One week to go until the big
LibertyHammer throwdown!
Basics
We have a number of players signed-up for their first organized
40k event, which is fantastic. These are just a couple quick pointers and reminders for those players.
You must bring typed, printed copies of your army list (5 for Saturday, 4 for Sunday). One of them will go to the organizers for quick review and a post-event writeup. The others are for your opponents. They'll use them right then to better understand what is in your army. Many players also write up battle reports or maintain a log of games, and keeping a copy of the army lists helps with that. Everybody should also quick sanity check each other's lists as best as possible.
Make sure to bring all the codexes, datasheets, and other rules needed for your army, as well as your measuring tape, dice, markers, and everything you need to play.
Please review the rules and stats for your army beforehand and be reasonably familiar with them. Beginners are very, very welcome, and this is a casual, friendly event. However, we are trying to pack a lot of gameplay into each day and there are time limits for the games (2 hours for Saturday, 2.5 for Sunday), so you want to keep things moving as best as possible. There is absolutely zero shame in including accurate notes on special rules or stats in your army lists or on notecards for quick reference.
You should bring a tray of some sort for moving your army around between matches. Some players will have a fancy display board for doing so, but a box lid will also work just fine. You want to be able to keep everything organized and be able to move in one swoop without risking dropping models. As best as possible you probably also want to bring just the army you're playing, not your whole collection, so you don't have a ton of bags/boxes to lug around. That said, there is a fair amount of room at Redcap's. Each match on Sunday will have a standard amount of side table space. With current registration, there will also be a good amount of side table space on Saturday. Even if it fills though, all of Redcap's wargaming tables have a shelf underneath that can be used for models, books, bags, etc..
Painting
The overall scoring mechanism has not been finalized yet, that's this weekend's project! However, a component of the overall score will be our standard rubric:
* All models assembled and primed [+5 pts]
* All models three-color minimum [+5 pts]
* All models based (paint/flock) [+5 pts]
* Advanced painting techniques present (washes, drybrushing, etc on at least one model) [+5 pts]
* Advanced basing techniques present (grass, sculpting, etc. on at least one model) [+5 pts]
In addition, separately there will be a prize each day based on player voting for the best army by painting and craftsmanship. Before the dinner break anybody that wants to compete for this will put their army out for display and we'll collect ballots afterward. You cannot win a painting prize both days, the prizes will bump to the next in line.
FAQs
Everybody, and especially players new to the Redcap's and PAGE
40k community, should quickly check out the
small FAQ we maintain and play by.
After much stalling in hopes that a final version would be published, we are not going to adopt the various errata sprinkled throughout the new
GW 40k FAQ drafts. Everybody should build their armies and play games as if those did not exist. We have four big concerns:
* The draft
FAQs contain several notable internal contradictions.
* Very few players have read through and processed the updates in detail yet.
* The state of them is just confusing, especially "suggestions" like the update for Dreadnought attacks.
* At least one significant errata (Apothecary upgrades) has already been quietly reversed by
GW deep, deep in the Facebook comments.
In sum, except in narrow cases where it specifically affects their army, no one we've observed seems to be playing with these changes naturally yet. It seems likely that adopting them would lead to inconsistency throughout the day as some players remember to apply them and others don't. More importantly, we have little confidence that there is one single, cohesive shared understanding of the contents given that further clarifications and at least one errata to the errata have been made, unannounced, in the Facebook comments to the drafts.
All that said, this is a fun, casual event. If you've been designing an army around a strong assumption of some aspect of these
FAQs being now standard, you should get in touch and we'll see if it's reasonable to adopt. We're talking about playing with space dollies for a weekend. It's just not that serious, and we want everyone to have the best time possible.
Terrain
Several new boards have been or are being built for the event, tied directly into the campaign story and mechanics. Many of these have a lot of flavor and will also feature in-game effects, such as exploding fuel tanks. For just one example, check out the
Medea Refinery, featuring a lot of traditional scratchbuilding, custom 3D modeling and printing, and a great paint job from a small PAGE crew:
Fight!
Registration is very good at this point. There are just three spots remaining for Sunday's doubles event, and we know at least one additional team firmly committed and another possible, so anyone on the fence should
sign up today if you want to join the action! For Saturday's solo event there will all but certainly be space to register on site day-of, but it would definitely be easier all around to
sign-up online in advance so please do so if at all possible. You can register quickly and easily with a credit card or PayPal account at
libertyhammer.com. You do not need to commit to both days, there is no disadvantage to you or your alliance for coming out for just Saturday or Sunday. Registration fees are all going toward lunches, small prizes, and a charitable donation to the Free Library of Philadelphia. We look forward to seeing you there!
