On the drive home Thursday, I had the unpleasant realization that Games Day was two days off, one of which was going to be spent… prepping for Games Day.  Basically, that I had Thursday night to finish whatever I was going to enter into the Golden Daemon.

That meant the Bonebreaker I’d had hopes for, but had tabled (thanks to uselessness in 8th), wasn’t going to happen.

I was also quite certain that this was going to be the last Games Day in Baltimore (and therefore the Golden Daemon I’d be able to enter), so there was no reason not to enter into as many categories as possible.

In the end, I painted up the banner on the Doomwheel and that was it.  Everything else was entered as-is.

My entries (just re-posting pics, here, not taking new ones; hence the lack of Doomwheel banner for now):

Warhammer 40K Single Miniature: Dark Angels Librarian

Mostly wanted to see how well he’d do, as I’d painted him in about half a day before the first Rapid Fire.

Warhammer 40K Squad:  Bloodless Bloodletters

Why not, right?  I knew these guys weren’t going anywhere, because they’re modeled… imperfectly.  The seam between face and cranium is one of those things you don’t know to watch for until it’s way too late.  Still, they’re the most unique squad I have.

Folks had commented on them: people I didn’t know would know about my Daemons mentioned that they knew I’d done my whole army this way.  That was kinda neat.

Warhammer 40K Vehicle: Dark Angels Venerable Dreadnought

Mostly because I was trying to hit as many categories as possible.  If I’d realized he’d be a vehicle and not a monster, I’d have submitted one of my Daemon Princes, as well.  No worries, though.

Warhammer Single Figure: Skaven Warlord

Yeah, this guy.  I’d been seriously considering doing my Warlock Engineer, but he came out the other side of rebasing for the worse, and my wife convinced me that this guy was much cooler.

She was right: he made First Cut and, I was told, was extremely close to actually winning an award.  Hot-damn.

Warhammer Monster: Doomwheel

This guy was a no-brainer, but he needed a banner.  That’s what ate my Thursday.  I’ll post pics later.

This was, to understate, a Doomwheel-heavy competition.  Mine was one of three.

It was also one of two to make First Cut.  Boo-yeah.

Lord of the Rings Single Miniature: Haradrim Troll

I’d planned on entering this fellow last year… but made the mistake of looking at Dave Taylor’s blog the morning of the event.  That’s a great way to make yourself feel like an incompetent modeler.  This year, I just went with it.

Misunderstood how things worked in the late afternoon: all of my stuff was still in the cases, and I thought that meant all of it had made the cut (hence the ecstatic FB posts & Tweets).  This was not the case.  Rather, only two models (the Warlord and Doomwheel) made first cut.  Although this means four entries didn’t; I’m okay with that… it means First Cut means a lot more.  Being one of ~5 models means a lot more than being one of ~25.

Overall, I’m quite happy with my performance and satisfied with myself.  I can continue being insufferable as a first-place loser in the Golden Daemon for another year!