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Here's a quick recap of how the BSB went.

The BSB was a great "Event" but I would not consider it being a Grand Tournament. Before I go into the how and why I'll cover the games. For people who don't like to read there is a video recap at the bottom.

Here is the list that I ran for the BSB. It's the same list that I have run since the CSM codex came out. I've won the Sprue Posse, SoCal Slaughter, 3rd and 2nd in the 2010/2011 BSB, several leagues and RTT's with it. Knowing your army in and out is a huge factor in generalship and capabilities vs. other opponents and codices.

Chaos Lord, MoN, Bike, Plague Bringer, Combi-Melta
Demon Prince, MoN, Wings, Warptime
Chaos Dreadnaught, XCCW Heavy Flamer
X7 Plague Marines w/Champion x2 Plasma, Pfist, Combi Plasma, Rhino w/Combi Melta
X7 Plague Marines w/Champion x2 Melta, Pfist, Combi Melta, Rhino w/CombiMelta
X7 Plague Marines w/Champion x2 Flamer, Pfist, Combi Flamer, Rhino w/CombiMelta
X7 Plague Marines x2 Plasma Rhino w/CombiMelta
Defiler X3 CCW Battle Cannon TL Heavy Flamer
Defiler X3 CCW Battle Cannon TL Heavy Flamer
Predator Lascannon sponsons TW Lasccanon

Game 1
Mission: Tri, Tri, Tri http://www.broadsidebash.com/pdf/WH40K-07.pdf. Cumulative objective points. 3 objectives, the center being worth two and each corner worth 1 at the end of each game turn. Funky L shaped deployment and you only had to be within 6” to control but you also had to be within 3” to contest…

Opponent: Patrick Metoyer and his Blood Angels.
Reclusiarch: Jumpack
10x Assault Squad X2 Melta Pfist
10x Assault Squad X2 Melta Pfist No Jumpacks Drop Pod Deathwind
10x Assault Squad X2 Melta Pfist No Jumpacks Drop Pod Deathwind
Baal Predator Flamestorm
5x Death Company Jumpacks Pfist
5x TH SS Termies in a Redeemer MMelta
Furioso Frag Cannon Drop Pod
Vindicator Siege Shield

Game Recap
Patrick won the roll to go first or second. He chose to go first and set up his Redeemer, Vindicator and Baal like they were going to blitz the center. I divided my army dedicating it evenly to strike at each of the objectives. Knowing that I was going second I could control the movement and contest objects. Instead of moving aggressively Patrick carefully moves up and decides to commit his Furioso as a distraction up in my deployment zone and decides to commit his assault squad to try and crack open some of my rhinos. During my movement phase I manage to control the center and one of the sides for an early 3 points lead. This was Patrick first tournament and in hindsight if he focused on controlling the center and contesting the other two it would have gone much better. He spread himself to thin and I was able to control the flow of the battles and make sure I held 2 of the three objectives. It was a fun game and I’m sure he learned a lot, after the game we talked a lot about tactics and some of the strengths of the Blood Angels.
Result: Massacre

Game 2
Mission Goals Not Guns 2.0 http://www.broadsidebash.com/pdf/WH40K-01.pdf. 6 Objectives with weird control and contest rules in pitched battle.
Opponent: Justin Carbungco and his Ravenwing Scout Army. Justin and I play each other at Game Empire. The game was chill and relaxed. I felt sorry for him as he was randomly paired with 4 people from San Diego
List from Memory
Shrike
Librarian on a Bike
Lots of Scouts with combi meltas on the sergeants
More scouts with Telion and missle launcher
Storm with heavy flamer
X2 Ironclads with x2 HK in Drop pods
X2 Thunderfire cannon
Vindicator
Bikes with Melta’s

Game Recap
I won the roll and decided to go second. Everything in Justin’s army can infiltrate or drop in. He tends to join Shrike to the bikers and also infiltrate them in. I feared getting hit by fist turn melta bombs and guns so I decided to reserve my entire army. Focus on killing the bikes, Storm and dreads since I really don’t fear the scouts. Digging scouts out of cover can be a pain to I was planning on a little HtH.
Justin really didn’t have a target to go after so the dreads came down close to my deployment zone and he turbo’d the bikes to half way point. My early reserves came on engaged the dreads taking them out and I managed to have a defiler move, fleet and charge the bikes winning combat and breaking them. I end up escorting them off the board and having a multi combat in the center with Shrike, 2 units of scouts and a storm which I end up winning. The game went extra innings and by the end of it I controlled 3 objectives, contest one and he only controlled one. Normally this would have been a massacre but if you read the victory conditions a massacre is only achieved if you own objectives and your opponent owns none. So this bumps me all the way down to a minor victory and cursing Justin’s lone scout standing on his objective. I had ample opportunities to rectify the outcome but I thought it was control more than you opponent like a normal 40k mission. My bad…

