous build the Elon build so You already know as a team that your opposing team is going to try to put the luminous army Their luminous army into your Gitz army because that's probably a winning matchup for them So you can do two things you can either say okay screw it If if that happens the Gitz player just is just going to give up and we'll try to get a better matchup elsewhere or And I spoke about with some of the army lists I spoke with the players about this you could also maybe try to see if you can ride your arm is in such a way That the big advantage that the luminous player thinks he has or she has Is not that big which means they're possible 18 to win turns into a 15-5 Which means they didn't get the points they Accounted right right I did that for example by not making two units of 36 quick hurt against the luminous matchup Which they will try to turn off with the Kethelar Spell and Over one heat yeah But we made three blocks of 24 Yeah, and now you was you were only able to turn off two units the third unit can run up And then I think they even even meant the I think the Dutch player actually won the luminous matchup or Lost very very closely even though that was supposed to be a big win for the luminous player So those little things can manifest in a big way And that's why for example runa didn't play he long luminous build he played a very different build Because it would help him in the matchups that people were trying to put him into Sure. Yeah, yeah reverse psychology to say okay Well, we are going to let you pair into the good matchup, but it's just not as good as you think Okay, okay, cool very nice Tyler. What have you I know I know you followed along with some of this and you're you're also a list hound Right like you're a big fan and always thinking about army construction and stuff like that Was there anything you saw or you thought that that comes to your mind in like how you think about list building? vis-a-vis, you know the teams format and like what does it make you think about when you think about the changes and the differences here Yeah, I mean one thing I was feeling I'm not to what degree. This is true was I mean Would I feel like I was looking at a set of lists that as one would expect would have Sq in different directions. So like list archetypes. So for example the KO 30 plus Thunders is one clear skewed archetype right now, right? I I felt like I was seeing that all of the place Tom in in list that worlds the 10 chaos nights two by six barren guards Couple of sort lords right or or maybe some shows and but that slaves of darkness kind of Phil Marshall, you know Type of archetype right I felt like I was seeing so definitely that that was very pronounced like it's kind of what I'd expect I mean one thing I was thinking as you were just talking a minute ago Tom is While it may not I don't know if it's well It doesn't certainly most people don't appear to think it's the stronger build and gets but I do feel like the trolls Build is quite strong. You know like 18 rock a traga some number of fell waters, right? I don't know if I saw a single troll oriented list at worlds. I was a little surprised by that I don't know if you had any reflections on that No, indeed. I just think that in the teams format just quicker bliss can overwhelm so many Yeah armies That's why they pick that one. You just mentioned slaves as an example. Yeah When the book new book came out, I first started writing lists for ravagers. So Archeon 70 whatever splinter Which might not be a great pick in a singles tournament, but in the end the Dutch slaves player Started playing the list and he really liked it for teams because for example, it was great into luminev And it had another some other good matchups And that's an example is I find of a list that you might not see it a singles tournament that much But you will see at a teams tournament and I think the same goes for The six or nine storm fiend lists, which you might see sometimes at singles, but it's not that popular But we saw it a couple times in teams Yeah, and the same goes for some of the crew boys list They didn't end up doing that well, but you can see that they were picked to maybe counter KO or counter some of the things that You know, you could see there was a plan. I'm not sure if it was the right plan, right? there were types of lists that I You wouldn't expect to do well at singles Yeah, the number of visa chaos lists that were there. I thought was reflective of the team format Yeah, as opposed to singles because I yeah It's it's a high school book, but yeah, they they can pair well Yeah, yeah, and it's great against for example again luminous which was everyone's expecting luminous and Kail to be very popular and be scales is a direct counter to those lists which made Spain with the famous picture Yeah, take take the 80 on greater list because they knew There's gonna be lots of these scales and this list is a great counter against that means chaos So that's what I know this story. I want you to share this story Okay, like this is too good not to share so so for the audience who maybe wasn't as dialed in I saw this This is one of the things I caught on social media when I was watching over that weekend and I laughed so hard Especially when somebody somebody did the meme of like corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures And it was the old 40k when where he had deployed his whole army like an inch off the back line There was no place to come in. They're the same picture. Okay, tell this story Yeah, so it was actually happening next to the table and it was unfortunately a Dutch player playing the The less fortunate piece of Kail's list so to speak Let me first start off with he he didn't have a choice. So people are saying how did he hook? How could he do that? Well, he was paired into his direct counter list and He had two choices either deploy his army and shut off by 80 or 90 on greater turn one and two or Not deploy his army and try to find an angle to go in. They were also playing twists and turns which didn't help so One of the reps I'm not sure who but Pointed out to me that hey, you should check that table out because someone is trying to Recreate the old 40k meme and I think it's working. So I want over and I'm actually the one who made the picture where you can see like the Spanish guy like Sitting in his chair and I send it to Rob And I think he sent it to John Scriven Scriven and he made the meme and then I looked on my phone ten and ten minutes later And it exploded with like Twitter. It was everywhere But what what happened was both players decided to no deploy so not deploy any unit on the board which beast of chaos can do and The the ungrader player had fewer drops. So that's why the Dutch player really had no choice He could either get shut off or put everything in the sky. So or he did or an ambush So he did the Spanish players started to like Put down the units around the edge and then the minigame started off How far can I pull your units or these six more to wound them to create a gap in two turns to maybe fit some units in And I think you managed to fit in two units of bull goers and a hero But you know, it's turned through turned to it was twist and turns So the objectives were in the middle of the board and he was here So he had you know, he had two times to even get on an objective So the game was over he shouldn't have been paired into there unless it maybe gave them a great matchup somewhere else But yeah, it was a great meme Amazing just amazing. Yeah, yeah, like that. I saw that I was like that's just incredible And it's funny too because I was wondering if that kind of thing was gonna happen with with beast because of the null deployed potential And all of that it's always the risk we talk about and there was in full effect I love that there is some counterplay to it that he didn't just have to like literally sort of scoop right there As it were right that he tried like that that's it. That's a testament to skill right there of going Okay, like we I can still do some unit pulls. I can do some mortal wounds I can do stuff like that try to get a space so so kudos to that player for sticking it out There's there's a lot of people who would look at that and just be like, okay good Good game, right? Like that's that's yeah for sure But you can do that at teams because if you were able to turn at 20 0 into a 17 3 that's three points Your team really needs they're gonna be mad at you if you give up So but what was funny is that you'd see people having caught it on Twitter and then walking over to the table and like Peeping in to see what the game what the board state was at that point So yeah, it was it was funny shout out to Eva the Dutch player for going through that and being an internet meme now Absolutely, that's great Okay, so then my final question for this one was and this is really what I would like Where do you see as like teams were successful with the list building stage like what set apart a Successful team like they this was a good crop of lists. They read the meta correctly They read, you know potential strong and weak matchups and played because there's a there's I feel like The teams format and the way these pairings are done sort of amplifies or has the potential to amplify the rock paper scissors Nature of AOS in general, right? I would I think general AOS and the way tournaments go especially in singles is a pretty it's a soft RPS I think this has the potential to sharpen that up a little bit. So where do you see where what teams were very successful? What did they do right at sort of opening up their options their outs and so on? Yeah, well first up I go back to the preparation Last year we were in Prague and a lot of teams for a lot of teams It was their first worlds and what you could see is for example the English team They have Tom Maltzley. That's that was their coach. Yes. It was their coach again this year And Tom Maltzley is maybe one of the best parers in AOS like he's he's a fantastic coach and Teams would show up to the table. They had eight good lists They would sit down for the pairing and then after the pairing they would be like What just happened? All our matchups are bad or they thought a matchup was good But it was on a certain battle plan and you know they for example this year We had a couple guys who were like, oh, I got these I'm going to play Gitz It's a good matchup for me and then they found out they were playing presence of idols So all the battleshark roles get halved And then it turned out to be a good matchup. Yeah, I may have missed Who was deciding the battle plan like so you explain the tackle defender, right? But like