VIC and WA Kick Things Off
The past two weekends have seen the first tournaments of the year, with Killzone: Kragfang, 3 rounds 10 players at The Gaming Arena in Melbourne, and Kill Team Salvation - Beyond Odyssey, 3 rounds 12 players at Beyond Odyssey in Perth.
It appears that Kragfang may have been slightly too soon for the newly released teams to make an appearance, whereas the event at Beyond Odyssey just yesterday did see a few running the Scout Squad and the Blades of Khaine. Of course, it is early days, so little can be gleaned from the results, but it will be interesting to see how the teams fare as we have more data.
Killzone: Kragfang had Brosef Brostar take the clean sweep with his classic Phobos, Dan Clayton in 2nd with Hierotek, and Michael Bourke in 3rd with Wyrmblade (do we see the recent buff having an impact?), the latter two only dropping games against the top finisher.
All the way out west at Beyond Odyssey in Perth, we see Aidan Cross with Hierotek secure the W, being the only undefeated player on the day. In 2nd place we have Jonathan Chua with a sneaky Talons of the Emperor, and our first sign of the new teams in Cam Melrose with the Scout Squad coming in 3rd.
BCP does also list a 3 round tournament at Table Top Warfare in Adelaide, scheduled for yesterday, though it currently does not have any results.
Outside of the one-day tournaments, leagues have also begun in Sydney and Melbourne, with Killzone Sydney: Battle in the Warp! and PoG OCC Crucible League: January 2024 series respectively.
Killzone Sydney: Battle in the Warp! is 6 rounds over 6 weeks at locations all around Sydney, organised by MH Banz. With 14 players, it is moving into the second round this week. I’m in this one myself, running Blades of Khaine, so it will be interesting to see how things progress. Low expectations for my own performance…
PoG OCC Crucible League is run by Lap Scallion at Plenty of Games in Melbourne. With 3 rounds over 3 weeks, it is a pretty quick fire setting. After the second week, we have Brosef Brostar and Michael Thurston undefeated, though teams are hidden in BCP.
Finally, we have The Purge: Kill Team Grand Tournament - Australia’s largest tournament to date, coming up on February 10-11 at Padstow RSL in Sydney!
50 players
2 days
6 rounds
Golden Ticket to the world finals in Atlanta
I’m very excited for this one, especially the format. 5 or 6 rounds over 2 days I feel is the golden zone for large tournaments. 3 rounds a day is far less fatiguing than 4, and 6 rounds for 50 players means the final outcomes won’t be skewed by pairing weirdness. Players of all levels should have a heap of fun matches.
That, plus the inclusion of our own world champions’ map pack, as well as asymmetrical ITD layouts, should lend to a very fun, competitive environment - exactly what we’re here for.
I’ll try track my own experience here, as well as the results, because it’s shaping up to be kind of a big deal.
