How Time Flies
Weeks 24 to 34 - Far Too Much To Cover It All
It’s amazing how time flies. Apparently I’ve missed 10 weeks of updates. In that time we’ve attended:
10 Armories in 5 different stores across 3 cities
2 Road To Nationals
The C*lling Taihape 2026: Ohakune Owesome
SAGE Precon League
Compendium of Rathe and Chapters 1 & 2 of Silver Age pre-constructed decks have been released. There’s been multiple announcements by LSS including that the next release will be Omens of the Third Age with the return of Aurora, arrival of Zyggy and another Oscilio.
Clearly far too much to catchup on it all but I’ll try to pull together the key points.
Where Have You Been?
A FAB Journey started out purely written and I was persuaded that people don’t read things anymore and it needed to be on video. I’ve done video before for a rugby/sports channel so I thought it wouldn’t be that difficult. However there’s a difference between unedited livestreams and recorded videos with editing. Sure I didn’t do that much editing of my weekly updates but it all proved to be too time consuming.
Things are also going on in my personal life and I just couldn’t find the time/motivation to script, get in-front of the camera, record and edit. So my weekly updates will be reverting to being written only. As I think that is much more achievable.
I will still keep doing the occasional video/podcast for special posts/trips and maybe mini-series.
News
Heroes
I think that the biggest thing on the news side of things has been the number of heroes reaching LL status. We’ve lost Florian, Kayo and Verdance recently. Prism, Awakener of Sol is getting very close being on 951 points. Victor and Dash I/O have both picked up a bunch of points in the PEN season meaning they could be heading for the exit in the not to distant future.
With no new heroes released as part of Compendium of Rathe that does mean we are having a bit of a clear out. At the moment there are 34 CC legal heroes so it’s probably not a bad thing.
The only thing that I think that LSS needs to be careful of is making sure that there are enough heroes to keep most of the cards legal. In other words having at least 1 legal hero for each class. At the moment that’s not a problem even if some abilities are a bit thin on heroes.
SAGE Precon Decks
I’ve been running a SAGE precon league in Tauranga and I’ve enjoyed doing that. Season 2 is already in the planning to kickoff with the release of Chapter 3 of Silver Age decks.
So I was sad to hear that chapter 3 will be the last chapter of Silver Age decks. It sounds like after that they will be releasing Silver Age decks along with the main releases. A bit like they do with Armory decks or maybe in groups like they used to for Blitz decks. We’ll just have to wait and see if that lends its self to running another season of a precon league or not.
Emptying The Wallet
I did buy a box of Compendium of Rathe and I did a box opening in the soon to be opened Tauranga Card Merchant. However I’ve not got round to editing and posting that video… I did however have the pleasure of playing the first ever game in the store with Nathan.
Yup we got a while bunch of rules wrong….oops…. a friend judge did point that out afterwards.
Aside from the box and some card sleeves I think that the only thing we’ve been spending money on has been tournament entry fees. I might in the future try to figure out how much that has all been at some point.
Events
Armories
10 Armories in 5 different stores across 3 cities, so which ones have I been to?
Unsurprisingly I’ve been to my local, Gateway Games in Tauranga. We’ve made this one 5 times.
We’ve also revisited the 2 we’ve been to before in Hamilton, Card Merchant Hamilton twice and Gaming DNA once.
I was unexpectedly up in Auckland for a bit so took the opportunity to visit Card Merchant Westcity and Hobby Master Events armories. The reviews of these armories have been sat in draft for over a month now.
Clearly this is too many games for me to go over but I can tell you I still have not won an armory.
Road To Nationals
We attended RTN at both Gateway Games and Card Merchant Hamilton. I went 1-4 at Gateway Games and 0-3 at Card Merchant Hamilton. Funny that this wasn’t enough to qualify for Nationals this year.
I did a vlog for the Card Marchant Hamilton RTN.
Also they have removed the last chance qualifier on the Friday of Nationals this year. So I don’t know if we will be making the over 7 hours drive to Wellington to attend this.
The C*lling Taihape 2026: Ohakune Owesome
I had a really good time at The C*lling Taihape that was actually in Rangataua just outside of Ohakune. This is the biggest annual community organised event in New Zealand and you can watch my vlog of the trip.
Cardboard
We have had some really nice pulls over the last few weeks. Trying to remember them but they include an Enlightened Strike, Tectonic Plating (both history pack versions), a Kabuto of Imperial Authority and Maxx ‘The Hype’ Nitro marvel.
Also a CF Grimoire of Fellingsong which has gone to Ironknight Gaming for some store credits as I’d like to get an Ironfist Revelation for my Pleiades deck.
Meta Matters
With heroes LLing and having been to 13 events that’s too much to go through on the local meta (even if I had been keeping track of it). I feel that the meta is in a good place with plenty of diversity and I’ll try to remember to keep track of it going forwards.
What’s Coming Up?
Calling Auckland
Calling Auckland has been announced for the 5th to the 7th of June with tickets going on sale next weekend. This is just 2 weeks before NZ Nationals in Wellington. It doesn’t have to be one of the other. However an uninspiring list of side events and no last chance to qualify for Nationals means I’m increasingly thinking of doing Calling Auckland and not Nationals.
Calling Auckland is going to be Omens of the Third Age Sealed Deck for day 1 and Booster Draft for day 2 (if you make the cut). I’ve only done sealed deck once and that was for the Super Slam pre-release. I’ve never done a draft event. It’s slightly daunting and I’m wondering if it’s worth $120 go 0-X and not make day 2.
You do get at least 8 booster packs and a tournament pack though so I’m tempted. The only thing is are we interested in playing lightning heroes? As clearly that’s what the cards we will be getting will be aimed towards.
I don’t know if we should get the tickets as they release for the early bird deal (don’t know what that is) or wait and see how we go in the Omens of the Third Age pre-release events as a guide to if we have any chance at the Calling of winning a game.
Card Merchant Tauranga
There is a new LGS opening in Tauranga, they were supposed to open last weekend but unfortunately council consents for building operations have not come through yet. It will be good to have another LGS that’s running armories and other FAB events to go to. With their armory being on a Saturday I don’t know how often we’ll be able to get along though.