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Having gone to all three years of this GT, I have to say this year was my favorite year. Aaron put together with his group a very solid very competitive event.

Things I really liked:
1) Aaron and co. has built a community there. While he may not think people notice these things... I see it. The youngest competitors there were some of the best sports, but on top of that, they were some of the best competitors too! but more than that, he isn't afraid to take you off to the side and talk to you like a brother if you're doing something you shouldn't. Fostering a community of social responsibility
2) every single game was a challenge... The competition was fierce this year in all categories. I played 5 great opponents who were fantastic sports. The top painted armies were all over the place. I figured my Blood Angels with all of the freehand on them would be in the running, but I was blown away when Round 1 I played Joe Johnson's fantastic paint job marines.
3) The new location. Plain and simple. This is a great location. It rivals the NOVA opens location in my mind with such a huge mall connected to it. anything and everything was nearby.

Things I liked:
most of the missions that were played were a challenge for ANY list.

Things that could change:
The only thing that could change in my mind would be the scattering of the 3rd objective in mission 5. 3d6 followed by 2d6 then 1d6 each game turn... its a bit much. and gives a HUGE advantage to the 2nd player : ) maybe 2d6, then 1d6?

Some new people I played that I hope to meet again!
Simon Leen (very fun sisters player lots of fun!)
Joe Johnson (amazing army paint job!)
Brendan Galleghar (spelling?) Next time Brendan I'll catch all of your bikes!
Jamie (can't remember his last name) My toughest game that weekend. Jamie is a fantastic player who is well skilled and easily in the top 10 best players I've ever played.

This was definitely a great event, I had 5 fun games against great opponents. It was very well run and in an awesome location, particularly because I could drive there in 30 min.

The only thing I wasn't a fan of was setting up terrain before every mission, I would prefer it if the terrain was setup by the tournament staff. The missions were pretty good though I definitely won the last games because on the last turn the objective scattered in my direction and not my opponents.

It was an excellent event, and I have to echo the comments.

I've played WH in the past at Conflict, but the level of play & list was definitely up there this year on the 40k side. The one new player I faced (Jano) still gave me a hard fight and was an excellent sport with a solid list. Rd2 my hopes were crushed in an extremely tight game with Jay Woodcock's amazingly gorgeous Tyranids; that's two GTs now in which he's eked out tight games on me. Rd3 I had the privilege of facing Tim Williamson's also-contending-for-player's-choice Tau, R4 cagy old vet Dave Hoffman's nontraditional BA, and R5 Brendan Gallagher's super-shooty bike marines with Typhoon & Rifleman support both gave me hard-fought games.

Frgs, you're Rich, right? Jamie Hatcher's one of the Cold Steel Mercenaries, and one of the old Dakka Dakka store/league crew going back ten or eleven years. He's excellent indeed, and we smash it up at our FLGS or in his basement every week or two.

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In regards to constructive feedback for the event:

1. I do prefer organizer-placed terrain to player-placed. It saves time during the games and it's more fair and better-looking. Player-placed often has the effect of functionally halving the amount of terrain in play, because a very shooty player can stick half of it in the table corners. Unless your tables are absolutely overflowing with terrain, this is not a good thing.

2. A couple of the scenarios were a bit wonky. I didn't mind Space Junk too much, but scenario 1 was definitely an issue. With three objectives placed alternately by the players AFTER deployment, whoever places two can just put them behind his whole army, and practically guarantee a win or draw unless he's getting tabled. Jano butchered all my cult troops but I still had the same sewn up with lesser daemons sitting on the back two objectives.

Mannahnin wrote:1. I do prefer organizer-placed terrain to player-placed. It saves time during the games and it's more fair and better-looking. Player-placed often has the effect of functionally halving the amount of terrain in play, because a very shooty player can stick half of it in the table corners. Unless your tables are absolutely overflowing with terrain, this is not a good thing.

I mentioned this to Aaron before the event, and was sure that this is what would happen to me in all 5 games as I was the one playing the all death company Blood Angels. However, I was so impressed that in all 5 of my games, people were placing terrain as to have a good board, not to try to gain an advantage. I even mentioned this to my round 5 opponent, Shaun Kemp (One of the best people I have ever played) and he had the same experience.

So while I would prefer NOT to have player placed terrain, my fears about it were largely unfounded.

Sinjin wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:1. I do prefer organizer-placed terrain to player-placed. It saves time during the games and it's more fair and better-looking. Player-placed often has the effect of functionally halving the amount of terrain in play, because a very shooty player can stick half of it in the table corners. Unless your tables are absolutely overflowing with terrain, this is not a good thing.

I mentioned this to Aaron before the event, and was sure that this is what would happen to me in all 5 games as I was the one playing the all death company Blood Angels. However, I was so impressed that in all 5 of my games, people were placing terrain as to have a good board, not to try to gain an advantage. I even mentioned this to my round 5 opponent, Shaun Kemp (One of the best people I have ever played) and he had the same experience.

So while I would prefer NOT to have player placed terrain, my fears about it were largely unfounded.

I think this was key in the success of the event... it was full of good people

Also, I'd like to say that yup, My name is Rich and Jamie Hatcher and the rest of the CSM are a good bunch of players! Hopefully I can get my crew back together to playtest like we used to and give them a run for their money at the next event. Maybe actually build a club to steal the NEWCC cup away from them ;p

You all make it hard to be a Lurker..... This is Jamie btw.

Rich you were by far the hardest and most enjoyable game of the event. Though we knocked each other out of the running, the game made the GT for me! I look forward to playing you again.

