Team USA 40k - Episode 7 - There and Back Again

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the TEMUSA 40K podcast. We're back! It's John and Anthony because TEMUSA has started its year again. Woohoo! Welcome back Anthony. Thank you Sarah. Welcome back likewise Mr. Captain. Oh of course Mr. Captain. So we are back. We're going to try to get these out as a little bit of more regular podcast and this is kind of the start of it because our our long and lazy off-season for TEMUSA has come to a close. September was fun folks. Yeah I mean you know tragically we do have to defend a title. I know. We don't we don't have to. You know what for the first time in my life I think I actually understood Oracle Ferris. Yes yeah I got it right I was like oh hmm a break. Well not for us but maybe for others. Yeah but we're we're not going to be going that way this time. So after winning WGC in August we did our little post episode and then we kind of took the month of September off because that's that's the offseason we get but it's October and that means it is time to start getting the ball rolling again during the end of September TEMUSA held their elections for Captain and once again I am returning as Captain which is well in good fun. This will be my third year serving as Team Captain. I've gotten us to the podium twice we got third place then first place which is awesome and I'm really excited for another year and as we're starting this year kind of my my thought process is that most of the revolutionary changes have been done and now it's all about doing what we know how to do smoother better smarter and maybe even a little bit more efficiently maybe a little bit more clearly for everyone in the walls as part of that we've I've also decided to to share this heavy burn. So this year we're actually going to go for a little bit of a two captain system. So last year Anthony you were my my vice captain which has a little bit of an implication of being number two which is nice. I always think you'd look good in like the Robin tights. But this year we're going we're going for co captains and so we've decided to split the burden pretty much 50/50 evenly down the middle and I'm really excited for it. Yeah I'm looking forward to it. There's a lot of there's a there's a twofold aspect to this right so for years we've talked about having an online captain what the benefits are what the upsides are what the downsides are you know how it interacts with having a team that's really focused on a goal and I have felt particularly over the last few years that I haven't been able to be the best version of myself for the team in either of my roles honestly right I you know couldn't really focus on being the best possible pilot because I was doing so much of the team organizing I couldn't really focus entirely on the organizing because I didn't still have to maintain being one of the best eight players in our roster which it's a pretty good roster so that requires continuous effort. So yeah this year I'm going to be stepping into a non-playing role I'm going to be taking on the you know officially taking on the mantle of co-captain and increasing my responsibility to the organizational side of you know winning an event right which as time goes on you know a far cry be it from our first year when we practiced twice messaged occasionally in a Facebook group chat and didn't interact outside of the two weekends we spent together before the event a little bit different these days you know we have a discord with like 70 people in it that has to get maintained and managed and things like that you know so yeah looking forward to being in a non-playing role I've had some like bumps with my own interest in early eleventh though the last patch righted a lot of the wrongs from my perspective and we're you know progressing towards a better spot once they figure out how to make disruption not terrible but one day I aspire to return I just need like a year off I got a lot better real life stuff going on too so I think that combined with taking a bigger role in the organizational side of the tent will mean that it'll be good to be non-playing for a year. Yeah I'm really looking forward to that as well you know when when I was solo captain I have definitely and I'm always I'm always a little bit self-critical but I've definitely felt like there are times when I've been a good captain times when I've not and I certainly this year I think I felt the strain the most when we had some of the let's say the early craziness from a personal standpoint this summer with Art of War with when you had the eleventh edition launch was probably the busiest I've been with work in the last six years and I've been doing this job for over six years now so like and that was I don't want to say worse because I still like enjoyed it but that was definitely the busiest I've been with work and then we also went into the the five-day you know pressure washer of over by the way here's a balance patch everyone and you all have actively five days in order to you know submit your list and everything yeah really more like four in the end right because you never test or change on the last day you just go like nobody submit their list are the formats correct yeah and so that that was one where I was like oh my god like I I'm really struggling to do it all right now and and so I I think a little bit of load load bearing help is I think going to go a long way for the team yeah because I I still certainly you know I'm going to try to return as a playing member of course I say tried because you won't have that selection for a while but you tie the record if you land it but you oh what's the what's the record the record is mr. Gagneau the the goat himself with with six six consecutive starts for the team so I don't know if you realize what you've done but you just cursed me to playing in 2028 perfect yeah I'll come back and we can play together oh fair enough yeah so I um I'm really excited I think this will help me a lot I think this will help the team a lot um obviously you know Anthony you've been here for as long as I have and so there's no one I trust more thank you yeah I do uh I feel like part of the furniture after a while you just you just fit in so well and that's right and in a year you can you can go non-playing for a bit well dust well dust you off when we need you when the guests come over yeah yeah I can have I can have one year is not playing right yeah jokingly yesterday I forget who I was talking to I think I might have been Zach referred to us as two halves of the same soul and I think good laugh out of that I mean you and I are such similar people that's why we work so well together yeah I mean genuinely to people that don't actually know us well that's gonna sound like a bit yeah there's uh there's you know there's there's some truth to it we do some things differently but there's some truth to it you know I look good and blue you look in red that's right oh oh red my beloved boys oh they're back uh yeah so uh we're really excited for this um my thought process for this year for Team USA is um and obviously I say my this is you know this is our I guess the team vision the team vision that that Anthony I share is that we we did a lot of things right last year but is things that we did well that we very much realized we could have done better yeah and so this is this year for us is gonna be like a try to like kind of like sharpen the blade we're not