Avid Goonhammer readers will know that we’ve long been friends – some would even say “in cahoots” – with the Art of War team. And every year we look forward to watching their annual Streamhouse RTT event, a three-round event to determine who is the best player in Nick’s house. So we’re excited to announce that their event will be this week, on Wednesday, March 26th at 10am EDT on the Art of War’s YouTube channel.
What is the Streamhouse RTT?
Not a lot of people know this, but when you sign up to join the Art of War team, you have to move into Nick Nanavati’s house in Florida, where you and the rest of the team sleeps in one big bed and wears 19th century-style nightcaps and gowns. Once a year, during the Ides of March (that’s technically last week, but we’re close enough and if the NCAA can run March Madness through April, we can call March 26th the ides), the team emerges from their annual hibernation to a new balance dataslate and decides to hold an intramural tournament, also in said house. And per the title and links to YouTube, that event is streamed for all to see.
Why Should I watch This?
The short answer is “the quality of the competition and players.” While there may be some slightly harder events out there – the top 8 of the WCW is probably the toughest events get – with the likes of John Lennon, Jack Harpster, and Richard Siegler in this event, every player at the Streamhouse is one of the best players in the world, and a GT winner at least in their own right – hell, four of the ten players are former ITC champions. Add in the new dataslate and you won’t find a better place to watch great players try out new lists against top-tier competition.
Who’s in This Thing, Anyways?
Great question. This year’s line-up is stacked, even compared to prior years. Here’s the list, with the faction they’re playing. Note that the Streamhouse does some fun things with seeding, in that players are seeded and choose their faction in reverse seed order, giving weaker players first pick and also ensuring that there no duplicate armies or mirror matches – every stream game is worth watching.
- Nick Nanavati – The Streamhouse Patriarch is running Aeldari, one of his favorite factions, though he hasn’t played them much this edition.
- Richard Siegler – “The Machine” is back on T’au Empire, which is more or less classic Streamhouse form for him. Though he’s running Mont’ka and not the new Experimental Prototype Cadre.
- John Lennon – John has convinced himself that Coterie of the Conceited can work in Emperors Children… also he’s been painting a lot of them.
- Quinton Johnson – Quinton has left Aeldari to Nick and has chosen to go with the Adepta Sororitas instead, hoping their recent dataslate buffs pull them back to respectability.
- Jack Harpster – Jack’s a longtime Custodes player and he’s trying out the new Lions of the Emperor Detachment.
- Sascha Edelkraut – Sascha’s likely to have the prettiest army at the event and this year he’s switching from Imperial Fists to Chaos Space Marines, running Creations of Bile.
- Kyle McCord – Kyle’s repping Space Marines at the event, and running Gladius Dark Angels.
- Russell Tassin – Team newcomer Russell Tassin made the trip over from Texas to run Chaos Daemons, bringing the new Shadow Legion Detachment.
- Mike Muzeni – Mike’s repping Death Guard at the event, finally forcing the Art of War to give the green stinky boys some of the love they deserve.
- Brian Jones – Last but not least, Brian’s bringing the Imperial Knights list he took to run Cherokee last month, and it’s arguably even better now.
Will Goonhammer be Covering This?
You bet we will! Check back in tomorrow when we’ll have list previews and interviews with the players, plus some analysis from James “One_Wing” Grover and me on the contestants and how we think they’ll fare. We’ll cover the first half of the group on Monday, then wrap up the second half on Tuesday. We’ll put up a reminder post on Wednesday for the streams, and then will have some final wrap-up coverage next week when we include the Streamhouse results in Competitive Innovations.
So check back tomorrow for the first five lists with interviews with each player. We’ll see you then. And in the meantime, you can check out Art of War’s pre-event coverage over on their YouTube channel.
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