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Hey guys,

     If you are planning on playing in the second round of the Ardboy at Game Empire Pasadena PLEASE contact them ASAP and make your REQUIRED reservation.  No reservation = no play.

Game Empire Pasadena: (626) 304-2637.

Call today, operators are standing by

that's bizarre. no where does it say to call ahead on the gw site. if some one drives a distance to play a game and is turned away that's pretty crappy.

Check your invitation card that you recieved from the store that you played at. It says "Pre registration is required by calling a participating store" That is on the bottom of the card. BTW, if you do not have the card that I am referring to, you probably are not playing in the second round.

Darrian

i will have to call the store i played at never got said card. scored 3rd at fantastic games in edmonds

@Skkipper, the card I am referring to is a 4x6 card that says "Congratulations" on the top.

BTW, what does the term "tanking" mean in reference to the Underminers?

Darrian

skkipper bought his way in.

- G

Posted By skkipper on 10/01/2007 12:06 PM
that's bizarre. no where does it say to call ahead on the gw site. if some one drives a distance to play a game and is turned away that's pretty crappy.

I think the problem for a lot of stores is sheer logistics.

 

If you have 3 people from each store showing up in the second round, you can have 30+ people.

 

Game Empire is a large store with a lot of tables (it looks like GW selected the 2^nd round stores by size), but even then you can go over capacity.

ok well 1st
ok all registered now at g3 in seattle
tanking: you know giving a lower score then deserved on sportsmanship to keep a contender down. well at least that's what I had been acused off.

anyways call and register or no soup for you.

Sorry to go OT, but do you tank opponents at tourneys? That is the most un-cool thing to do at a tournament.

Darrian

NO I don't i gave an honest low score and got crap for it. so i embraced it.

I heard this as well, and called in.  Then the guy demanded that I tell him what army I was playing and telling me that if I was not there promptly at 10am, I would be out (his exact words).  Given my past experiences with Game Empire and the fact that they basically told all their favorite guys to go to rinky dink stores for easy round one wins, I am somewhat skeptical about this whole situation.  I find the whole situation highly suspect, given their past history of rigging things for their guys which lost them Strategicon.  I guess the only thing they can really rig at this point are pairings and maybe the terrain, but even that can be decisive.  Bottom line, though, is that they are not supposed to be collecting data about other people's armies and I know someone already complained to the GW regional guy about it.

As for store size, the maximum that would be at round two would be 42 people (14 stores with three winners each), but I seriously doubt it will be more than 36, since I know at least two stores had a single person show up.  GMI and other stores in the area can accomodate 21 tables with ample terrain.  GE Pasedena is supposed to be larger, so I am not sure what the issue is and why they moved the start time up an hour, aside from the fact that they close super early for a gaming store.  In any case, everyone knows my army and I don't plan on changing it.  I prefer the Vince Lombardi mentality of gaming; Here is what I am gonna do, stop it if you can!

Posted By Phazael on 10/02/2007 9:31 AM

I heard this as well, and called in.  Then the guy demanded that I tell him what army I was playing and telling me that if I was not there promptly at 10am, I would be out (his exact words).  Given my past experiences with Game Empire and the fact that they basically told all their favorite guys to go to rinky dink stores for easy round one wins, I am somewhat skeptical about this whole situation.  I find the whole situation highly suspect, given their past history of rigging things for their guys which lost them Strategicon.  I guess the only thing they can really rig at this point are pairings and maybe the terrain, but even that can be decisive.  Bottom line, though, is that they are not supposed to be collecting data about other people's armies and I know someone already complained to the GW regional guy about it.

As for store size, the maximum that would be at round two would be 42 people (14 stores with three winners each), but I seriously doubt it will be more than 36, since I know at least two stores had a single person show up.  GMI and other stores in the area can accomodate 21 tables with ample terrain.  GE Pasedena is supposed to be larger, so I am not sure what the issue is and why they moved the start time up an hour, aside from the fact that they close super early for a gaming store.  In any case, everyone knows my army and I don't plan on changing it.  I prefer the Vince Lombardi mentality of gaming; Here is what I am gonna do, stop it if you can!

No offense but a tournament where you have no force orginization requirements as well as no paint requirements dosent bring out the hobbyists from far and wide, it brings the people who just enjoy the competative side and winning.  So you really shouldnt be all to suprised about shady tactics and going to chump stores for an easy buy.  Hell we had a guy get kicked out of our store permanantly because he cut his measuring tape and added extra lengths in.  Can you believe that?  Anyway when you eliminate the hobbyists from the tournaments, the only ones left are the ones concerned with winning at any cost.  I would watch those points tallies if I were you too.

