A Not Brent Piggyback Commentary

Not Brent here, kicking out my first article for the House of Pain.  I think I'll call this series 'I Drink Your Milkshake' - and if the lawsuits roll in, I'll roll over and blame what's-his-face.  He's got to be good for something besides bad hair and whining.

I'll get right to the point - something else what's-his-face can't be bothered to do.  The House of Pain is for the cool kids, so I'll keep my straw dipped here, nice and deep.  I'm gonna find something worth repeating and kibitz the shit out of it.

Turns out Rhellion isn't dead after all, but rather changed the name of his hobby blog to Rhellion's Tabletop.  That's nice and vague, meaning he can post about whatever he wants, right?  Take notes, you: that means don't call your blog Only Necrons; that's a short slide to sucks.  Let's get started.

Original Post

3 days and 650 miles later, Ard Boyz 2010 is over. (Note the investment of time and money; that's important later.)  To say that the tournament went off without a hitch would be a lie, so I will get into that later, but first the results. (That was foreshadowing and the start of a shit sandwich, as in nice, nice, shit, shit, nice, nice... love that stuff.)  I got third place overall, and the placings for the tournament were 1st (tie) Skaven and Dark Elves, 2nd Dark Elves, and 3rd Skaven (me).  (That's a result to be proud of.  I'm sure it was a well-fought, well-run event...)  I got a nifty dagger trophy, zero prize support (for anyone at the tournament), and I guess a ticket/invitation to the Las Vegas GT in 2011.

To start, let me explain the battle points. The TO stated he hadn't gotten the rules pack for 'Ard Boyz until the morning of, and he had already printed out all the scoring sheets, so we were going to be using his scoring for the 'Ard Boyz Finals. 5 points for a Massacre, 4 points for a Major, 3 points for a Minor, and 2 for a Draw or something similar. There were the normal 4 points bonus per scenario. There were also no Victory Points scored, so there was no tie breaker.

Anyone else see where this is going?

Bottom line, after describing game 1 and 2, Rhellion is playing on top table in Game 3.  Now get ready for some bullshit.

This game was marred for me because of a few things. (That was diplomatic.)  My opponent and I had an argument for about 30 minutes when he cast Dwellers Below. (What?)  PAGE 10 of the rulebook states: where a model has more than one value for the same characteristic, a characteristic test is always taken at the highest value.  (Why didn't you get a judge?)  He cast Dwellers on my Bell unit. I lost 20 of 40 Clan Rats, but when I rolled a 5 for the Bell (the Strength of the Rat Ogres), he claimed the Grey Seer should be killed because he is only Strength three (which is incorrect).  (Yup.)  The judge would not rule in either players favor because he didn't want to effect the outcome of the tournament (WHAT?!), and after arguing for over 25 minutes, we diced off for it and I won.

Let me echo that.  WHAT?!  It doesn't matter that Rhellion won the roll-off, the TO should have made a considered judgment.  Right or wrong, the ruling on the field stands, so the judge should have judged.  Period.  There is no good reason not to.  This was half an hour wasted.  Hopefully there was still plenty of time to play the game.

In addition to this the rounds were cut short to 2 hours and 30 minutes, because the TO wanted to leave early. Combined with the argument, we only played THREE TURNS on table one of the 'Ard Boyz finals final game.

Man, I should have seen that coming.  Rhellion describes the game, then says:

At the end of the game, my opponent had 6 knights on the board, 2 cannons, his popemobile, and the unit in the tower. I had lost a unit of Gutter Runners and 2 Cannons, no other full units lost.

Remember, this is the game where control of the tower is all-important.

Where I lost the game was the first turn magic phase. I cast the 13th Spell on the tower, killed all 10 flagellants, and placed my own Clan Rats in the tower. I should have set up to cast Crack's Call and just destroy the building from the get go like I had designed my list around!!! After that, I was unable to ring the bell or cast Crack's call in the rest of the limited game. A giant unit of swordsmen overtook the Clan Rats in the tower, and won the game as the rest of the Empire army was massacred around them.

Let's make sure to examine this.  Basically, Rhellion acknowledges a mistake - that happens.  His opponent keeps the objective in mind and jumps all over it.  Winning the game while losing your army is awesome stuff... but that's not really what happened, is it?  

They played 3 turns.  The judge wanted to go home early.  They played 3 turns.  A half hour of the game was wasted.  They played 3 turns.  That's some bullshit for Top Table at Hard Boyz.

I still scored all 4 bonus points for the final scenario. After the results were tabulated, there was a THREE WAY TIE FOR FIRST. The judge then went back after the tournament was over, and we had been playing one way all day, and redid the battle points according to the original rules.

After the judge re-scored the event, Rhellion gets 3rd place.  That's a more than respectable result... but let's face it, he went from first to third.  The TO should have stuck with the packet, but if he wasn't going to do that he should have stuck with the change and worked out a tie breaker based on some other criteria.


Still, I'm reminded of South Park last night - Captain Hindsight, anyone?

On a lighter note, results and the final game aside, I had a great trip and met a lot of great people. I played games with fellow Warhammer nerds from across the country, went drinking with new friends from Minnesota and Louisiana, and got to play at an amazing venue. Next time hopefully they actually run an event as advertised... with correct battle points, tie breakers, correct game time limits, and judges who will actually rule on something to prevent the loss of game turns to a rules disagreement.

See how diplomatic that was?  Good on him.  He acquitted himself well both at the event in writing about it.  He seems like a top-notch dude.


But I'm Not.  I spent 3 whole seconds deciding to rant off where he leaves off: that's the GW Battle Bunker in Chicago.  They owe the people who spent thousands of their hard earned dollars traveling there more than some half-assed nonsense they could have got staying at home.


It's not like GW has done that before... except they have.  Shitty prize support is becoming the trend for the Hard Boyz Finals, both 40K and Warhammer, and this is an actual, honest to God Games Workshop event.


Anyone else smell the bullshit?