Finished Tastytaste interview

I finished editing Tastytaste's interview, it should appear on episode 24. Next up Nick Rose, also known as Darkwynn, contributor for Bols. He is also part of the american team going to the ETC.

Delay in editing

I apologize to the people i have interviewed for the delay in editing. My perfectly healthy newborn son got sick last week, ending in emergency surgery at MUSC (in my opinion the best and most wonderful hospital in the world, long drive though). He is now back and doing fine.

soooo..... back to the grind. First up TastyTaste, then...

Rob Harvatt, Australia Masters Winner
Nick Rose, member of the american team going to the ETC and Darkwynn on Bell of lost souls
Big Jim, BDJV on our forums, and Author of the Galaxy in Flames blog http://galaxyinflames.blogspot.com/ and regular contributor to the Space Wolves blog http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/
Rob Madeley, Daemon player from UK, planning to tour the USA
Nathan Fluger, Orc player on the west coast and contributor to bloodofkittens (http://bloodofkittens.com/)

editing in progress

Finished editing Chris Dietz' (Xiebelvoule on our forum) interview.

Next one up, Tastytaste.

Interviewed Nathan Fluger

I interviewed Nathan Fluger, will have to work on audio quality. Nathan contributes to BloodofKittens blog (http://bloodofkittens.com/) under Ork Defense Force. I interviewed him on how he runs his orks, and we talked about some events coming up.

"I know most of y'all aren't any where near Seattle; but on the off chance anyone comes on up that way (and since I'm giving it a shout out on a podcast); here's the site.

http://tshft.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6&Itemid=12

Our next 40k Tournament is Labor Day Weekend (Sept 4 and 5). Next year our 40k events will be part of the Official GT circuit.

Get in touch with Zen if you have any questions!

-fluger"

my editing schedule hasn't changed yet from below ;P, my little snotling is not feeling well, haven't had time to do much editing.

Rob Madeley, tour the USA

I have just interviewed Rob Madeley, the #2 ranked player in the UK. He has an interesting goal, he wants to travel the USA and play a 40k game in each state. The problem is obviously how to get this lined up. I have recorded a short promo, which I have edited and sent to all podcasts i know off.

still working on editing interview with Chris Dietz, Xiebelvoule on our forums.

In queue:
Tastytaste from the Bloodofkittens blog http://bloodofkittens.com/
Rob Harvatt, Australia Masters Winner
Nick Rose, member of the american team going to the ETC and Darkwynn on Bell of lost souls
Big Jim, BDJV on our forums, and Author of the Galaxy in Flames blog http://galaxyinflames.blogspot.com/ and regular contributor to the Space Wolves blog http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/
Rob Madeley, Daemon player from UK, planning to tour the USA

Finished Editing interview with Richard Rush from WarpStonePile

I finished editing my interview with Richard Rush from the WarpStonePile blog (Http://www.warpstonepile.blogspot.com). It should be featured on episode #23 which is scheduled to be released on Sunday, June 27th.

Currently working on editing interview with Chris Dietz, Xiebelvoule on our forums.

In queue:
Tastytaste from the Bloodofkittens blog http://bloodofkittens.com/
Rob Harvatt, Australia Masters Winner
Nick Rose, member of the american team going to the ETC and Darkwynn on Bell of lost souls
Big Jim, BDJV on our forums, and Author of the Galaxy in Flames blog http://galaxyinflames.blogspot.com/ and regular contributor to the Space Wolves blog http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/

Editing, and more editing...

Finally finished Alan Borthwick's interview from Ironhalo.net, i had a lot of connection problems while recording, i lost significant parts of it during the interview, for which i apologize to Alan. The interview appears to skip once in a while. I tried to clean it up as best as i could to make it audible for our listeners. I ended up editing the interview down from two roughly 35 minute sections to one 26 minute section. Next time i just need to reschedule when the internet is not reliable, or try a landline.

Currently editing Richard Rush's interview, author of the (http://warpstonepile.blogspot.com/) Warp Stone Pile blog.

Interviewing BDJV..

I interviewed Big Jim (BDJV) last night, we talked about his contributions to http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/ and his own blog, http://galaxyinflames.blogspot.com/.

Just finished editing my interview with Ben Mohlie, team captain for the American team going to the ETC.

Currently working on my interview with Alan Borthwick from ironhalo.net in NZ

Interviews waiting to be edited:
Nick Rose
Xiebelvoule
Tastytaste
Rob Harvatt
Richard Rush

Interviewing Captain America...

couldn't resist the pun. I am interviewing the team captain (Ben Mohlie) for the American team going to the European Team Competition tonight. I also have one lined up with Ben Curry from the Baddice Podcast based out of the UK, they are the official podcast for the ETC.

Completed editing Jason Miller's interview. His interview and Richard from DLT's interview should both make it on the show tonight with Andrew Galea's interview from RankingsHQ.

