Hey folks!
If you've clicked on this, you hopefully know who I am - I write Battle Reports. Here's a few of the tournaments that I've done batreps for.
'Ard Boyz Preliminaries
'Ard Boyz Semi-finals
Blood Bath
Atlanta Circuit Opener
Saint Valentine's Day Massacre
After speaking to Frazzled, I've secured permission and a blessing to post this. Since most of my batreps devolve into drama even when they shouldn't, here's a fair warning to you, the reader: Making personal attacks to other dakka posters in this thread is likely to result with you not posting on Dakka. So don't. The point of this thread is:
1. Humor for you
2. Warning for the general populace about this store and its patrons.
3. Cathartic therapy for me.
Setting the stage: I recently moved to Jacksonville, FL. The gaming community here is fragmented. There are two gaming stores here (in a town of 1.5 million people). Until a few weeks ago there were three, and until a year ago, there were four. I lived here for a brief time a couple years ago, and moved back because of a promotion at work that was simply too good to pass up; it put me solidly in the mid six-figures range, and I have a home office. And I expense my cell phone, my internet, mileage....it took that to bring me back. There are several groups of gamers in Jacksonville; not official "groups," just collections of people that socialize with each other. Like in any gathering of people, there's a lot of good people, and a handful of jerks.
One of those groups has been particularly vocal on the internet (but nice as could be in person) about their hatred for me; labeling me as a
WAAC gamer, I don't "get" their local scene, various bad names....
Mission: Integrate into the
40k community here, help raise interest in
40k, support the
FLGS to keep them from following the fate of the now defunct previous stores.
Deployment:Ah...is this format dumb?
There are various places that I play.
SunCoast Comics is the closest gaming store to where I live. My friends and I try gaming elsewhere when we can because the air conditioning setup inside is horrid; Florida is 100% humidity with 90-105 degree temperature - the building where Suncoast rents seems to hover around 90 degrees *inside* with 100% humidity. In the army, after being outside / field exercises in the heat I would get salt stains on my BDUs (Battle Dress Uniform); the only time I've managed to get them since that I've noticed is while playing at Suncoast. As a result, we're hesitant to game there outside of a tournament setting because of the heat....combined with the unwashed nature of some gamers...leading to a distinctly unpleasant gaming environment. I've got a table at my house, three of my friends have tables at their houses (including one, who has a GIANT table in his gameroom - I think its 14' x 10'. We can have two games on it simultaneously at opposite ends, with a bunch of space in the middle for all our stuff.
Turn 1: 'Ard Boyz Semi-Finals
I had three fantastic games against three fantastic opponents. I was on Table #1 for my third game playing for a 2500 point army against a mechanized
IG player....where we had the L shaped deployment with two board edges as your deployment zone - I lost the roll, was forced to deploy first with my mechanized assault...and subsequently took the beating of my life. You can read the batrep at the appropriate link above. Since I got beaten so quickly...we finished our game in about 45 minutes. I packed up early, congratulated him on winning 'Ard Boyz (I'm a good loser; its where I learn the most after all), and went to the in-laws, and jumped in the pool clothes and all. So....I missed the drama.
Suncoast Comics isn't nearly large enough to host a tournament like 'Ard Boyz semi-finals, so they borrowed the restaurant next door to put half their tables into; with the agreement that the store had to be cleared out by 5:00
PM (tables, gamers, everything) so that they could open the restaurant for dinner patrons and karaoke night. As things ended up working out....Round #3 was nowhere near finished at 5:00. All the games got cut short by an hour. To keep things fair, the store owner announced to the rest of the gamers on the store side that everyone needed to finish the turn they were on, tournament is over - to keep it fair for the people who had their games cut short in the restaurant.
Exactly.
I'm not sure that I have permission to use names from any offended parties, but there were quite a few absolutely LIVID individuals who didn't get a massacre because of the sudden game stoppage, or lost out on placing. I understood that there was a three-way tie for third place, and that the tie-breaker was awarded to the person who had their game cut off first on the restaurant side. I got a couple
PMs on Dakka about it, a phone call, an e-mail....from various people griping / wondering if I was affected, etc. I understand some phone calls were made to
GW to complain, but I don't know more - I stayed out, and the whole issue apparently disappeared quietly.
Turn 2: Moving to Jacksonville, and my first tournament!
The local club (The Guardians) hosted a unique tournament shortly after I moved here and it was the first one I got to participate in.
BMF Championship. Very cool idea - you can read the tournament structure and rules at the link provided. Basically, it was a single elimination 1500 point tournament. No sportsmanship, no comp scoring, no painting - BMF = Baddest Mother F*****; and the tournament announces, "No whining, no crying...you lose, you're out." This tournament was to find out who the baddest mofo around is. I brought my Dark Eldar.
