"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." Bilbo Baggins
Well, we've just over a quarter of the year behind us, and a busy few months it has been in the IHL. Kicking off the year was the Season Opener at the Battles on the Coast, where reigning champion Ivan Sheehan began the new year as he left off the last with the top prize. The league then swiftly moved on to the single-day Tallaght Skirmish, which saw Alex Neaves claim his 1st solo IHL tournament victory. Continuing with the 1st time tournament winners, Dan Ahern took home the silverware from the Desolation of Dublin in February, before Ivan Sheehan once again returned the top at You Shall Not Fast in April. All of this means that Ivan has taken an early lead in the League standings, closely followed by Michael Bradford, with David Murphy in 3rd place.
But it's not just events on the island of Ireland that have been of interest to the IHL community. In March 3 intrepid teams travelled to Spain to compete in the World Team Championship, finishing 13th, 18th and 28th and Dan Ahern finishing the weekend as the best individual player. Here's Ireland Team 2 Captain, Dave Murphy to say a view words about the experience.
So, yet again (somehow), I find myself writing for this absolutely not top notch blog*. I guess the readers want to read the thoughts of an opinionated fool like myself.
Anyway, lets cut the crap, Rob wants needs me to write some dribble about the Irish teams experience at the WTC 2023, which took place in Granada, Spain from the 17th - 19th March this year.
We had a grand aul time in fairness so we did.
The IHL sent 3 teams to the WTC (formerly the ETC) this year - Ireland One, Ireland Two, and Northern Ireland.
The teams consisted of a mixed bag of stellar, and not so stellar lads. And then me.
Ireland One was captained by good lad (I guess) Ivan Sheehan, who was accompanied by David Coleman (scum), Michael Bunting, and Mike Bradford.
Ireland Two was captained by myself. And with me were my old reliable comrades in arms from 2022, Gary Doyle, and Dan Ahern. Rounding out the team was new recruit, Connor Glover, a top lad, and a terrible player (more on that later).
Finally, we had Northern Ireland led by Dave Wade, and with him was Nicky Forsythe, Glenn Crangle, and Chris Caves Snr.
The players all flew to Malaga on the Friday, before making their way to Granada. We had hoped to have gone over earlier to make a proper holiday out of it, but ultimately we all just settled on a Friday to Monday trip. Hopefully next year we can get over for a longer trip.
In terms of lists, my team had brought Angmar, Assault Upon Helms Deep, Rivendell and Numenor, and Thranduils Halls and Laketown, with our dud list being Barad-Dur.
Going into Saturday, we knew which teams we would be playing in Rounds 1-3, due to the WTC's Pool system. Then it was Swiss ranked for the Sunday.
We ended up playing Scotland 3, Germany 2, Poland 2, England 2, Sweden, and Spain 3.
We had prepared pretty well for the event, although it would become apparent as the games progressed that our armies were generally too low on numbers.
This was particularly tough for Gary and Connor whose lists were small elite forces with big expensive Heroes.
Dan and I make quite a good pair at doing match ups in my view, but it was tough to get the best match ups with so many scenarios favouring numbers. Connor's inexperience also showed. He's a top lad, but by Day Two our strategy with Connor became simply to throw him under the metaphorical bus and hope he didn't get completely crushed 🤣 - in the end, he was dead last (sorry Connor, love ye lad 😆😁 )
We also learned that Assault Upon Helms Deep, Assault on Lothlorien, and Army of Laketown all need I nerf (Jay Clare, sort it out).
The hotel we stayed in was lovely, and we got a good a deal with them for food and rooms included in the ticket price. All in all, it was a great venue and we would absolutely go back there again.
The event itself ran a lot smoother this year, as there was a larger team of experienced refs on hand to deal with questions and issues, and do admin.
In addition, there was a lot of extra time per round, which made getting games finished much easier (this had been a major problem last year).
Hopefully the WTC 2024 will pretty much be a rinse and repeat of 2023. If it is, then the IHL looks forward to sending it's gallant warriors to Granada once again.
Right, I've rambled enough. Good bye viewers (until the next time, maybe).
And this coming weekend our very own Micheal Bradford will travel to Warhammer World for the GBHL Masters event, an invite only event comprising of the top players in last year's GBHL. Let's catch up with Micheal to see what he has to say about competing at this prestigious event.
After making the journey over to England and Scotland a few times towards the tail end of last year (2022), I was really pleased to earn a spot in the 2023 GBHL Masters Invitational Tournament.
The Tournament itself is taking place at Warhammer World, and it'll be my first time going there.
The 16 players in attendance present exceptionally stiff competition in vying for the ultimate Masters title, but at the very least I can say that it's an honour to simply contest the field.
Having seen the draw, I'm in for a Day 1 double dose of the Host of the Dragon Emperor, and an Evil cheesy soup list. Sure, what else could you want!
Nevertheless, it'll be a lovely opportunity to see friends and build relationships within the MESBG community. For me, that is a huge part of the hobby.
Last year saw me starting to travel across the water for events a little more, and this year I've really thrown myself into that. It's great that this hobby transcends international boundaries, and presents opportunities to meet many new people from everywhere and anywhere who share the same passion.
I do my best to be a good ambassador for both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and my goal is to advertise the burgeoning and exciting scene on this island. By increasing my travelling for events, keeping in touch with people, and hosting my own GBHL 100 event (Nírnaeth Arnoediad 2023), I hope to effectively 'renew the ties between the Shire and Bree' (or in this case, this island and the rest of the world). I look forward to seeing an increase in the amount of players travelling in both directions as we expand our horizons.
Iron sharpens iron, and for those competitively-minded Irish Hobbit League participants, most events are pretty much a mini-Masters. We've a great pool of talented players, and some of them have already been making their mark in the GBHL. I expect that number to grow, and I hope that the relationships between our MESBG community here and the MESBG communities in other countries will grow stronger with it.
Ultimately, it's an honour to be bringing some NI/RoI representation to such a prestigious event, and going forward, I'm excitedly anticipating that our representation at this event will increase further.
So that's all the catching up done, now we can look ahead to what's on the horizon of the IHL calendar.
6th-7th May - Breakthrough of Bangor - Exploding Dice Games, Bangor - Paddy McCormick - 600 points - IHL 100 points and GBHL 90 points [Tickets Available]
3rd-4th June - Conquest of Hibernia - Underworld Gaming, Dublin - Dave Murphy - 777 points - IHL 100 points, GBHL 100 points and Ardacon Masters Qualifier [Tickets Available]
25th June - Middle Earth's Greatest Heroes - Underworld Gaming, Dublin - Luke O'Reilly - 1000 points all Heroes - IHL 50 points [Tickets Available]
15th-16th July - Nirneath Arnoediad - Belfast Harlequins Rugby Club, Belfast - Michael Bradford - 800 points - IHL 100 points, GBHL 100 points and Ardacon Masters Qualifier [SOLD OUT - Contact Micheal to be added to the reserve list]
As you can see there's a lot going on within the Irish Hobbit League so head over to the Facebook page to keep up to date with all the goings on.
Until next time.
*I knew I should have asked Dan to write this instead.