Its one thing when players individually cheat (bad as that is), but its quite another when a store/organization actively rigs things to get their guys top seed.  If an individual guy wants to go beat up on some kids in a mom and pop store to get an easy pass to round two, well, thats his business, but GE should NOT be flat out telling their ringers to do this.  They certainly should not be taking inventory of what armies are comming so their ringers can tailor their lists, either, though I am certain that is the goal of asking what people are bringing.  Finally, my spider sense tells me that the schedule shift and hard line cutoffs have less to do with store space and more to do with improving the odds of their local guys.  They are shameless about this kind of stuff; just ask Adam Gotti who had his models moved off of an objective when he went to go take a piss in the middle of turn 6 at round one in Pasedena.

In past tournaments, when they still ran it at Strategicon, there would be tournaments where Cliff injected his own personal sports and comp scores on people and rig pairings so GE regulars would get three easy games in a row, while tough people from other areas would immediately play one another.  This culminated in the next to last Strategicon they ran having two undefeateds in both Fantasy and 40k who somehow never wound up playing the GE guy who ended up winning overall.  In the fantasy tournament, for example, the overall winner played a 12 year old kid in round one, his own girlfriend in round two, and some dude who was winless in round three.  Ultimately, he never played anyone who had gained a single win all day, but the non-Ge people all squared off against 2-1 people all day long and would get 1s and 2s in their soft scores by Cliff (while being perfectly graded by everyone else).  The 40k Tournament pretty much ended up the same way.  End result was a lot of people complained and the next tournament had single digit participation, ultimately getting GE yanked from Strategicon.

So given what has gone on with these guys (and I was prepared to give the Pasedena guy a fair chance before all this crap with hardboys went on),  I am pretty skeptical.  I don't mind getting my ass kicked on a level playing field, but I have better things to do with my time than deal with these kind of reindeer games.  The real problem is that if they pull the kind of crap I suspect is going on, then SoCal is not going to be represented by the best player, but by the most accomplished cheater, who will summarily get his ass pounded in Baltimore when things are no longer skewed in his favor (which is what genneraly happens to GE golden boys, Darrian aside, when they go to play in a nuetral environment), which I lay the blame solely at the feet of the GE people for.

ps- The lists I saw in round one were tough, but were not total cheese sell outs.  You still had to follow normal 40k force organization, just with a larger force than normal for tournament play and a lot of armies in that normally are not (Tank Company, Kroot Mercs, ect).  I arguably had the most brutal list present and even mine was 1 HQ and >40% points in troops with max size squads.  I think people are overestimating the cheese factor, since the games were often objective based.  Well rounded armies fared much better than one trick pony armies, at least at the venues I kept tabs on.

pps- Just so I am clear on this, none of my comments here apply to Darrien, who is a great guy to play and bs with.  My beef is with the GE staff who monkey with this crap all the time.  Most of their guys are fun to play, even the ones who play cookie cutter powergamer builds (which generally spring from the devious mind of Darrien), and I don't think most of them are even conciously aware of the kind of crap Cliff pulls.

Hey Q/Phazael, I need to clarify a couple of things.

I chose to play at a diferent store than GE of my own volition. GE wanted me and the rest of the guys to play at their store. That was my own decision to avoid playing my buddies until the second event. This was not part of GE's evil plot.

I posted the reminders for players to make reservations for the second round event at GE because the store woner was worried about having enough space for the players. Chuck is going to rent out the space next door, at his own expense, if there are more than 36 reservations. This is not done to give any players an unfair advantage. If they ask you what army you are going to play at the event at time of reservation, lie. I, honestly, have no idea what army I am going to play.

The start time was moved to 10am to make sure that the players have enough time for all 3 rounds. Everyone knows that RTT's NEVER start on time and ALWAYS run long. This is just a way to give more time for the event to run smoothly. BTW, GE closes at 11pm on Saturdays.

GE did not get yanked from Strategicon, they chose not to particpate. The con has been a money loser for a while and they did not see any point in wasting time and money at the convention any longer. At least, that is the story I heard.

I am not sure what army I am going to play at the Ardboy, but I am pretty confident that it will be more cheesy than yours. I make no bones about playing the strongest list I can at serious events. It is a testiment to how well you play the game that you were able to beat my Eldar at the last con with your army that was not as hardcore as mine. I hope I have improved my game enough to give you a better match at the Ardboy.

Darrian

I heard different things from different parties, so I guess take everything everyone says on all sides with a grain of salt. I do know for a fact that Cliff maniplulated scores (you adn I both got affected by this, personally) and that people complained to GW (and the Con organizers) in fairly large numbers. In any case, their monitary losses had nothing to do with the tournaments and were purely vending related (GW and the Con supply prizes, so their costs were purely travel), which is a seperate subject entirely.

Moving the start time to 10am, this late, is problematic, at best. Frankly, if they could not house all the potential players, they shoulld have ceded it to someone else. I hope they have enough terrain to cover the 21 possible tables, especially since every army going seems to be shooty. I really don't want to see tables that make the Vegas GT tables look crowded, in comparison.