I had fun, and I beat face. There was a bit of baby-seal clubbing. Example: My first round opponent brought foot-slogging Space Wolves + a single dreadnought. I got to go first, and deployed pitched battle in the center of my board. He attempted a "refused flank" and deployed his entire army into a single piece of rubble. They wouldn't all fit inside, so he dropped a long fang squad and a grey hunter pack outside of cover...tight together.
Now, my 1500
DE has three ravagers with triple disintegrators, meaning massed plasma templates. It took 8 dark lance shots, but I exploded his single dreadnought 5"....hitting a total of 18 models from different units. That's how packed in they were. He conceded at the top of turn1 after my assault phase. Not all my games were so easy, but most of my opponents got beaten on horridly. After the tournament, I posted tournament feedback noting that I thought it was a brilliant tournament idea, inventive, and that I had a great experience.
Drama ensued.
FYI, I'm Shelix / Justin on those forums. Apparently, my lack of knowledge of the local gamers causes me to be a "douche" because the locals are friendly, not too competitive, and my "
WAAC" armies and tactics are unwelcome around here. Its a great mini-drama. There is a lot of whining, crying, name-calling of me, and general rabble rousing that I'm a horrid person. I linked that thread to the Dakka Discussion "Worst experience at a local gaming store" and a couple people from Dakka apparently registered and responded that the local gamers were being absurd.
The result was the creation of a thread all about me titled,
Things I hate about Shelix. Remember that Shelix = Dashofpepper.
Now, two things hold true about me.
1. I'll give the shirt off my back to help someone.
2. I won't sit by idly while someone is being attacked - friend, stranger or otherwise...LEAST of all me.
Read that thread for more simply absurd hatred. What this boils down to is simple: I don't conform to the demands of this group of gamers. Seriously, click and read. Good stuff.
I mean, it goes so far as a note from one of the gamers about how I'm a thoughtless and inconsiderate **** because I brought a personal fan (little oscillating thing) to the tournament and kept it pointed at me instead of oscillating it for other people to enjoy. I'm not a Florida native, and while sweat was pouring off of me and I bought 5 gatorades over the course of the tournament from the store, the heat didn't seem to be bothering any of the natives, so I didn't think much of it.
Turn 3: Trying to Raise the Bar
After all this hate pouring down on me about being competitive, a
WAAC gamer, a total <insert your word of choice>, I was talking to my friends locally as well as on Dakka and elsewhere about the situation. Their advice was for me to tone down what I use locally and focus on trying to help folks better themselves, become more competitive....slowly trying to improve the local
40k gaming scene. I thought about that one for a bit. With two of the local stores having shut down, I had an idea to knock two birds out with one stone. A lot of people buy from TheWarStore and elsewhere to not have to pay retail prices. My idea: Anyone who buys $50 of merchandise at the store gets a token for a free game against me; and if you beat me, I buy you a free battleforce box from the store. The caveat: You get 1,750 and I get 2,000. Since Risk:Reward is 100:0, I can't make it super easy to beat me, but it should inspire people to put together competitive lists for a shot at a free battleforce box.
I talked to the store, they liked the idea, so I announced the "Store Champion" thread, where beating me nets you free stuff.
Serious flames ensued. Here's quickly locked
Dakka Thread where I announced the same. The idea got universally crapped upon. Apparently, the idea that I'm giving away free stuff and trying to help my
FLGS isn't so important as where I'm declared the "House Champion" and apparently think I'm a God among gamers, worthy of praise, and therefore an egotistical ass who should be castrated and burned at the stake for daring to announce that I'm a better than average player.
Turn 4: The Ensuing Crash
With my idea universally picking up hate, and the amount of personal attacks reaching record highs, I temporarily called off the event for re-evaluation. Since the words "Store Champion" were causing me to be reviled, I put out the idea of a "Council of Paladins" - basically, I would tap a few of the competitive local gamers to act as a screen for me; earning your challenge token lets you play anyone on the council in an even game. If you beat them, you get to play me for your Battleforce box. I'm still financially supporting the idea endeavor, but at least I wouldn't get accused of trying to club and rape baby seals for kicks, and the games I *do* have should be suitably challenging if they made it past my screeners. This idea got flamed down as well - apparently, playing two games is too much effort to try winning a free battleforce box of your choice.
However, this idea never picked up off the ground - the store owner called me to rail against me for my unacceptable behavior. I had called off the event without informing the store first (instead using the community forums that is where pretty much all information is exchanged; their store forums are dead and unread). Only one person had made a purchase and been issued a token, and the store made a very public announcement that they would refund his merchandise, despite the fact that I had already told this member that I would honor his token. It wouldn't have mattered, the person is part of the local group that despises me and had publicly announced that he didn't plan on using his token, and wouldn't play me voluntarily for any amount of free stuff. He's never met me, never gamed against me; I've never gamed against his friends - this all just forum drama that they instigate by the way.
