Jen had to work late unfortunately, so I didn't make it along in time to take part in the actual 'draft', which was a shame as it sounded good. The lads sat round one table with a big pile of land in the middle. The booster packs were opened and split into even sized blocks, which players got 30 seconds to look at. After the given time, each player picked the best card and passed the deck to their left. Once they'd assembled a 40 card deck, a tournament began; each player was to play 3 opponents, the winner of each match-up being the best of three games. Martin had bought the newly released Theros edition of cards for the draft. They are all themed to the legends of ancient Greece, and tied in nicely with the club's current vibe for ancient Greek warfare.
I arrived half way through the first game. Martin had put a deck together for me, and James had sat in against the first oppo. I'd gotten a red/white deck, with some nice critters. Satyrs, Minotaurs and hoplites, along with a hundred handed Titan (nicely referenced Greek legends which Martin subsequently schooled me in. I really do need to brush up on my Greek mythology - so embarrassing for a Classicist...). I ended up losing to my first oppo, Kev, but beating the next two. I think there was a prize for getting a 2-1, but they might have all gone before I could get my games done! Tam won overall with 3 straight wins, so gets first pick of the cards next week. He drew a 'God' card in the draft, with the 'indestructible' power, which may have contributed to his win ratio somewhat... I reckon he'll want to keep hold of that. I for one would like to keep a hold of the 100 handed titan, as he was great fun to use! The draft was good fun overall, and it was great to have our first stab at a tournament style set up. The £12 in money was reasonable, though I hope I get some cards out of it by the end... Real shame I missed the draft part, as it sounded like it was great fun.
Over the past few months I've been getting my read on big time! After Wolves of the North, I went for a pulpy change of pace and read Dan Abnett's 'Traitor General', one of the Gaunt's Ghosts books which Robert had bought for me a couple of years ago (I have a shameful backlog, worse than a government dept.s 'to do' list...). I've read Necropolis, and Sabbat Saint - both of them great, immersive reads - but both were from quite early on in the series. Traitor General is eighth or so. The plot put gaunt and a team of chosen men on a suicide mission to an Imperial agri world occupied by Chaos troops after an invasion, in order to hunt down and assassinate a captured Imperial General under interrogation by the Chaos Governor's forces. I love the depth that black library provides to the GW gameworlds. This one ignored the obvious subject matter of out and out battle and instead centred on the warping effects of living on a chaos governed world - how it affected the psyche of the men along with the mental, emotional and physical effects upon the populace who'd endured a far longer dose. The desperation of the resistance fighters was really well observed, along with the sense of irreparable damage being done. This feeds nicely into the Imperial mantra of 'you must burn and destroy to cleanse the taint'. Abnett also picked up on how chaos affected the ecosystem and other species living on the planet. The occupation forces were by no means cardboard cutouts either, ranging from the insidious interrogators of the captured general, to the elite and arrogant team of Chaos Space Marines leading the hunt, to the low level yet omnipresent threat of the local security forces with their terrifying 'wirewolves' - creatures of the warp summoned to possess a mechanical forms to hunt down the resistance. I raced through this one - a nice change of pace and subject after all the historical fiction I've been reading lately.
No comments:
Post a Comment