trying to re-forward something crazy but I think most of us at Team USA once we got the you know uh those of us who had them once we solved our hangovers from our popular I think we all knew that's like wow that was we did we did we did well this year guys we could have done better and so there's not gonna be a lot of uh resting on memorials this year for Team USA is kind of the idea uh we're we're definitely gonna look to reload get some more people in that are hungry uh you know if someone needs a break like uh Anthony we're gonna give him a break we're also gonna keep people involved we're gonna be trying to do a lot of putting people in the roles where they can do best yep I think that's a big focus on like for me anyway having been in the fire enough time as myself now is gonna be on making the process of starting and being a starter easier right you know the path to being one of the eight once you are one of the eight like all of that stuff I want all of those people to feel like they have a real like ground swell of support behind them and not like they're just like you know on an island doing this extraordinarily difficult thing with limited resources yeah and practically we all know that this is a difficult task right like everyone everyone who's listening to this is probably aware that starting for WTC team is difficult you know that's not a unique fastive team USA although we certainly don't make it easier than anyone else um but it's there are so many like little challenges on the side it's the I'm new to this am I doing the right thing should I be asking for more should I be asking less am I being the captain if I ask them a question and then you know then a month later well why didn't you tell me I didn't want to annoy you and I'm like ah yeah there's so there's so many like little intent We're never going to change the fact that I don't think we're ever going to try to change the fact that in order to go from applying to team USA to being one of the starting at any event let alone at WTC is going to be a challenge. That is OK. The people need to be challenged in order to grow. And I've seen enough people be challenged and grow that I'm not looking to to diverge from that method. But so many of the intangibles are unnecessarily difficult. That it feels like we scam ourselves a little bit by making it harder than it needs to be. I mean, it's just the simple stuff right like having to schedule your own games when we're in the like the process to the lead up right is like it becomes an added complication especially for our you know heavily ADHD focused group the like adding a like you have to schedule to the also you must do this extraordinarily difficult thing alone is enough of a road block sometimes right. So being able to take care of things like that facilitate in all the ways that I remember being difficult for me from even as recent as this year right is going to be I think a big weight off people's shoulders. Absolutely. I mean for being honest I would personally benefit a lot from someone telling me when I'm supposed to go to the gym right and you know no one's going to pick up the weights for me but like we can make parts of this easier. For sure and especially just like scheduling it out right hey you have a game on this day against this person you know a good time is any to talk about this is that we're expanding our pairings and data side of things quite heavily and you know to go along with that they'll be able to give us more real insight which will then I can take that info and schedule those people those games that they're perceived as needing right or at least you know facilitate the conversation between the pilot and the pairing team and that alone massive game huge game. So yeah looking forward to that yeah so this will be this is going to be a good year for us I think I'm really excited for it not just as a result here but as a as always trying to make it better for the people in the room yeah. And so that's that's really it's really exciting one of my priorities has always been as I as I make leadership decisions for team USA as I try to say try to do everything and whenever I'm faced with the decision basically is that I have two competitive priorities for team USA. One and like let me I guess I should practice this number one is always like oh make sure that team USA represents the country well is sports been like obviously that is most important. While I have not necessarily to an external listener right yeah I do I do have to say that first but like once I've gotten everyone in the room where I'm like all right I'm now confident that of these 24 people all 24 of them could represent USA well could do this well could do you know could be a member of team USA. Once I'm there my two priorities are I want to give us the best chance possible to win this year and I want to set to me us up USA up as well as possible for the next three years. It's it's both and that that's a lot of it we're working on processes and making people who are not the starting eight you know I guess like more comfortable more involved making it more accessible that's where it's really important because I I think that there's always this push pull of. We want to optimize things as well as much as possible and we're trying to win this year but if I I I at least feel that if I ever get to enamored with winning this year I will probably make decisions that will hurt us over the next three years. It's super easy to trip into that trap right it's yeah short-sighted but it is tempting like it is oh it is extremely tempting and and I I do want it but also I I know that I shouldn't. And so that that's something that I kind of use like a personal at mistest of like oh how should I be doing this what's the right approach to to where I'm at. And so yeah so I'm I'm excited I'm like I'm like I'm excited for what what we have going on in the future and I think then that we should talk a little bit just to mention about what we're actually going to be doing for this next while. Yeah for sure man so one of the things that we're looking at is changing our our selection process for WTC itself our selection process for the smaller events is much simpler which is that the team leadership chooses but for WTC itself we usually make it like a more involved process I we've talked about this in some past episodes. We have not decided how we're going to change it yet but we are going to look at how we we kind of like a couple different ideas for how we could do selection differently and it's always that that tear of like if we have less people involved in the process it's easier and more straightforward if we have more people involved it is more complicated but if we have more people involved in the process that gives people more confidence in the process and it gives more people faith in what we're doing and that helps us over multiple years which is why I think it's it's important to not have it just be oh well the captain knows best the captain picks the eight. Some countries I believe still do it that way we have not done it that way in a couple of years and it's always tempting but this isn't very much an example of I think it's better to think of the health of the team over multiple years by thinking of all of the players. And we're probably going to do this year actually is let last year's roster choose what method we're going to use for the next year. Yeah it'll be the voting eligible rule right which does