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@Ironnerd

Thanks Tony. I had a great time getting pounded flat. I knew it was gonna be a tough match-up but I didn't expect it to be that bad

@Timmy

Great job on the tourney man. You guys put on a great event. I'll be doing up a tourney review in addition to batrepping all my games (that's right, I took pictures!!!!) on my blog over the next week or so. Thanks for a great event even if the weather and drive nearly killed me (not completely exaggerating )

I was going to go for fantasy, however there are too many other events I'm attending this summer, maybe next year.

You missed a good event. My review is up now on my blog:

http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2011/06/tournament-review-bugeater-2011.html

Hulksmash wrote:@Ironnerd

Thanks Tony. I had a great time getting pounded flat. I knew it was gonna be a tough match-up but I didn't expect it to be that bad

@Timmy

Great job on the tourney man. You guys put on a great event. I'll be doing up a tourney review in addition to batrepping all my games (that's right, I took pictures!!!!) on my blog over the next week or so. Thanks for a great event even if the weather and drive nearly killed me (not completely exaggerating )

Hey man I am the IG player who played you round 3.

lol, we never made it back. We detoured an accident on 59 and got around it and then a huge tree had fallen over just before craig where we were gonna try and get back on I-29. We tried to detour it and ended up on a muddy un-improved road. Needless to say two and a half hours later someone showed up to pick us up. Are vehicle is still stuck up there until the road dries up. I ended up not getting home after dropping everyone off at there homes until 0730 this morning. So was a very eventful trip.

I feel your pain. I waited that huge storm out in Omaha only to get back home in time to get called out for the fire department. We resqued 2 people from cars from a flash flood and spent the night looking at bridges and pumping water out of the sewer to help keep it from backing up in people's houses.

Needless to say I didn't get to bed till 10am today. I'll have coverage and pictures up later tonight.

@Hulk.... Good thing we went back for the camera so you can have pictures...lol


@Tim... One hell of an event sir. I'm glade the debate team did well, a good cause. Best run event I have ever been to.

Ok, I put up a battle report for my game 5 vs. Dark Eldar. It's my first batrep, so I can't comment on the quality, but the game was amazing, so hopefully that shines through. Never had something come down to the wire nearly that badly...

Now up on my blog, 2 cents on 40k, is my first impressions on the Bugeater GT. Check it out, tomorrow's article will focus on tables, terrain, and some cool people that made my experience a blast.

http://2centson40k.blogspot.com/2011/06/bugeater-gt-2011-coverage-trip-and.html

Bugeater Gt 2011 terrain coverage and shots of interesting people.....

http://2centson40k.blogspot.com/2011/06/bugeater-gt-2011-coverage-terrain.html


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Link to results:

http://www.bugeatergames.com/Bugeater_Results40k.pdf

Look to Josh's previous post for the full pdf of the results. I posted two copies of the results, one for the Tournament Champ (best w/l record) and the Sweepstakes Champ (our Ren Man). One thing I loved about the Nova format (has Mike trademarked that yet?) is that it rewards you for eeking out those close wins instead of punishing you. If you look at the two different sets of results, our Tourny Champ (Tony), didn't even place in the top 10 for Sweepstakes because he had several very close wins (see his battle report about having to play to the third mission in game 5).

But here are the top 10 in each:

Tournament Champ:

1. Tony Staub (CSM) 6-0
2. Brian Mart (BA) 5-1
3. Marc Tomlinson (Eldar) 5-1
4. Brad Townsend (DA) 5-1
5. Adam Tricola (DE) 5-1
6. Cory Gage (SW) 5-1
7. Andrew Gould (BA) 4-2
T-8. Jeff Armstrong (SW) 4-2
T-8. Roalnd Manarin (IG)
10. Ryan Cavin (Tyranids) 4-2

Sweepstakes Champ

1. Marc Tomlinson (Eldar)
2. Brian Mart (BA)
3. Roland Manarin (IG)
4. Brad Townsend (DA)
5. Andrew Gould (BA)
6. Jeff Armstrong (SW)
7. Adam Tricola (DE)
8. Jamie Tigges (Tyranids)
9. Ryan Cavin (Tyranids)
10.Charles Young (IG)

4th even though I was one of the last undefeated's standing with one of the dudes I beat being ahead of me....teach me to not lose early

I like that 3/4 of the top spots come from 4th edition codexes.....suck on that tier system!!!!!

Oh, and there is a slight glitch in the scoring. I had 103 BP's so I should be third overall, not that it matters much. It's pretty much just for my ego

Hulksmash wrote:4th even though I was one of the last undefeated's standing with one of the dudes I beat being ahead of me....teach me to not lose early

I like that 3/4 of the top spots come from 4th edition codexes.....suck on that tier system!!!!!