Regardless of my intent to honor his token and his intent not to use it....the store offered him a refund for his purchases, and berated me at length for poorly representing the store, having unacceptable behavior in canceling my event without calling them first; and while I probably should have called in person, the owner posts in the forum too and I was out of town on business in a hotel - not exactly high on my priority list to call the store. 30 minutes of this - the store owner telling me that my behavior is unacceptable, and there's too much drama involved in it now, and they don't know if they even want me hosting events there or not (I had plans to run a tournament, will note in turn5), when it is a few of THEIR GAMERS causing the problems.
I'm starting to feel uncharitable by now; the whole point of this was putting my money on the line and getting nothing in return to try helping the store and increasing the competitive abilities of the local scene, and in response I'm taking flak from both some local gamers AND the store. Not cool.
Turn Five: The Tournament Not To Be:
I had announced a Boss Battle to be held at the store - easy 350 point free for all fun fight. Some of you reading this may have even participated in one that I've hosted before live or on Vassal. Based on further advice from friends about trying to find passive ways to help the local community, I also offered a
40k tactics class after the Boss Battle. I planned to talk about deployment, analyzing your opponent's list, and then pairing everyone up to practice what I had just taught. The announcement was made
HERE with a copycat post on Dakka made
HERE. While much of the flaming involved here took place in threads already linked, the premise was "You're not qualified to hold a tactics class."
I seriously can't win.
Turn 6: The Tournament that Broke the Camel
With multiple failed endeavors under my belt to try and bring something positive to my
40k community, I prepped for another tournament. This one is a doozy. The
TO was new to being a
TO. The store has been asking for volunteers to run tournaments, and he offered. He made his own missions....which isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you know how to play
40k.
Tournament Announcement. The premise: 2,200 point attrition tournament. Whatever you lose stays lost for the rest of the tournament. Winning each round is based on killing a portion of your opponent's army. He announced at the beginning of the tournament that if the first player hit 700 points, the second player would still get a turn, and basically have to kill more than their opponent did to win.
Read the scenarios...they're broken.
Game #1: Attacker vs. defender. Defender deploys in the middle of the board, attacker gets both flanks.
The
TO is being a ringer, and places himself against me. 2,200 points of Space Wolves vs. 2,200 points of Dark Eldar. I brought Dark Eldar because they are always the attacker (codex mandate) meaning that at least I'll get an alpha-strike. I show him my codex, explain that
DE fluff requires them to be attackers. The
TO then announces that all DEFENDERS will be going first. SERIOUSLY?!? He deploys in the middle of the table. He doesn't have a particularly good list, nor does he deploy very well - long fangs in the open, thunderwolf cavalry interspersed at all points of his army. I obliquely mention that the rules call for the attacker to go first in this kind of mission, and he says, "This is my tournament, I'm making the rules."
Alrighty then. I reserve 2,200 points of Dark Eldar Wych Cult. With the Nova Open approaching, and my plans to attempt to beat face with my Dark Eldar, I'm getting in any practice that I can. The
TO goes first and starts moving his thunderwolf cavalry models out towards the flanking edges where I'll be coming in from reserves, and adjusting his central deployment - he's measuring "very" loosely, taking absurd extra inches....I say nothing. Turn2 he does the same, and then I roll for reserves and get....a little more than half. I'm missing two wych squads, two warrior squads, and a RJB unit. Since I can move 12", disembark, fleet and assault....he's actually potentially in assault range of a few of my units because of his spreading out.
I move on carefully, have targets in mind, and boom: Turn1, I kill 658 points of his. If I could have killed 700 points, the game would have ended there. Nuts. However, I've cripped as much of his anti-tank as I could, so I'm not terribly worried about a response.
His turn two: More outrageous loose moves, and as he enters shooting....he rolls extra dice. Its not helping him. His vindicators scatter off my raiders, his plasma templates (on his longfangs,
lol) scatter off, he focuses on Lelith's squad with his grey hunters, she goes to ground with her retinue, and his entire turn, he kills 2 bikes, 4 wyches, and immobilizes a raider. All his Thunderwolf cavalry charged various raiders....that had all moved 12". We're ready to start turn3b as everyone else is finishing up turn1 because I reserved, and the score is 658 to...about 100 points killed.
Now at the beginning, he had announced that when someone hit 700 points, you would finish a full game turn to make sure everything was fair, but coming onto the bottom of turn3 I need to kill 30-50 points to win, and remember - what dies stays dead. I didn't lose much and most of the rest of my army comes on, meaning I'm probably going to be able to nuke him so badly that his next opponent can laugh him off the table. Change of plans!!!!!!!! He announces on the spot that all games will end as soon as one player kills 700 points of another player's army.
