Since there isn’t an official Autumn League, we decided to do a league with a bit of a twist. One of our players, James, suggested that we do a faction-based one. After a bit of discussion we came up with the idea of players being assigned a faction to represent, where they’d have to use both warlords that were currently available. The results of both warlords would be added together to form the faction’s overall result.

The faction assignment for the league was a mixture of players choosing their own and being randomly assigned one. James, Karl, Rob and Joe all chose their factions, whilst myself, Rik, Nick and Gareth were happy to play any faction, so we randomised which we received.

The warlords would be formed into two groups of eight (one warlord for each faction). Players would be required to play each other warlord in that group once, for a total of seven games per group, fourteen games overall for the league.

Once you have played a game with a deck you were not allowed to make any changes at all to it during the league. This was to prevent players from tailoring their decks for each warlord they faced (although that could be a fun format to try out some time).

There was no time limit on games, and although you are obviously allowed to concede, since we were recording the turn that players won/lost, you and your opponent would need to agree when you would have actually lost (for example, if you conceded because your opponent was ‘guaranteed’ to win the game next turn, you would record the result as having been won on the following turn). This rule may seem strange, but it was done to protect the integrity of the results and also because turns were a tie-breaker.

In order to get all the games finished on time, substitute players were called in on two occasions. The first sub was Loki, who played five games with Zogwort. The second sub was myself, who played one game with Shadowsun (and won it!). Next time we do this league we will have teams of players representing each faction, as there will be at least three warlords for each by then.

Tie-breakers were as follows: Number of wins > fewest turns taken to win > highest number of turns taken to lose > head-to-head records.

So, without further ado, who won?

Chaos did! Here’s the overall faction results:

Turns Taken To Rank Player Faction Wins Losses Win Lose 1st James L Chaos 10 4 50 25 2nd Nick Dark Eldar 9 5 42 25 3rd Tim Eldar 9 5 47 27 4th Gareth Astra Militarum 8 6 39 30 5th Rob Tau 8 6 39 29 6th Karl Space Marines 6 8 27 41 7th Joe Tyranids 5 9 25 38 8th Rik/Loki Orks 1 13 4 58

Pretty close all across (except for the unfortunate Orks). Having to use both warlords definitely made things interesting. Speaking of which, here are the individual group results:

Group A Turns Taken To Rank Player Warlord Wins Losses Win Lose 1st Nick Kith 6 1 26 6 2nd Tim Eldorath 6 1 31 5 3rd James L Zarathur 4 3 23 19 4th Joe Swarmlord 3 4 13 18 5th Karl Ragnar 3 4 15 22 6th Gareth Straken 3 4 15 19 7th Rob Aun’shi 3 4 16 19 8th Rik/Loki Zogwort 0 7 0 31

Group B Turns Taken To Rank Player Warlord Wins Losses Win Lose 1st James L Ku’gath 6 1 27 6 2nd Rob Shadowsun 5 2 23 10 3rd Gareth Coteaz 5 2 24 11 4th Karl Cato 3 4 12 19 5th Tim Baharroth 3 4 16 22 6th Nick Urien 3 4 16 19 7th Joe Old One Eye 2 5 12 20 8th Rik Nazdreg 1 6 4 27

Do you want more data? Here’s the breakdown for each faction and warlord.

Key:

W = Win

L = Loss

X = n/a

(X) = turn that game ended

* = game involved warlord kill

To read the results, use the left-most column first and choose the warlord whose results you want to see, then go horizontally to find their individual results. For example, in the table directly below, you can see that Aun’shi lost to Eldorath on turn four.

Warlord/Opponent Aun’shi Eldorath Kith Ragnar Straken Swarmlord Zarathur Zogwort Aun’shi X L (4) L (5) W (7)* W (5) L (4) L (6) W (4)* Eldorath W (4) X W (6) W (6) W (4) W (6) L (5) W (5) Kith W (5) L (6) X W (4) W (5) W (3) W (6) W (3) Ragnar L (7)* L (6) L (4) X W (5) L (5) W (7) W (3) Straken L (5) L (4) L (5) L (5) X W (4) W (6)* W (5) Swarmlord W (4) L (6) L (3) W (5) L (4) X L (5) W (4) Zarathur W (6) W (5) L (6) L (7) L (6)* W (5) X W (7) Zogwort L (4)* L (5) L (3) L (3) L (5) L (4) L (7) X

Warlord/Opponent Baharroth Cato Coteaz Ku’gath Nazdreg Old One Eye Shadowsun Urien Baharroth X L (5) W (6) L (5) W (4) L (6)* W (6) L (6) Cato W (5) X L (6)* L (4) W (3) W (4) L (6) L (3) Coteaz L (6) W (6)* X L (5) W (4) W (4) W (4) W (6) Ku’gath W (5) W (4) W (5) X W (6) W (4) L (6)* W (3) Nazdreg L (4) L (3) L (4) L (6) X W (4) L (3) L (7) Old One Eye W (6)* L (4) L (4) L (4) L (4) X L (4) W (6)* Shadowsun L (6) W (6) L (4) W (6)* W (3) W (4) X W (4) Urien W (6) W (3) L (6) L (3) W (7) L (6)* L (4) X

Summary

The league was a lot of fun to play in, I definitely recommend that some of you try this system out in your own local play groups. Next year we are going to have to expand this as more warlords are released, but we will bring in additional players and assign more than one to each faction, creating teams (which should hopefully encourage some friendly rivalry between them).

Anyway, plenty of data there for people to mull over. Obviously, it’s only a small sample size so please take that into account.

Cheers,

Whingewood