was it who was making the choice of which like army was playing on which battle plan like that initial choice, right? Yeah, yeah, so in the rules pack it was stated that the first so you have eight tables to play on as a team Yeah, yeah eight versus eight and the first two missions were Table one and two three and four five and six and you would also pair in that order So around we'll have four missions. So let's say around mission a will be always be the first two defenders put down for both okay, gotcha and mission B D and D so the Order in which you put down your defenders would influence what battle plan they were playing and Of course, you were going to put down two attackers on a certain battle plan against the defender. Okay. I hope you make sense No, that's good, I normally we have a pairing mat and then when you visualize that it's like It's hard to explain No, that's fine. It's It's interesting because That's such a good like Sneaky point of the having the battle sucks right this thing that you knew was gonna be strong this thing You're gonna rely on gets pulled off under you because you didn't see that Do you think there are certain like list components or or elements because you also have the terrain? You mentioned the more open terrain board in the closed terrain board Yeah, right that kind of thing so but do you think there are like do you think there are elements of lists that are sort of prima facie? Become more interesting in this format Then they are in in singles like there's a certain type of unit or or roll or something like that that becomes more interesting And in this kind of a format Let me think well, I already touched a little bit on the storm fiend list I Think the ravages list is a good example because it's it's very good at the attrition game Mm-hmm But like do you think that set like let's let me dig out on that a little bit because you just hit a point I think might be interesting so Obviously AOS is largely constructed as a trading game right like that's often what you're trying to do is create favor Yep, movement trading. That's right because the movement sets up you making the trades You want to make you want to make and also get you toward objectives and yada yada, right? Okay, so obviously those two things are largely what's going on here so Not all like one of the often complaints I think that people like Tyler have felt recently is that attrition armies have been suffering in sort of the singles format of Recent right they haven't you look at somebody like Nurgle and they're sort of downward slide It's very attrition focused army Right and so in trying to play for the win They often end up being in a place where suddenly they they just can't actually attrition people anymore, right? Just did there they're getting hit too hard in too many places and just getting getting a tritted faster than they can withstand, right? What's some exceptions obviously like soul flight isn't attrition army there? Yeah, there are some exceptions, but yeah, no, that's exactly what I was gonna say, right? I mean you certain types of attrition armies, right since sometimes you're playing Into the I want to scrape points out of a loss like do teams ever make lists that's like, okay This is our quote-unquote bad pairing list Right like the like here's the list that is this sort of attrition focused list that's solely designed to Probably still often lose, but it will scrape more points than it should at any that it should have the right to You know, I mean so that kind of thing They definitely do that. Yeah, we call I call them good defenders Basically, you can put them down and they will never win get a 20 or win, but they will also never get a 20 I think a good example is 60 blood warriors Yeah, is a great example because they're just gonna sit there and say, you know come and get me the French Last year and also the English this year and the Australians had 200 zombie lists Which just swarmed the objective so much that you're not going to be able to get ahead on primary points easily So you might have a great matchup and win, but it's gonna be very close So they definitely definitely do that. I mean how many months how many 200 zombie list have you seen in singles the last six months? I haven't seen almost any, but there were two or three at worlds And I even with the old book you guys were you guys using the new books OBR Well, there was then the OBR, but all the soul flight and all the serif on as well Okay, I think I brought was the end of play bringing serif on yeah, which of course is surprising But he's he was 30 oh with the book at that point in the past six months. So like sure like then Yeah, it reminds me like my first exposure to Teams as a format was sort of many many years ago way back in the day discussing it people and as a Skaven player for 25 years I was always fascinated by the two towers lists that would appear in teams lists back in the day, right? So this used to be a list that was like the bell which made everybody around it immune to battle shock and then the furnace Which made everybody around it immune to battle shock and just hordes of like Skaven slaves effectively So this is again war of fantasy, right? And the point was it was just impossible to a trip the list, right? Because they would just push forward and just be impossible to kill out like they