Regarding the event,

Facing Space Wolves, Blood Angel, Mech Guard and Daemons (twice) certainly made for a challenging couple of days. I was quite happy going 3-1-1 with Salamanders. Everyone I played was nice, almost every army there was nicely painted and many were amazing. Aaron got a lot of good players
with good armies there.

Regarding the event:

(1) I liked the idea of having the first game opponent set by strength of army. However, would have liked swiss paring to kick in after that. As I understand it,
that didn't happen until round 3 this weekend.

(2) Though I didn't have much problem with terrain placement, I'll mirror the concerns of 'could have been'. and did 'heard others' grumbling about it.

(3) Specifically with mission 1. going 2nd was more of advantage than I would have liked to see. Timing of objective placement (after deployment) combined with no distance rules were open to abuse. Constructive criticism of adding prior to scatter, the objective cannot be place with X" of any other objective or the table edge (or some such restriction) could have help a lot.

That being said, I don't have many GTs to compare it. Mostly NE events, trips to Adepticon
and the Boston GT. This was an extremely positive experience. I will definitely go again next
year. Many thanks to Aaron!

*Seriously post #8....lol

I really enjoyed most of the people I met there. Rich I had a blast playing you in round one and I really like your BA list. It was nice to play in an event where every army was painted and most to a very high standard.

Feedback:
Location was awesome!! Food, starbucks, and places to eat and drink after were great!! Plenty of room too so the but rubbing was very minimal!!

I was not a fan of terrain amounts or placement. However it did allow terrain to be fixed after it was messed up durring rounds so I wont complain if it was done the same next year.

The match up system seemed weird. I saw several mismatches through round 3 that made no sense.

The paint scoring was great. I love the open-ness and ruberic style of judging.

I agree with most about the first scenario. If you set them up after deployment then it gives the guy going first a huge advantage to castle up on.


I am new to this area and met a lot of great guys here. Next year if you need some help from DaBoyz let us know. We will see what we can do!

Ah ha! so we did get a game in!

Heheh Ironic isnt it!!

I also had a great time. Felt the weekend went smooth for the most part. My overall feel on the weekend was better then last time, with the removal of comp scoring and the wonderful paint score sheet, that really points out areas that I can improve my army really made me feel great.

I agree that the first mission the objectives should have been placed before deployment. Funny I put mine in the middle, but after my game I was walking around and saw them all squeezed on table edges and wondered if I had done something wrong lol, but then again my all drop pod army doesnt want to be near any edges.

My only major grief was the terrain. On half of the table they had 4 nice big ruins and a few small pieces, and the other half had about 8 small forrest or hill bits. I wish that had been mixed to give every table 2 of the large ruins and a mix of forests and hills. I ended up drawing the non building style tables in all 5 of my games and my poor techmarine never got to reinforce anything for his thunderfire cannon.

I also agree that swiss could have been implementated after round one, but felt things worked out ok for the field anyway with only one 5 game winner.

Paint judging might have been easier for Aaron as well had he had someone start it on the first day.

A minor thing about the awards was that while I agree that not giving multiple awards to one person is a good idea, if someone is able to win either best general or say 2nd or 3rd overall they perhaps should be taken aside and asked which they prefer based on what the prize entails and such, based mainly on the fact that I think the best general award was better then the 2nd or 3rd overall and both of those players were I think able to claim best general as well.

I will be back next year. And after 7th last year, 4th this year Im tracking for a 1st place finish so watch out everybody lol.

This was my second year at the Conflict GT, and I must say that I had a great time! I played 40k last year, but I brought my Skaven in this year and jumped into fantasy.

I was shocked to see that neither side had Orcs! I could have brought my Orcs and let out a couple of WAAAAGGGGHHHHSSSSSS! I was told by many gamers that a Orc Horde could have given a lot of trouble to the Melta Heavy Armies in this event. Oh well, I have to wait till next year to break out my 120-180 Boyz list, sigh......

This years event was a big change coming out of Toy Wiz and I think Aaron did a good job with the transition. I look forward to next years event!


MM

This was the first time I'd ever driven more than an hour to come to an event and I was overall pleased.

There were some great players there and some great armies. Every one of my opponents was a great play, the level of competition was high.

I did have a few problems with the tournament and as I give my feedback, please bear in mind that I was happy with the tournament and would definitely come back to next year's.

I felt the following things need to be improved on:

1) Terrain placement. With players placing terrain and having it scatter, it was too easy to manipulate the board to an advantage. As a Tau player, I was able to ensure in almost every game, that the center of the board was clear and open, an ideal killing field. That wasn't bad sportsmanship as I was playing within the rules. I actually had no idea that was frowned upon until I read this post.

2) Missions. Most of the missions weren't well thought-out. They were either easy to force a draw ( the table quarters mission) or they were unbalanced (kill points, die rolls for objective placement, scattering objectives, etc.) I feel the missions need to be evaluated more, with more emphasis on balance and decisiveness (i.e. difficult to force a draw). I didn't feel that they were fair missions and I felt that the only way to reliably win is to try and table your opponent.

Things I liked:

1) A dedicated TO. Aaron seems to be heavily invested in the tournament and the community and was a stand up guy. He went into to the Tournament largely on his own but pulled off a great, smooth and well-run event. There was plenty of time to play games and to socialize (one of the main reasons I go to tourneys)

2) The players and the armies. Aaron, great job on attracting the right people to this tourney!

3) Raffles are a great idea for tournaments. Thanks for the box of minotaurs!

Hey Tim! Thanks again for the great game 3! Your Tau are completely awesome. I agree with you on all points.

I wouldn't say placing terrain to advantage is frowned upon. If that's the rules of the event, that's the rules of the event. I do think it can result in unbalanced and less-attractive tables though, especially in combination with tables which are light on terrain already, which many tournament tables tend to be.