Game 3
Mission: Provide no Quarter http://www.broadsidebash.com/pdf/WH40K-05.pdf victory points table quarters.
Opponent Chris Jones and Leaf Blower IGaurd. Chris is a great guy who is part of the battlezone pod cast. http://thebattlezone.libsyn.com/ He’s from Fresno and I played Vince the previous year and had an awesome game then too.
Comand squad x4 melta chimera heavy flamer
Psyker battle squad chimera
Vets x3 melta’s chimera heavy flamer
Vets x3 melta’s chimera heavy flamer
Vets x3 melta’s chimera heavy flamer
Vets x3 melta’s chimera heavy flamer
Vets x3 melta’s chimera heavy flamer
Vendetta x2
Bane Wolf
Hellhound
Hydra
Medusa
Medusa

Game Recap
Chris wins the roll to go first which is exactly what I don’t want since he can blow me off the board in a few turns. Since it was table quarters and terrain heavy I decide to reserve my army again and try and crack his parking lot by coming in the from my long table edge closest to him and leap frog terrain. This also deny’s him one turn of shooting without me getting a move in. It ends out being a pretty good shoot out and I was cleaver in my placing of vehicles for cover. My chaos lord decided to stay around for once and turbo’d towards his backfield spending 3 turns trying to slap grenades on medusa’s and failing. Immobilized Medusa’s no less. By turn 5 it was looking like a massacre in my favor but we went extra innings and Chris’s dice decide to take it to the next level. He caps my Demon Prince, 2 Defilers, Full squad of plague marines all in once shooting phase. Taking me down to a Major victory. Chris and I’s game was a lot of fun; I’d play him any day of the week.

Game 4
Mission was Ground Control http://www.broadsidebash.com/pdf/WH40K-02.pdf Table quarters with spearhead deployment.
My Opponent was Nicholas Clark the other half of Battlezone and hailing from fresno.
He brought Tyranids and here is his list from memory.
Hive Tyrant, Old Adversary, BS Lashwhip scything Paroxism and something else
X3 Tyrant Guard
X3 Zoe’s in Pod
X3 Zoes in Pod
The vore that gives cover saves and dangerous terrain
X3-4 Flying Warriors
X5 Warriors with poison bone swords devourers
X5 warrios with deathspitters?
Gaunts
Tervigon
Trygon

Game Recap
This game is a little blurry. I knew that he had the scoring unit advantage on me and the tervigon was my bane. My dice rolls were pretty bad as well. I think he won the roll and decided to go first thinking he could table me if he was aggressive enough. I just kept thinking I need to get rid of the tervigon. I get sneaky and send my lord into his back field to go gaunt hunting and start to work on his warriors with my battle cannons. In hindsight he had lost of cover and I should have just engaged him in hth. I played to defensive trying to shoot instead of bringing the fight to him. In turn 4 I realized this and finally managed to get some combats in. I also spent a lot of time trying to avoid his tyrant deathstar. I end up killing most of his troops except for the tervigon which was left with one wound in hth with my defiler and a powerfist and a unit of warriors in cover. If the game went one extra turn and I managed to kill his e marine I tervigon before my plague marine I would have secured a major victory instead of a minor. Still a fun game, a little stressful as Chris is a tense guy.

Game 5
Mission is Numbers Game http://www.broadsidebash.com/pdf/WH40K-04.pdf basically take half of you kill points and add 1. This is your target number. If you managed to kill this amount the game ends. Yaayy necron phase out…
Opponent: Bama another San Diego whom I’ve know for a long time. Here I am with 4 wins and paired up against bama who I think has a win, a loss and a draw… He’s Bringing Blood Angels with a Forgeworld Flare.
Reclusiarch
Librarian Blood Lance, Fear of the Darkness
Furioso Dreadnaught with Blood Talons in a Lucius Pattern DP.
X2 Priests one with a jump Pack
X10 Assault Squad with Melta, flamer, fist in a drop pod
X8 Assault Squad with Melta and a fist in a drop pod
X10 Assault Squad x2 Melta Fist
X7 Death Company TH, Pfist, PW in a Drop Pod
Death Company Dreadnaught with Talons in a Drop Pod.
Deathstorm Drop Pod with Assault Cannon
Deathstorm Drop Pod