expand a bit past the roster but is inclusive of the roster from last year. Yeah but it is yeah I think generally for the most part we try to do things like fairly democratically right as a general rule of thumb most of the things are in some way or another democratic. We are met with varying levels of success with the result of that but we try damn it. Yeah I love firm believer in anything that is remotely difficult that progress is much more important than perfection yes like I don't I don't think that we have been perfectly democratic like I would love to say that we are but I don't think we've been perfectly democratic at any point at the last five years but I think every single one of the past five years has been more so than the last. Right I would agree and like you know we can always talk about the rate of progress but as long as we are improving and progressing and getting better I think that means that we're doing a good job. Yeah I would say so yeah so excited to kind of lock that in once we have that finalized we'll probably announce that here we're actually very shortly will be rolling into our. Our academy intake which is kind of exciting yes that should be either sometime this coming week or week after but yes that should be up and firing soon as show if you are looking to get involved with team USA that would be the best way to have your foot my door yeah so we'll have our application for academy coming up very shortly i'm always really excited about academy intake because every year there are people that apply that I'm less familiar with or that I don't know as well. And then someone on the team gets to say like oh I actually know this person like I actually think this person to know this person is good and we always end up with a couple new people every year who are new to the team who I don't at all know and then I end up being impressed by some of them right and so I always enjoy that because you know no matter how well I think I know the US meta or the US community there there's always more always a cheeky little surprise waiting in the wings. Yeah I've been I've been out to the you know the western half of the US more this year all for team events but more this year than I think I I haven't it since before covid because this year I've been to I've been to Arizona I've been to Utah I've been to. Yeah I didn't get to California this year but you know I've been in the past but it is fun getting out to different parts of the country that I normally plan this year sure yeah and so you know getting to interact with different scenes and see more people so I'm I'm excited and of course you know I'll be in the northeast soon I have been already so it's it's fun to it's fun to see the USA community but there it's always full surprise there's always going to be. There's always going to be the new person I've never heard of and and it's it's very easy to be dismissive when it's someone you've never heard of and yet there's always someone who I've never heard of who ends up being a really valuable member of the team each year. Yeah I mean the I think as time has gone on my like broad stroke familiarity with like the wide breath of the meta has you know mitigated that a little bit for me I tend to get caught a little less surprised these days. Even days in the past but always there's someone that's like we I feel like we often get surprised by like oh like you're like pretty good at this army and this is the thing that I've seen you play and then they show up for us and they play like something else and they just shut shit down on it you know like where was that the whole time. Yeah it's it comes in a lot of different ways right it's fun yep. Yeah so exactly for that we'll have our academy applications up relatively soon we're aiming for the next week that's certainly by end of next week's what we're looking for and that's kind of the signal for when we're going to we're going to actively be going hard from that point once once the new kids are in that's when the party really starts. But obviously, this year's members also have also been put in a lot of work already, so I'm really excited to kind of see where that goes. I feel like now is actually a good time to shout out that a member of Team USA just won LDO, right? Right, as good as any big kit, dude. The war boss. Yeah, that was exciting. Seeing Kit smash at LVO and do really, really well was incredibly impressive. I'm always excited when like members of Team USA go and do things, and like, I don't want to say that I'm surprised by it, because like, you know, I obviously have high expectations for the team, but it's still fun when it manifests. Yeah, watching it pan out is always the best, right? And we've, I feel like this is the thing you and I have seen at least once now, where I felt like at the end when we went to WDC in 10th, the year we got second, I felt like there was like a good six month window after that where I was just like untouchable and single. Unless it was someone else that had been part of the WTC process. And I think that is kind of panning out amongst our players that like helped us prep and, you know, one thing's leading up to the event, you can see it in Challenders Cup, obviously at LVO. Yeah, that that that summer of mild suffering makes you built different when you come out of it afterwards. You know, I am really excited because I, I'm certainly be testing that I have not played a singles event of 11th edition yet. Oh my goodness. And I know I look, I am committed to the team. Yeah. And my old old days of singles, John would be so sad, but I am, I am very, very much, I've been missing singles a little bit. So we've got a, I've got a BFS on to be seen you in a couple days. That would be even I know. So I got the battle for salvation, a tournament coming up in just a couple of days. That would be my first singles event of 11th edition. And I may, I love teams, I started teams, teams is what I've been playing teams Warhammer for over 12 years now. But I do miss me some singles every once in a while. Yeah, it's fair. I think, I think the biggest thing for teams for me at this point, besides the, in my opinion, slightly better opponent pool at the top end, is that like you get a little bit better diversity of matchup in teams. I've been doing a bit of like judging and coaching some other stuff, and it does seem like, at least some people that I talk to you. There's a lot of like, you play take and hold and go to singles and you play four mirrors and maybe a game against purge or prior. And that is like, all right. Yeah, well, I will really disclose that I have made my game plan around the fact that if I've got to play the take and hold mirror, I am showing up prepared. I'm planning to win it. Yeah. Like, yeah, take and hold mirror. Okay. That's what we got to do. It's funny to see the different meta, like meta pockets. I mean, we see in two different part different disposes like being the strongest. I feel like for us or like, at least our team are like internal conversation has been that take and hold was the strongest for like, I don't know since like the second week basically. But you see all these like other meta's out there, like even across the US, let alone across the world, pick like, you know, prior or purge or this and it's like, oh, interesting. I've definitely seen, um, I've definitely seen people saying prios the best one and I get it. But, uh, I'm still a take and hold game right heart because