Oh, and there is a slight glitch in the scoring. I had 103 BP's so I should be third overall, not that it matters much. It's pretty much just for my ego

Ya, also Brian had 125 points atleast he thought he did. So he lost the sweepstakes champion by .5 points. That hurts. Luckily the competition between first and second there was between friends from the same club.

Crazy that different match ups decide the winner so much. Im curious if the dual lash list faced a mech IG list. It really comes down to every army having a decent or even a hard counter for their army. I wonder which top tier builds has the least counters. There is always one list that can counter any list you build.

I disagree that all top level armies have decent or hard counter. I think you can build so that there aren't any gaps and generally do, assuming no painting deadlines

But that's just my view on army building. I think you can plan for any eventuality and have to, because even though you don't think it's a great army that could be your doom you still might run into it round 1-2.

I have to say I was surprised by the number of Mech IG as they have been slowly fading from all other major events, at least the gunline variety.

Tomb King wrote:
Crazy that different match ups decide the winner so much. Im curious if the dual lash list faced a mech IG list. It really comes down to every army having a decent or even a hard counter for their army. I wonder which top tier builds has the least counters. There is always one list that can counter any list you build.

Nope, miraculously I did not face Mech IG. Although I have beaten them before, IG is definitely the army I was most scared of, followed by DE. I can take on BA and SW, and I've done so fairly often in the past. My opponents were: Blood Angels (Brian Mart, who was runner up tournament champion), Grey Knights, Tyranids, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, then Hulk's Deathwing.

Chiming in to agree that armies don't need to have hard counters - its all in how you build and use it!

I might want to disagree with dash and hulk, not all armies are impervious to hard counters. For example, chaos daemons vs grey knights with enough strike squads to cover the board before you even get a chance to deep strike. That may be a hard counter, if they have first turn, they can essentially win the game before you get on the board. Though you can steal the initiative, which I did do once. To yermom, but it didn't change the end result...so 1/6 of getting on the board? In my honest opinion, thats a hard counter.

Yes - Grey Knights are a "Hard Counter" to daemons in that respect. They're built that way.

I'm not talking about a codex that is built specifically to screw another codex - but rather that any given army (aside from Daemons being faced by Grey Knights) doesn't need to have a hard counter.

Thus the phrase "Take All Comers" army. Every codex can build that kind of army - with the exception of daemons. For everyone else, you only have a hard counter if you build your army to allow it.

@Clause

It would take a special build of GK's to totally bone a Daemon army but if you build your list right it's not a hard counter in my opinion. That may be where we differ in opinion. Besides....who's taking more than one Strike squad nowadays

I'll agree it's an uphill battle though

Honestly I expect the way daemons play to change heavily when they eventually get their redux, though that will be probably be in the second year of 6th at the earliest.

I would agree with you dash that if you create a sound list you can be prepared for every contingency, which is the Take all comers list/army build you speak of. I am just butthurt that I play daemons, I am not saying it is impossible to beat a GK army. But I would say it is very close to impossible for me to beat a well rounded, Gk list, played by an intelligent general.

Hulk, I got the pleasure of playing Nick (yermom) this past weekend at the tournament he helped run/host. I was running a (thought to be) competitive fatecrusher list, I ran into Nick in the second round after we both won. he was running 3 strike squads, 3 purifiers and 2 assassin squads, with 3 rifle dreads backing him up(all foot squads in psybacks, and I think 3 rhinos). He knew the capabilities of my army as he used to play daemons. He won first turn on a roll of a 2, he offered me first turn so we could make a game out of it. With 3 transports filled with strike squads, he could cover a length of 72 inches, plus the width of the rhinos, so he can over the length of the board no problem. He also would deploy, up to line, then moving 12. So I had at maximum, 12 inches of deployment on my side to deep strike into. I will not argue the effectiveness of strike squads, but I will say that Nick is a very competent general and is very methodical. So I would offer that he has good reason to take 3 strike squads.

All I am trying to say is that there is, a hard counter to an army, that almost makes it impossible to win. Yes, daemon players have beaten GK players, yes they will in the future. But, an equal daemon player, vs an equal Gk player. A GK player will win.
But, all that warp quake stuff was worthless in my game with nick, because I stole the initiative!

