GottaCon 2010

Returned last night from GottaCon. This was the latest GW Tournament Circuit qualifier, held in Victoria (well Saanich actually), on Vancouver Island.
Took the ferry over on Friday afternoon, along with fellow A-Club-er Nick Daniels. Les Sohlier took the ferry 1 hour ahead of us.
After checking in at the sketchy (and we would find out how much so later) Howard Johnson we headed over to the venue. GottaCon was held in a local community/rec' centre. We were using the indoor basketball/tennis courts as our space, so it was well lit and well ventilated!
First impression of the set up was good - lots of table space (side bars!) and good terrain. It turned out that ~80% of the terrain belonged to the tournament organizer - quite impressed by that.
We took a look over the scenarios and the scoring sheet; we were not so impressed by that - they were using the much hated Massacre system.. So after a bite to eat, and some lively debates about rules we normally let slide in the club (such as how to do multiple combats correctly!) it was time to sleep... or try to. It so happens that our hotel hosted a seedy bar, which generated multiple conflicts during the night, and we were also disturbed by sirens down the street - there has been a shooting murder. In Victoria? W.T.F.

Saturday was a wonderful Spring morning (yes, the Winter Olympics start this week...), and boded well for the day's festivities....

I had elected to run my Penitent list (again), yes it has it's weaknesses, but it is pretty and fun, and I really don't care!

• Cannoness, with multi-melta Celestians, in HF-Immolator
• 2 units of Arbites (5) in Rhinos.
• 10 battle Sisters (HF, FL, VSS with SB) in Rhino
• 2 units of 2 Penitent Engines
• 14 Sisters Repentia with Priest
• Inquisitor with PW
• Callidus Assassin

Game 1

Opponent - Ric Jesson - Guard.

Mission - Dawn of War; Primary - Annihilation, Secondary - Capture and Control

Ric set up first, strung out on his back edge with a few units held in reserve (I'll post pictures later), I deployed aggressively as I wanted to get into combat as soon as possible.
As you can imagine I took a lot of fire, but the game swung my way on turn 2. My Callidus Assassin popped out - next to his unit of 10 Rough Riders. She "flamed" 6 of them down (they passed their morale some how) but then she chopped the rest down in combat. The next turn she repositioned. On turn 4 she went after the psyker choir (and Primaris), shooting and killing them in a similar manner. Turn 4 she stumbles - charging into an infantry squad, she must have been tired... it took two turns to take them down! On turn 7 (yes, one finally went my way!), she cooked the crews of the 3 sentinels that had been a thorn in my side for most of the game.
For those of you at home keeping score - 120 pts of 2 wounds, T4, S4 chick took out 612 points of Guard.
Sweet!

Result - Primary - win, Secondary - tie.
Minor Victory - 17 battle points gained
If it had not been for the Assassin ripping through the back line it would have gone VERY differently. Ric was a very good sport about the whole thing, and his army was stunningly converted (it was one of my 3 favourites on the weekend).

Game 2

Opponent - James Allen - Ultramarines.

Mission - Spearhead; Primary - Capture and Control, Secondary - Big Game Hunt (kill most expensive unit).

Well this game did not start off well. As soon as I saw his list there was a problem. He was 2 points over. This did not seem to concern him, nor did the TO want to do anything about it (did not want to cause a "fuss"). What really got my goat was James was unrepentant about this... not a sign of contrition on his part (nor did he change his list over the rest of his games).
His list was VERY hard hitting - 2 Vindicators, LR with TH/SS termies, Sternguard in drop pod (with Librarian), 2 Tactical squads in Rhinos and Scout squad with Telion.
Well the game was over on turn 1... his Sternguard dropped in and flamed my Repentia (both these were our most expensive units). They dealt 18 wounds to a 17 wound unit. I did manage to run around and take out the two Vindicators, the terminators, and most of the Sternguard - sadly my Assassin (must have been pooched from game 1) failed to kill off the last of the Sternguard.

Result - Primary - loss, Secondary - loss.
Massacre!- 0 battle points gained
Horrible and controversial...

Game 3

Opponent - Scott James - Space Wolves.

Mission - Pitched Battle; Primary - Annihilation, Secondary - Center of the Table.

Good job there was no rule about unpainted models! Whilst James' army was beautifully converted, only 1 unit dogs had been "washed"... and I think that those were the only models that had been primed. This saddens me, especially when I've taken so long to paint my own army, often for people who can not appreciate the effort or the results. But I digress...

This game was interesting - a two-in-one type of game. The dogs did a good job forcing my units to commit to them (Rage rules), and bogging me down whilst they chipped away at me. Canis Wolfborne is a beast (!), and it took a lot to get rid of him (the Callidus did it in the end). The 3 units of Grey Hunters then did the mop up. In the end it was close, 11 KPs to 9, but due to the Massacre system that was enough, along with the Secondary, to give Scott the Massacre win.

