Tournaments: Blessing or Curse

Couple more pics of my current project.

Tournaments, personally I believe one of the great motivators in our hobby. I never get as much painting done as I do in the weeks up to a tournament, and I always come home with a tid bit of info about a rule or tactic that I got wrong before. However there is a bad thing about tournaments and it comes down to what is commonly known as that guy, made worse by TO favoritism which can cause you to forget all the good things that may have happened and concentrate on that one game.

It makes you not want to go back, which in turn causes you to become a garage gamer and in turn may cause you to leave the hobby. Why? Well if you play same people over and over you don’t get better and since you don’t see neat tricks at a tournament you have no way to improve other than forums and blogs which is never the same thing as seeing it in action. So you know how the game is going to go after about 6 months you move on. I’ve seen it happen

So a bad tournament, in effect, reduce the number of players in the game which could cause prices to rise since there might be fewer players in the game and in this hypothetical situation cause GW to close their doors. Which leaves all of us without a hobby, so congrats Guy you got your win hope your proud of your win.

Prep & Painting.

So the Semi Finals of ‘Ard Boyz is only two weeks away and I have gotten no games in since the first round, not exactly the best way to place anywhere in the top for Regionals. Honestly I would be shocked to get third out of this thing but it would be sweet as hell to get 1^st place. I’ve been playing around with a few ideas for what I would get from GW for a 2500 point army everything from a Khan list to a Hellion swarm with warp beasts.

So prep at this point has come to me identifying power combinations just by looking at their lists and trying to figure out the best way to combat them using the wacky scenarios that GW has written up for us. I’ve also been working on writing up the hammer units that I can easily identify from the different Codexes. I think I have to spend some more time learning the ork dex. To many surprises from the last few games.

Couple of picks of what I’ve been working on.

'Ard Boyz Win

Ard Boyz

Well ‘Ard Boyz has come and after 3 rounds I’ve managed to come out on top. I played at the local Fantasy Flight games at the showing this year truly did not even come close to the expected meta.

· Grey Knights (me)

· 3 Orks (2 of them placed in the top 4)

· 1 Dark Eldar (placed 3^rd)

· 1 Salamander drop pod list

· 1 Eldar

· 1 Necron (no shocker last place)

· 2 Space Wolves

Again and again I here that Orks are no longer competitive but tournament after tournament the place in the top without any issues, the Orks lists included; Green tide (honestly don’t think he made it past turn 4 on any game he played), 5 Battle Wagon list, and a mismatch list that almost looked like he fielded everything he had just to make it up 2500.

So I played 2 of the 3 Ork lists (the mismatch list turn one and the battle wagon list turn 2) and the dark eldar list turn 3. And ended up getting two massacres and a minor victory, my first tournament win, and in all my games I can only think of one mistake I make and it was in the game with the minor victory.

‘Ard Boyz is next weekend. Many people are excited at a chance to smash face with no illusions that this system is based on battle points so it’s mostly going to be about luck vs. strength of showing. Many of the older codex have really no chance of making any type of completive showing. In the past few weeks I’ve had 3 games with my Grey Knight list against Eldar, Nids, & Space Wolves. The Eldar and ‘Nids where both good players who I’ve played for years and I crushed them hard, the space wolves is a newer player only been playing about a year but it was good game. Both armies where evenly matched and it came down to tactic to determine who would win. It really shows the difference between the power levels that are between the different codexes

On a side note, I was chatting last week with an older gamer who hated the very concept of the ‘Ard Boyz. His thought process was that it only encouraged the hard core gamer. Personally I don’t think of myself of a hard core gamer but I’m thrilled with the tournament, sure the missions could be better. But for a free tournament designed to just get people into the store to play a few games it seems like a great idea to me.

Listed below is the list I’m going to be taking;

Type	Cost	Unit Name	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	AR	Equipement
HQ	100	Cortaez	4	4	3	3	3	4	3	10	2
HQ	205	Grand Master	6	6	4	4	3	5	3	10	2(4)	Psychotrope & Rad Grenade
Elite	192	Purfication Squad
	30	Purfier(7)	4	4	4	4	1	4	2	9	3	2 Psycannons, 5 NFH
	5	Keeper of the Flame	4	4	4	4	1	4	2	9	3	Daemonhammer
	41	Rhino		4								Storm Bolter, Search Light
Elite	192	Purfication Squad
	30	Purfier(7)	4	4	4	4	1	4	2	9	3	2 Psycannons, 5 NFH
	5	Keeper of the Flame	4	4	4	4	1	4	2	9	3	Daemonhammer
	41	Rhino		4								Storm Bolter, Search Light
Elite	145	Vindicar	8	8	4	4	2	7	4	10	4
Troop	200	Strike Squad
	20	Grey Knight(9)	4	4	4	4	1	4	1	8	3	2 Psycannons
		Justicar	4	4	4	4	1	4	2	9	3
Troop		Henchman Squad
	50	Warrior(5)	3	3	3	4	1	3	1	8	5	3 Melta Guns
	51	Razorback		4								Twin Linked Heavy Bolter, Psybolt Ammo
Troop		Henchman Squad
	50	Warrior(5)	3	3	3	4	1	3	1	8	5	3 Melta Guns
	51	Razorback		4								Twin Linked Heavy Bolter, Psybolt Ammo
Troop		Henchman Squad
	25	Warrior(5)	3	3	3	4	1	3	1	8	5	4 Bolters
	81	Razorback		4								Twin Linked Las Cannon
Troop		Henchman Squad
	25	Warrior(5)	3	3	3	4	1	3	1	8	5	4 Bolters
	80	Razorback		4								Twin Linked Las Cannon
Troop		Henchman Squad
	90	Death Cult Assassin(6)	6	0	4	3	1	6	2(3)	8	5
	60	Crusader(4)	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	8	5(3)
FA	206	Storm Raven		4								Multi Melta & Las Cannon
HS	255	God Hammer		4								Multi Melta(10)
HS	135	Dreadnought	4	4	6			4	2	10		2 Twin Linked Auto Cannons, & Psybolt Ammo
HS	135	Dreadnought	4	4	6			4	2	10		2 Twin Linked Auto Cannons, & Psybolt Ammo
Total	2500