As for armies, I don't fault anyone for bringing things that are legal to a tournament, provided it is not using something exploitive (hi2u Siren Prince), which is one reaon I am actually playing in this tourney, despite Haines turning my army into Codex Clown Prism forcing me into semi-retirement. If you took some advice from our last game (particularly armaments on vehicles), I would expect to meet you round three and lose to you. Everyone knows my list. Hell, the GMI crowd knew what was comming even though I never played 40k in that store before that day (and Willie was the only player I knew there) practically to a man. I just do not trust GE in the slightest from how friends and I have been handled by them in the past.

ps- Add some warp spiders and another mounted dire squad to my Strategicon list and you have my hardboys list. Hopefully this time, if I face Todd, there will be more than a single felt "lake" seperating our forces.

Posted By Phazael on 10/02/2007 1:53 PM

  They are shameless about this kind of stuff; just ask Adam Gotti who had his models moved off of an objective when he went to go take a piss in the middle of turn 6 at round one in Pasedena.

Phazael=Q?

Darrian addressed most of your points. The top players that go to most RTTs in So. <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Cal</st1:place></st1:state> discussed where they were going to play at the 'Ardboyz so they did not all play each other in round #1.

As far as your quote above goes, I think that is aimed at me. Adam and I both had 2 massacres going into round 3. He basically put a whooping on me, and at the last round I ran a falcon near an objective and had my fire dragons blow his Thousand Sons squad off of it. I thought I owned it because most objective games you just have to be close to the marker. He pointed out that you have to be on it to count as controlling it. I looked down at his TS Terminators on the other objective maker and noticed that he was not directly on it either.

No cheating or other nefarious activity happened to him. He made a mistake, and he needs to learn how to deal with it.

-Allan Hernandez.

 

First of all, my last name is Gati. Secondly, There were so many objectives to keep track of and worry about it isn't fair to talk about one instance of a game (blackmoor) so I'm not going to get into any arguments or bring up any instances over that matter. Last of all, I do not condone this kind of finger pointing or jabbering, especially on the forums. If anyone wants to talk smack, please, let's keep it behind people's backs where it belongs. We all know where we stand as far as this hobby goes.

Since our game was the only one to have objectives, I thought that those comments where aimed at me.

No person who played in an honest and forthright manner wants to be accused of cheating. I did not cheat, and besides the deepstrike argument, I thought we did not have any problems.

I made a huge mistake and tried to beat Thousand Sons in assault, and ended up getting killed for it. But the Thousand Sons weakness is scoring units and so after I got my butt kicked, I backed off, and played for the tie by holding table quarters. I thought you did not have to be "on" an objective, just near it, thus I thought my Falcon held one. But no one moved your models, or anything of that nature, they ended the game off of the objective and the game ended in a tie.

I have played many many games with Blackmoor and I have called him many things, usually after he beats me, but I have never called him a cheater. It saddens me to read someone, flippantly accusing Allan/Blackmoor of cheating. Allan does not deserve such a personal attack.

Darrian

Hey, I have a great friend who plays at Brookhurst hobbies in Westminster, CA and he had mentioned the Game Empire to me as well. He also felt that when he played a tourney there it was unfairly balanced to favor the local players. I can't say more than this right now ('cause this was at least a year or two ago) and I am not saying this continues to be the case but I would let the owner of GE know that there are people in his area that feel this way about his store.

Orion

@Orion, I hope you know that Game Empire Pasadena is less than a year old.

Darrian

Maybe I have the wrong store but how many are there in Pasadena?

Orion

There is only one game store in Pasadena.

Darrian

I obviously don't know anything about this situation, but I can assure everybody that reputations of being shady are easy to pick up and hard to lose. I'd say 80% or more of gamers don't really care, as long as their stuff isnt' stolen, but here in Ohio there are places that are objective and places that... well, appear, from time to time, to be less than objective.

Of course, I don't care very much, but I have a friend who gets wrapped all around the axel about every rumoured slight and innuendo. I think he has a checklist of a 3 or 4 gaming stores/clubs on the North Coast that he has a personal grudge with.

I guess my thing would be to say this: it's easy to look shady, but it's also easy to see shady where maybe it isn't.

He has an actual list of grudges? That is ausome.

O, and for the guy that mentioned my name...Put all the terrain on the board, it wont save you

Darrian, I emailed him and he says it was in San Diego do I guess it wasn't the same store at all. Sorry everyone for the uninformed comment.

Orion

Hey so what is this round two deal. WHen is it and is it the continuation of what happened at aero, or is it for people who could not make the first round? Im Interested.

The round 2 deal is for the top 3 finishers in last months round one Ardboy event.

BTW, where is your IG's loss to my Chaos at Game Empire? Gotta stay honest with those W-L records.

Darrian

lol, yeah I have not updated it in some time. Forgot about it really.

Isn't there a little old lady in Pasadena?

- G