Result - Primary - loss, Secondary - loss.
Massacre!- 0 battle points gained
If James' army had been painted he would have received a lot more points - it was a fun game, which I thought I had on turn 3, but the GHs were just too much for the little of my army that was left. It is games like this which remind me of why I despise the old GW Massacre system so much, and how systems like they have at OFCC, and at Conquest, are much better.

Game 4

Opponent - Scott James - Space Wolves.

Mission - Spearhead; Primary - Seize Ground (4 objectives), Secondary - Destroy enemy HQ.

[more to come - I'm tired!]

Trygon and Mawloc

so back to the fun stuff...

These took about 2 hours to paint, I'll base them later when I have a few more tyranid models to do. I'm liking the look of the Codex so far, and look forward to trying out new combo's.
I'm sure I'll be one of about 50 Tyranid players at AdeptiCon!

Justice is Served...

http://conquestgt.avalongamecon.com/sitebuilder/images/Seattle.html-5.png

Cheaters - Why do they do it?

Well the short answer is because we let them...

Last weekend I played at the Conquest Seattle Slaughter; the first of the new GW Tournament Circuit. This happened to be my 30th GT since 1999 when I played my first at the same location (and on the same weekend IIRC).
This was the second year of this particular event, and by far a huge improvement over last year's. Yes, there were some "drama Llamas" out there over the club that had been scheduled to run it pulling out at the last minute (2 weeks "notice"), but the organizers pulled an excellent team together, and they worked on terrain for 2 weeks solid (one guy put in over 100 hours alone) and made the show work. I had a great time, and I look forward to next year's event (I'll blog my games when I have more energy).

Now those of you who read my blog (on the infrequent times I update it...) may recall last years write up and the shit-storm over the play-what-you-display issue. Now, I'll be the first to agree that this was not a breach of the rules per se. There is no such rule (well there is now!), but damn it was a thrashing of the spirit of our hobby, and as we English are fond of saying - it was not cricket (!).

The same guy was back this year. Predictably of course - he came second last year, and was gunning for a trip to Vegas. This is a going to be an on going problem with the way GW has designed this Circuit - everyone wants to kick ass... but I digress.

Once it was known he was playing there was a collective groan, and there was even a move to have him blocked from the event. We all knew going into the gaming room what his reputation was, and everyone pretty much dreaded a match up against him (I both dreaded and wanted one!). Well it turned out he played true to his nature. Comments about bad sportsmanship, whining when models were removed, slow play, pre-measurement - these were all in abundance all weekend. And lo and behold, at the end of day Sunday he walks off with the Overall Championship - and that treasured spot in Vegas.
Few applause, no hand shakes from enthusiastic buddies, no "well done mate!"...
So I hear a "WTF?" from you... yeah me too... I did not get to play him, and as all my games went to turn 5 or 6 I did not get chance to see the games. But others did... and they video taped it!

One of those videos can be found here, there is also a good commentary by the videographer here.

It is obvious from this footage that the player did cheat. You know what really got my goat about this? He scored 47/50 on Sportsmanship... yeah the same as ME. Me, who has won 4 GT Sportsmanship awards, who owns up to his mistakes openly, politely calls all his opponents on errors and scores his opponents fairly. FRAK.

So how did he get away with it - for all FIVE games. The opponents let him. Simple.
They. let. him.

Either they were scared of him (he is a big guy), or they did not want their scores affected by him sandbagging (chipmunking) them, or they were too stupid to realize the implications (which I doubt in this case). But either way, no one had the balls to stand up for what is right in the game - fair play.

Now some will argue that the Judges should have intervened. Well, firstly no one told them about it until after the fact. Secondly, note their role - Judges - not one of 3 Referees in a Soccer game, not one of 5 (?) in an NFL game looking for infractions, or even 3 in an NHL game. A Judge, who weighs evidence presented to them, and makes a decisions based on that evidence. Let's face it, in a room of 60 active tables, you can not have 60 "referees" watching the games. It is beholden upon the players to do something about it.

Complaining (even legitimately) after the fact is too late folks.

As a result of these videos, and player discussion, a tourney organizer has taken the bold step of banning the player in question. I applaud this, however, the Seattle GT has been sullied by this player (and I hope he gets beat down badly when he plays in Vegas, 'cos I know some of the guys who play at that level well, and they will NOT tolerate his BS!) two years in a row.

