What a weekend! I took today off from work to recover.
I participated in three tournaments, Blood Bowl, the 40K GT and Battlefleet Gothic. Eleven games over three days. It kinda wears you out, you know?
First off, the Blood Bowl tournament. This is basically a cross between Rugby and football in a fantasy setting. I was playing Undead, and my team consisted of Mummies, Wights, Skeletons and Zombies.
The first half of the first game went gloriously. I killed three players and knocked out three more players. I also managed to score. During the second half, I lost two to casulties, but scored again, so I won 2-0.
Second game, I played Halflings. Think Hobbits playing football. This game I couldn’t get the casulties like I wanted, despite the fragile nature of the Halflings. The guy also pissed me off a bit because he had the ball and danced around the edge of the end zone for three turns to make sure I didn’t have time to score. He won 1-0.
Third game, I played Micah, a regular at 40K tournaments at Gamerz Depot. He played Orks, and beat me like a bad stepchild. He had me 6-1 in casulties and won in scoring. His dice were on fire.
So, I ended the tournament 1-2, near the bottom if not at the bottom.
Saturday morning started the 40K Grand Tournament.All of the scenarios were based on movies, and had four objectives worth a total of 20 battle points. In Ork fashion, you had “Primary,” Secondary,” Thirdary,” and “Fourthary.”
First game was against Chaos Space Marines. The scenario was based on the movie Deliverance. The attackers Headquarters unit was called The Mountain Man, and the defenders HQ was Bobby. If the Mountain Man killed Bobby, the attacker had to yell “Squeal like a piggy!” and the defender had to squeal like a pig, loud enough to be heard in the hall. Well, I killed the Mountain Man, but not before he killed my Bobby. So, I denied my opponent this objective. I lost 15-0.
I saw 40K Radio there, and on a whim I bought a brick of their dice.
Second game was based on Animal House. I played Mark and his “Squats,” played as Orks. He couldn’t play them as squats because that race was wiped out and discontinued several years ago. Anyhow, he based the entire army on the Confederate army, and called them “C.S.A.,” or the Confederate Squat Alliance. His squads were named after actual Georgia ACW units, and his squad leaders and HQ’s were named after actual leaders. This one was tough, but I managed to win 9-6.
My new 40K Radio dice were so good (I think they won me the game) I went back and bought another brick! I know they were the basis for my next victories!
Third game was based on Caddyshack. This time I played against Tyranids. My opponent was still fresh at 5th Edition 40K, so I had to help him out on some of the rules, and he wasn’t quite there with knowing his army, but we had a good time. I won this one 15-4. Thinking back on the game now, I think I should have gotten 20 points instead of 15, but it’s a little too late to change the scoring now.
With 40K over for the day, I rushed over to the Battlefleet Gothic tables. We played the same scenarios we played last year, so nothing new. For those of you who haven’t heard of BFG, this is a tactical spaceship game, set in the same 40K universe with the same races. I played my Ultramarines, with five Strike Cruisers and nine escort ships.
The first game I played against the Imperium, which is basically the Imperial Guard in outer space. I didn’t keep the scenario sheet to remind me, all I do remember is his main battleship never got a shot off, but he still beat me 10-0.
Second game I again played Imperium, but this time I faired a lot better…sorta. In this scenario you had to capture an unknown alien ship in the middle of the board. Well, I got there first and took off with the alien ship. The rest of my ships trying to get out took a pounding. In fact, one had a Warpdrive implosion, shich set off a chain reactionand ships (especially mine) exploded like popcorn. When all of the exploding was finished, I had one crippled cruiser, but I won 15-5.
Third game was the make or break game. I had the lead, but only by the slimest of margins. This time I played Chaos Space Marines, who had me outranged with his ship-to-ship weapons. Well, we had an asteriod field in the middle of the board and I went one way, and he went the other. The object of this scenario was to cripple ships, board them (especially the command ship) and get information. I managed to do this, and won 14-0.
After a few tense minutes while they tallied up the scores, and I came in FIRST! WOO-HOO! I WON!!!!!
After 6 hours of sleep, I started day three of the GT and the last two games.
Game four was against Tau, and the movie was Stripes. One of the rules here was that you had to keep your two biggest units off the board in reserves until at least turn three. If you got your units off your opponents board edge, he couldn’t kill them and get the points. We each got a couple of units off each other board edge, but what crushed my opponent was his two units in reserves were his two heaviest hitters, and he didn’t get them until turn five. Mine came in on turn four, but never even got out of the Rhinos. I won 15-0, and missed 20-0 by one model.
Last and certainly not least was Dung (he’s Vietnamese) and his Space Wolves Space Marines. This time the movie was Blazing Saddles. I took a look at his list, and he had 1867 instead of 1850, but after tallying up the points, he actually had only 1760 points. So, he bacially spotted me 90 points. I needed it, because everything he had came in Land Raiders! My early shots bounced off his LR’s, but my dreadnought blew one up in close combat, and I killed another with Las-Cannon fire. The third one immobilizrd itself and I ignored it the rest of the game. I won 15-0, and again might have gotten 20 if Tigerius hadn’t rolled a 12 on his psychic test (he needed a 10 or less on two six sided dice). He had an entire squad in range of a marine killing weapon which misfired when he rolled a twelve. This was the game I had the most fun with. Not because I had a 90 point advantage, but because my opponent was full of good cheer and not a powergamer with nothing but “win, crush, win, crush” on their mind.
So, at the end of the GT I had a total of 54 battle points out of a possible 100. Depending on how well I was judged for army composition and painting, that score will go up, but I don’t know how much. I’ll know in a week or three after the guys who ran the GT make it back to Huntsville and relax from everything and get back to work.
I would like to make mention of some of the wonderful artwork and conversions I saw there, things that will always be far beyond my scope of abilities simply because I would rather play than convert or paint. I saw one army what was robotic Tyranids, and one who had DaVinci paintings on their vehicles.
I’m already saving up for next years tournament, so I can stay in the hotel and not have to worry about getting up early to shuttle back and forth between home and the convention center.
