Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Standish Standoff Results Part Deux

Where to start?

Let's start at the end!  

This was my best showing in the 5 years of the Standish Standoff.  Out of 22 players:

  • Tied for 2nd in overall points (118)
  • 2nd in Paint Scores (38) (probably should have been 3rd - I think someone who got a 34 should have been a 39 - its why I hate it when soft scores are kept "secret" till the end)
  • 4th in Total non-Battle Points (38 - just 8 points from the top!)
  • Tied for 5th place in battle Points (38)
  • Tied for 15th in Sportsmanship (39)
  • I sucked at the pub score.  

Rant:  The guy who Tied me for second place got a purity seal ribbon.  I got nothing, and not even a mention of a tie - with maybe a tiebreaker reason for not being recognized.  Sad panda.

Other Rant: For the Fratris - last place was recognized with a door prize.  This time - nothing. That was bad on the part of the store.  The last place guy should have gotten a hug or something...

Regardless, plus or minus a few issues, the Standoff exceeded my expectations as an event, and I think I prepped enough for the day - putting the hard work in to make my day a success in terms of play!

I Cannot Wait for Next Year!  Yahoo!

So yeah, I did well.  

For those keeping an evaluation of the top armies out there - in terms of top scores of just battle points day it went (1) dark eldar cult; (2) eldar D-wraiths; (3) eldar spyder-bikes; (4) Marine conclave / Grey Knights; (5) Ultramarines Battle Company; (6) Nurgle Demons.

In all of this - I played against #3 in Round 2, and against #6 in Round 1.

So yeah, it was that kind of day.

At the end, after it was all done, a few of us went to Sebago Brewing in Gorham - something we should all do more often - and I tried the Ned Ryerson brew and their Local Harvest IPA.  Both beers were awesome, and made for a great time to chat as a poste mortem.

Here a re a few more non-game photos to get off my phone:

Special thanks to the "club" guys who volunteered their time to make these:
  
Another shot of bugs.  Freakin' amazing!  Score wise, they did very well, but missed on on points for not being complete...gotta follow the Rubric!

 Yep, my favorite vehicle in the painting competition. Id did not win - but was recognized for its' technical marvel, working headlights, and fully detailed interior.  

Yep. Dark Eldar Wraith Knight...fully amazing piece of work and award winner.

Judges gotta judge!
 

My Captain Oh Captain! Captain Fabian of the Ultramarines 3rd Company.  

Like I said...Todd should have got a 39 or 40...not a 34...Typos are a Bitch.  The 5 point boost would have earned him a ribbon for best painted army and moved him from 8th to 7th or 6th place overall.  


Well!  Gotta Go!  Enough for me - how about your experience?

More Later.....




Monday, November 16, 2015

Standish Standoff 2015 Initial After Action Report

Hi all!  This is my initial after action report for the Standish Standoff!  This was the first year that our local gaming group did not "lead" the event, and I had some angst over that.  This was the 5th year it has been held at Crossroad Games, and the store management had decided to manage the event, just asking for some assistance here and there.  My own "self-claimed" responsibility was to keep trying to publicize the event via social media, to help get players to attend and fill the venue.

Overall, on the scale of 5 stars, I give it a solid 4.  It was definitely worth going to, and I look forward to the next time we can be at an event this large in Maine!

In retrospect from my expectations of the morning - some were met, some were exceeded - both good, bad, and ugly.

You'd have to know, as part of the story, is that the store's biggest flaw when it comes to 40K is that the owner and his employees do not claim to be experts in 40K, do not blog about it, do not really know what is going on in it outside of the store, do not attend other 40K events elsewhere, and by-and-large themselves do not have it as their most favorite game.  They do, however, have to be respected as one of the stores in the Northeastern US with the largest current 40K sales numbers, and a consistent group that play the game there.  

The best surprise was that the organizers did not use generic, BRB Maelstrom Missions!  That part was totally awesome, and hearkened back to the day when Thor at Creative Twilight did them!  Besides having a metric to "level" the Maelstrom points, there were three bonus tasks that were unique to each game.  Thus, a player could score 0-20 points for each game or so including bonuses.  They even brought in table quarter deployment in the third game, with a King of the Hill twist to set the stage for epic third game efforts!

The second best thing was the number of players - we were concerned about this, and we were able to have 22 players in total, including a fill-in from the store, to make sure every table was full.  I was hoping for 24 or more, but, 40K has in fact seen a lot of defections in the past 5 years.

The third best thing, I think (but I often glaze over on game day) - was that everyone (for the most part) had an awesome "can-do" and up-to-the-challenge attitude.  Most of us looked at the variety of armies and there were few armies, if any, that any of us would not have wanted to be challenged with.  That included seeing a few armies with models and such that had not been seen on the table!

As compared to previous years, painting points seem to be a source of pride and anger.  From what I saw, an impartial judge who used to play 40K (and has amazing painted armies) went around and scored the paint for each army - There was a simple rubric they used - which I think was distributed in advance.  You could in fact, probably go through and self-score your army strictly to the rubric and come close to what the scorer probably gave you.  My only real issues with this remain - I'd want the paint scores to be provided as you get scored (on a participation ribbon or card) - and disclosed to you up front so that you can verify later that the score on the sheet was proofable to the score in the computer.  I just hate errors!  Especially in an event where the scores can get close!

The pizza lunch was OK.

The painting comp was pretty good, considering there were 22 players.  I entered four different entries and got nothing.  Not a big deal, I did not spend any time at all on painting competition entries.

