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| View of just part of Guardian Games. Yes we are the second floor! |
Onto the tournament.... the Guardian Cup was held at Guardian Games. being from California and playing at Great Escape Games, I am privy to one of the largest gaming spaces in proabably the entire USA. Guardian games challenges GEG for amount of space, amount of product, and all out awesomeness as a store! The customer service and the ability to buy beer and cider onsight was just.... AMAZING! Definitly a big thumbs up for both of them.
The tournament was a 40 person NOVA style event. They played 1 of each book mission with preset objective placement. Secondaries (First Blood, Slay the Warlord, and Linebreaker) were only used in an event of a tie on the primary mission.
Now onto my games. Check out my last post to see the list I brought to the tournament.
First Game vs Necrons/Chaos
His list:
Cryptek, Volatic Staff
Cryptek, Voltaic Staff
Cryptek, Voltaic Staff
5 Warriors, Night Scythe
5 Warriors, Night Scythe
5 Warriors, Night Scythe
8 Scarabs
Anni Barge
Anni Barge
Anni Barge
Chaos Lord, MoK, Axe of Blind Fury, Boon
x30 Cultists
x10 Cultists
Helldrake
Skyshield Landing Pad
A pretty formidable list. The guy I played was a local of Portland and had a pretty big following of supporters during our game. The mission was Killpoints with Dawn of War deployment.
The game started off with a rocky start when he announced that a Cryptek was his Warlord. I did not agree with the call and the TO came over. He replied with a "that's how we play it here and quickly scurried off." I don't really know how that is an explanation of any rules, but whatever. The rule disputes would not be over at that, unfortunately.
The first turns for each went rather uneventful. I kill a Barge and some Scarabs and a little of the Cultists. he multi-charges his Khorne Lord and Scarabs in with the Wraithknight. i was not worried since the Scarabs cant hurt me and the Lord needs 6's. he tried to say he could Entropic strike me and again called the judge over to which I had to explain to both of them the need to be able to wound me to be able to have Entropic Strike go off. Luckily, I actually got this call.
The next turn sees my farseer split off to kill the Khorne Lord, Baron to kill a Barge, and the Beasts to kill Oblits. Oblits die, barge loses 2 HPs, and Farseer kill the Cultist Sarge. He gets a Night Scythe in and prepares to shoot the Baron. Unfortunately for him I am directly below his flier. he explains that he has 180 degree firing arc and can shoot the Baron. I then explain his weapon is Hull Mounted and how those work in the game with the BRB open. He again, calls the TO over who then says that he can fire 180 degrees up and down but only 45 degrees side to side..... HUH? WTF? So he essentially just made some rules up and how Hull Mounted weapons work... Cool! So of course he shoots and kills the Baron.
My turn 3 sees the Beasts join the big Multi-Assault going on. This is when the biggest and laughable ruling of the entire weekend goes. Beasts wipe out the Cultists and Farseer IDs the Lord during his turn after I charge in during mine. The Wraithknight is left in B2B with 1 Scarab and the Farseer and Beasts are on the other side of the combat about 5'' away. My opponent then explains I need to consolidate into CC with the Scarabs. I explain to him that I cannot make it into B2B with the Scarab so I get to Consolidate out with both the Farseer and Beasts. He disagrees and says I have to try and make it in, to which I explain I cannot make it in. TO who is on speed dial at this point gets called over. He tells me to try and make it into CC, I tell him I cant. He says I have to try the following turn because I am still locked in CC. I try to explain that if I do not make it into CC with him I get to consolidate because there is no one to assault. The BRB is open, and withotu even looking at it, he looks at me and says "thats my ruling." Then he walks away. I was pretty dumbfounded... I was rather pissed.... Part of me wanted to explode, part of me wanted to walk up to him and show him the BRB. I bit my tongue and allowed it to happen. With my luck, I would get thrown out and I would be stuck in the state of Oregon with nothing to do.
So I kill the Scarab in my Turn 4 and the Beasts and such consolidate now out of CC. Unfortunately, he has 2 Scythes and the Helldrake waiting for me. he obliterates the Beasts and the Farseer. This sucks because had I been able to play by the rules and allowed to consolidate out, the Beasts would have killed his Overlord, a squad of Warriors, and the Farseer could have went to finish off the 10 man Cultists. But I wasn't and instead of getting 3 Killpoints, I was denied them and lost 2 myself.
