So it is the day before U.S. Masters and I’m anti-socially sitting in my room writing an article this morning instead of all the better uses for my time. Eating a healthy breakfast? No thank you. Get some practice games in for your woefully under-practiced list? Not for me thanks. Socialize with folks you’ve flown across the country to see? Why bother. Instead, I’ll just ramble on with my incredibly mild takes and hope for some form of internet validation. Let’s get it going.
Boogeyman List
I mean it is Jeff Radigan’s Scorchwing and Centaur spam right? This absolutely fits the classic definition of what I’d look at as a boogeyman coming into an event. Like we shouldn’t even have to ask if it’s the boogeyman list, we should be asking why Jeff Radigan hates us all and Kings of War so much that he cooked up this filth. It is the list the people are generally talking about, it looks exceptionally difficult to play against and brings up bile from my stomach just thinking too hard about it. The list has frankly obscene speed and is paired with a huge number of shots to make an incredibly oppressive army to face on the tabletop
Honestly, it’s the list this year that people see on paper and say things like “this is why I don’t attend tournaments.” If being the poster child for literally not attending events isn’t enough, I really have no idea what else makes a boogeyman list but I’ll try for a moment to add some more classification to help distinguish between a “good” list and a “boogeyman” list.
Boogeyman lists by their very existence shape the meta around them in an oversized way to their representation in the field. Everyone is talking about it, but only a small number are usually actually playing it. Scorchwing spam makes up a very small percentage of the armies attending masters this year, but players expecting to do well absolutely have to have a plan to deal with it. That is the oversized effect on the meta, it feels like it is everywhere (and the unit does pop up in a group of lists), but the actual chances of facing the spam are pretty low, especially in certain parts of the field. It’s a gatekeeper list, it hard beats a lot of lists, but since the whole field at an event like this is expecting to face it at some point, it will be very hard to string all the wins together, especially in later rounds. The bet most boogeyman lists are making is that the raw power in the list is great enough to overpower people optimizing to beat it. And it’s worked before. Brad’s list that won San Antonio Masters was well known going in, even basically copied by some other players, but still stomped the event. That list helped define the meta of not just that event, but KOW 3rd edition that followed and we’re still dealing with repercussions from that bog of eternal stench in army list form. But an oversized effect on the meta isn’t enough for a true boogeyman, I think they have to have an oversized effect mentally on opponents as well.
A true boogeyman list in my opinion needs to feel hopeless for unprepared individuals to play against to some degree. And really, for everyone, not just the unprepared, it should feel scary, unfun, bad for the game, and all the other creative ways folks will find to say “I just don’t like that.” It has to have the sort of raw power and gross efficiency to immediately terrify. A list like this should create a panic of existential gaming dread. A real boogeyman list forces people to ask themselves why they even play this game if people are just going to show up with [gestures wildly with hands] THIS MONSTROSITY. Just the existence of a list like this at an event, cobbled together out of the jagged and sharp broken glass found in the dark and unkept corners Kings of War, splits folks into distinct camps. A boogeyman list sits as a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down to the community saying fight or flight, and for some, that challenge is exactly what they want out of the game, and especially an event like Masters.
For me, I just figure Jeff will do well enough and I’ll do poorly enough that I’ll never see it on the table and I’m good with that strategy. But I’m not going to lie here, if at the beginning of round 6 when I’m sitting on one win and hoping for a morale-boosting final game, and Jeff walks up to my table, I’ll be pretty happy to know that Scorchwing spam took a hell of a beating that day. And then I’ll piss and moan the whole match about having to face this filth at the same time.
Favorite List
Dustin Howards Empire of Dust list. Simply put, I think EoD are in a great spot right now because they are a strong all-comers list, while also well placed against the high-speed boogeyman lists floating around.