EDIT: But yes, this is all my opinion Hulk, so of course I do not mean to attack your views and observations. This is just the way i have seen it play out. I hope you are right though, because I would love to smash through a GK army with my daemons

I would work on the pairings next year some. This year seemed kind of inconsistent at times. Two of my buddies who came down together played eachother the second round and they both had max points while another 2 winners has 14 and 18 points. In addition, having 4 of the 7 space wolves players playing each other in round 1 is pretty harsh. Dunno if that was real bad luck or what. Might even post a piece of paper with current points and such after each round so people know where there sitting. Rather than wondering why they got one opponent instead of another.

Our late round pairings needed some tweaking, to be sure. However, I know for a fact that round 2 our pairings were solid - we matched high-low the whole tournament. In round 2, it was easy since there were 22 undefeateds, so the #1 seed played the #22, the #2 played the #21, and down the line. Then for the 0-1 players, #23 played #44, and up. They must have been right in the middle of the pack to have played each other in that round. Not much you can do about that.

We split the field into the Nebraska and out of state groups and then randomly paired without armies being shown. If we gave credence to armies, that runs the risk of matching up favorable rounds, and that's no good either. I don't disagree that 4 of 7 space wolves hitting each other is a drag, and we can do that check next year, but swinging the other way and avoiding like-army pairings can have its problems, too.

TimmyMWD wrote: I don't disagree that 4 of 7 space wolves hitting each other is a drag, and we can do that check next year...

Agreed on that one. At the Alamo GT, 4/5 of the Dark Eldar players got paired against each other round one.

Beyond the first round, pairings can have limited control, but I think there is value in a couple of pairing ideals:

1. No one from the same group traveling together plays each other in the first round.
2. No codex plays itself.

You said that you did Nebraska vs. Everyone Else, which works too.

Dashofpepper wrote:

TimmyMWD wrote: I don't disagree that 4 of 7 space wolves hitting each other is a drag, and we can do that check next year...

Agreed on that one. At the Alamo GT, 4/5 of the Dark Eldar players got paired against each other round one.

Beyond the first round, pairings can have limited control, but I think there is value in a couple of pairing ideals:

1. No one from the same group traveling together plays each other in the first round.
2. No codex plays itself.

You said that you did Nebraska vs. Everyone Else, which works too.

Agreed. This is another example of the value of feedback - I just added to my "to do for 2012" list to add in army list checks for the first round. Thanks Brett.

The reason we did Nebraska vs. everyone else is because it was something like 20 NE players and 24 out of state players, so it was real easy to ensure point #1 that you mentioned, Dash.

The final reflection is up on my blog, I thought I'd post it here, too. We had a great meeting tonight about what we'd like to do for the next Bugeater. Although none of them are major or system changing (we like the Nova style event format, and we're sticking with it), it's funny how long our list is of little things to make it better (empty tables to put armies, using a microphone for time announcements). Never rest on your laurels. Anyway, here's our thoughts:

Folks,

Tonight the tournament staff and some of the players from the Outlanders group met for a few hours over food and drinks to talk about the first ever Bugeater GT. We already had a great deal of feedback on Sunday night from the sheets everyone filled out, and from the judges talking with players and getting feedback that way. But on top of that, we've been reading people's posts on forums and their blogs the past few days. Thanks to Josh, Brad, Bill, Lloyd, and others who have been posting around the internet about your experience at the GT. This is kind of our "state of the GT" report about how we thought things went, how you told us things went, and what we look to do for next year.

First, we thought (and you indicated on your feedback forms) that overall things ran well ... particularly for a first year event. With the exception of round 3 on Saturday, we ran on time (or in some cases, a few minutes early) according to the schedule we sent out in the packet. We only had three pairing snaufs the whole tournament, which I'm happy with, and just a couple points of confusion on scenarios - one time each for fantasy and 40k. The judges were active in moving between the tables, I thought the concessions ran well, and generally people told me they had a good time. There were, however, some areas we could have improved and we will work to improve upon for next year. Obviously, things are still very much in the air, but already we know we want/need to do a few things for the second Bugeater GT:

