May Day 2009 Report

Well, I almost got my army fully painted (my last Tactical Squad had 3+ colours so it was semi-painted) and hit the road to Edmonton. I was planning to paint my last unit the day before the tourney, but my friend booked the day off work, so I ended up playing some tennis and seeing a movie (Wolverine) instead. That night we went out with some of his friends and had a few drinks. I showed up Saturday morning tired and more than a little hung over. The turnout for the 40K tournament was 4. That's including me, and a dude who drove up from Calgary. So Edmonton supplied 2 players. On the plus side, I was guaranteed a trophy before the games began! The tables were very sparse, and consisted of ruins only. There was not a hill or woods in sight. The scenarios were all objective based, and I was disappointed to see no kill point scenario. Even more upsetting, all three scenarios used the Dawn of War deployment rules (two troops and one HQ on table, everything else off). I have no problem with that deployment pattern, but it certainly favours more mobile armies over others so I would never run it all three rounds. Let's mix it up a bit guys? The other armies were Marines (with Shrike), Space Wolves, and Sisters so power armour all round!

Round 1: Paul with Space Wolves

Did I mention I was tired and hung over? I played maybe the worst game of 40K I have ever played in my life. It was embarassing. I made 4 or 5 major mistakes and a bunch of minor ones. Lowlights included my 10 man Terminator squad assaulting a Venerable Dreadnought and not killing it for 3 rounds. He was a decent dude, and didn't gloat too much when he was handing me my ass. He also had a very nice-looking army. I deserved to lose and boy, did I!

Round 2: Anthony with Space Marines (Shrike)

Anthony had a decent looking army, with a beige and green colour scheme. He featured three Drop Pods (2 Ironclads and Assault Terminators) and a large Vanguard Veteran squad. I'm pretty sure he thought he was winning decisively the whole game. He assaulted my Terminators simultaneously with his Assault Terminators, Vanguard (with Shrike) an Ironclad and a Tactical Squad. This only happened because I rolled boxcars for my psychic test to move them out of assault range. So I was forced to improvise and make the best of a bad situation. I rolled above average invulnerable saves and my Terminators held on long enough for my Chaplain's Squad to counterassault. At the end of the struggle I still had infantry on the objective and he had an armless, immobile Ironclad. Meanwhile my Ironclad was slowly (I rolled consecutive 1s for his running) making its way over to contest his objective. The turn before my Ironclad could contest it fell to a lascannon at which point he screamed, "Yes!" and started to jump and dance around. So that was exciting. At the end of the game we measured and his Ironclad was just over 3" from my objective so the game was a draw. (They didn't even use kill points as a tiebreaker) Lowlights included the aforementioned psychic test and me killing his Vindicator on the 8th penetrating hit. You heard me correctly, 8 penetrating hits.

Round 3: Matt with Sisters

Matt's army was not really all painted but I guess most things had 3 colours. The stuff that was painted was pretty basic. He was all mech with an Immolator, 3 Rhinos, some Seraphim and 2 of those tank things that shoot the d6 str8 AP1 shots. This was probably my least enjoyable game. I played ok, but not great. He failed a roll that he later claimed to have made, and he forgot to take at least one leadership test. At that point in the day I didn't really care too much because with a major loss and a draw it's not like I was going to win or anything. He had a psychic hood in his army and I attempted psychic powers 3 times and was denied all 3 times. So my Librarian did not kill a single model or successfully use a psychic power all day. Nice work, you're fired! Minor loss for me.

Tim Miller: May Day 2009 Best Sport;)

Eee, tough one there. 4 people.. that's crazy! I know for sure there are alot of people in Edmonton palying 40k, and a ton in Red Deer and Calgary. How much was it again?

We might have to place a moratorium on playing tournies in Alberta. Grotscon was the worst tournie experience I had down in Red Deer.. the Octocon tournies are so much fun though..

Sorry I couldn't go share in your misery.. but at the same time I'm really happy I didn't. Were there lots of fantasy players?

I really think that the organizers should of sent you a note to tell you there were only three other players. Then, if you were going to still go to Edmonton you could of at least spent your time better. The organizers can't really plan for a 4 players tournie, and they were doing alot of advertising, so Im not sure what happened here.. but again, they really should of sent you a note about it so you could of decided.

Anyway, congrats nontheless on your Sportsmanship!

wow only 4 people but they did so much advertising, and what did you win for best sportsmanship?

Event registration was $18 for the entire weekend, which I thought was quite reasonable. I was able to play in a fun demo game as well. There were at least 7 or 8 pre-registered so I'm not sure what happened with the other guys. Fantasy was well-attended with about 20 players. I believe Dark Elves won the fantasy, and the Space Wolf guy won the overall for the 40K. Kieran Dunleavy played in the fantasy, so it was nice to see him again. I also ran into James (formerly of Dragon's Den) at Canadian Tire of all places!

Ben, I won a standard GW trophy/plaque thing that says "Best Sport". There was no product for prizes which is fine by me. Tournaments with large prize pools really bring out the worst in a lot of gamers.

you make a reallygood point it is better to play for fun then for prizes.

Crappy deal man.

The only tournament i have been to that might have been worse was the time i took the bus 18 hours to thompson manitoba for a tournament. The tournament would have been ok if not for the home town bias (i was the only guy from out of town), and of course the fact that the bus driver diddnt watch my bags when they were being transferred at a stop, and some northern trash made off with my backpack that contained all my toiletries and fresh clothes. Did i mention that it was a 2 day tournie. Oh well, i walked away with best painted, and the realization that northern manitoba is about as close to hell as you will find on earth.

Not sure whats going on with the tournament circuit these days. We had allot of good ones for a while there, but i think economics might be playing a part right now.

Dang why is it that the few sisters players out there keep ending up jerks? :p

Yeah, that is a weak turnout. Dang if a few of us were down there we could have swept the whole thing like we do in PA.

And Anthony eh? He sounds familiar, his colour scheme, it's green on one side and beige on the other?

Yeah, that's him. He wasn't that bad a guy. A little dopey I guess. He was convinced he was kicking ass and then when it slowly dawned on him that I was maneuvering for a potential win he got pretty excited to kill my Ironclad. I think he was a bit embarassed about it afterwards.