I've, I found that if, uh, if the prior player has to get squirrely with the take and hold player or if the take and hold player has to get squirrely with the prior player. I found that if, uh, we've got to force each other to just like start fighting, I'd rather be the guy who doesn't have to do actions. Yeah, I mean, I've always felt that I mean part of the reason that I think, um, take and hold is the strongest is that take and hold is strong on the front foot or on the back foot, right. Like in a chill game or nothing's happening and you're just holding three objectives, your score, you're going to max your primary. But also in a rowdy game where you're pushing, you still have stuff on the objective, so you're still scoring a lot. But if prio gets pushed, it's very easy to be like, I actually can't action now. Yeah, that's, that's fair. Um, I'm, what I'm kind of excited for is, um, I played take a hold right at the start of the edition. My first tournament, I did Heroes Cup with Team USA, I brought Ultramarines and I played take hold. And it was great because I played, I think it was six games of Warhammer and I think it's six games of Warhammer. I think, uh, I think one of our advisors Celeste had the honor of being the only person to hold me to 44 primary. Right. Right. Yeah. It's right. I think it's a very score 60 oops. Yeah, like I, I, I think I, I think I had the one round where I scored 44 and I scored 45 every other game and I was like, okay. All right. Yeah. That's what we're going to do then. And I am, I'm certainly going to try to do that again. Yeah. All right. Why would you not, right? Yeah. I, I, definitely from a play style perspective, I, I liked taking hold, um, I like taking all the most because, uh, I, I felt like taking a hold had the most natural mess with my opponent's primary plan. Because what I, what I would say what I've not enjoyed about playing Beacon is the various games where I hit my opponent's expansion contest that their primary denied them. And then three turns later, they're explaining to me that they actually still have 45 primary and I'm like, but I can tested your expansion twice like you, you held the objective outside your deployment zone two times in five turns. How, how did you do that? Yeah. Yeah. It's not great. Yes, but WC is definitely the one who got me the most with that. Right. Like I, I was like, all right. He's playing prior. I'm going to kill all of his action units and I'm going to put models on his expansion objective while I hold the middle. So if he doesn't hold objectives and he doesn't do actions in son of a bitch, 45. Yeah. I, uh, I'm going to be honest, man. If I never play Recon again, it'll be too soon. That's right. We were the recon bros. Yeah. I, uh, I did not like recon. Yeah. I felt the same way. It felt like it had the power, but like I, it really didn't, I liked it. I don't know. I like it more as a team disposition where it's like a, oh, I, I, at least I never had the like I'm going to get blown out experience because there's always a, oh, well, at least I've got, you know, you may score your points, but darn, score mine. Yeah. So as long as I get to play, and obviously if he had tablet table, then we're going to. God, no man has invented a solution for that. So yeah, luckily, some things are still consistent. But I, I very much was looking at it and I was like, oh, man. What if my opponent also scores 45 primary? And if I can't, I feel like it's hard to deny opponent secondary because sometimes you try really hard and then your opponent just draws the right cards and it doesn't god damn matter. Yeah. So I always prefer a game. Yeah, that just happens. I always prefer a game plan where I'm, I'm going to say, Oh, I'm going to try to beat you on primary. And then I'm going to trust that your cards are not going to randomly be 15 points better than mine. Sure, I can control my secondaries to an extent less than I can control my primary, but to an extent so I can make sure that my secondaries are pretty decent. I can try to make your secondaries as hard as possible because I, I definitely can just look at and say, All right, I'm going to, I'm not going to let you have an easy bring it down. I'm not going to sacrifice a character to in order to get a job done. I'm going to have a grievous blow target that is parked where you can't hit it. Great, but sometimes your opponent just doesn't draw those cards and it doesn't matter. I've had the games where I draw grievous, my opponent draws grievous blow assassinate and I'm like, aha, you see, Mario Calgar is both of those things and he is behind a wall, way over there. Yeah, and I feel so smart. And then sometimes my opponent just draws center ground and security man's land on top of one and what it did. And so they just get their 10, I'm like, oh, yep, they really don't need that many more points, do they? You just don't get that much ability to control your opponent's secondaries and 11th and kind of just as what it is. But the doubt the flip side of that is that you would really like some level of agency over what's going on with their primary and some disposed let you have that and some do not. Yeah, I feel like taking hold gives me the most agency over my opponent's primary and that is exactly what I'm looking for. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I come from the other side of the coin, right? So like I adore purge, but the reason I adore purge is that it lets me play like a complete psychopath and then rely on the inherent stability of the disco to instead, you know, kind of manage things from there, right? And usually that works. Great works works awesome, you know, yeah, it is pretty good. I mean purge purge. I see the appeal. It doesn't job then. It's not, you know, it's not a perfect disposition by any any meaning of the word, but it is it is good at what you ask it for. It does let you play what it says on the 10. Yeah, you get them foes, dude, those foes get cock. Yeah, so we're moving on to single season for a little bit. Yes, which is at least for me. I know for you, this is more like judging season. Yeah, exploring a new song. of participating with the hobby, you know what I mean? - Yeah, but for me, the after WTC process has quick crystallized into the following. All the way through August, from end to August, I focus on WTC, and then September, I try to spend a lot of time with my wife. - Yep, and then after that, I still try to spend time with my wife. But also, I try to, I get to like, actually play some singles events. So usually I would play Crucible in Florida. That's like the big event for Florida each year. Unfortunately, this year, it just so happened to fall in the same weekend as Chandler's Cup, which is a work-sponsored and pay-forward event. So hey, I did another team event. - Yeah, it's hard not to do the free events, you know? - Yeah, you know, you and I played Champs Cup together, and then when it involved into Challengers, I did Challengers last year with Art of War, to Challengers this year with Art of War. So I enjoy my post-WTC team event, where I get to just be like, yeah, I know it's going on in the meta and make it work. And this time, I had a great time at Art of War, at Challengers Cup, it was an amazing event. And now I'm done, I'm on to single events. So I'm doing Battle for Salvation, just to get a singles event in my October timeline. And I've always wanted to do BFF singles. So it actually, for many years, it was the same