For our game, that meant that I killed a couple more models and the game ended. For everyone ELSES' game....that meant that whoever went second auto-lost. And every person who *did* go second lost. Over lunch at Taco Bell (a few of us went together), several were noting that if they had gotten their turn in, they would have beaten their opponent. W...T...F. I pulled the
TO off to the side before round two to *obliquely* mention that the scenarios were a bit unbalanced, and I'd be happy to help him build some for the next event. He told me to get lost.
Game #2: I'm paired up against one of the area's "competitive" gamers. He's playing Scout Marines, lost nothing in round 1, and I win the roll to go first. I deploy tight in the center (read the missions if you care), and he...infiltrates his entire army for the most part 18" away from me. I'm an assault army. Well....ok. He doesn't steal. As many wyches as possible + Lelith move 12", disembark, fleet, mass assault. He loses 500+ points, and the game ends on *his* assault phase as we resolve more assaults. He drops out of the tournament afterwards, seriously pissed.
Game #3: My opponent had to go for a dinner engagement. The
TO asked someone who had just come into the store if they wanted to fill in his spot against me, and so....I played against someone not even in the tournament. Interesting mission here: 16" deployment zones, pitched battle, and if you're in your deployment zone at the end of your turn, all vehicles get auto-glanced, all units on foot get auto
D6 wounds. I win the roll to go first, deploy my raiders centrally, and my opponent castles up tight in his right corner (my top left). I move my entire army flat out, not really shooting anything....and wall of his deployment zone for 36" so that he's penned in; double thick layers to not give his daemon prince anywhere to jump out either. His turn: He tries to ram through me with land raiders and fails; assaults me with daemon prince and misses, vindicator scatters; I make all relevant cover saves....no damage. His entire army is stuck in his deployment zone. Heh. Daemon prince takes 5 wounds, fails 3 saves. vehicles all get stunned, etc. Mop up from there, and I win the tournament.
I asked who the newest gamer was, and donated my store credit to him - he happened to win second, so had enough credit to buy something pretty nice.
Turn Seven: The Game Continues!
I roll a 4+ and the game continues.
ELEVEN PAGES of drama ensues, starting with the accusation that I had a tainted victory because in game2, my opponent and I treated some force field thingies incorrectly - we thought they made 12" bubbles that you couldn't shoot into / through etc instead of 6" bubbles. I pointed out that if we *had* treated them correctly, I would have gotten to fire 13 dark lances and 9 plasma templates, and it probably would have been enough to end the game without my opponent actually getting a turn. Rabbling ensues. The
TO, whom I had spoken to privately, shows up in the thread and VERY PUBLICLY denounces me as a douchebag who thinks I know better than him how to run a tournament. His friends join in the rabbling.
Alright.
Since he's going to publicly rant about me, announce that I'm not going to be allowed to play in any of his future tournaments because I'm a know-it-all and a trouble-maker and such...I sent the store owner an e-mail with feedback about the tournament. Its posted in that thread - I made it public when he and friends got very ugly. Basically noting that a
TO playing in his own tournament is dangerous...a
TO running a tournament that automatically screws half the players is very bad, the
TO playing in his own tournament, screwing half the players, and blatantly cheating....is simply unacceptable.
The store makes an announcement on their own
website that they had nothing but compliments about the tournament, only a single complainer (me), and that they firmly stand behind their tournament oganizers and how they want to run their tournaments. And then, I was banned from the store.
Game End.
Post-Game tactical assessment: Seems like at every turn, my efforts to help the store and the community were beset by the store and a small group of the local gamers here. I've heard time and again that the little corner of the world where I live now (Jacksonville, FL) has a messed up
40k scene, and this was my segue into it.
There's another store in town, two stores in a nearby town, and a good number of my friends (including myself) have gaming tables at our respective houses, not to mention that Vassal lets me play against anyone in the world. I find it interesting that I travel around the country playing in
40k tournaments, and always have fun, meet new friends, and have nothing but good experiences, win or lose....and my community is an absolute disaster.
Anyway, that was my real life battle report.
*NOTE*
In an effort to stave off flaming and personal attacks, please note that the nature of this thread has been discussed with Dakka's senior moderator, approved, and that there's a good chance that this thread will be closely monitored.
I'd like to hear your comments, thoughts, and criticisms. If you *would* like to criticize, please ensure that you keep it professional; I'm always open to critique, but my tolerance for stupidity is lacking.....as this entire thread (and its links) probably show.
Rokkit Robbaz (Deathskull)
. I don't think it belongs in Bat Reps, more like off-topic...
4300 points 
2900 points 
1050 points 
4000 points
7K Points of Black Legion and Daemons 
Tomb World Fabulosa 18/2/6 (Supreme conquerors of Dash's dark eldar 
Can't you see we have been abandoned? Forget matters of duty and honor to the emperor this is now a matter of pride. 
However, no pictures? not even VASSAL? hmmm...you're slipping.