Corey is a good mate and a stalwart of Measured Gaming, bringing his positive spirit and relaxed playstyle to every tabletop. I’ll let you decide how he earned the nickname “Brushfucker”; I wasn’t there, so I couldn’t possibly comment.

Corey smashed out a 5-0 result at Everwinter last weekend, only narrowly missing out on winning the whole damn thing. Let’s catch up with Corey and find out how he did it.

How the devil are you, man? 

Cannot complain a single bit, just had a fantastic weekend in Canberra and managed to tick a couple things off the old bucket list! 

Glad to hear it my friend. Tell us about your background in AOS?

Well originally I played casual 40k, but I got brought along to a Measured Gaming club meet at the Old Church on the Hill and the rest is history: I sold all the 40k, and have been playing AOS ever since! I’ve been playing in total for about 3 years now, and have loved every minute and every single tournament I’ve been to!

I’ve played quite a large array of armies, but currently I’ve toned that back to 3: my old faithful Tzeench, OBR and Slaves to Darkness!

I’ve managed to place middle-to-high for the past few tournaments, generally hovering around tenth or so, but finally I’ve found the crutch I was after and have come home with a 5-0, only coming second to Joel Graham (massive congrats on his awesome year thus far) by 2 secondaries! 

Sold the Ironjawz because they’re not as easy to win games with hey? I hear ya.

Can you run us through your list? How does it work?

Oh y’know, the usual wholly withins and melt what I can, gotta keep some tricks up my sleeve after all! 😉 

Note: I’ll be playing Corey next weekend, and he seems to have the misapprehension that teleporting Flamers is a new idea that will catch me by surprise.

What good and bad matchups did your army have at the event?

I think the only matchup that helped me was my Game 3 against Ian’s KO on Focal Points. I was able to take first turn and just flood all the objectives early, and weathered the storm! 

The bad matchup was always going to be on Scorched Earth in Game 2, and against rats it was definitely a real close game! 

So how’d you go Day 1?

Round 1: Duncan’s wonderfully painted KO, he played really well but I just managed to flood the board with bodies and kill the Ironclad. That halted Duncan moving his bodies around at will, and when I popped the balloon boys he didn’t really have the tools to get his Objectives back. It definitely was a great game against a great opponent to start the event! Thanks again Duncan!  

Round 2: Robert and his Skaven. I personally thought I’d lose this one; Scorched Earth is a hard battleplan for me. Thankfully I was able to make a late game push onto his objectives, burn them all and get ahead. One funny moment was killing 39 out of a 40 man unit of rats, with 1 little drummer rat still running around being a pain! Cheers for the game Robert!  

Round 3: Ian and even more KO! I’ve had 1 or 2 games against Ian in the past, and as I said before I ran onto the objectives early to play the bodies game. Thankfully, I weathered the storm! Always a pleasure to play Ian, he’s a great opponent.

So far, so good! And how about Day 2?

Round 4: My dreaded match up, Daltons Big Waaagh…. I’ve always had close games with him, including a game we played to practice the list before the event! 

We both knew it would come down to dice roles, and they landed on my side this time. It was a tough match up and a great game, thanks heaps for that one Dalton. Heart attack averted!    

Round 5: The Master himself Mathew Tyrrell! Nighthaunt is always rough for me, since my list building tends to value rend over volume of attacks, and against Nighthaunt that plainly doesn’t happen…. Matt smashed into me with maximum aggression, which was the right call given how much ranged output I’m packing.

However only one unit made it into combat, which I was able to clear out and then control the objectives I needed. It was a really solid game, against a really top-drawer opponent, so thanks again Matt! Hopefully see ya on the tables again one day soon! 

Boom! Headshot. So what was the smartest decision you made all weekend?

Possibly rushing onto Objectives turn 1 in Focal Points. It was too much for KO to eradicate in one or two rounds, it put an immediate stop to him Flying High near Objectives, and ultimately put me too far ahead on points.

Good call, always a bold decision to risk a double turn from KO. Now how about the dumbest thing you did all weekend?

Well, anyone who knows me knows I definitely have my moments! In Round 2 against Robert’s Skaven, I really think I should have moved my Brimstones onto a point, to block off any risk of my that Objective being burnt.

Instead he ran his rats down in one turn and charged them the next; with an extra unit of Brimstones standing around making themselves useful his rats couldn’t have outnumbered me on that one. Thankfully I was able to work around that stuff up!  

What power move from one of your opponents had you worried? 

I had a few moments from each game, and I had to think about this one, but when Dalton charged his Rogue Idol turn 1, it was definitely an “oh shit” moment. Thankfully the charge roll was not what he needed! 

Now this is a hard one to ask (and possibly a hard one to answer), how did it feel to lose out on top spot so narrowly?  Was it frustrating, or was the main feeling joy in your achievement?

It was only slightly frustrating for a second, but Joel played well and scored all his secondaries so hats off to him, he did extremely well! This was the best I’ve done at an event against what I saw as a strong field, so I would say joy of the achievement for sure, it feels absolutely great!

Yeah man, that’s the spirit! I notice that your army was actually two drops, since it has one unit too many to fit inside the Changehost Batallion. Were you aware of that, and was being two drops rather than one ever a factor in any of your games?

I was well aware, but it was never an issue for me in any way!  It did have me slightly worried against a 1-drop, but I’m quite solid on not changing it: two drops is still a low-drop army, and if I deploy my screens knowing this, I should be okay against armies that would be a threat.

How do you feel about where AOS is at currently?

I personally think AOS is in quite a fine spot: the community is excellent, the events are very good, the game itself I find enjoyable. People will always find the “cheese” in anything they can get their hands on, but it’s not purely about the list you play at an event : it’s about having fun, and treating everyone how you wanna be treated. No-one’s playing for sheep stations here! And that, thankfully, seems to be a popular opinion!  

And last question to wrap up: Any hopes and dreams for Broken Realms? 

Personally I started buying into Deepkin, but have already changed my mind, so my main hope currently would be that after the FAQs nothing too broken comes of it! 

Anybody you want to give a shoutout to? 

God where do I begin! Rocky, Mister Michael Thompson, for having the first event back into AOS after a challenging year for everyone, it was excellent to do it again!

The Measured Gaming Crew, showing consistently strong results now, especially sweeping the podium at each of the last 3 events attended in three different States (Summer Smash in Geelong, SAGT in Adelaide and now Canberra).

And of course the people I played against, all such good games and thanks heaps for them! Just good to be rolling dice again. 

Congrats on the 5-0 bud, it’s a great achievement

Thanks heaps again mate, absolutely over the moon, and well done to everyone for their results over the weekend. Thanks Pete!