weekend as Crucible in Orlando. So like for different reasons, I didn't do it. But then Crucible moved on to an inconvenient date, and that left an opening. - That left the perfect time, dude. - Yeah, 'cause now I can do BFFs. So I'm excited because I like playing singles. I like, I love teams, and I like singles, but after a lot of teams, I do kind of want to just do something a little more simple, honestly. Sometimes it's just a little bit easier to say, yep, I'm going to bring the army I love and not ask anyone else about my role. - I don't have to fill out a matrix, dude. I'm going to go to this event, and I'm going to play eight rounds, and it's going to go, however it goes, based on who's across from me. Why? - Yeah, table choice. We don't do that here. - Yeah, no. You don't have to worry about Don at BFF, dude. - Oh, there's no Don of War at BFFs? - There's no Don of War. I killed Don in sweeping. If you land on Don or sweeping, you play the next map. Then the fire back. - I didn't read that. No one does. (laughs) - You're going to see some people play Don of War. - No, I'm not. We're going to have an announcement the first day and the second day and the third day. And I already told all the other judges to go around and check. - Not happening. - So you can tell by Anthony's enthusiasm. This is going to be his first time to owing a very large event, because there's no way that the announcement is going to fix that. - It's going to be fine. - That's going to be fine. Okay, I'm excited for you. - I think mostly, honestly, it's going to be fine because I already talked to the other judges about going around to the tables to make sure that people didn't screw it up. (laughs) - Yeah, they're going to find someone who's starting to deploy it though. - No. - I look, I'm confident that you will have it fine by 20 minutes in to round one. But like, there's no way that there isn't a table. - Yeah. - One table. There's going to be one. There's always one. - Yeah, look, I mean, hopefully it's only one. If it's only one, yeah, it's going to be worse. - Yeah, on the one hand, I'm a little sad that I'm finding this out live, but also I didn't read. So, you know, there's only so sad I can be. - Yeah, the other hand. - I hope you're limited to how much I can help you with the problem, brother. - Yeah, on the other hand, I'm not mad about it either. - Right. - So, it'll be all right. - I don't think any, I've never had someone to be like, dude, we can't believe we're not playing Donald. - Yeah, well, I, a man who brought an amount of guns, but not what I would call a shooting army, just like an army that has guns. You know, like my combined, I will be okay. - Right, that is true. - I'll be all right, I don't want to play, I don't want to play against a gun line and go second on Don, look at the table and be like, well, how am I supposed to move forward? - My favorite joke is the Don of War smoke break, right? The 15 minutes into the round, or like an hour into the round you go outside and see who's hanging out, like at like the, either like the smoke break area, or like if the event has like a dining area and you go into that area and you just see who has a thousand yards stare on and you ask them if they played Don of War. - I mean, look, it's a good bit, but it's only a good bit because it's true. - Yeah, the hit rate is really high. (laughs) - Yeah, I'm not mad about it. I love anything that gives me some nice five rounds of war hammer. - Yes, it's certainly what I'm trying to do here. - Look, you're one of your few weaknesses. This is a man with a deep strike charge, no fear. - I don't love that, actually. (laughs) Although I did actually bring a good deep strike charge on me this time, so much. - Yeah, look, it helps dude, you know, it mitigates a little bit. (laughs) - Yeah, so yeah, so I'm excited because it's single season, single season, obviously is leading into WCW in Barcelona. Maybe I'll figure out the correct way to pronounce Barcelona at some point. I'm told that I'm doing it wrong. - Sure, which is Barcelona, right? - You know, some people say like Barcelona with like a bit of a Mike Tyson to it. And I can never tell if they're messing with me or if that's like actually correct. I will aspire to find out before I get there, make sure that I'm doing it right. It's possible that I've been subjected to a bit that I'm just missing out on. - This happens, not zero times. - That would be easy. - Yeah, like. (laughs) - And look, I'm not gonna claim it'd be like the only time it's happened. - Sure. - So I'll make sure I know. But I'm really excited for WCW. I've, you know, I hinted at my hard, but I've made sure I know that I'll be going. And so I'm really excited because it's gonna be so fun. World's is gonna be huge this year. - Also, the diversity of opposition will be really fun too. - Yeah, I'm excited to like hopefully just like not play that many games against Americans. Not that I like, I hate it, but like, you know, it's more fun tonight. - It should be, you know, comparatively anyway to the previous years, much less Americans, right? - I expect so. But we'll see how that goes. Yeah, I'm really excited to go a couple of us from the Art of Warhouse you're gonna be going, which will be a very good time. And I will almost certainly be playing Space Marines because again. - I mean, that book is, you know, limitless depth on builds, right? - Yeah, that has definitely been my favorite part of the new Space Marine Codex is that it feels like this is the deepest army ever. - Yep. - Like in 11 editions, I don't think there has been an army as deep as Space Marines two day. - Yeah. - And I mean, the next class argument would have been what like 9th edition CSM have like 24 builds or whatever when it came out. And that still is just like dwarfed by current Marines. - Yeah. I think, I mean, 10th edition Chaos Space Marines did have a ton of diverse builds. - That's true. But I just don't think it's gonna be quite as many as Space Marines have. - Yeah, I think the nature of the D.P. system, right? Like even something as simple as Kastotis has like a bajillion builds in their new book. - Yeah. And then, you know, we just have the most attachment combos in Space Marines 'cause we've got so far the most attachments. And it'll take a while to top it because we have all the different chapter ones as PDFs. Like the Space Marine Codex is merely as diverse as the York Codex. However, I received my special boy points, which is that I got a large number, let's say a large number of bonus attachments and those are kind of crazy. - They're pretty good, dude. - Yes, some of them are actually quite good at turns out. - Yeah. - So yeah, so I'm excited to be playing Space Marines. It's what I'm gonna be playing at BFS. I took my one event break from Space Marines because I did it Space Marines for all of 11 so far. I played Emperors' Children. It was great. I realized how much I missed Emperors' Children. So I played six games, one six games, and I'm back on Space Marines. - Classic. - Mm-hmm. - Why put, get old Space Marines. Nothing beats that, you know? I mean, really does anything beat it though? - It's not a lot of armies. (laughs) - Yeah, so I'm doing Ultramarines. I'm kind of starting off with what I would call a tried and true. I'm really curious to see how the builds are gonna actually develop for Space Marines because I think that I think we're gonna see a ton of different options from the different