would just they'd never win a game Like actually winning a game was nearly impossible It feels very much like what you're referencing there with the blood warriors pile Right and so like a list design that to me is really interesting because it's the kind of thing in singles You'd be like well, I'm trying to win That's that's it. That's the only goal, right? I need to win whereas in this trying to lose less Actually can become a big winning strategy because you're just going to know like you will have some bad matchups in the round Like it will happen. So why not have a list that preps for that. It's like your it's your doomsday prepper list, right? Over there. Yeah. Yeah, it's not an easy role to play though. If you know, you're that player, you know, you're going to play six very hard games of Warhammer So it's it's tough. It's tough to put to be that role on the team It's what Tom this I mean, it's kind of weird to admit it a little bearish to me Like this was the thing I didn't get initially about the team's format the entire point like, you know, I get Within a singles context, I get a little frustrated at times when I feel like we have too much of a pronounced rock paper scissors within a singles context Because that feels unhealthy to me in some ways That's a whole other discussion But that's part of the point of teams is to have these skewed matchups So like you're trying to get as much skew as possible, right? Maximize winning minimize. Yeah, and And when it knows I was thinking about it like I Usually when I'm taking a list to a GT I like I've talked about this before I like to take lists that are designed to go five rounds for five rounds because I think that gives a more interesting experience for me and my Opponents it's more challenging. It's it's very Johnny thing to do But yeah, those lists may not like a Tricia like stormcast list. That's like five rounds oriented a nergal list That's five rounds oriented. I'm scraping by I'm scraping by wins or I'm having narrow losses most of the time and But yeah, that's not exactly great for a team format Anyway, it was just yeah, just reflecting on some of the misunderstandings I had about teams initially. Yeah, yeah No, it is a completely different game in my opinion. I think teams Warhammer is fantastic. I really love it Also, it's not just a you playing it. It's big in Australia as well I think it's mostly the Americans and Canadians who don't play that much. It looks like But yeah, I just love the format it's so different It's it's much more tactical and I like singles as well But teams just bring a different dynamic and it's just a lot of fun because Apart from worlds if you go to it, let's say you go to a five I have a five-person TV Venice September hosting one and you're gonna we're gonna have a couple teams We just brought, you know, there's five five five mates showing up having a having the best time playing Yeah, I started, you know five in a row. I'm just gonna have a great time. I'm so Yeah, it's just it's just a great experience for both competitive play But I in my opinion, you know, so if you just show up to have a great weekend Yeah, I mean, it's not it shouldn't be understated here that a huge Advantage to this format is The team and I mean, I know this is gonna sound like the most obvious stupid point But but I mean we haven't really drilled in on it all and it's worth mentioning when you go to a singles Tournament you often go with friends, right? Like it's you it's often you and a couple buddies you roll to the thing together But like you only really see them in between rounds and maybe you catch up Maybe you don't you're often rushing to your next game or to check pairings You know, maybe you get together and have some beers that night or something like that, right? And but it's it's a very singular alone experience like you're sitting there at the table alone And your game is your game and you're not thinking about anybody else or what else is going on Whereas with this you are part of a team. You're all in it together The you know, the coach is leading the pairing process. You're going through this You're thinking about your games for for your whole team. You're like, I wonder how You know, I wonder how Steve is doing over in his matchup that he got there That was gonna be a tough one for him I wonder if he was able to pull it out, right? Like there is a we're all rowing together type of thing that that is It is a very different just sort of psychological experience to the thing Yes, usually you would you could see a player walk up to the coach and just said I had a 12 8 loss And they would high five and hug each other because he wants to explain she shouldn't have won Which you know, that's it's amazing to see and Yeah, what I say is just a different dynamic And what I like a lot is you can see the camaraderie in the team as well Like if the Danish team they performed well, they are probably the cleanest more gamers I have never seen an event or will ever, you know are at Worlds in general and They're also a big camaraderie between the guys as well. So it's just it's just great to see Is there a Benson is I'm obsessed with this subject Is there a short version of why you think they are the best that clean Warhammer? Yes, well, they will actually sit down with their opponent before the game and yeah, we'll say