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Didn't know if I should put it in News or Discussions but since it's a review of a GT I decided to put it here. If this isn't the right spot please mods move it to discussions.

So I have to say that after the Broadside Bash (Blackmoor and I posted our horrible experiences a week or two ago for it) my hopes weren't very high for the next Indy GT. I don't know if I'm gonna make to more than 1 other GT this year so to get my points for this years circuit I had to attend. It was also being run by a league I used to parcipate in and am planning to do so again so I figured what the hell, i'd give it a shot.

That being said, holy hell! This tournement was absolutely awesome. Probably the best event that i've participated in in year, possibly ever. There only 31 attendees due to the short notice and lack of advertising (something they are already fixing for next year) but it seemed bigger.

Highlights:

1) Additional category called Skull Champion. Basically you kept track of the total number of enemies you killed each game. You nominate one of your models as a Skull Champion. For every game your Skull Champion survived the total kills you got got counted. At the end of the event the person with the most Skull Kills won a prize on par with best general/army/sportsman. I loved it as it added one more element and encouraged people to get out there and smack each other around.

2) Major, and I mean MAJOR, prize support. There were prizes for all 4 (counting the Skull Champion) categories down to 3rd place. Winner of best army got the the painting and modeling equipment and case (the big one) from GW. Overall won a Space Marine Strike Force. Most of the Best category winners got a battleforce and additional box set. All Bests got a laser etched plaque. 2nd and 3rd places got over $50 in toy soldiers and neat little metals with the mark of Khorne (SoCal Slaughter)

3) Fun random prizes and things happening all weekend. (i.e. first to destroy a unit one game)

4) GW staff from local stores showed up to hang out and the Battle Bunker manager was giving out blisters for cool stuff he saw happen (my 4 GKT's killing a fortuned Avatar, DIE DAEMON!)

5) Excellent 5th edition terrain. It actually blocked line of sight! A good amount but placed so vehicles (even LR's) could fit between buildings while moving.

6) Games started on time and went for the full 2.5 hours they were suppose to. Even gave a little extra time on the first game this morning due to it being daylight savings time.

7) They had BEER! And good cheap food.

8) The TO's were very open and available. Rules issues were almost non-existant from what I saw.

9) Checklist style sportsmanship/comp was used and I think used well. Only a few people got truly dinged I think for comp and they deserved (Eldrad/Avatar Combo, 24 Bloodcrushers)

10) Real emphasis on the hobby as a whole I felt. And this is coming from a person who doesn't always like that. They seemed to have found a good balance.

Middle Points:

1) Scoring on the scenarios was pretty nasty. Not necessarily done badly just created a large spread where even a tie resulted in a pretty low score for both players (normally 4-7 out of 20). That said massacres were pretty hard to come by as each mission had 4 objectives each worth a certain number of points based on it's level.

2) That was pretty much it for anything that could be considered a low or middle point.

And I have to give a heartfelt thank you to GW for the support they gave the SoCal Slaughter. The TO's couldn't say enough good things about the help/support that GW gave so GW deserves some positive press for it

Hopefully some other people post their experiences here since I know for a fact that there were at least 3-4 other Dakkites there minimum I'd heartily recommend this tournement next year for anyone looking for a good Indy GT experience.

Thanks for the write up, sounds like a good time. Where was it held?

In Garden Grove, CA. Basically Los Angeles. About 20 minutes from LAX. In nice convention center.

So will this grow to replace the now defunct LA Games Day/GT in the fashion of a West Coast Adepticon?

It's actually what the TO and the group of guys with him are going for. I think it has a chance and the guys running it are going to support it heavily to get it going.

They want it to be as big as Adepticon for the westcoast in a few year, growing every year. Which would be awesome since having two amazingly big well run tournements a year that are Indy run would be awesome.

I'm hoping it works out that way since it was a great experience and it's a really good group of guys running it who take it very seriously. Plus i'm kinda selfish and want at least one GT a year that I don't have to fly too

Don't they have another one this summer?

I'm only a few hours from LA so may be down to attend.

The Fantasy one is this September I believe. They do the 40k and Fantasy ones seperately as it gives them more prize support for each and helps with the attendance when people don't have to choose one game or the other

I flew down from Seattle for this and had a blast!