chapters. And I feel like it's only a matter of time until someone finds the first non-prime arc like Space Marine build. Like I think it's obvious that Dark Angels are gonna have some builds. I think that it's obvious to me that Space Wolves are gonna have some viable builds, you know? - Yeah, getting the right combination of units and wolves is kind of tough. I've actually been, so I'm trying a new thing this year, John, which is when every Codex that releases, I treat as if I got a book. Like for an army that I like play and I try and dive into it with that level of enthusiasm because if I'm gonna be taking a non-playing role this year, I feel like it's really important for me to maintain my breath of meta knowledge that I would normally have from playing it on. - Yeah. - And in so far as I've found or thought of so far, this has been the best way to do it. - Yeah, that sounds valid. I don't know what the best Space Wolves thing is gonna be. I am a Space Marine player, I don't consider myself a space wolf player. I usually a lot of people have that. But to me, the quality of rules in space always means that there is something there. I think the saga of the wolf, saga of the bee slayer, sorry, the saga of the bee slayer attachment, that one wolf in enhancement, to me that is a clear, there is sauce here. - Right, it is a sauce. - Yeah, what's the correct unit? I don't know, we'll probably find out in a month once we've done the math and realized that a bike chap on the attached to wolfon has a higher win rate than in Terminator Ancient attached to Wolfguard Assault Terminators with Logan. And we'll figure out which of those was the best at some point. But one of those is gonna be good. Ultramarines are gonna be good. Dark angels are gonna be good. I personally think blood angels are gonna be good. Although, again, I'll probably let someone else be the person to solve that. That's not usually my cup of tea. - I don't want blood angels to be good so bad. But every time I get the rules, it makes me so sad. - Oh man, I feel like, I feel like there's sauce in there. - There's gotta be something. I would be surprised if there was actual nothing, but boy, whoo, not, they've not been given a kind starting point. - Yeah, I actually really like a couple units, like the ball predator or Sanctuary guard, I think are actually quite solid. - The new ball predator does rip. I think there's gonna be like a morning period for me where I have to get over the fact that death company are just kind of bad now. - Yeah, the death company was not the part that excited me, I didn't mention it. - Yeah, and for so long, that was like a big primary part of like my own draw to you, the army. But there's definitely something there with like a ball-pred supporting mini-sanguary guard, land raider, redeemer, type beat. Practically, I am mostly team's focused, so it's really hard to even consider justifying that over like even wolves let alone Ultras. - Yeah, that valid. - But what I suspect is that someone is going to, and maybe it'll be me, I'm certainly gonna take some steps at it, but someone's gonna find a non-ultramarine codex space Marines build. There's an Ironhands thing, there's a salmigrant thing - Oh, yeah. - It's raiding guard, yeah. I'm pretty confident there's a raiding guard build that I'm closing in on that I quite like. I think Ironhands has a lot of potential that I'm not gonna play it for this weekend, but I think the next time I have a event not in a week, I want to take a little bit of time 'cause there's an Ironhands build out there I'm quite confident in that fact, I think. Wrath of Medusa, Medusa's Wrath of Medusa, it's a really good 2DP attachment. So there's something there. - Yeah, there's a bunch of them, right? Again, it goes back to that depth of the Marine codex, is because the Marine codex is so deep on like shorter schedules like this, right? Like Marines were illegal barely for BFS. Because the short window, I think a lot of, there's gonna be so much room basically for there to be experimentation and builds found and yada, yada, yada, right? - Yeah, so I'm just tremendously excited to see how that is gonna go. - Right, 'cause I think that'll be good fun. So I, yeah, I mean, what else? And that's where I'm at for space brains. I mean, I'm gonna be putting almost all my effort to the space Marines. I, I mean, even through the year, man, I don't like, you're gonna, you're busy with that book. Like, I know, like, unless they just go in and like, and do get that there's so many moving parts, the odds that they, I know, it'll, I don't know, dude. - They can hit the parts that I wanna play, because there are 11 space Marine chapters, and as a general note, I don't play all of them. - That's fair. We're gonna have to find an EC pilot, dude. - Oh, look, if they hit on them all, then. - Yeah, but they're not gonna. They're the guys on the front, John. They're the guys on the cover, dude. - Yeah, they've done it before, they've done it before, but I certainly don't think it's likely. - I think the last time that Marines were like, properly, not very good, was like, that like, weird window in ninth, right? When like, Drew's ad mech took over the game? - What's funny is that I was, that was actually the first time I took ultramarines to retirement. - But that's kind of what I'm saying, right? It's like, and even then, in teams, that Ultras list would have been like, what the second or third best army in the game? Like, it just didn't, it felt like it wasn't very good, 'cause we weren't really playing teams. - Yeah, I weep for the fact that we did not have a, like that we didn't have a WTC for two years. - Yeah. - The first, 'cause we only had one ninth edition W? - No, that's not true. - Yeah, no, no, I think we only had one, didn't we? - We had one ninth edition WTC. - Yep. - Yeah. And that's not to say that I would have been on team USA during that point, although I certainly like to think that I would have been in the conversation. I guess actually, considering I made the WTC team like 13 months before we actually like did it. - Yeah, so maybe it would have been. - The summer of drucari violence, yeah, if I'd been playing my ultimate list for that, that would have been a unique asset. - Right. - I mean, not gonna lie. Every time I got paired into drucari, I would have done a Polish cheer, so. - Right. - Yeah. - You know, would they have known to stop you, right? Like, yeah, even then just having one answer to just immediately force drucari into the other thing was also super valid. - Incredible, helpful. - Yeah. - So, yeah, I do miss, I do wish, yeah, God, those two years I would have played white scars then ultra shame. - Yep. - All right, I guess no, sorry. Ultra shame was Nick's version. Ultra memes was my version. - That's right. - It's totally, totally different. - Yes, totally different. - You see, for a legally distinct ultra cool. - Yeah. Oh, good times. Yeah, I do kind of wish that we got in this. That would have been fun. But for now, I guess, singles of season means I've got BFS right now, I'm gonna probably find a local event to do sometime in October, November, either I'm gonna do like one in Florida. I've been like half considering going to the GW Open in Atlanta. - Okay. - Just to get my, just to scratch VH, I was really feeling VH during LVO this year, like watching people play. I was like, man, I, I haven't missed LVO in a couple of years and for the first time in a while, I was like, kind