The rest of the game sees him pick off the easy Killpoints and win the game 13-8. In our game I kill 2 Crypteks which would have counted for 2 more KPs according to their system and "the way they play it there."
I only bring this up because someone I know got his first game overturned because of his 2 Crypteks dying. They had won his game by 1 Kill Point. Crypteks aren't ICs and therefore should not count as individual KPs if killed alone. They count as 1 KP if all of them are killed. After his game, his opponent went to the judge and explained that he had killed both Crypteks. The TO ruled that each Cryptek is worth a KP each and for killing the squad, you get an additional KP. So for killing 2 models, his opponent received 3 KPs. HUH? Sirus would then get his Win overturned to a loss after the fact and not told about it until the start of game 2. These rulings are getting rediculous. Even if Crypteks did give 1 KP away each, they definitely dont give away an additional for killing the squad. I would just like to note that this guy was also a local as well. Coincidence? LOL....
Feeling deflated after my first round 1 "game" I get paired up with a very nice local and his Chaos Space Marine/Daemon army.
Ahriman
Chaos Sorceror, Term. Armor, Lvl 3, Sigil, VOTL, Melta Bombs, Spell Familiar
x13 CSM, x2 Plasma, Powerfist
x20 Marines, MoS, Icon of Excess, Power WeaponHelldrake
Herald of Tzeentch, Lvl 3
x15 Bloodletters
x16 Horrors
Sould Grinder, MoS, Warp Gaze
Initially I was not worried about his list. It is rather small and I can tank with the Beasts and Wraithknight while I dismantle the rest of his army. My plan worked just fine. Beasts charged the large Excess Marines and the Wraithknight charged Ahriman and the 13 CSM. The rest of my army would then kill off the rest of his stuff by turn 3. He called it turn 4 when all he had was Ahriman left and I controlled 5 of the 6 objectives. I feel bad for my opponent but he ran into a very hard counter and the rest is history.
My game 3 saw me paired up against Ryan Fredin. A super nice guy with a small elite Space Wolf/Blood Angel army. His list:
Rune Priest
Rune Priest
8 Wolf Guard, 1 Term. Armor w/ Cyclone, x6 Combi Meltas, Drop Pod
10 GH, x2 Melta, Power Axe, Mark of Wulfen, Standard, Rhino
10 GH, x2 Plasma, Power Axe, Mark of Wulfen, Standard, Rhino
x6 Long Fangs, x4 Missiles, x1 Lascannon
x4 Long Fangs, x3 Missiles
Mephiston
x5 Sniper Scouts
Stormraven
His list is small... Very very small. The thing that scares me the most is the Stormraven. Mephiston, while being a beast, has no Invuln and I am not worried. I get first turn and we begin.
I put 4 wounds on Mephiston and kill 2 Rhinos, the Quad Gun, and 5/6 Long Fangs. His pod comes in and fries a Venom. Mephiston runs toward the Wraithknight. His shooting does nthing other than the 1 Venom dying. We laugh about Mephiston coming in and killing the Wraithknight as that would be pretty damn epic. He assaults me and I roll boxcars on my Overwatch.... Then Double 1s for Damage.... Yee! So Mephy makes it into CC but fails his Str 10 sword. Looks like he has to kill me the old fashoned way. He rolls and gets 4 hits and 2 6's... Rolls for his Force Weapon... BAM! dead Wraithknight. Lol... we both just start LOLing. Turns 2 and 3 see me kill piece by piece of his army. His Stormraven would do the only other damage to my army before dying turn 3 to my Warp Spiders.
All in all a fun game 3 and my opponent took the loss in stride. He kill the Wraithknight, a Venom, a Ravager, and some random Beast units. I held all 4 objectives at game's end.
So after the first day, I was 2-1. VERY frustrating start to the day, but I gathered myself and beat 2 opponents. Lyzz would lose her last game of the day after a 5 hour game... Yes 5 hours. the TO allowed the game to go on until its natural conclusion. If the game ended when it should have (Turn 3... this guys was slow playing everyone all tournament 1st and 2nd days) Lyzz would have won. However, the TO said that the game can end naturally as there are no games left to be played. He said this after the time had ended for the round and after Lyzz had played Turn 3 as her last. So she loses Turn 7. As a side note.... The guy she played... Also a local... I see a pattern emerging here... Hmmmm....
Matt is 3-0, Mark is 3-0, I am 2-1, and Lyzz is 2-1. Me, matt, and Mark are all bracket 1. Lyzz ends up in bracket 2. I have the highest Battle Points in the tournament despite having a loss. I am ranked 6th in the tournament as there are 5 undfeated players ahead of me. I was happy to see 3 of us in bracket 1 and we had a good chance of taking the whole thing.