I'll second Hulksmash (great looking GKs by the way) in saying that this was a great event and was very well run!

I personally liked the way the scenarios scoring was done. When I got the full 20 points in one game, I really felt like I earned it.

My fav part was the twist they gave kill points. Instead of every unit giving up 1 kill point you rounded the unit's value either up or down to come up with the number for killpoints it would be worth depending on the unit type. Troops would round down(min of 1), everything else would round up. So a troop choice that cost 170 points would give up 1 kill point, while my Heavy Support Land Raider would give up 3. This meant that you had to decide if you wanted to focus more fire on troops and try to get easy kill points, or go after the big suckers that were worth more then 1 point.

They hadGreat tables with Great Terrain! Best event I've ever attended with regards to the terrain. Every table that I played on had a good amount and was set up in a way that made each quarter have a unique advantage.

The event had good staff and was very well run. Looking back, the only thing I would change is either letting the games run 3 hours or lowering the points level. Sometimes it can be hard to get in a 2000 point game in 2 1/2 hours.

Overall a great experiance!

Sounds like it was a good one. They do need more advertising - I didn't hear about it until way too late to act, and I'm just up the road a little ways.

I would also wish it was more than 1 month off of Adepticon, as that tends to burn my free-time and wife-karma for months.

Could get a bunch of Bay Area people to roadtrip down next year.

Yeah Janth, If i hadn't seen it for the circuit on the GW website I probably wouldn't have visited the league site and would have missed it.

Anybody that wants to go ahead and send me your email address. I'll compile them for the TO from here so we can keep you guys updated for next year. The more the merrier

I SO wanted to go, that is my old game club too, and they are all good guys. I had plans though, but intend on going next year. Glad to hear it was a good time!

Ifurita wrote:Could get a bunch of Bay Area people to roadtrip down next year.

Sounds like this is a great event and it's only gonna get better! Count me in.

BDJV wrote:

Ifurita wrote:Could get a bunch of Bay Area people to roadtrip down next year.

Sounds like this is a great event and it's only gonna get better! Count me in.

Now, if only that high-speed rail line was ready....

I was there and had a blast too. Certainly the best run tourney I have been to. I agree on the need for more advertising, as I didn't know it was happening until I got an email from the organizers a few days before the event.

Pros:
-Awesome terrain, and good tables with space to set your display bases on the side. Just perfect.
-Organizers are good guys, and the main rules guy actually knows his stuff.
-great food, beer, and for CHEAP.
-nice low-key venue. I'd rather play in a place like this then have to pay more to hold it in some hotel ballroom.
-fantastic prize support

Cons (keep in mind these are minor):
-Scoring was great but they should have switched the order of the lesser objectives. For instance, in a seize ground mission holding 3 objectives should be the tertiary instead of the secondary. Having primary and secondary as essentially the same objective causes those really low scoring draws.
-Minor changes needed to the sports checklist. There were 3 essentially identical questions about if your opponents army was over the top. If you are going to put army comp in, make it simple and to the point. 2 points for soft, 1 for standard tourney list, and 0 for WAAC.

So who and what army won?

Space Marines won overall. George Mason. I think he pulled 4 massacres which was really hard to do with the way they did scoring. Wasn't a particularly well painted army but it worked.

Maybe someone else on here played him but all i know about his list is that he had a squad of podding sternguard, a crusader, a thunderfire, and terminator assault squad. Didn't seem like a hardcore list when you look at it but he must have played it well.

George Mason's list was a Pedro Cantor list with assault terminators tossed in. Basically a little bit of every new unit in the list. Strong, but the only real standout units were Pedro and the Termies. Best General went to a 12 Las Cannon Ultramarine army (2 Pred Annihilators). Players choice went to Dana Hohns WW2 Desert theatre themed guard army.

On a side note, the Fantasy GT will be held in August and we are already taking sign ups.

If any of you want to make sure you keep on top of the future So Cal Slaughter events - there should be much better promo in the future (hopefully).

Thanks for the positive feedback - we are always looking for ideas to make the tournies better and much bigger.