of wish I was at LVO. - Yeah, man, it looked fun. I mean, I heard a lot of good things about like the calm side of things as well. That's starting to grow. - Yeah, I was pretty exciting. - From some of my friends that were there, I heard that FLG did a really good job this year of with LVO and that it was a better event to attend than last year. And so that's a really good sign, of course. So we'll see, but I found myself missing singles. And so I'm ready to, I'm ready to go lose a random game, apparently not on Donobor for a reason. - Mark Safe, you'd be mad at that. Yeah, Mark Safe, but I'm sure there's a search and destroy out there still. Let's not protect that right. - That's true. I mean, yeah, an event I run is not gonna ban search and destroy right? What are we talking about? - Heaven forbid, look, I, I think I'd rather play Donobor than search and destroy some kind of-- - That's crazy. - You cannot meet me. - Search and destroy is insane. - Search and destroy is a little more rowdy, but at least you can go backwards. (laughing) - Okay, no, there's no space to go backwards. Armies take up a lot of space now. And the amount of scout nodding, the amount of just like go get 'em, turn one, that's possible right now, it's crazy. But anyways, these, I, we'll have to see on that one. We'll see, I'm excited to play No Donobor, though. It reminds me of the old WDC. And Donobor is generally things that nobody likes. - That's what they do. - Donobor is, Donobor is the devil. - I always feel like the water boys mom, do you know when people start talking about Donobor? - Yeah, no, I'm good actually. Yeah, so that into an event in between into WCW, that gets me through December, and then the holidays come, and the holidays end, and by the time the holidays end, I'm like, all right, there we are, it's team time. - Yeah, yeah, I feel like, what I'm gonna do. - I feel like we always, every time we get to this part of the year, I'm like, all right, BFS, I'm on Anna's birthday, and then I like, close my eyes, and then I open them, and I'm on a plane to Pyro. - I would not be surprised if that's always feel like that. - Yeah, yeah, I mean, honest to God fair enough, right? It's gonna happen again, 'cause, you know, well, we don't know yet no Team USA's full calendar for the year. I think one of the main parts that we're missing is actually when WTC itself will be held. - Yes, we should know that soon-ish, by like, on-play thing. - Yeah, we're hoping by end of October to know where WTC is, and if we know by end of October, then we get to like, lock in a lot of the things that we kinda have, we're proud of gonna do like, I know, Team USA, I think the last, is it four years that we've done power of three years? - I mean, I think three. - I wanna say three, I think it's three. - Yeah, so we've been to Pyro three times for Team USA, and we're planning to go a fourth time. Pyro is in Poland, it's a February event, and it's always been a just a really good way to get some of last years, and some of this year's players out to go play in Europe against Europeans, understand what it's like, and the polls are usually pretty gracious hosts. - Yeah. They're incredible hosts, the big thing about the Pyra, to give people a little bit of a thing to look forward to on the content training as time goes on, we get into like a Pyra prep period window. Pyra is the way they do the invitations to Pyra, at least the one that's in February, is that there are two Polish teams that go, and then they start at rank one from the event, and they go down and invite until they have eight teams. - Yep, so it's usually good event. - It's tough. Yeah, many a, would be Team USA starter, starter to be has made their name in the Polish trenches. - Yeah, it's certainly, it's a tough proven ground. My first time going was last year and I had a really good time. We'll see, I think I realistically only have one Team USA non-WTC European trip in the budget this year. So we're going to kind of figure out when WTC itself is, and then I'll decide what that is. I've done Euro trash cup in the past, I've done home nations in the past, and I've had a good time at both of those. - Well, ETC was fun. It wouldn't even do that as part of Team USA, if it was Team Finland. - No, I did, I do, Belgium United was a legendary team. - A very powerful team. - So I'm quite excited to find out where WTC is, and then I get to kind of finalize my schedule for the year. That's what I most look forward to. So I just, I like knowing things honestly. I'm a big fan of knowing things. It's why I play Space Burns. I like knowing the last game is going to hit. I like knowing what my shot count is, and I like to know when I'm going to WTC and where. So hopefully we know sooner than we get to kind of finalize the Team USA counterfeor. - Yeah, just having the stuff put together will be good. And now we have more people to help with that, because we are making a concerted effort to not make every part of setting up the process fall on four people. - Yep, whoo whoo. - Look at us. - We're doing it. - Well, I think that's everything I had. I know you're a little excited about the slate. - Yes, I am thrilled for the first time in many moons. I have considered, hold your, you know, I hope you're sitting there. I consider to playing as singles of them, dude. I famously have not played a singles event in two and a half, almost three years 'cause I just, you know, put all that time effort and energy traveling for team stuff and, you know, to voting it to you, Team USA. But the slate came out and finally, the boys in red have been restored to having the, they've been allowed to do damage consistently again, John, which is crazy. Just like, you know, since our codex came out and whenever the fuck that was a year and some change to go more, question mark. I don't remember anymore. Worldly drew damage has been what's the way to phrase this? Inconsistent. Surely, you know, Worldly just can play a totally normal, reasonable game of Warhammer. We saw Brian Doherty do it at NOVA, where like, look, if you play nine games of World Leaders, and when the dice leave your hand, they obey their master and you get, you know, a 66% hit rate on threes, and then a 66% wound rate on threes. All good, baby. World leaders do a reasonable amount of damage. Everything was all right. But if there was one too many failures on either side of that equation, you immediately got dumpstered. And that is why I wouldn't take them to WTC. However, unshackled from our lack of rerolls, restored in the might of the blood god, there were two lines of text that changed in the World Leader book that have now restored us to viability. The first is they deleted Angeron's aura that no one ever used and replaced it with the aura of the lion hat, which is real ones to hit in melee. Incredible, insane change. I would, you know, in World Leaders, you would pay through the nose to just have that ability kind of at all, let alone attaching it to a model that was kind of bad before and is now quite good, hugely helpful. And then the other is Bizzarca Warband going to 2DP. It's Examder Solong the way, losing its strengths component, which did genuinely matter for a fair amount of our like mid-range units, the eight bounds and the exalted eight bounds of the world from when they're hitting in future targets or bigger targets for eight bound. But it's able to be combined in, you know, at least three builds, you know, you have all the