The Colonial GT in Review by Kevinmcd28

Hey all Kevin here from B2TW reporting in after the Colonial GT. The Colonial was a GT in Princeton, NJ at the awesome (yet expensive)Westin hotel. The GT was able to get the players a reduced rate as well as other deals that made a stay at the venue very worth it. As I am told it was originally a Fantasy GT that is the equivalent of the Nova Open for 40k that decided, after changing hands, to start up a 40k GT starting this year and did they ever get a turn out! The tournament had to overflow slots and reached a good 48 players including the likes of Jawaballs, Ted Nagel, as well as two Golden Daemon players and your favorite assortment of tournament regulars. The War Store was there as well with a full out stand. It was a successful weekend and I'd like to congratulate all the organizers on an overall awesome event. So now into the event itself!

So I took the train down to my hometown in New Jersey to meet my good 40k buddy Marcus and took an hour trip down to Princeton. We showed up Friday night with the EO in the lobby to greet us, Mastermoulder (sorry I have a horrible time with names), from there we checked in and settled into a pretty decent room and then went down to the lounge to get some wings which had a full bar right next to the gaming area. During the event there was a bar in the fantasy gaming area with a waitress running between both fantasy and 40k events which is always a nice touch. The fantasy room was open and all set up for open games Friday night. The room was packed with well known players and good buddies from both systems.

The next day we woke up for the first three rounds. The tournament was being run by the boys from Brothers Grimm btw. I was rocking my Dark Eldar in their 1850 tournament premier! I had the Baron with his haemonculus friends, two squads of warriors, two squads of bloodbrides, four raiders and two ravagers. All this rounded up with a squad of reavers. Originally I was set up to play Jawaballs himself (aha! a very good match up for me and a not so good one for the Jawa!) Unfortunately there was a mess up with pairings and I got switched to another table. In the end I drew up a very good Wolves player named John Ortega. He is a very good player and tournament regular. What was set up to be a very good and balanced match turned into me laughing at my dice. We both agreed that we have never seen a game with dice as bad as mine. I literally had 1 glancing and 1 penetrating hit the entire game out of about 30 or 40 dark light weapon shots. It didn't help all my 5 and 6's came on leadership tests either. The game ended with one warrior and a blaster. At least I got a great game on my score card for the upbeat attitude I got after each one and two I got on a 3+ to hit. The game effectively took me out of the tournament. I decided to keep the dice since obviously statistically all of the bad rolls possible happened in one game (I was very wrong). The Colonial kept up a good attitude about the game so I would try and redeem myself throughout the tournament which I did and had a very good time.

One thing I did noticed among the field of players there was a lot of odd lists. I could tell from experience with these players that many a hardcore player brought out something from the back of thier closet for this event. I have to assume it was the laid back approach the Colonial tried to take. This did not discourage many players from bringing some of thier well known armies such as Sean Nayden and his drop pod Vulkan list that has spanked many players including myself and Jawaball's infamous current 1850 list. Yet still we had players such asbill McFadden of SNEG rocking out his old namesake Ork army, and Ted Nagel with a not-so-typical deathwing army that was extremely fun to play against. Yeah this caused a little parody in the field where some really good players were floating around the bottom while it did allow an upstart Eldar player from Florida take a commanding lead after the first day with what I believe was three massacres. He ended up losing game 4 to club mate Simon and his Sisters army(who also almost won the event but lost on the top table in the final game, simon another tournament just out of your grasp! =[ ) With very good missions this made the entire tournament a lot more fun than a standard one. So anyway back to the action!

Game two saw me play Duncan McNiel-Burton and his Wolves. He ended up pressing forward and getting all his Grey hunters out in the open to rapid fire my hellions with the Baron in cover, with FNP... hehe ;] What looked like a sweep for me ended up with my army pressing forward and wiping out most of his army, although suffering casualties. Eventually at the end of the game most of my army got shot up to death as well as a few unlucky morale checks put the game unfavored against me. We ended up tieing the secondary and tertiary with the primary failing me with my Hellions running off on turn 7! A very good hard fought game. Things were getting even worse for me at this point.

