Hello again! Today I am here to discuss my year and review some of the highs and lows and go back over some of the articles I wrote this year in case you missed it when it first published. It has been a busy year for Goonhammer and I am just happy to have been part of it in some small way. So thanks to the crew and to you, the readers.
I do not think I need to tell you all that this year has been tough; it has been tough on everyone. I started out this year with several months of lockdown protocols where no one was allowed to see anyone beyond going to work and coming home, so early in the year my drive to create content was just not there – it was hard to even really want to play the game in online forms. As a result, during Covid my focus has really shifted from my own personal progress on the table to making sure my team and my community are improving. I have published a couple articles that touch on my desire to help create better communities and ways to go about doing it. While we were in the thick of covid it was actually the best time to start reconnecting the community and touching base with store owners to see if they were handling the pandemic well or if they needed any help. To that end, my team and I focused our efforts on growing a community Discord and promoting healthy discourse there in the hopes that this would help all of us when covid finally eased off.
For those of you that do not know I am the team captain of the Northern Front team, and I took over right when covid began. The majority of my time has gone into managing these personalities and developing an atmosphere of competition and honest discussion. If I were to list anything that I am most proud of over the last year it would be seeing three of my players win their first GTs this year: Anthony Richardson, Logan Antonation, and Riley Tremblay all took home wins in the prairies which is a big step in the right direction for my team as a whole. I love to see personal growth and really enjoy seeing hard work and determination pay off. I have wrote about my love for team building here if any of you would like to take a look at that.
The biggest change we made as a team was scheduling Sunday strategy meetings over discord. This gave us all an excuse to log in and see each other (even if its only virtually) and bounce ideas off each other. These meetings dramatically helped at least 3 players reach consistent all time bests for placings. I could go on for a very long time about the team and community aspect of my year as it was where 80% of my focus was but I will leave it at this for now and possibly revisit this in a future article.
My Own play has definitely come along as well but unfortunately I just do not have the events or time to compete with the likes of Mr. Paris this year. There have been a couple people out there killing it with wolves – Robbie Triplett and Jaime Paris are guys I will always be cheering for as they represent the faction as well as anyone could both on and off the table. This does not mean I am not very happy with where I am, however – I had some very strong performances with wolves in late summer when stores opened up for RTTs and I had two strong GT performances, going 5-0 and 4-1 respectively, with my modified Impulsor rush list. Logan ended up winning the event I went 4-1 at with an improved version of that same list. I wrote 2 articles on my competitive endeavors (which you can find below), but I’ll be on a break for the foreseeable future – my partner and I just had a baby boy. But don’t think you’ve seen the last of me, content-wise — I still have more to say.
On the hobby side of things I picked up blood bowl (chaos dwarves) and am currently putting a team together to be ready for when stores one day open up again. I have also started a Star Wars Legion list and am currently working on getting a league together. Legion has interested me for a while now and I took the time I have off from work to invest into figuring this system out. I love star wars and I love table top war games; this just seems to fit for me, I am building a Jyn Erso lead rebel list and hope to have it fully painted by January. Lastly after Arcane dropped and Innes got me to watch it I have once again started playing League of legends — for better or worse. Most of you do not know but this is the game I quit to start playing 40k. I always need to be competing at something and this game gives me that opportunity no matter what hour of the night my son wakes me up. If you would like to join me, just reach out and I will add you.
And then there’s my most popular article this year, Building a saga: a path to personal victories. Unfortunately this series had to be put on hold shortly after we began, which is why you haven’t seen a part 2 as of yet. Life can be unpredictable and without getting too far into it Rob had to take care of an ailing member of his family while both of us just got job promotions. This series is on hold for now but we will return with a part 2 once Rob is able to begin playing again and both of our lives slow down just a bit. There is a lot I still need to put on paper and get out to all of you. I will return.
For now that is where I sign off and leave you with the list of my 2021 articles to peruse. I look forward to what the future has to offer and I really hope one day soon we can be playing big events in the prairies without worry of some soul sucking plague. Fuck you, Covid; enough already.
Articles I’ve written this year:
- Start competing Space wolves
- Competitive Innovations
- Return to competitive play: The covid saga
- Building a saga, Part 1
- Tournament report: IWTS open 5-0
- Content we liked: How to pet everything
- Grand tournament 2022 secondaries
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