one DPs, right? So yeah, there's just a ton to be excited about in World Leaders right now. I think they're genuinely quite powerful. I have like a Vessel's Bizzarca Warband build that I would have taken to WTC, had it been on this patch and like an absolute heartbeat. I wouldn't have even thought twice about it. Kind of like we were alluding to before. Purge allows for nice stable floors, which is super valuable in teams. And then you get all the upside of being, you know, World Leaders once your floor is stable, which is that you can, you know, if you're so inclined, play like a bit of a psychopath and go for big pushes without getting just like turbo punished into the floor because we're just quite stable. So yeah, it's a pretty exciting time to be a World Leaders pilot. - Yeah, I'm quite happy for it. I think World Leaders were one of those armies that was very clearly like below power from day one of a limited edition. And it's nice to see that they have gone in and just said, yeah, we're just gonna, we're gonna make actual real changes. There's the main thing that I'm excited about is that I think that there are multiple armies in that boat. And so I'm optimistic where I look at the Chaos Knights Astromyletarium. Astromyletarium has gotten a lot of points adjustments kind of weirdly in both directions. But like, I'm hopeful that, like what I would love more than anything is to see them look at Chaos Knights and say, wow, infernal land is now 2DP and worse. - Right. - And I get to put in my silly little armature detachment with it, or some cultists. I'd be so happy with anything. God, or maybe you give a Chaos Knight an aura that I would pay for at all. - Yeah, I have a big thing with CK holding them back is like people are still so terrified from Chaos Knight Summer, right? - I understand what. - And I get it, but also the anti-tank tools that are available in the game now are just so much better than they were back then. But I feel like you can meaningfully buff CK without just like ruining the whole game. - Yeah, every time someone's like, the here's the new unit we're thinking about, on average, this should kill a big knight. And I'm like, why is that a metric you're still using? Like, yes, gas coal smashes a big knight and does 36 damage to a Lancer. But like, okay, like my man, we're still being uplancers. - Yeah, poor Lancer, do you leave October of 2026 where we're right about how we're going to kill it in fear of light? - Yeah, I think you just can't be an expensive unit that can't cut your way out of 10 guardsmen, dude. I don't think that's not allowed. - Yeah, yeah. Like, I love the opinion that Titanic model should be with a fallback shoot and charge. No questions asked. - Whoa, that's a hot take, John. That's a scorcher. - I think they used to be able to do it and it wasn't like deeply problematic. Like, I'm sorry, but like a knight is ginormous. Like, what universe is the knight being in cars been in combat with the 10th guardsmen? And what universe is that, the problem? - That's fair. I think there's a reasonable argument for that. - Yeah, your value staple cleave three on every single male weapon. - I think that knights should have like cleave six on their feet only. (laughing) 'Cause if you get stepped on by that thing, probably sucks, you know? - Yeah. - Ooh, God. - Yeah. - But yeah, it's an exciting time. I, you know, like I said, it's been a long time since I've been like jazzed about like the game, side of the game, you know, that level of burnout is definitely part of what's contributing to me taking, you know, the beat you're off. It's just funny that it happens to pan out in such a way that like, you know, if I formalized my decision, I was like, I'm doing this, I'm taking me off in the next patch. They were like, by the way. (laughing) - Dude, the chaos gods are cruel and fickle. - Yes, the best one I've got for that. (laughing) - Good time. - Well, you know, I'm hoping we can still drag you with singles event in the interim. Look, I, I can't let you play no warhammer. - Part of my goal for this year is to organize a calendar for the team USA people once they're like aspirants are in and that's all put together and stuff that allows for people if they so choose to opt into a calendar that is like, hey, all of these events are events that a bunch of team USA people are going to be at. Team events, well organized teams for singles events, well try to organize like group of comms for and stuff like that so that people can go and experience being a part of the team and the hangouts and all the things that go with being on the team as a unit rather than like kind of more sporadic one-offs. - Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that would be really fun. It also, I would also like any event where I know I'm going to see the homies and I know there can be a group of them being be. I do become more likely to go to. - Right. - So that's, that's got some good appeal to it. And maybe one day you can defeat the big, the big golds, the folder himself in smash dude. - Though I'm absolutely, I can, that's probably, probably the next time actually it's pretty easy. - You think you got him on the salty run back to you? Do you think you think this is the time? - Look, I historically great at the salty run back. (laughing) Just need things to be best of three. That's all. - Oh, that's the three. (laughs) - Oh, God, I've actually tempted to try to learn how to play Smash. - Yeah, I should, I should. - It'd be really funny if you got like super into it between now and the next time you saw Folger. - I definitely have considered that as like what? What if I just look up how to play Smash instead of just like learning by button to match? At no point have I ever read the controls for Smash? - Yep. - Just like, you know, it was just like, you know, someone handed me a controller at a small party, I get my teeth kicked several times. You know, you figure it out as you go, you get your teeth slightly less kicked each time that's how I play Smash. - Right. - But like, what if I approach Smash the way I play Warhammer where I start learning things? That'd be dangerous. I don't know if I can handle it. - Yep. (laughs) Just get a little too addicted to something with a little book more established of a competitive community, it's not good, dude. - Yeah, I don't know. I'll strike while he's weak while he's learning, wow. - Yeah, get him while he's down, dude. While we're busy and wow forever. - Easy. - I'm gonna see if I could rope you into that. I think I could. - Ah, I don't love about that. - I don't think it could be that hard. Do you have a real computer now? - I do have a real computer. The hard part is just gonna be that my space points aren't paid to get. - Yeah, but like, whatever. (laughs) You make a good argument. - Yeah, yeah, but whatever is like the goat argument of all time, do that work? That probably have a higher success rate in general for arguments than most things. - Honestly, I bet that is above average. - Yeah. - All right, yes, Anthony. - Well, let's wrap things. - Well, in that case, we'll be back. We're gonna try to get these up a little bit more regularly. Now that we are back into a new year and we're also gonna start getting some more guests on as well. - Awesome, yep. I believe that we'll have a bevy of willing participants coming soon. - We ha. All right, well, we'll see you all on the other side of that. Very excited. and login' off for now. Bye-bye.