Worst thing was when the software they were using crashed - and they may have had to re-enter the data or do the math in their heads to determine who was playing who for Round 3.  When numbers are tight - it is important to have an accurate, error free process.

Now on to some photos
A sort of Armies on Parade!  For more pictures - go see Crossroad Game's facebook page!  I used my i-Phone - as usual - so I don't get the best of closeups!

First off!  Here is my own army - packed to head over to the event.  A Ultramarines Battle Company!  My list is over at Bolter and Chainsword...You can see my "scratch-built" Whirlwind - Overall, it was fun to use both my Blue and Red armies in a combined force!  It goes with those drop pods I'd painted a few years ago!  Also - as a matter of fact - this was the FIRST army list I've played as Ultramarines since their codex came out! (You know I've just been playing Blood Angels and Astra Militarum for most of the last year!)

Another Battle Company - Podded White Scars! Totally different than my list!

Necrons Decurion!  (I played against this army in Round 3) Will be baaaack....

Ultramarines Demi-Company - from the Shiny Rhino at Thin Your Paint.  Very pretty, not Gritty.

Orks!  A big mess of em'.  I think I could have beat them.  Maybe.

Word Bearers.  It looks kinda small.  I'm told everything had the max of upgrades possible.

Marines of some kind with a Librarian Conclave.  Did extremely well.  Frankly, take this to heart...the hole tray should be just dumped into Simple Green to start over.

Tau with a large centerpiece that looked to hard to wreck...and could be ignored.

Bugs.

More Bugs.

And even more Bugs!  An official INFESTATION! (Unbound....)


    Some sort of converted Dark Eldar.  The conversions are amazing.  No display board though, which kinda detracts from it.

Chaod Marines - I don't know if it was KDK. We told the guy to just get some spray paint and finish them before paint scoring....

Eldar!  I played agains this Army in Round 2! Fast and Furious!

Nurgle! I played against this in Round 1!  I got a cold just taking this picture. Plague Flies are off somewhere....

Eldar, of the Wraith Kind.  D-lite-ful. 

My personal favorite army of the day - Skitari! 

And this one...missing a...

Baneblade....

There were a few other armies - but either they were not set out at the beginning, or looked so unpainted I chose not to photograph them.  

Next Up - How I Actually Did and then Felt About the Results!

Come back next time!  I have a 48 hour rule for discussing results...




Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Standish Standoff this Weekend!

Well, the Standish Standoff is this weekend!  If you are in new England and don't have anything to do this Saturday, go to Crossroad games, buy a ticket, pull together your legal 40K list (per their Facebook event details), and lets play!

This will be the 5th Standoff, making it this most-repeated, annual 40K gaming event we know of in Maine - with the Fratris Salutem being in second.

At least four significant 40K bloggers and their associated support authors will be there - including:

(Me of course, at Defenders of Calth)

Creative Twilight - http://creativetwilight.com/

Thin Your Paint - http://thinyourpaint.blogspot.com/

A Painted Life - http://brianberman.blogspot.com/

And others!  Look for these other blogs to have detailed event coverage as well. 

It should be a great time, with a great variety of armies.  Look for my photos here next week of one or more pictures of each opponent's army, plus, hopefully, an assessment of how it went overall.

Frankly - I'd have loved to have a "journalist" at the event just to watch table 1 and report what went on there.  Having a cool Narrative - especially for the last two games of the three (game 1 is random pairings) - would be awesome.

I certainly don't have a clue as to who will be there for the 22+ gamers, although I really think that the top 4 will contain a guy named Steve.  I just hope I don't have to play vs Steve on his way up to the top 4!

The guys I wish were represented at the Standoff that I don't know if they are coming are any of the Spectres.  But of course, I've said that for years. They have their own forum and YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/spectresenence

One guy who I hoped would be there - but reported he cannot due to weekend work obligations is this guy - awesome painting blog with cool works:

http://tipsforbadpainters.com/

My army itself is still not settled.  I have three or so main choices, and with this being a painted and competitive event, the choice is not easy.  Lat year I played my best with Ultramarines (before the new codex), Blood Angels have been spectacular for me, and I'm just getting up to speed toying with Astra Militarum!

So, yeah, nobody gets to know my list, probably not even me, until 9 AM Saturday Monring when I check into the event.

After the day is done, I plan to scoot over to Sebago Brewing in Standish, Maine, to try out some Fall beers now on tap, and hope that some of the other gamers will come along for food and such after a long day of dice and concentration.

 http://sebagobrewing.com/brewpubs/gorham-brewpub/

Overall, my goal is to end in the top half of the tables, it can really depend on the matchups in a 3 game event.

As soon as Sunday night though - I need to get back to Painting more Blood Angels to finish my oath at Bolter and Chainsword!  I still have stuff to get done!

Tonight is gaming night - I may drive over to Crossroads to check on stuff, but I may not stay for a game.  Who knows.

Good luck at your own games this weekend!

MING










Monday, November 9, 2015

The Techmarine built a ... what?

OK, I was bored last week.  Had a cold.  Nothing great going on.  Friday was the worst.  So after work I went down into the cave and poured through boxes of bits, recycled a bunch of debris to clean out the spaces, and found what I needed to build me...one...


Whirlwind.


Yep, I'd tried to get one locally from my gaming group - tried to get one at local shops, tried to get one from GW...and ultimately just scratch built one for my Blood Angels.  I almost bough one off e-bay, but it was already built It's all painted up now, with extra bits on the carrier, etc.  I'll have some other pix with this up later this week if I have time.  Nothing like a cheap large blast template to scatter around your opponent's army...