Travel and Accommodations:
On Thursday, I flew out to Milwaukee, WI, and met the first part of the group traveling out of California. There is no direct flight on Southwest Airlines (which I use as it is cheap) to Wuapaca, WI, where the tournament was actually held so we had to fly into another city and drive in. We chose to fly into Milwaukee because it seemed like the closest and easiest drive to Waupaca and a fun place to spend Thursday night. As an added bonus I have some family in Milwaukee that I hadn't seen since I was in High School so the trip gave me a chance to catch up over some dinner at Mader’s. That night we stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel, a great little place in the heart of downtown Milwaukee close to lots of bars and restaurants.
Thursday night saw the group of us traveling nerds (Leadership 2's Ed Phillips and Michael Hengl, and Low Comp Crew’s Josh Young) went out to experience the Milwaukee nightlife at the infamous Safe House spy bar. This bar may be one of the coolest places I have ever been. Think Spy vs. Spy! I don’t want to give to much away about this place except to say it is fun, and encourages surreptitious activities and drinking. They happen to have a gigantic drink called the Mission Impossible, which, if you finish as Michael and I did, you get to keep the bowl the drink came in.
On Friday, we picked up the last member of our entourage (Guns an’ Warpstone’s Josh Rosenstein) and began the roughly 2 and ½ drive to Waupaca. Before we headed out we stopped at a local Piggly Wiggly to load up on canned goods to donate to the tournament (thus generating another Sportsmanship point and helping the local food pantry). Also, somehow both Joshes had managed to forget their raffle prizes so we had to make an additional detour to a “special” shop to pick up “special gifts” for the tournament raffle. These gifts would later be wrapped in paper and marked non-sterile by the tournament staff.
We arrived in Wuapaca early Friday evening and checked in to the tournament hotel, the Comfort Inn & Suites there. The hotel was a nice surprise. It was clean, extremely close to the venue (maybe 30 yards), and provided a tolerable free continental breakfast in the morning. More impressive was the pool and hot tub that hotel staff allowed us to use late into the mornings in order to rest before the next day's games. The rooms comfortably slept three Gamers (as there was a full-size pull out couch), but could easily sleep five or six Gamers if they were willing to give up a little space.
Tournament Venue:
The tournament venue was the Waupaca Ale House which is a fully functional convention center, restaurant, and bar with a game room for late night pool and darts. Right across the parking lot, less than 30 yards, was the tournament hotel which made carrying armies to the venue (as well as drunk stumblings back to the room) very easy. The restaurant and bar had good food and drinks at extremely reasonable prices (32 oz beers for $7.50 is nothing to complain about!) and could be put onto your hotel room bill so that everything could be paid for at one time at the end of the trip.
I absolutely loved this venue and I can see that it is one of the main attractions for the tournament. It helped make the entire event seem more organized and compact as everyone participating was staying at the hotel, eating and drinking at the bar, and hanging out in the game room or at the hotel's hot tub which led to much more social interaction before, between, and after rounds than at many other tournaments I have participated in.
The tournament itself was split into two rooms. The first room held the first 38 or 39 tables and was where the majority of games were played. There was also a small side room across the hall that held 4 additional tables. The main room was well organized and there was lots of space to move around, display armies, and hide gaming materials/display boards during rounds. I would rate this venue as one of the better venues I have ever played a tournament at (I think it even beats the Alamo's venue even though the beer is cheaper in San Antonio). This is a great example of a tournament venue and is what tournament organizers should look for when planning a tournament.
Gaming Tables and Terrain:
The venue provided tables upon which the tournament staff placed roughly 1/2 inch thick wood tables. Each table was different from the way it was based to the type and amount of terrain that was available and each table had a clearly marked table number which explained the terrain rules for that specific board. There was a space next to each board to place necessary items like books, markers and dice, and there was plenty of space to walk around in between tables so that the space didn't feel crowded.
Most of the boards were pretty standard with roughly 5 pieces of terrain on them. The terrain was a combination of hand made and purchased terrain and looked great on the tables. However, there were a few boards that seemed to be designed for fun rather than tournament play and significantly impacted the game either because the terrain rules themselves were different from standard 8th edition rules, or because the terrain itself was unwieldy.
Terrain placement was already set by the tournament organizers. I particularly hate this practice as it prevents players from utilizing terrain to their army's advantage or their opponent's disadvantage. Tournament placed terrain seems to make the key terrain pieces less of an issue in a game. For example, in Round 1, there was piece of terrain on the board which gave all units within 6" a negative 1 to their Leadership. However, the small piece was set up so far on the right side of the board that it had absolutely no impact on the game. In other rounds I saw some terrain - like buildings and trees - placed outside the normal deployment zone while impassible pieces of terrain would be placed in only one person's deployment zone so they had a smaller area to deploy in. And on some boards the terrain was so far to the sides, like in my Round 3 game, that my opponent was able to deploy their entire army in the center of their deployment zone and moved straight forward each turn, never having to so much as wheel a unit.