Game Recap
Bama and I had a pretty relaxing game with some funny situations. He won the roll to go first and I reserve my army fearing the first turn pain he could bring. The dreads come down with nothing to do and Bama pretty much controls the mid field and my deployment zone waiting for me to come on. The funny thing is my reserves rolls were so bad the only thing that comes on is my dreadnaught that I smoke and walk up to his dreads. The three dreads spend 5 turns whiffing and tearing off arms and immobilizing each other. My bad dice rolls with str 10 and his average rolls with str6 talons make this an ongoing fight. The death company had to eventually get in the with a thunder hammer to finish my dread off. Most of the game was spent with me coming on from reserves and alpha striking something till it was dead. By turn 4 I had 8 kill points only needed two more to get a massacre but for some reason my predator decides it can’t hit the broad side of a barn and kill a drop pod. I also whiff some melta’s costing me a Massacre to a Major victory. The game was fun and Bama’s army is gorgeously painted in the Flesh Terrors theme. Bama is a mostly a fantasy player that dabbles in 40k.
I end up with a Massacre, 2 Majors and 2 Minors.
Not bad.

Event Review

I mentioned before I don't consider the BSB a GT but a Grand event, I had 5 great games against random opponents with unconventional unbalanced missions and a soft score system that has no place in a Tournament.

The venue was great, easy to get too, rates were only $99 for a double if you reserved early. Easy access to bathrooms, well ventilated and the hotel provided water stations. The convention was going on at the same time so in-between rounds you could visit vendors and pick up other games at night and meet new people. The BSB costs $65 which also grants you access to the Con for the whole weekend.

This year the 40k players had to share a room with the Fantasy players so that made things a bit cramped. With 100 gamers talking it made it tough to hear your opponents and by the end of the event I felt deaf and raspy.

The tables were a lot higher than previous years so the lower back agro was not that bad. Since this was hobby event everyone had their displays and there was no real room to negotiate. I wish they did paint judging the second day in a separate room. This would allow players to use smaller trays and not take up so much real-estate.

The tables were amazing. Simply amazing. Block line of site, area and the right amount.

Game time felt adequate, no real rush.

Food was a small issue, unless you wanted to eat at Starbucks or the hotel restaurant the only option was a subway around the corner. All the other con goers were also there so the lines were long and I had to rush and eat. Having the Starbucks close was a nice comfort.

Now onto the differences between a Grand Event and a GT.

Pairings on the first day were all random with the filter of you had a different codex than your own to play. So the Spacewolves, Blood Angels, Guard players never had to worry about a mirror match and if you're a mean tourney player you had a chance to play three fluffy bunnies in a row. Once you played your match you did the timewarp and stepped to the left and that's how they did table assignments. You look left and across and see who your Opponent was for the rest of the matches.

2nd day pairings were even worse. They took your overall score (battle points, painting and bonuses) and put you into a top bracket or low bracket. Then they randomly paired you within that bracket. So if you scored high on soft scores but low on points you could be playing with the guys who massacred every one and vice versa. None of the top players played each other. I did randomly get 5 challenging match ups. But there was an instance of the rank 25 player matched up against the rank 4 player. Rank 25 player had high soft scores but low battle points.

The missions..... Yeah there were what they were....Not designed for this environment and randomly chosen throughout the event. You would sit in front of your opponent and wait for them to randomly pick what mission you were going to get. Did I mention that they made some subtle changes to the missions and not post it on the website?

I was fine with the painting. I got a fairly high score but only after I caught some simple math errors. I believe I should have gotten a higher paint score since my army was at least as well painted as the overall player. It felt that they did the paint judging rushed. It would have been great if they did it on the second day in better light. Also have two judges scoring and come to a consensus.