This is a great list boasting as much grind as a late 90’s high school gymnasium during a school dance. But unlike a lot of EoD lists I’ve faced, which lean so heavily into wound mitigation that they’re short on actual pieces to take shit off the table, this baby is packing heat. Three Enslaved Guardian hordes with their built-in CS 2 (who needs Bane Chant when everything that matters in the list is already American Gladiators level buff as heck) will give you quality and number of attacks to just remove things when they get stuck in. Shobik and the Undead Wyrm (great prog rock band name) give flexible hard-hitting pieces that thrive in the chaos of a late-game battle line and are also constant board control threats. And then a whole bunch of enablers to get in the way, protect the important pieces, control objectives and generally muck up the battlefield so the harder-hitting shambling dick-kickers can get their work done in peace.
Also, a quick shoutout to this absolute jerk of a character, the Ahmunite Pharaoh with Host Shadow Beast. This dude is pure pain in the ass distilled down to a 20mm base and sent into your army with bad intentions. A witches tincture but instead of finding you your soul mate or curing the fever running through the livestock it just ruins turns 3-6 for your opponents every game. Five attacks of their own at CS2 and then an additional four at CS3 from Host Shadow Beast means it hits harder than you think. Defense 6 with -/16 Nerve means that 20mm dinky character is about as hard to remove as a horde of freaking Earth Elementals. Did I mention the heal and wound removal in this list? Underrated gem of a piece in this list and I’d like any of Dustin’s opponents to shout loud and proud across the hall when (if) they kill it, please.
General Observation
There are a lot of first-time masters players this year at the event, and I think that is awesome. Not in a patronizing pat on the head “good job kids” kind of way, but more of a selfish desire to watch a shakeup of the event and attendees and meeting and seeing new folks. While I miss a lot of people this year, especially at the social hangout times, I’m excited to see what first-time attendees will bring to the tabletop.
Now I’ve been careful not to call them rookies because I really see that as an inaccurate label that starts to create an impression that just isn’t true across the group. These first-time attendees make up almost a third of the field, and any time you are talking about a grouping of that size, you have to be careful in thinking of them as a monolithic group, and not the varied and interesting individuals that make up that group. How we label things influences how we think of them, and if you think of them as “rookies,” and the connotations that come with that, you’ll probably be very surprised by how much ass many of them are prepared to kick.
Masters attendance is not based purely on qualification, but also the ability to attend a specific event, on a specific weekend, oftentimes a plane ride (or long-ass battle bus trek) away. It is a time and financial commitment that doesn’t always work into people’s varied and busy lives which means we have a number of multiple-time Masters qualifiers, who just couldn’t attend until now. Real talk it feels awkward as hell to call some of those folks who have attended more GTs than me “rookies” in any sense of the word.
We also have folks who have qualified from exceptionally competitive regions by regularly placing higher in events than the folks we think of as “Masters Players.” They got here by stepping over the bodies of vanquished foes at high-skill tables and earned a spot. I’m pumped to see how some of these folks do.
And I think a lot of folks here for their first masters will do pretty damn well. Our region boasted a first-time masters player (Shawn Polka) last year who went 5-1 and secured Paragon. I know other regions had folks crushing it their first masters appearance as well. The dirty little secret is that Masters is just another GT. I mean it is a great event and usually very well run, but you’re playing the same game, out-of-the-book scenarios, armies that have usually been seen across events before etc… The ceiling is the same. The top players here are many of the top players at other GTs. The main difference I find is the floor is much higher. There shouldn’t be a lot of easy games in that room (present company excluded). You can easily run into a multiple tourney winner going into round 5 sitting on no wins with a list that had won them an event 3 weeks before (love you Greg Person).
So grouping all of these first-time masters players into one sort of narrative bucket, and labeling it as rookies, I think is a mistake in the narrative around the event, and does them and us a disservice. Like most things, a slightly closer look brings out the much more nuanced story that I look forward to watching unfold over the weekend.
For others takes on the same basic subject (probably with much more insight and a lot less nonsense) see …
Greg’s Picks