Currently working on editing for:
Tastytaste from Blood of kittens blog interview
Alan Borthwick from IronHalo.net interview (top New Zealand player)
Rob Harvatt interview (He won the Australian Masters)
Richard Rush interview from TheWarpStonePile blog
Chris Dietz, Xiebelvoule from our forums interview

Working on setting up the following interviews:
Getting things worked out to interview:

Big Jim
Jeff Dunster
Rob Madaley
David Hill
Neil Kerr

Interviewing Nicholas Rose on Monday.

Interviewing Australia and New Zealand

Yesterday i interviewed Richard Rush from the Warpstone Pile blog (Http://warpstonepile.blogspot.com), we talked about hobby stuff, he is also going to be at the Nova Open, and he has a beautifully painted Khornate Chaos Daemon army which is still a WIP but almost complete.

I also interviewed Chris Dietz, he is Xiebelvoule on our forums, we talked about his recent tournament and the Imperial Guard list he ran there.

I talked to Alan Borthwick from New Zealand. Ranked 4th on RankingsHQ.com and best Tau General. We talked about tau and his wife's paint service and model base business (Http://www.ironhalo.net). His interview was a bit of a challenge, lots of dropped packets and bad line quality. I hope the editing will work out. I may have to cal him again to redo small sections.

I interviewed Jason Miller this morning, he is a co-host on ManDollies (http://www.mandollies.net/Mandollies/Blog/Blog.html) a GW based podcast. I again had poor connections, multiple dropped calls, making me think my internet may be at fault..... We talked about his Chaos Space Marine army, the European Team Challenge, and comp scoring.

Finished editing Andrew Galea's interview.

Today's interview(s)

Today i interviewed Rob Harvatt from Australia, ranked 17th on RankingsHQ and the winner of the Australian Masters (invitational tournament of the top 16 players in Australia.
I also got to talk to Andrew Galea , the main person behind RankingsHQ (www.rankingshq.com)

Both fascinating interviews, not looking forward to the editing ;P

Finished Richard from DLT's interview, hope to have that included in this week's show.

Interview Schedule this week

Busy week, ironic, since i just started my long summer vacation.
I am still editing Richard's interview (from Dice like thunder), hope to have that done for this week's episode. I also interviewed xiebelvoule from our forums on IG, and Tastytaste from bloodofkittens.com. Hope to also complete edit on those soon.

I am digging in to the ETC (european team championships), i have 5 more interviews scheduled between now and Monday. I think ETC will be a fascinating, from as little as i have read, the format seems very interesting. more to come soon.

Nids round table & editing backlog

I finished my part on the Nids round table discussion between Neil, Mortikal and Crovan. Skype / Powergramo seemed to be unusually quirky, maybe i need a new ISP. Neil is now editing his part.
Now that i handed Neil the Goatboy interview and finished the round table piece, it is on to completing the edits for Richard's (from Dice like Thunder fame) interview with him talking about a new campaign/ home brew codex he has been working on.

Interview with Goatboy

We had some issues with Skype disconnecting, lost small parts of the interview. We also didn't realise till after the fact that Goatboy's mic was picking up him rolling dice till the very end. I apologize for the clicking, it is hard to edit that out without losing parts of the conversation. I completed part 1 in editing, this should make it on this episode. I had difficulties getting Neil in to the interview, so the interview may seem a bit scattered as neil didn't know what we talked about for the first part. All in all, i enjoyed talking to Goatboy, and Mr. Reidy was an interesting person to interview.

Interview with Richard from Dice Like Thunder

I just finished interviewing Richard from Dice Like Thunder http://dicelikethunder.com/. I will start editing as soon as time permits, I hope to finish it in time for Episode 20. As a fellow ex-squid and (if all goes well in the next 12 hours)new father, I really enjoyed talking to him. You will have to put up with little 3 month old gamers in the background, but that is a small price to pay for the time he spent talking to us.

Interview with Goatboy

Currently editing my interview from last week with Goatboy (Thomas Reidy) he is a regular contributor for bell of lost souls http://www.belloflostsouls.net/, he runs a commission painting service http://www.fullofmonkey.com/, and won the blue heath at adepticon. I am looking forward to finishing this in time for Episode 20.

Interviews update

I just finished editing my interview done last week with Mike Brandt from http://whiskey40k.blogspot.com/ and http://novaopen.com/. I really enjoyed talking with him and he impressed us so much with his tournament setup, that 3 of us signed up for his tournament. I am looking forward to meeting people at the nova open, this is Gamers Lounge territory, we will get to visit with Bill and Jay http://gamerslounge.coda.net/