I feel that tournaments are still behind the curve on terrain requirements. I know I have made this rant before, but there still isn't enough terrain on the board (especially forests) to offset the current horde meta. Lots of players complain about seeing the same army designs, but if you put enough terrain on the board so that units might end up fighting in or near terrain (which has varying effects in 8th edition), the army lists would change. Just think about how many less giant Skaven slave units you would see if they were not Steadfast all the time because you were making them fight in the woods.
Scoring:
The scoring rules for this tournament I have already discussed in an earlier post, but after seeing how the scoring really worked at the tournament, here are my thoughts. First, the tournament fronts you 10 Sportsmanship points, and it is really easy to get at least 3, if not 5, of the remaining points. Which means that you are really only competing for 5 (maybe 7) Sportsmanship points at the tournament. Second, the way the scenarios were designed, it was very easy to lose the game and still get 2 or even 3 battle points for that Round. The average battle point score for the tournament was 12 points (with the highest being 19 and the lowest 4). Between the scenarios and the fronted sportsmanship points a player is, in reality, starting with 20 out of the possible 60 total points.
That leaves the only way to really differentiate yourself from the pack (even if you win) is by having a great paint score. If you brought in an amazingly painted army, participated in the normal sports stuff, and had a losing record, you could still make it into the top 20 pretty easily. This tournament, and the tournament organizers have admitted this, is really an army showcase tournament. If you want to win, you need to have a great paint score in the 15-17 points or higher range, where at other tournaments higher battle points and sportsmanship scores are needed to place well (Look at the Bay Area Open point spread for example). Further, the way the system is designed, it doesn't allow for a lot of deviation in tournament scores so rankings are based on strength of schedule as the tie breaker. The top 40 places didn't have much variation and gaining an additional single point with a high strength of schedule could shot someone 5-10 places.
Complete scores for the tournament are available here, but my score breakdown was as follows: In total, I got 40 points. 17 battle points, 15 sportsmanship points, and 8 paint points.
If you remember my earlier post I was really hoping for 16 Sportsmanship points but for the first tournament in the last couple of years I failed to get a single favorite opponent vote (this is something I will definitely have to work on for next year!). I think part of this was caused by some rather astounding luck I had in a few games where I went from a decisive loss to a win in a single turn which almost always throws an opponent off, and part of it was caused by my own shyness and not feeling comfortable with such a large group of players that I had never seen or played against before.
In painting, well, what can I say. I predicted 8 points based on having to borrow models and that is exactly what I got. But for next year I will have a heavily painted and nicely converted army to play with that will hopefully get me 15 or more paint points which would jump me into the top ten.
As for battle points, I was happy with the 17 battle points that I earned in the games though there were two spots where I should have garnered an additional point and ended up with 19. But I am still very happy with 17 battle points and an overall 4-1 record for the weekend. I can't really improve much on this next year except to play just as well (and maybe try and keep my losses to a minimum).One of the only things I really disliked about this tournament was that army composition was only addressed by a simple "would you play this army again" check at the end of the game. And as you only needed a majority of players to think that the would play your army again, even if they didn't really like it, or thought it was overpowered (because who doesn't want to play the same guy with the same army they just lost too and win the next game) you got the bonus Sportsmanship point. Luckily, I didn't see too many armies that I thought were broken or over the top at 2000 points (except for the Skaven and Empire armies).
Prizes:
The prizes for this tournament were amazing. They were handmade weapons by The Bear himself and included war axes, shields, helmets, and a complete set of everything for the overall winner. I wish I had my camera out on Friday night when they were first paraded around before us because after that time they were locked away in a secret vault only to be brought out again at awards time.
If you'd like to see pictures, this is the shield that was designed for Best Sportsman.
Comparative Army Lists:
In comparison to the Alamo GT, the lists I saw were not nearly as over the top, or broken, as one would expect. I think this was because 2000 points hurts certain net army designs and so players are forced to drop certain items or unit choices that they normally wouldn't. I think this was also because there was a general consensus at the tournament that people were there to have fun and debut their new armies for the year or finish up the last tournament with their old armies and so they were not min-maxing their army design, but were having fun playing the game.
That being said, there were a few armies that definitely maximized their 2000 point allotment. Empire players in particular seemed to be playing similar tough lists that included at least 10 knights, a steam tank, and some kind of war machine. There was also a triple scream Vampire Counts list with 150 zombies that was being played by no less than 7 players (Team Autobreak brought an identical list to play at the tournament and it was a rough list when played right).
Overall Experience:
Overall, my experience at the tournament was fantastic. I will definitely be attending next year (work schedule permitting) and will be working on painting an army that is up to the tournament quality that I saw throughout the weekend. I better get crackin'!
Random Pictures:
Here are a few random Man of Intrigue models that were entered into either the "Most Humorous" or "Biggest Badass" competition.
This fair maid is giving the deceased gentleman his last "send off" as his ghost watches!
A vampire bar serving nothing but PBR.
Trogdor comes in the night!
The Nurgle fisherman complete with empty cans of PBR. Note; PBR was a big theme in the Man of Intrigue models this year.
An Ogre fighting a giant snake. This was the tallest of the Man of Intrigue models.
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