Future events should show up here or at SCGWL.com If you are in the region you should sign up to the league too (shameless plug I know but it needed to be dome).

Wish me luck - I am the man who needs to knock George Mason off his rocker - play him next in the league. It is not in my plan to lose to the likes of him.

Just to let eveyone know.
The scgwl league (the guys who hosted the slaughter) are always looking for more players 40k and fantasy
You can find us at scgwl.com
Come out, have fun, get some practice games in, and the fantasy slaughter GT will be held in the late summer timeframe.


We are located all over Los Angeles, Ca and have players from half way to san diego to riverside (way out north east of LA)

I can further attest to the SoCal GW league, Blakmoor has been in it, Darrian13 as well (where the hell is he anyway, I heard he is into WoW now, for shame!).

It is the best league I have ever played in, high caliber painting and generalship, very well organized and with a long history behind it. If you live in the area, you owe it to yourself to join the league, it is such a good experience. I wish I was still close enough to rejoin.

Cypher, we still need a rematch, buddy! I still can't believe you beat me in the playoffs that last game!

I totally forgot about this event and I live like 15 mintues away from it.

Whoops!

Any chance we could get some photos? I'd love to see some of this terrain. Very encouraging, I thought we'd still be seeing 4th ed tables for a few more years, at least!

They'll have some photos up on the sight soon, when they do i'll post some on here. I was super excited to see 5th edition style terrain that actually blocked line of sight.

@Yakface

I'm disappointed in you! how dare you miss this event! You'll make it next year i'm sure

Hulksmash wrote:They'll have some photos up on the sight soon, when they do i'll post some on here. I was super excited to see 5th edition style terrain that actually blocked line of sight.

@Yakface

I'm disappointed in you! how dare you miss this event! You'll make it next year i'm sure

We have a little over 200 pictures taken - just by us. Hopefully there were more taken by players. I don't know bunk about the internet so I'm not sure when they will be posted but I'll try to remember to let you guys know when they are posted.

Hey all!

Roman Baker here from http://www.scgwl.com/

Hey all!

Roman Baker here from http://www.scgwl.com/. The So Cal Slaughter (Fantasy) will be held August 21-23. We're really excited about this one as we have been getting rave reviews and compliments form our previous ones. Also, we continue to get AMAZING prize support from GW, so instead of stock piling it, we reward it! Please check our sites, under the forums for more information, but I strongly recommend you order your ticket now as we are beginning the advertising early this time!

Looking forward to your comments and suggestions!

Fraternally,

Roman Baker
SCGWL

chaplaingrabthar wrote:So will this grow to replace the now defunct LA Games Day/GT in the fashion of a West Coast Adepticon?

No idea if this has been covered yet, but I spoke to a red shirt about a month ago at the LA battle bunker (NaCl) and he said that they were going to bring back the LA games day, they're just testing a new format for how GW does tournaments in the 3 cities its in this year, then (I guess next year) they'll bring it back to LA & etc..

I enjoyed games day LA last year (saw Gary Oldman there ) but admittedly I enjoyed the Broadside bash last year a lot more. Couldnt' go this year as it landed on valentines day, and couldn't hit the socal slaughter due to time restrictions, and work (glad to hear it was fun though).

KMKhaine wrote:If any of you want to make sure you keep on top of the future So Cal Slaughter events - there should be much better promo in the future (hopefully).

Thanks for the positive feedback - we are always looking for ideas to make the tournies better and much bigger.

Future events should show up here or at SCGWL.com If you are in the region you should sign up to the league too (shameless plug I know but it needed to be dome).

Wish me luck - I am the man who needs to knock George Mason off his rocker - play him next in the league. It is not in my plan to lose to the likes of him.

For the record, George also trouced KMKhaine in the league match following his post... Show him pity, his rear is sore.
And as far as the GT is concerned, I have nothig to say that isn't positive. but as I won, I don't think I am allowed too... they might take back the trophy. In all seriousess, the missions were hard but I earned 20 points in 4 of my games and finished all 5 games with time to spare, so it was completely possible to complete both with the way it was run. Please feel free to Pm me if you want my gt list. I'm willing to share, I'm proud of it.