Grand Tournament results

This past weekend I made my nearly annual trek to Omaha for the Bugeater Grand Tournament.

I have been play testing the heck out of the Hellbenders in preparation and I felt pretty good about my chances for a top 10 finish, even against Dark Eldar. The Drukhari nerf came after the deadline for submitting lists, so they were in full shenanigans mode. However, I have been playing well against all flavors of Eldar, including Harlequins and I was feeling confident in my list.

The Bugeater GT is a fund raiser for a high school debate team and is normally held in the high school’s gym. Due to some facility issues, the tournament was held throughout the school in hallways and classrooms. It was nice to be spaced out but not all the tables in classrooms had air conditioning and it was nearly 100-degees in Omaha that day. Gamers being gamers, it was a swampy venue to say the least. Plus, my stomach problems flared, and I was running to the restroom between rounds. In the two available stalls, one seat and floor were covered in urine, the other had blood all over the seat. Yeesh.

In my first-round pairing, I faced the dreaded Drukhari Wrack liquefier list and lost 97-58.  I went second and I feel like if I had gone first, and if I were able to pop a couple of raiders, I probably would have done a little better. It was a fun game, but the need for a Drukhari Nerf is real.

I faced a Chaos Knights player from Chicago in the second round and I felt good as the game started. I got first turn but the fire in my eyes was soon extinguished when I didn’t fell a knight or wardog in the first turn. In fact, I was tabled by turn 4 and I lost 94-27. I couldn’t shoot, I couldn’t wound, and there was nowhere to hide on the table. I was down after this battle. I was humbled. Since I was sick, I almost considered fleeing Omaha early and heading home to sell my army.

Round 3 brought an Aeldari-Harlequins alliance from another player from the same gaming club in Chicago. He went first and made a made blitz for my castle and crashed against my shields. I was able to use all my Salamander stratagems to full effect and when the dust settled, I had a 98-74 win. It was a fun game but I think my opponent felt really down about the way his army performed. I know that feeling.

In round 4, I faced, Justin, another player from the Windy City and his Necrons. This game was a blast and was the most strategic game I played all weekend, and at times it was kind of surreal. It was also the fourth game that day and I we were both super tired and at times the game turned kind of silly. Justin made some crack about piling in and, “touching” my models, and I said, “Don’t touch me with your cold, metal hands,” and sent Justin into a laughing fit. The classroom we were in didn’t have air conditioning, so we were sweating like mad, Justin kept drinking from a flask, and there was a floor to ceiling mural about “the Crow.” It was huge. Much larger than any Crow-themed mural I believed to be in existence. Great, fun game but it had some strange elements surrounding it and I managed to squeak a win.

On day 2, I played Colin, player from Denver who brought an Orks army with almost all the resin Forgeworld produced last year. My game plan was fairly solid against his list, and I would argue that my army looked like it was specifically built to combat his army on paper. However, I played horribly and my dice were terrible. None of my melta shots hit, and twice I rolled double 1s on a charge only to re-roll into double 1s. (TWICE!) Plus, I played like a chump, forgetting my dreadnought in reserve and Collin had to remind me of other rules… Fatigue and some numbskull playing on my part left me with another embarrassing loss.

 

On the final game, I played Jake and his Raven Guard successor chapter that came to the tournament in a Sokar Stormbird. Yes, the titanic flying Stormbird variant. It was a massive, fiddly 13-pound block of resin on an enormous flying stand! Neither of us were trying to play competitively at this point and we were just trying to have a good time and it was a battle of laughs. It was fairly easy for me to run and grab objectives since the Stormbird took up so many points in his army. I either ran for objectives or tried to shoot down the flying titan, and after a very enjoyable game, I was victor and managed to take out the Stormraven. Jake then presented me with a special certificate and statue for taking out the Sokar! What a legend! He even wrote down my name as his favorite opponent! (Then his buddy came over after the game and I watched him change it… I don’t know if he was trying to bait me into writing his name down for best opponent but it kind of felt that way. I took the statue home anyway.)

I finished 31, dead middle of the pack.  I made the long drive home with a 3-3 record and thought about my Orks and Space Wolves. 

In the painting category, I feel like I had the best painted army I’ve ever fielded, but I didn’t make the cut for any awards. This left me salty because, like last year, there were armies that made the cut that had models with missing components, didn’t have squad or army markings, highlighting, or their shading just seemed to be dunk washed. I don’t want to take anything away from the gorgeous armies and displays that did make the cut - they clearly were stunning and I would not have beat them for any awards – but there were just a few armies that made the cut that left me scratching my head on why I didn’t make the cut.

Maybe because my display board is in my tray and I should take it out? Maybe because I don’t have a lot of conversions (but that didn’t seem to be a factor in some of the models that made the cut.)

Maybe I’m just mad because I’m tired, sick, hot, and played like a mouth-breather? Probably.