The Results Fantasy Results 40k Results My Story The Canadian Gt is a little different than all other Grand Tournaments as it is both a 40k and a fantasy tournament rolled into one. This allowed for a large turnout by Boldo's regulars and the A team in particular. With Chris Courtney, Jay Woodcock, Shaun Kemp, Mike Alexander, Paul Pacheco, Tom Looney playing 40K and Boldo, Josh Glantz and Mark Cordia in Fantasy we had a lot of company to cheer for our victories and do pushups when we lost. In fantasy there were only 84 plays but in my mind only one mattered and that whas Josh. Friday Night the fantasy players drove up together and we all set goals. Josh wanted to finish in the top 10, Mark didn't want to have a losing record, and I wanted to beat Josh. If you have never been to a GT then it is hard to describe the excitement of the time before the first round. This may be the best part of the GT as everyone sets up their army and puts it on display. Besides the incredible armies and mind blowing presentations everyone is so friendly it is hard to imagine we will be locked in battle in a few hours. My army was a standard army for me. It had 10 crossbowmen, 10 thunderers, 10 Rangers, 15 clansmen with heavy armor great weapon, 15 clansmen heavy armor shield, 25 clansmen with shield, 25 clansmen with great weapon, 16 hammerers with shield, one cannon, 2 bolt throwers one with rune of penetration, a runesmith, a dwarf lord, and an engineer. Throw in a rune of balance a few runes of stone and one rune of burning and that is my army. It is a lot of core troops a few war machines and little magic. The tournament started with me playing adam Clark int he first round. I was thrilled as he is an excellent player and his army is brillantly done. He was only the second person I had ever played with dioramic units (there are scenes rather than just models going on in his army). This was also my introduction to Canada as his army was a bit on the beefy side with 7 Chaos Knights, a Chaos Lord on Chimera, Dragon Ogres,chariots, and 28 warriors. No magic but there was no need for it. I was a bit overmatched, but with a good shooting round I score the chimera, the dragon ogers, and chariot easily. Well the scenario is a straight up fight and he goes first. I get to shoot at the chimera and come within 1 wound of killing both the rider and the beast with one bolt thrower left to fire. Well to make a long story short I never kill either and they score 700 points for him. I roll 2 1's to hit and 2 ones to wound on the beast. But that is okay as I charge his chaos warriors with clansmen with great weapons in the front and side only to lose by 3. I beat the knights by by 4 then 3 then 2 then 1 and when I lose by 1 I run. Then in the very end I charge the Dragon Ogres in the side with my general needing one wound to kill the one which can spin back but when I miss and he scores a wound I run automatically. It was not my game and I start 0-1. My friend Josh also loses in the first but Mark the weak link wins. Round 2 has an odd set up where each player has 2 board edges and each turn the place a unit on there edge. They also start with one unit on each edge. My opponent is Jason Clark and he is playing skaven. He goes first, sets up poorly and lets me flank all his units. Well two turns in he is in a huge hole and when the rat ogres run 3 inches I have the game locked up. Now I am 1-1 and Josh loses again while mark drawsto still put me trailing Mark. Round 3 begins the major theme of the tournament as the scenarios start to hose shooting with only one more scenario will not adversely effect shooting. To make this even better I am playing Tom Van Dyke with his deamon army, 18 magic dice, 60 plaguebearers, and the great unclean one. Fortunately I win the die roll to go first and shoot very well on turn one. Then on turn 2 his miscasts as the cannon keeps firing away to beat down his dice while the 100 dwarves get him into combat and find ways ti kill plaguebearers. Finally he is able to charge me with the great unclean one and I after killing my general he misses a panic test and I run him down. From here on out it is over in one of the least fun games I have ever played. Either his magic wrecks me or not and either way the game is easy for one player. So I am 2-1 while Josh finally gets on the board with a draw and Mark draws again to go 1-0-2. Round 4 starts at 6pm and I am very tired. Fortunately I play Pascal F. with a chaos maurader army. He finishes fourth and is one of the most fun players I have ever played. This scenario is poorly written and it is hard to figure out how to play it. We get in a great game where my shooting is awesome early and then I get the combats I want but after winning a few rounds in a row he will not run. Then I make a mistake by charging with my thunderers who are dominating a whole side of the board. To my credit he does need to hold on a +3 check but when both of his units hold I get charged by a chariot, and duelists. I lose and run. Still going into the last turn I just need to get a little lucky to draw but I do not and he \ wins by 199pts. It is a draw except tIn Canada they play 150 for a minor victory so I lose. Josh wins and mark loses so we end day one with me 2-2, Mark 1-1-2 and Josh 1-2-1. Round 5 is perhaps the worst scenario I have ever played. It is called cut off the head and the only victory condition is to kill the opponents general. Now though Francois L. is a fine player and a great guy, when his orcs panic on turn 2 when a a fanatic runs through them and then he misses an anomosity check while my general runs from the giant due to terror it is not going to be much of a game. So we tie as does almost everyone else in the room. Round 6 is anouther bad scenario for me where magic is good, shooting bad, and flying bad. Fortunately I play Darrin Holmes with his dwarves. Now in stunty beatdown it is usually the side with the most units that wins. He shoots like me but has only 3 fighting units to my five and rangers. I have 138 dwarves he has only93 but what he does have is a lot of runes, more expensive characters, and every unit is maxed out. Well we move to the center where I flank him and proceed to win this king of the hill style scenario. This round we all win so there is much rejoycing until they hand out the next scenario. Round 7 if the fifth scenario was bad this is worse. The player who has the artifact at the end of the game wins. So to find out who starts with it roll a die and the highest die wins, I mean gets the artifact. Well to make sure you can not shoot that unit dead while it runs away from you give shooting a -2 and let war machines shoot only on a 6. Russ W from Dakkadakka is my opponent playing Lizardmen. He has one of each type of units in his army. We decide to put the artifact in the center of the board. I put the rangers near it and am the first one to artifact. Where his skinks charge them in the rear. While his beefy combat units struggle on the far side of the board the real battle is between 10 rangers and skinks with my clansmen with shield and his swarms adding to the excitement. On the other side I roll up first his Kroxigors, then his saurus, and finally his slann as I spin well and he spins poorly. In the end 3 rangers finally break free to hide behind 5 hammerers and win the game. Meanwhile Josh wins, and mark loses so we end up Boldo 4-2-1, Josh 3-3-1 and Mark 2-2-3. While we sit quietly waiting to see the fanatasy results they anounce the 40k results and Chris Courtney finishes third overall and Shaun Kemp wins. So the 40k guys can now lord it over us. Then to make matters worse I lose to Josh in the overall standing because the jusdges love his appearance and composition. Well he is 19th and I am 21st so after 7 games, 2 days and lots of jokes about the blowjobs Josh gave to the judges we finally head home. Boldo the artifact. We |