no takebacks If it's okay with you, I would like to use your dice. So we're both using the same dice pool And they will always try to have for example their measurement measuring tape It's going to be on the mat when they're measuring when when they're measuring distances They will have you double-check everything. Yeah, it's just extremely clear the intent is clear I spoke to Casper their beast of chaos player who in the weeks leading up to worlds played an event and he was playing the beast of chaos list there and he actually Started turned to it is hero face thing Forgot to put his army down went to the shooting phase and Then realized he didn't put his army down and his opponent said just put it down and he said no No, I said no take backs And that's the game yeah so they will they will keep a certain standard and they will You know hold you to that standard, but they will also hold themselves to the standard. Yeah, that's makes it just so clean I think I've only had two issues or issues I only had to make two rulings as it we as a team for the Danish team and both of them were look me and my Opponent disagree if someone some things within range Could you maybe double-check for us? So none of us, you know, we don't get so don't if that's the ruling I have to make for a team for six rounds of the most competitive warhammer. They will probably ever play You know, that's that's amazing. No, that's really a testament to like to absolutely clean like high-skill Quality, you know players playing warhammer in a good way. Absolutely. That's incredible more clean warhammer awards around You know gts. I love that awards like cleanest. We did one a few months ago. Give him a nice nergal bar soap For the cleanest warhammer player So I'm not yeah, I'm just a huge fan of recognizing that Yeah, it's not always the most fun warhammer because you know Not allowing take-backs is normal, but for a lot of players it could make for a bad experience sure Because but you're playing at Worlds. So of course players is going to say look No, I don't I'm not a bad person But if I'm giving you this take back and it costs me two points my coach is going to be extremely upset with me Sure, so, you know, that's just the way it works Yeah, we've talked a lot about it a lot as long as you have the conversation up It's important to have the conversation up front. What kind of game are we playing? And get on the same page about a number of critical things and you're good to go usually Yeah, exactly. So, um, yeah, I just I just love the mindset and Like I said, they're all great guys as well like genuinely great guys I had a fantastic time with them and the entire vibrant worlds was great like you'd expect if you put like the 192 most competitive players in the world or you know part of them in one room You'd have an issue, but there was no issue at all because everyone's on the same page. Hmm, right? So you don't get the casual catching table guy playing against the try-hard Trying to win the tournament guy who is not going to allow take back and etc. Etc. Mm-hmm because everyone's on the same page Nice nice. All right So I've just got this last slide here Little little as my picture of the US team there on one side in in deep thought No, and Sean and such in there That's Spain's team whose team was who's that other team there? That's Spain. Yes. Yeah, it's been cool. Awesome. And I just thought it would be good to sort of close out here. I Know I know we don't want to hold Tom too late I've prepared this to be make sure we were gonna stay in time. It's late where Tom is and it is the middle of the week So I just wanted to sort of close out here with with some thoughts on worlds in general like where specifically How you felt like overall? I think you felt pretty positive about this year But what do you see as the future trajectory for this? Right? Like what are the things you'd like to see? Expansion or you know, just just in general kind of what's what's the arc of this play? Not only on worlds, but on team play and in general, you know, maybe even like where are you sitting right now? exactly so This year we we had the event at my regular tournament venue in Amsterdam I'm going to try to make a bit for next year, but I also wouldn't mind if we play somewhere else So what I just hope is that we will be able to put down a base level quality event every year I think this year was I Don't want to like Toot my own horn so to speak if that's a correct way But a little yeah, it's it's a lot of work you put it man Come on a little bit. I had people like Bill Sousa walk up to me and say this was the best event They've ever been to and That's a huge compliment, you know, he's been he's been LVO. He's been adapted on he's been to he's been everywhere multiple ETC probably so That may be seen seeing that a lot man. I'm seeing that a lot around this event. Yeah And I just want to make sure that We we we're going to have a certain base level and we will keep to we will keep Reaching that level wherever we play whatever country we go and I hope you can expand we have Portugal trying to form a team for next year Oh, nice Malta for example dropped off because they they have a very small community and a big part of their community was supposed to graduate This year so they weren't able to come and then they lose a couple of their players