Templecon!

Hey Folks! Jawaballs here:

This was originally supposed to be posted up on BOLS but it seems to have been lost in the queue. So I am posting it up here first!  I normally don't like to double post here and on BOLS so if you see it go up there, sorry! Articles like this are sort of time reliant since if you wait too long after the event the buzz already dies down before the article goes up.  Some of this has already been covered such as the stuff about Stanton, but I copied the article in it's entirety for the sake of convenience. Plus, people have been asking for my performance report in the Templecon 1850 tournament. Enjoy! Jawaballs

This weekend (2/4/2011) I had the nice experience of being surprised by a gaming event.  I went out to Warwick, Rhode Island to play in an 1850 40k tournament at Templecon and was completely unprepared for what I saw.  More on the tournament in a bit.

My friend Jim and I walked into the hotel to find what could only be described as a modernized Victorian street fair, complete with busting corsets and Tie Fighter Pilots! Welcome to Steam Punk Jawaballs.  It seems Steam Punk is a style of dress that fusions Victorian style with mechanical workings and neo modern accessories.  One guy was dressed like a British safari expedition leader, but was carrying a laser pistol.  Lots of other people had brass looking goggles with gothic accessories and Victorian dresses.  Pretty cool.  Unfortunately I had little time to experience the entire seen as I arrived later than I wanted to, had to deal with getting checked in and finding out that my reservation was actually made for the night before, had to make a new res at a nearby Holiday Inn, had to go get checked in, and then had to teach my friend Jim how to play 40k.  (Yes I brought a buddy who had never played a full game of 40k to a competitive tournament. Trial by fire.)

What I did see of it was gaming, gaming and more gaming.  They had tournaments for FoW, Magic, Hordes... pretty much every game you could think of. They had huge rooms devoted to table top board games, D&D, etc.  In fact, you could not walk 10 feet without tripping over a group of gamers playing some role playing game or a couple of Steam Punk hotties posing for pictures. If only I had more time and my good camera.

So I apologize to the Templecon guys because had I realized it was such a huge, fantastic event, I would have gone for the entire thing and covered it in style.  I promise that next year I will be there in full force and do a real article on it. For now, enjoy a few pictures from the Templecon site, and look forward to next years coverage!

Steam Punk Karaoke?

Way cool.

So that's what happened to DJ Jazzy Jeff!

Oh well, on with the tournament review.

Templecon had a lot of 40k events. It started with a doubles tournament on Friday, and a huge no force org 2500 point tournament on Friday Night.  Then on Saturday they ran an ETC style team tournament, won by Alex Fenel and his CT club team.  Those dudes are hard core!  Here is a picture of their trophy:

Sweet!

I have to admit I am jealous. That trophy would look fantastic on my shelf!  Notice my destroyed Storm Raven sitting right next to it.  I almost go to play on their team too.  Battle For Salvation was unable to muster a team to go, so maybe next year Alex will extend me an invite!  

On with why I was there.  I went out just to play in the 40k 1850 singles tournament and to drink beer.  The tournament started at 6 and ran well into the night. (I think we got to bed at 3am.)  And yes, beer was drank. 

So about my friend Jim.  This guy is a gamer and model painter, but had never played a full game of 40k.  I got him into it by showing him my stuff from my after school club. He is also a teacher at my school.  I designed a competitive 1850 Space Marine list for him, and he got the models and painted them up.  Sadly I did not get a picture of the army.  But I will be writing an article about it on my blog soon.  

Trial by fire:

I dragged Jim out to this tournament having only been able to show him the basic workings of the game.  Before round one I had a couple hours to brief him on ways to deal with other armies, and how to play the Nova format, which is definitely more advanced than the tiny bit of experience he had with the rule book missions.  I warned him, be prepared for a good solid ass kicking.  And game one certainly was not kind to him.  He played a fellow Blood Angels player Bill, whom I met at Mechanicon and Battle for Salvation. I asked Bill to be kind and he winked and nodded.  An hour later I looked over and Jim was gone down to the bar. Bill had tabled him.  Way to be kind buddy! :)  

But Jim fought on!  Luckily for him the solid beating left him at the bottom of the list, and up against a Tau army played by a guy who was also very new.  Jim discovered the pleasures of close combat against non marine armies, and a single Legion of The Damned sgt. killed no less than 44 fire warriors.  Jim got a win, and went on to play a decent Black Templar player with two full games under his belt, and managed to sculpt out another victory.  I have to say this is nothing less than outstanding!  The man went 2-1 in his first 3 games of 40k ever, all the more surprising since it was done in a competitive atmosphere.  Could it be the teacher?  :)

On with my games:

Game one: Blood Angels vs Dark Eldar

I found myself up against a DE player who seemed to be a 3rd or 4th ed player newly returned to 40k.  Maybe the new codex brought him out of retirement.  He had mostly new models and they were beautiful. (He won best painted.)  He had 4 or 5 raiders, two Talos pain engines, some named character with a 2+ invul, lots of warriors and wychs, some reavers and the shirtless guys in khaki pants with glowing hands.  

What was I running?  Ever attempting to stay ahead of the meta game, I switched up my list heavily. I was anticipating army after army filled with razorbacks, auto/las preds and rifleman dreads.  A trend admittedly fostered in part by yours truly with a big dose of Stelek.  Inspried by a game in which my Land Raider Crusader went wild against an army using mostly auto cannon dreads and no Melta, I decided to go with three land raiders and a Storm raven. I played two god hammers and one crusader. Inside the crusader I had a 10 man assault squad with chap, priest, PW and Melta.  The other two raiders housed naked 5 man squads.  The raven carried Mephiston and a furioso dread with blood talons.  