Will it ever recover its reputation as one of the best on the circuit? I played in the first 5 GTs that were held in Seattle, and of the first 20 or so I played in they were the best. I hope it does. But that will take a shift - a shift in the attitude of players; stand up for the hobby! A shift in organizer's attitudes - be willing to ban a bad player. And an education for this individual in the wrongness of what he has done to our hobby.

I hope I can be a part of all three of those "shifts".
Because I love this hobby.

current project...

Something I'm working on for AdeptiCon

an OLD picture request!

Just sharing my old Possessed for a fellow gamer...

World Wide Tournament - quick report

So the 40K Radio WWT wrapped up yesterday; 3 games in 1 day. The WCP Club organized the ONLY Canadian event - quite shocked about that. a) They are traditionally a FB club, and b) there are a hell of a lot of clubs across Canada!
Twelve players signed up - mostly locals, but Jeff Everitt made the 5 hour drive from Kelowna on Friday to play.
I took my usual Space Wolves army; Venerable Dreadnought, Wolf Priest, WG battle Leader, 58 Blood Claws, 6 Grey Hunters (bleh), Wolf Scouts and an Exterminator (I'm going to miss that...).

Game 1 (Punch In)
Jeff Everitt! Jeff bought Eldar, pretty much as that was all he had left after his house burnt down earlier this summer...
Well, this should be a fun game - a shooty army, vs an HtH army on what was a jungle table for all intents and purposes! Modified kill points were going to be bad for me - with 3 Hqs vs his one (which happened to be Eldrad) I was theoretically already 6 points behind.
I deployed aggressively, Jeff very defensively. Not much happened in turn 1 (no line of sight!), on turn 2 my scouts came in, and I decided to use them to tie up his best HtH unit, Striking Scorpions, hopefully for a couple of turns. They failed miserably in shooting, and managed to wiff with their power weapons just as spectacularly. They did weather most for the return hits and passed their leadership test.
With lots of dancing around terrain I really did not get to grips with his army; the only exception as when Jeff bought up a unit of fire dragons to take out my Ven Dread. They failed miserably to do anything in shooting, but each having a meltabomb they were able to take it down when I charged. That proved to be the turning point of the game.
Result:
Minor Loss for the Wolves (8 battle points gained)

Game 2 (Lost in the Ustream)
For this scenario I got to play a "new" player - Mark Wakeham, and his Necrons. Necrons seem quite popular in 5e, and they are a pretty solid army. Shame they are tough to get top painting scores on!
This scenario was a simple Capture and Control one, with a twist - you got bonus VPs for teleporting a unit, and a scenario point for doing if EVERY turn!
Predictably Mark castled his forces in one corner and kept the Monolith in reserve. He spent the next 4 turns backing up and shooting me... it was getting a bit boring! I did take out his Destroyer squad, but my Scouts failed to account for the Tomb Spider. Oh, I also tried teleporting a Blood Claws unit (of 12) close to his lines on the first turn. I lost them in a mishap! The Monolith came in turn 3, and by turn 5 had pushed my Grey Hunters off my objective. Not getting into combat until turn 5 really hurt me...
Result:
Major Loss for the Wolves (3 battle points gained)

Game 3 (That's a Wrap)
For this game I drew Adam Sarophim, who I have played MANY times in the past. However, I've never played against his Tau army, which he has been running for the past couple of years.
This was a straight up objectives battle. I won the roll, and let Adam set up. His army was pretty balanced, the only annoying unit was going to be the Sniper Drones. My counter deployment was quite good, but I knew, again, I was going to have to slog it across a killing field...
I managed to take out the Hammerhead quite early in the game, and then it just came down to the slog. Have a couple of units pinned over the first couple of turns was tough to deal with, but a few units got in Adam's face, making them priority targets. Once I did get into combat (turn 4) results were predictable. At the end of turn 5 we were holding two objectives each, with the middle one contested by Adam.
Sadly I did not get a turn 6 (how often have I lost games on turn 7?!). The game was at the tipping point and one more turn would have given it to me - my Exterminator would have wiped one unit off an objective, and a almost full strength Blood Claws unit with Wolf Priest was 8" away from another... I probably could have taken the middle if it had gone to turn 7!
Result:
Tied game - 10 battle points gained.

Summary:
Not my best showing, but still lots of fun! The terrain was a bit sparse/homogeneous for a HtH army.
So my Wolves are now in semi-retirement; once Codex: Flavor-of-the-Month is out next year I'll probably bring them back - in the mean time I'll be adding some Terminators, a Land Raider, and reworking my Blood Claw units to fit the new Codex: Space Wolves out in weeks!
Of course the Exterminator is out of the army (::tears::), but it will find a new home (and new armour/guns!) in my Guard Army. I'll most likely make it a character/command tank.

Thanks to Dan Miner for putting on the event!


edit - haha , I forgot - I won Best Painted...