Which is big for them and I know Israel was forming a team and I know Forgetting someone and of course in 1 2 3 years You don't know what's going to happen with sure because normally the Russian Russia Russia would have a team But of course now it's delicate situation You don't know how it's going to go but the goal is to expand I would it would be great to reach like let's say 32 teams in two or three years Have played at some amazing venues and for me. It's just I also love hosting and organizing this because a Lot of people I just get to see only once a year. Yeah, sure date and the Americans, you know, Jeremy I can only see them once a year and so It's a way for me to you know hang out with the guys again So to speak so I just want to make sure the vibe stays well stays good the quality stays high and we can expand to you know to add new teams to the To the roster because I think it's also a great way for people of different cultures like to come together and and just have a great time Fantastic, I love it Tyler you you going up for for 2024 are you going up for you team US? We put your name in the hat there Hundreds and hundreds of people are better qualified. I Yeah, well that that's that's a I'm gonna be good I can be very bad right now with some some messages that I may have gotten from some team Some some players who in America who are ornery who play teams and I'll just I'll leave it at that I probably said too much right there But they can they can contact Sean Clark and share any grievances that they might have they may have been past guest on this show So yeah, anyway No, that's fantastic man. I like I find it to be such a Fun cool event that as you mentioned it like the way it draws everyone together I was pretty sad that I didn't get to watch the the coverage all weekend I love that we had you know the stream team there Literally covering the the the event both, you know the individual some of the games, but also that was going on in the broader Context of the of the tournament itself. It is I mean in the same way to me It's fun when you're watching the Olympics or anything like that, you know, you're rooting for your your team, right? Like that I was nothing wrong with that. It's perfectly reasonable And I'm I'm not gonna lie that even though I'm a million miles away for this every time I saw us that the US did something good. I was like, yeah way to go guys You know like I know these guys like I like these guys They're they're they're friends and acquaintances and good people and people I've played and warren were before and it's like Yeah, you show them, you know, okay, like again, even though I'm a million miles away from it Although as it turned out literally I wasn't that many miles away from it. I was in fact very close by Could have hopped in like an uber that wouldn't have been that expensive and gotten to where you all were Life is funny. Sometimes that works out. I guess Oh Next to an airport as well. So, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, just jumped right on easy Yeah So this is a final question time to show a little bit of American bias I did see that team America won best sports, which was quite cool And I was just curious if you had a perspective on I mean, it's always hard to know why but like why they might have won But you know, was there anything that stood out about how they were playing the spirit They were playing with just I just thought it was really awesome. Obviously that that they won that I'm sure there are a lot a lot of other teams that were equally deserving. But yeah, just curious to be any perspective on it Yeah, of course. Well, America team America did of USA. I have to say team USA They performed well and if you perform well, it's pretty hard to get sportsmanship votes Like it's easy to vote on someone you've lost the game to won a game off. I'm sorry But if you lost to someone and you still think they were great sports I think that speaks to their character, you know character a lot and what you could see during the event is two things One, you would never see a little Suza without a drink in his hand A gin and tonic to be precise and two I think after day one and none of the Americans had any of their own shirts left because they swapped them all with everybody in the room For example, that's why I'm wearing a ball shirt. I see Owen in the chat Shattered when he gave me the Welsh gave me one of their shirts, you know to thank me for hosting worlds And I even had people try to you know wanting to swap my ref shirt with them. So I have like Shirts from everywhere now, but the Americans were pretty adamant with it and they also brought extra shirts So they were like trying to get a shirt trading dice, etc So they just they really came down to they wanted to perform But they at first, you know, they want to have a great time with everyone and it showed the defiance great the entire team was insanely nice So I think that's that just gave them the sports votes because everyone just genuinely thought they were fantastic To be around run on. Yeah. Yeah. I was just curious. Yeah That's that's pretty wonderful to hear and I mean having played singles Warhammer against many of those people who are on The US team I can say like I have never had Like even the even the the whiff of a bad game against them Many of those people were