Greetings! Welcome! Witam!

This is the first in a series about my, me being Eoin Brennan Captain of Team Ireland Ceol1,2, adventures at the WTC 2014 in Scyjrrrjrjr- Shurkurkukuk- … in Poland. The first post is going to discuss the rough build up to the event, from how I became Captain and who joined my team to Beermachine 2014. Without further ado, let’s flash back a year.

This write-up series will be at least 7 articles long. This post, and one post for each round. As the Captain I’m going to attempt to get the matchup process remembered correctly. Then I will go through my game, with highlights from my team-mates and shout outs to our sweet opponents.

After the series I may write an article in conclusion, an overall review of the event, mention of the venue, and discussion of my plans for next year when I have to qualify to represent Ireland on our home turf (a literal statement in Ireland).

The location for WTC 2015.

A Bit of Craic3 and Ceol

Ireland elects a member of it’s team, who cannot be the current captain, to become next years’ captain. This is because the Captain’s primary job is to set matchups, and some experience helps with that. Furthermore, you will have met the WTC logistics and management team, which are pretty useful contacts. In a cafeteria in Warmachine Summer Camp 2013, over glued together potatoes and strange Belgish background noise, I was elected as the Captain for Team Ireland 2014. Gerry was later elected to Captain the second team when it became inevitable that the event would expand in size.

My team was finalised in March, just after the Irish Masters. I was going to play Protecterate of Menoth and be accompanied by Anthony O’Reilly (I_Avian) playing Cryx, Patrick Dunford playing Cygnar, Stuart Gorman (Valkine) playing Trollbloods, and Ciaran ‘fucking’ Bolger (madrab) playing Convergence. However, a week before list lock, Anthony got a swanky new job which started the same weekend as the WTC was scheduled for. There were some discussions, some tears, and eventually we recruited Peter Croft (Arturos) playing Legion of Everblight to replace Anthony’s Cryx.

By the end of the event we placed 35th in the 52 team event. I obviously hoped for better, but the competition was fierce and it was an amazing event, I didn’t have a single bad game all weekend. Our lists can be found on DiscountGames.com in the following places: Eoin, Ciaran, Pat, Pete, and Stuart).

You can find all of the lists for the WTC on Discount Games Inc., which will help give you context for the games.

The Journey

We flew out of Dublin and arrived in Krakow on Thursday afternoon. After a frightening taxi journey into the city (braking or having your hands on the wheels is for rookies) we arrived at our hostel, scenically located beside ‘The Sexy Shop’. The Sexy Shop is one of the many sex paraphernalia shops in the city, but the only one I’ve ever seen in any city that seemed to specialise in knitted wool doily thongs.

On second thought, a google search for doily thong provided this image of a ‘polish bikini’, further increasing my confusion.

We settled into miscommunication early, with everyone receiving the wrong food and drink at a local restaurant/inn before we explored the city for a few hours. Eventually we found our way to the Omerta pub and met up with the crew from Northern Ireland. Soon after the Polish, and a LOT of Scandinavians arrived. Drunk debauchery ensued. I may have been invited to a penis tournament. I’m not 100% sure I want to know if that’s true or not.

Next morning I had the joy of waking some people up. As a side note Pete sleeps as snugly wrapped up in his blankets/sleeping bag as I’ve ever seen a grown-up, so I knocked incredible amusement out of rousing the Peterpillar from his slumber every morning. Everyone grabbed McDonalds, then waited for-literally-ever for a bus to be found and for everyone to get on. Some time passed as the Exigence spoilers broke. Spd 3 warbeasts echoed from the back seat. I staunchly refused to believe the Gator engine was so good and the character Satyr so bad. I was wrong in both cases.

We arrived at the event, a ski resort with not an inch of snow in sight at that time of the year, later that Friday and settled in. We met up with a lot of our friends from last year, too many people to list. We did start a tradition of Irish players gathering at the end of the Muse store’s table then slowly moving around behind the counter and sitting down. A proper infestation.

The real competitive event occurred that evening as Ciaran set up and ran Beermachine. I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of stories. Chilly Winters and Scott Wray excelled themselves, while Jockim Rapp proved once again why he is the King of Ireland. My favourite game was Harry Cullen (from Team Ireland Craic) playing against Chad Shonkwiler (of Muse on Minis fame) using HARRY’S BIRTHDAY RULES!tm These are much more lethal rules for Beermachine, what we actually play in Ireland. They involve a rule whereby you can take a drink to force a re-roll or gain a re-roll, any amount of times as long as you drink. This devolved into an hour-and-a-half long ATTACK ROLL, with Harry dedicatedly drinking two entire humans, Harrying into a glass, and eventually forgetting to drink again. This allowed Chad to clinch a hard-fought victory.

As the night wound down we got another tiny amount of sleep before the beginning of round 1.

Harry, in red, seen here having a good time as I wear a Swedish t-shirt and ward off potential good-time predators.

Stay Classy,

-Eoin, VagrantPoet

1 Ceol, pronounced key-oh-l, is Irish for music.

2 Yes. This is a nod to bobliness. That’s because that guy is a sweet dude, though I sadly didn’t really get to hang with him much at WTC 2014.

3 Craic, pronounced like crack, is a very nuanced word that effectively means fun. It’s one of those words that doesn’t quite translate from one cultural identity to another. You can have the Craic, an event can be good Craic, etc. An old irish saying for someting that is a good time, or a description of what makes a party is Craic agus Ceol, agus being ‘and’. That saying is the origin of the Irish team names.