Check back when I update you on the last 3 games and the results for the tournament!
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| Wall Mural on the side of Guardian Games. Great Escape might be surpassed... Very impressive! |
No offense man, but your conclusions of local favoritism is way off. I'm sure our TO made some mistakes, but I can assure you it was anything but favoritism.
ReplyDeleteNo offense taken. I am only speaking from what I saw and heard myself.
ReplyDeleteI have never seen a TO make rulings without looking at the BRB when opened in front of them, or walk away from a table without explanation and say "that's how we play it here" or simply, "that's my ruling." No explanation no anything. Of all the tournaments I went to, I have never seen this happen, ever.
I also have never heard of a game being allowed to play out for 5 hours. I highly doubt, that if one of those players were not a local player, this would have been allowed to occur. 5 hour game? Really? Never should be allowed regardless of any circumstance.
So if you had a question for a TO and all the TO answered was " that is my ruling" or "that's how we play it here" and did not explain a thing, you wouldn't sit there and say: "WTF?" It happened on multiple occassions.
Maybe he was overwhelmed or he didn't know the answers. But to not look in the book or listen to all that is being said is just plain wrong. If he doesn't know the answer, say so. If it takes a minute or so to listen to both sides arguments or to look in the BRB, you owe it to the players to do so. That's your job!
I don't blame the players. They played by the rules they were allowed to and within the guidelines given. I have no ill will towards them. They weren't in control of the rulings or the things allowed. One person was. Again, maybe he was overwhelmed and had a lot on his plate. I am simply pointing out the flaws and the things that I observed at the tournament. Some of those things I feel are unacceptable, whether they be favoritsm or not.
I don't disagree that he made some bad calls. I thought letting the games go to the end on Saturday was a mistake myself. But throughout your post you basically say all of his rulings were about favoritism against you cali players. I just don't think that is true having known him for quite some time.
ReplyDeleteWhile its true that bad calls were made, it did seem that first day a bit of favoritism was being displayed. Allowing three kill points for a single two man unit royal court seems ridiculousness unless such a rule would of been published ahead of time.
ReplyDeleteHaving a T.O. say things such as "that's the way we do things here" and then just walk away from a table tends to leave a bad impression. As far as a 5 hour game of 40K, IMHO should never of been allowed to happen. If the match was set at 2 hours and 45 minutes then that would be the “natural conclusion” to the game. Not play until you end the game on a roll of 1-2 or 7 full rounds. I'd of completely understood allowing an extra 15 minutes so both players could get in and equal number of game turns but that's about it.
I had the privilege of playing 6 very good players and although walked away empty handed from the event, I more or less a great time. However, I think Yeeman's perspectives regarding his first three games are justified.
I see I won't be changing your mind about the favoritism thing, I can only tell you what I know of him personally and I can assure you it had nothing about local or out of town preference. I just wish you guys would have talked to him about it at the event. You had a perfect opportunity that night when we all went to dinner. At the very least I hope you still had fun at the event. It was good meeting you guys.
ReplyDeleteIf all this happens to be coincidence, then that is fine. All I am doing is writing what I saw and heard. Some of these things seem suspicious, but if they are unwarranted, then fine. However, it does not make the facts any less so. Some of the actions I believe should not happen, they did. Are they favoritism? Maybe, maybe.not. Did all of the above happen? Yes sir.
ReplyDeleteHonestly I had.a ton of fun at the event. 6 solid players and games is always a fun event. And again, I don't fault the players at all.
"Did all of the above happen? Yes sir."
ReplyDeleteThat is hilarious. I was literally chuckling the whole time I was reading this. I guess all anyone has is their own perspective. I can flat out say that a couple of things you said happened in the first game didn't; you had movement to get into base with my Scarab swarm with your consolidation move... your argument at the time is that you had never initiated an assault against it... which was totally irrelevant. From my perspective you were pissed you didn't kill it as you expected to, and were looking for any way to weasel out of the situation (the fact that you have warped the situation in your head to make yourself retrospectively right is gold). From my perspective you were gruff and combative from the beginning of the game (probably from being matched up with a hard counter). Perspectives, man...
The results speak for themselves. Like you said perspectives man...
ReplyDeleteIts always a hard counter when playing a good player (you), with a good list, and against the TO. Oh well, is what it is.