some of my favorite games of Warhammer I've ever played which by the way, I'm sure would be true for most people from all these teams And and that's really worth saying is that these are all not only great players as far as their skill level But just the professionalism and as you mentioned like what you exactly what you described with The Danish team, right? Like it's these are the kind of players who Generally give good game for lack of a better a better way to say it, right? And you just walk away going man, that was that was the reason I play age sigmar right there Right like that was it. I'll give you an anecdote when you're done. Yeah, don't worry. Go for it Okay, well the best anecdote for the from the weekend for me talking about sportsmanship and competitiveness in one Situation is actually during singles the final round. We had a French player Milan in the beast of chaos player he was playing against the Russian corn player and It was turned four or five I believe there were only one point apart and the winner was going to podium First second or third and the loser would probably drop down the ladder, right? So they were playing with a chess clock and the Russian player had clocked out Which normally means you cannot do it perform any more actions. You can only roll saves and warts and That's it But the French player who is a world's player and was there to try to win the event said, you know what? Just take my time. This has been the best game. I've ever played. I want to finish this game And I don't care that you clocked out or that you maybe use more time. This this game is insane I want to play it out and He ended up losing the French player very very graciously by two points because a doom ball with attacks on some hero and then That's not the classic story for a doom ball right there. Yeah And at the end of the game actually Rob Was watching that game like literally sat next to the table and Gareth Thomas is why I believe And they both said that this was probably the best game of Warhammer They've ever seen like play and then having the French player like add to the situation by saying, you know what? Let's throw the clock out because we're gonna finish this game because this is amazing Right, that's for me was like that's the epitome of how you want a competitive event to be Hmm. Yeah, that's that's I cannot think of a better note to end on that is absolutely fantastic That's and that's incredible. I mean really I because I Mean I'd be hard-pressed to make the same decision, you know I mean like like many of us would that's just such an incredible story an inspirational story an Aspirational story of how we should all be seeking to play this game, right? So to play a great game of Warhammer Even you know, you're still trying to win still playing hard, but you want to play a great game of Warhammer above everything else That's a primary goal. Yeah, that's right. That's right Awesome Tom. Thank you so much for coming here and educating us my friend Yeah, it was fun man, I Love helping out so if of course people want to know about the teams format You can always reach out to the AOS Worlds Council or ask me on Twitter If you want to join as a nation, of course, or if you want to join the singles event, which is an open event You know, feel free to reach out because you know, we'd love to get more people involved So I'm happy to come on a show like this for example that also, you know tries to educate the community So thank you for always putting in the time to make this content Vince and Tyler of course And they have a great coming on absolute pleasure to have you I say this with with Absolute sincerity that you're welcome back anytime Maybe next time we'll have you on to actually just like discuss an army that you love So you don't have to talk a lot in the whole time Nothing, you know, you're like obviously you have a deep deep love of this team format of AOS Worlds because to do what you did requires True heart passion and love for this thing It's well beyond a part-time gig So thank you for running that there for for for doing everything you did with worlds along with everybody else who helped you I know it's obviously takes a village of course And that just I we're all a stronger community for having this incredible thing happen But you're welcome back anytime for all of you out there. Thank you so much for watching I hope you found this interesting as well if you weren't familiar with the teams format Hey, maybe maybe you are now. Maybe you look for a teams tournament That's around in your area. For example, I know the US Open Recently did have a teams format tournament going on that was pretty well received So maybe it's finally taking root over here in the soil. You never know our soil is pretty acidic to it But but it could it could happen So thank you very much everybody for watching. Don't forget to hit like subscribe check out all the links for everything down below Don't forget the new game launch majestic 13 from an uncle Adam if you're interested in that Don't forget follow AOS worlds on Twitter. That'll be linked down there. So you can see all the cool All the cool photos and everything else from this event and for future worlds events As well as link out to all the individual teams, but as always we appreciate you watching We'll see you next Wednesday Mm-hmm