Game three saw me play a tyranid player whose name I forget. Now Dark Eldar are the worst possible matchup for the bugs and the game basically proved that. I only lost a squad of blood brides and a Raider due to me wanting to see what would happen at the end of the game if I assaulted the his tyrant and guard. A near tabling for me with max points. So a good end to a pretty unlucky day for me. Marcus and I ended up hitting up the town and college for the night for a couple good cigars and good food! I've always liked Princeton and never miss a chance to hit up the town.

Now the tables and terrain were very good this first day. A mix of felt tables and some very nice ones. terrain had at least a 25% coverage with some good LOS blocking pieces....not bad fora first time 40k GT here.

The next day I ended up drawing Bill from SNEG fame. I play Bill at my RI FLGS and know him well. He was playing his orks In a not so bad match up for me. I decided to reserve most of my assault element which was my downfall. I had only my Reavers show up turn two with one unit a turn for the rest of the game. It didn't help that I was losing bloodbrides by the handful. I ended up getting tabled....ehhhh the reserves game doesn't work anymore. It is too random. So the final game I drew Ted Nagel and his Deathwing!

The game played out at first exactly how you would think. I was set up to table him after popping his two raiders in the first two turns as well as take out his command terminator squad. after that I saw some of the best rolling I have ever seen. I got greedy and moved in for the kill with most of my army. I ended up getting tied up with terminators making an unheard of amount of saves each turn. He also got rid of most of my vehicles. The game ended up getting close with a win for me if one Raider and some hellions could survive! Yet my Raider got destroyed and my hellions failed a morale test after one model died! The game ended with a primary and tertiary draw with a seize ground secondary win for Ted.

So the tournament did not go my way, ehh better luck for me next time. The event was overall an awesome one at that and I will be attending it next year. The tournament was taken by Daemeon Green and his awesome Space Marine Army.

Now there was a bit of controversy over some for the overall awards. there was also a bit of controversy over how the painting was judged for the event. I questioned my painting score at the end of the tournament since I painted this army specifically for the event. Painting was judged very harshly by the judges by some admit by themselves but it was out of the fact the tournament did contain two Golden Daemon winners. When asking how my score was given, and how to improve it, after the event I got a fairly negative response. Yet the TO's were kind of upset over a mess up with the awards given out so emotions were high and I don't blame Dave or the other guys for it. Also a Paint Judge could decide if he did not like the content he could decide not give a point for the said category according to the TO. I got only a 5 out of 21 for my painting in what should have been either a 12-15 due to the rubric from unbiased sources. For example there were 3 points possible for fluff in your army(the only little bit of comp in the tournament) but the TO decided he didnt like my fluff so I got a 0 in that category. I dropped about 10 spots in the tournament due to this finishing somewhere near the bottom which is kind of disappointing. Now no need to cry over spilled paint and I do plan a lot more for my army anyway so I take this as motivation! Jawaballs ended up taking 7th for appearance and 16th in the tournament which is excellent! To touch on a past point there was also some controversy in Best General technically going to the 7th best overall player by way of judgement on how prizes were given out. So even though best general had a better prize than 2nd best overall the guy who did came in 2nd for battle points got 2nd best overall and not best general.

Now I do plan on attending next year and hopefully for Fantasy since the way the 40k ended up being handled in the end kind of left a sour taste in my mouth from the judging point of view. None of this had an impact on the tournament as a whole which was beyond awesome. There was a raffle involving a ton of people getting everything from books to awesome model kits! I hope my dice have better luck next time as a few of the blue ones have been sentenced to the microwave for melting in front of the others. I already have the Colonial on my calender for next year...more on this later including videos from my channel as well as Jawaballs himself...As I get the videos done Ill be posting them to the bottom of this article......so do I dare say? More to come! (hopefully including some better dice rolls)