I thought I'd write a few choice words about my run in the Lustrian Challenge with my lizardman team Green Jupiter.

Last night we played the finals game with rafadavila's rats. And I promptly lost 2-1. Congrats to the winner and a great opponent!

I'm not going to make excuses about how I had uniquely bad dice at two key gang fouls and how they cost me the game because at the same vein I'd have to mention how the first half ended on me scoring with my kroxigor and rafa's rat snaking the one-turn attempt. I did get a bit carried away with my own wizard whereas rafa maintained excellent discipline over his own. Overall this was the most fun match I'd had in a while and I have no regrets and was sleeping like a baby only ten minutes after the final whistle instead of cursing the dice, my own stupidity and the Spanish people in general. A lot of credit belongs to the spectators. Both in good and bad (they made me use that fireball).

This was my first major tournament where I made any real headway. Overall, how I got that far was due to a few things as I see them:

1) Good balance of saurus versus skinks. When I started the LC, Green Jupiter had only one rookie saurus (a Block saurus having gotten himself killed in my only preparatory match). Even that one rookie saurus was a huge drag on the team as Block is just such a marked improvement on sauri. I haven't fired a single healthy skink but I've always tried to score with sauri whenever possible and that has paid off. With Block they also start to clock up casualties. Handing off to or picking up with a saurus has pretty good odds of working when you have a reroll to spare. Having lots of ST4 Guard players is great.

2) Super reliable kroxigor. Block + inability to roll ones for Bonehead = universal love.

3) Dice blessed by everything that's holy to Nuffle. I really felt bad for my opponents during some games. I especially remember one of my opponents chatting how good he felt about getting -MA on a saurus during second half on a game he lost. I didn't really get it right away but after the game I realised that it was pretty much the only thing going for him during the whole game. And I know the feeling that when you're getting diced really badly, even a little thing can help with the doom and gloom!

4) Inducing wandering apothecaries. Those dudes are a real asset for lizardman teams when you have a choice of fielding either as many ST4+ AV9 baddies as you can or ST2 stunties. In a tournament they're especially important when you have to win both the game you're playing right now but also the one coming after.

5) I'm leaving my +AG skink Lokomotiv for the last because I have contradictory feelings about him. I'm most likely discounting his importance to the team but the niggle made him a double edged sword. There's just too much easy-to-get-rid-of-TV riding on him. However, he's been with the team from the very start so I pretty much have to keep him.