* Top priority: move the Bugeater GT to another weekend, or find a reasonable hotel rate for people. The 25th/26th weekend will conflict with the CWS (I was misinformed) next year. Unless we can find a group rate for $80-$90 at a nice hotel (doubtful), we'll be moving the Bugeater GT to another weekend in June. We have one in mind, and it is NOT the one I posted about on the blog yesterday, because that is too close to the 4th of July. If we move the Bugeater GT, we will move it to an earlier weekend in June.
* Many people wrote or said something to us about this, but fantasy players needed more time to finish games. We like the 2500 point level, but games will need to be at least 2 hours 30 minutes long instead of 2 hours 15 minutes.
* Next year, we'll make sure to have more table space - either larger tables or additional tables next to the boards so people have plenty of space to set up their armies and other materials without fear of them getting knocked down, bumped, etc.
* Next year, we'll have a microphone. No more yelling
* Having 2 rounds of fantasy on Sunday was a nice way to conclude the tournament, and based on the sheer volume of out of town players requesting it, we're looking to go to 4 rounds of 40k on Saturday so that way they also have only 2 rounds of gaming on Sunday. That will also allow us to stagger start times, so we're not inundated with results from games and having to take 30 minutes to get the next match ready for both divisions.
* We also want to make sure there's consistency in terrain. There were a couple of tables that were light on terrain, and a couple that had some beefy buildings right in the middle that hindered play. We think there should be big LOS blocking features in the middle of the board, but ones that you can move into/contest objectives on, etc. We thought most of the terrain was excellent, just that a few boards needed tweaking.
* We're going to increase the number of painting judges and assign them specific divisions to judge (so 40k and fantasy have 2 painting judges each). That way we can get the judging done during registration and lunch. No more judging painting while gaming is happening. ALSO with painting, we'd like to expand the single mini painting categories to more like a Golden Demon style - meaning the models don't have to be from your army (they certainly can be) to encourage some really creative/well painted models.

Anyway, those are some of the things that, at least for now, we're really committed to doing. The overall format of the tournament will largely stay the same, with some tweaks and changes still. I think the "Nova" format works (having 2 champs - one based on win/loss one based on combined scores). Tony, who won the 40k Tournament Champ, for example had pretty low battle points compared to the 5-1s in the tournament. I LIKE that he still won tournament champion because it encouraged and promoted close, nail-biting wins that are close. I think that's a great thing. I think the enjoyment people had shows that system works. We're also working on creating a more accurate pairing system to keep things running quickly and smoothly. Obviously a lot is up in the air with a year until the next Bugeater, but I wanted to let you know that we are looking for areas to improve, and we poured through your feedback the past few days to hear what you thought.

I want to thank all the people that attended this year. Getting 80 players (plus more than 10 paid spectators) for a first year event is, in my opinion, very impressive. You guys helped to make this a successful first year - everyone in attendance was fun, friendly, and there to have a good time and compete in a good atmosphere. Your attendance also helped raise over $3000 for the debate team. What makes me really happy about that figure is that we raised that much money while providing swag bags, lots of raffled off prizes, and keeping the cost at $45. Find another 2 day tournament at that price. You would think that raising money for the debaters and keeping costs down would conflict, but they don't because of the GREAT support we have from our sponsors. I hope you'll give the Game Shoppe, Chaos Mail Order, Silver Compass Designs, and our other sponsors your business after seeing that they were willing to give away thousands of dollars of stuff for FREE to support the hobby.

Thanks again for coming to the GT. You all took a chance on an event that never took place before, and I'd like to think that bet paid off. I look forward to seeing you next year at an improved, and larger Bugeater GT!

-Tim Royers

I'm confused why there is such hesitancy to host events on holiday weekends.

For most of the working world, that's a long weekend - meaning that a holiday weekend is the PERFECT weekend to host a GT. No need to take time off work, leave early from work to catch a flight, get back in time for work Monday morning...that kind of thing.

If you were to host it on the 4th of July weekend, I'd be there. Hell, I'd be ANYWHERE for a GT on the 4th of July weekend. People are asking for 4 rounds on Saturday with two on Sunday so that they can make the drive/commute/flight home to be ready for work Monday morning.

Holiday weekend negates the need for all of that.

Dashofpepper wrote:I'm confused why there is such hesitancy to host events on holiday weekends.

For most of the working world, that's a long weekend - meaning that a holiday weekend is the PERFECT weekend to host a GT. No need to take time off work, leave early from work to catch a flight, get back in time for work Monday morning...that kind of thing.

If you were to host it on the 4th of July weekend, I'd be there. Hell, I'd be ANYWHERE for a GT on the 4th of July weekend. People are asking for 4 rounds on Saturday with two on Sunday so that they can make the drive/commute/flight home to be ready for work Monday morning.

Holiday weekend negates the need for all of that.

As long as fourth of July itself was not during the event. The 4th is on a Wednesday next year. So I would be game for a weekend near the 4th, next year I am gonna win it all with my tau.

@Dash

I've found 2-day events really suffer around holidays. Especially big ones like the 4th. Reason being that most people have family/friend obligations that don't allow them to head out for a weekend. For locals it sometimes works but you very, very rarely get people flying in for something over a holiday weekend.