On with the game!

So my opponent went first and started off by popping one of my god hammers with a lance. But this would be just about all the destruction he would muster the entire game.  The Storm Raven turbo boosted 24 and popped a raider, pinning the guys inside. Next turn I assaulted them with the dread, killing them all, while Mephiston who was short on his own assault, braced for impact. On my opponent's turn he assaulted Meph with his named character, a talos engine and a squad of Incubi after a lot of shooting.  Meph killed the engine and a good number of the incubi but went down.  But the damage was being dealt by my dread, crusader, godhammer and the raven.  The flyer alone accounted for 3 dead raiders and a bunch of dead incubi. My opponent knew what he was doing, but I think failed to fully grasp the subtle nuances of 5th ed and the Nova format.  At the end of the game which ended on turn five I was holding more objectives then he was.  Once his lances were dead the rest of my raiders proved hard to kill indeed.

Game Two:

I got to play a guy named Roger who was thrilled to get a chance to throw down with Jawaballs.  He was playing a big bug army with lots of the big guys, some gargoyles and 30 stealers.  The mission was KP and the deployment was spearhead. I won the roll, took the choicest side that gave him the least amount of cover, and he failed to seize.  

Roger tries to muster his bugs

Land Raider Crusader draws a bead on a big bug.

And there is Sean Nayden in the background. Die Sean Die.

(sorry these are the last of my pics)

With an apology and a smile, I began destroying bugs that were unable to get cover saves and Genestealers who came out of reserve to try to assault Land Raiders.  Mephiston cut them down while big bugs exploded from afar.  After just a couple rounds the game was over.  If Roger tried to advance the bugs they undoubtedly ended up in open terrain eating Las, or being intercepted by Mephiston and the Furioso Dread. I jumped out to an early lead in KP which put the ball entirely in my court, never to even bounce in his. But not all games are about winning and losing. Roger and I had a great time. We joked and bantered, he was in good spirits despite losing bugs in droves, we shared some Captain Morgans and enjoyed ourselves.  Later I bought him a beer.  Had the circumstances been reversed I would still say that these are the kinds of games I go to these tournaments for.  Good laughs, and new friends.  See you next time Roger!

Game Three:

After the severe beating I handed Roger I ended up on the number one table playing for all the mustard. My opponent? Jeff from Battle for Salvation.  He was playing Blood Angels with 2 ravens, filled with DC dreads, astrorath, a chaplain and DC.  He also had two TL Las Razors with naked squads and a squad of scout bikers with melta gun.  Brutal and effective.  He won the roll to go first and lined me up for his alpha strike.  Drat.

But I survived with minimal losses!  He destroyed my Raven on the first shot, and took the ass can off my crusader.  I disembarked my 10 man RAS and moved my dread and meph into position to take down his raven holding a DC dread, astro and 5 DC with PWs.  The bikers took losses and failed leadership, running back from shoting, and I killed the raven, but was unable to assault his boys.  Astro and the DC went after my 10 man squad while he sent the dread after Mephiston. Meph got the jump on the dread and cut it in half, but all 10 of the assault marines would die. I should have left them in the transport.  But thats ok, Meph and my furioso jumped in to save my chaplain for a turn, killed Astro and the DC and cleared up my zone for the time being.  

On his turn he killed my dread with Las fire and moved up his second raven.  Meph was down to two wounds at this point and my chaplain was dead.  Meph took a wound by rolling box cars for his jump pack, and was forced to hide for a round instead of going out to kill.  I started shooting at and killed both of his Razorbacks.  

His second Storm Raven killed one of my god hammers and the other got immobilized.  But I took it down, leaving him with 5 DC and a chaplain. I just remembered that he should have been moving his DC models due to the Rage rule. Oh well!  I don't know if that would have changed any thing other than forcing him to move out his Death Company instead of using them to actually claim a corner. They hid behind the dead raven. (Victory points claimed corners, the unit need not be scoring.) He had some tactical marines from inside the razorbacks hanging around. 

On to the end game:

We were playing for table quarters, and you had to have 100 more victory points in a corner than your opponent. I tried to go kill his dread but Meph rolled box cars again on Str 10 sword and died before even getting into grips.  I claimed two corners and he had three tactical marines totaling 100 victory points in one, and his DC squad and dread in another. Creating a draw. All I had to do was kill one of the 3 marines with my land raider crusader shooting and I would have won the game.  I caused five wounds on the last shots of the game, and he had to make 4 armor and a cover save... he made them all.  Blammo. Draw, with a minor victory going to me because I held a secondary objective.  

It was a bloody, fun and exciting game. The essence of what 40k is all about!  

I ended up taking 4th overall, while my friend Jim got 6th overall and 2nd best sportsman.  Fun tournament and well worth the two hour drive!

So that wraps up Templecon 2011. Next year Fritz and I will definitely be in attendance and I will be taking part in all of the 40k events.  But more importantly, I will be able to take in more of the scene in general, cover some of the Steam Punk events, enjoy some of the presenters and have more of a complete gaming experience.  

Hope you enjoyed reading my article!  Be sure to CHECK OUT MY BLOG for pics of Jim's Ultramarines and more on other projects I have in the works.

Jawaballs