Keep It Simple, Stupid is a Strategy not a Philosophy

When I was a youngster in high school, I spent a couple of years in a Karate class. I have countless, hilarious, stories about that experience, but suffice it say, I'm not really sure why the instructor we had found himself in po-dunk South Carolina. This guy was the real deal, not just some enthusiast with a black belt. He had a lot of philosophies about fighting. First and foremost, like no other instructor of Karate I have ever seen, he didn't believe in walking away or settling disputes with conversation. (No, I'm not kidding.) His rule was ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK! Indeed, he had wild opinions on other Karate schooling, usually ridiculing the notion that people actually trained for Karate demonstrations with spins, twirls, board breaking, and a host of other very common practices. You see, what was completely missed on him was the idea that Karate itself should be a sport, a sport in which you exercise, show case, and mainly just have a good time. To him, Karate was a primary tool or weapon by which he could hurt people at a whim. (If I'm making him sound a little psycho, it's because he was.) However, think about it. If you were forced into a cage match with a Karate instructor, would you rather face the guy who practices quasi-dance demonstrations for judges or practices only three moves for 30 years so he can perfect his power, form, and destructive capability?

That brings me to my point. When I say he only practiced 3 moves, I'm serious. Technically, it was four moves if you count a roundhouse as more than a front kick! Literally, though, it was three moves. You practiced a front kick, front punch, and mule kick. That's it! For two years I did that! (He did it for 30!) He didn't believe in pads. He didn't believe in pain. He believed in one punch, one disabled opponent, and the way in which he guaranteed that was by absolutely only perfecting three very simple moves by which he could be certain were fast enough, strong enough, and perfect enough to get the job done right. (That job being busting face on anyone that looked at him strangely.)

Countless times I was schooled that you didn't need to know anything else. All that rolling, twirling, and jumping wasn't going to win you a fight. What was going to win you a fight was throwing out a mule kick so fast your opponent can't react to it, connecting to his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him, and then, pummeling him mercilessly while he's on the ground. Further, you didn't need to know techniques or Karate to kick someone while he was down.

"Three european nationals I won with a mule kick!" he would say. "One punch, fight over. We don't practice combinations. We don't practice gimmicks! Our strategy is to attack, one time, very simple, fight over."

---

So, on to 40K. As you'll find, my take on strategy in the game of 40K (in any game really) is to keep it simple, basic, and without gimmicks. Gimmicks don't win games. They might once, but your opponents will get wise to it. Now that the 40K community has grown so large on the internet, there really isn't a gimmick that exists that not everyone hears about the instant someone figures it out.

What is simplicity? Simplicity in my mind follows these principles:

• Define a clear, easy strategy
• Build redundancy into your list to ensure you can achieve your strategic goals
• Don't rely on pivot points (single points of failure, a GIMMICK)
• Practice that strategy until you have perfected it

Strategies should be very straight forward. They should not involve:

"Okay, on turn 1, I'm going to reserve everything. On turn 2, I'll roll to bring this guy in outflank, this guy to deep strike, in combination with this special character, expecting my opponent to move this way, on every 6th minute of next monday... "

Simple strategies which have been perfected through practice are what wins the majority of games. (You can't win them all.) They work because they are a finely honed, simple to execute, lack failure points, and are flexible for any situation. Here are a couple of examples:

1. Let's consider the infamous "Leaf Blower" for a moment. Here's a simple strategy. I put an inquisitor w/ mystics in a Chimera to curtail deep striking (somewhat of a gimmick), and then, I load down with vehicles with lots of shooting and blow my opponent away (be it with templates or guns). That's it! I line up, take shots, and mow my opponent down. Some people might call this "push button", but the reality is, it's simple perfection. It works because it is simple.
2. My favorite, the Orc Horde. Lots of boys and Power Klaws. There isn't much to it. I put up a wall of something (Kanz, Ard Boyz, Battle Wagons, etc.) to provide a cover save for most of my army. I spread out across the board to limit my opponent's movement, and from there, I walk forward... run.... walk forward... WAAAGH!.... assault. Easy. It's effective because it is so simple. It doesn't rely on gimmicks, situations, special characters, certain units, etc.
3. Mech-dar. I put a bunch of units in skimmers. I wait in reserve. As I come on, I pick a flank and hammer it. Otherwise, I fly around staying away from my opponent until the last turn at which point I flat out to contest objectives. Easy. That's why it works.
   

The point is this: we've all heard of Keep It Simple, Stupid. We hear of it in terms of a philosophy on operations or planning, but it's more than that. It is a strategy for playing a game of 40K. Keeping it simple is the best kind of strategy because it's not complicated, can be easily practiced and perfected, and works in many situations.

Leave the surprise "chain events" to the card players. What works in 40k, in my opinion, is straight forward, clean, practiced, simple, strategies. It works because it's effective and easy to execute, like a well-timed, well-honed mule kick to the solar plexus. Fight over.

11th Company blog now open

We at the 11th company podcast have decided to start as blog as well. Not because it is just the 'in thing' to do, but to see if we can get some more listener feed back for our shows. Maybe discuss some topics we would like to cover, explore some more tactics.

Even though some purists among you prefer one-person-blogs, this will mainly remain a team effort among the hosts of the podcast.

Looking forward to comments in the future.

Pat