Early list submission was worth 2 points and "Hardcore" was worth 3 point. The same weight as game lost so if you missed this you had some ground to make up. They said you had to apply on the website but during the tournament they just told you if you got it or not sans application.
Hardcore = Attendees may apply for this bonus by submitting an army list by January 31, 2011 and after purchasing a ticket. The army list will be reviewed by a panel of three well-experienced 40k judges regarding the criteria of:
1) Designing a list reflecting a particular army or component (company, craftworld, cult, etc.) coherent to the canon of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
2) Conforming strictly to the 40k canon, especially if but not necessarily at the expense of a more gaming competitive design. This may require an awareness of materials no longer in publication, but that have been long established in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
The points will be awarded if after receiving approval from the panel:
3) The army is modeled and painted in accordance with this particular army narrative.
You also earned 1 point for every favorite opponent vote. Instead of keeping a player sheet they had a check box on the score sheet asking “is this your new favorite opponent, if so this will replace your previous vote.” I’m sure this made a book keeping nightmare as you have to track who has changed their vote and who their new favorite opponent is. If you look down at the scores below you’ll notice that out of 52 players there are only 46 votes…

The point breakdown for games was 10 massacre, 9 major, 8 minor, 7 draw, 5 loss and a bonus point for "completing" a game making losses actually worth 6. With how some of scoring was down for missions it made it always worth it to table your opponent and bring a list capable of it.

The top overall player was 4-, I came in second with 5 wins and third had 5 wins. I missed overall by .5 to White925 whom I had befriended at the Sprue Posse. With White925 and me scoring similarly we were neck and neck but his better game generalship pushed him into 1st. It would have been nice to have been paired against him and Charlie.

Sportsmanship was a 2 point slider, anything above 5 points we're added to your battle points.... Why?

They allowed some forgeworld but only on a case by case basis. I know the best general Charlie Nichols was packing a Lucius pattern drop pod. Oh joy....

They also allowed some TFG's in. People who reputations proceed them and have poor sportsmanship and etiquette or are not allow to play in other tournaments. This left a lot of people sour and they should have just said no and not allowed them entrance.

Prize support... $65 entrance to the con and second overall gets a $25 gift card to battle foam and a golden ticket...no trophy. I goto smaller RTT's and other events and there's enough prize support for 1st-3rd in each category.

T-shirts would have been cool or dice. The PacMads are such awesome modelers they could have made weapon replicas or something. But people got some GW credit. A hobby kit with some glue and brushes. Overall and best general got a plague.

All I really wanted was a T-Shirt.

I'll go next year and I still had a great time this year despite the few complaints. The BSB changes every year getting better. My friends definitely made this a positive experience and I met some cool new people.

Here a video of my matches. Sorry that there are not any turn by turn recaps but I did not want to impact game time with my opponents.


Here is a breakdown of scores. Congrats to White925!! I'm so excited that I'll be hanging with him, Reece and Charlie at the throne of skulls.

5 of the 6 chaos were heavy Nurgle themed.

I was going to sign up for the BSB just to get 5 practice games for Adepticon and I am glad I didn't.

I stopped by for a little while on Sunday and the room was small and packed with humanity. I am glad the fire marshall did not see it. Also it was so loud I know I would have lost my voice by the end of day 1.

And all you got was a $25 gift card to battle foam? The event sold out, what are the doing with all of the money? You should have at least gotten your entry fee in prizes.

The reason the favorite opponent scores were off is because some people did not vote.

So there were a total of three 5-0s and none of them played each other? The Fantasy side had some issues (mainly the soft scores being so strong) like this, but not nearly on this scale.

In regards to the prize support I'm a little shocked. They've normally at least provided decent prize support for the previous three years and that was without selling out. So in a sell out year they cut prize support to the bone? Doesn't take much to draw bad conclusions. Ah well.

Glad you had a good time though Dave

It's just second place that doesn't get much.

Here is a response from the game empire forums.
2. Prize support - We gave away a $200 gift certificate to overall, and 3 other gift certificates to best general, best appearance and best sportsman. I believe all were $100-$175. There were hobby kits with glue, kicker, files, greenstuff, and clippers, worth around $50 given to everyone, paid for purely out of our club funds. There was a small trophy plaque for everyone. There was a Battlefoam paint case given out, an Army Painter kit, and custom movement trays and bases from Shogun to the WFB players. To say "some gift certificates and some glue" were given out is just not a fair assessment of the prizes. Second place overall only got a golden ticket, which is what was advertised on our website from the beginning, and what we gave them last year as well. I'll lobby for getting 2nd overall something else next year, since the golden ticket is not a big deal anymore.

For the record, GW is cutting back some of its prize support for the next circut year, but this BSB is supposed to be on the current circut. The certificate thing is how its suppost to work next circut, so maybe they got changed to the new system?