Tag Archives: tournaments

IFL 3rd Quarter RTT & AAR

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Saturday, I ran the 3rd Quarter IFL RTT.

It was a 40K Tournament, using much of the NoVA Open structure, with the intent of giving our members an opportunity to get a feel for the format.  16 people made it out which, given the bracketing format, was perfect.  As we’re about as local as it gets, Mike Brandt came by and helped make sure everything went smoothly.

Casey Campbell‘s Tyranids and Jeff Payne’s Space Hogs (Space Wolves) went undefeated.  Doug McNaron’s World Eaters won the Player’s Choice award.

Scores and pairings can be found here.

A bit of a rambling AAR follows:

  • The format worked well.  I’ve run a bit hot and cold on it over the past several months, but it undeniably ran quite smoothly.

    In terms of matching and the hard side of things, the tournament practically ran itself.

  • Concerns about the bracketing approach frustrating some players with early losses weren’t unfounded.  Several players were (vocally) upset about being matched up against known stronger players.  Before the tournament started, they “knew” that they didn’t have a chance of winning the event.

    That can’t really be helped.  And, fundamentally, it wouldn’t be any different with a Swiss-style tournament save that the “you must be undefeated” expectation is explicit, rather than implicit.

    Ultimately, we had three players drop out of the tournament. One left due to frustration over two rough games, another having to leave in the name of spousal appeasement.  These two players coordinated their departure, to ensure it wouldn’t impact the tournament.

  • The third departure had nothing (and everything) to do with frustration. Chris Shriner: at the top table in the third round, playing for one of the two “Undefeated Player” slots was called into work two-thirds of the way through the game.
  •  The soft score side of things was a disaster, in my opinion.  That’s entirely my fault.

    For me, it’s essential to have a soft score component to a tournament.  I think they’re an important part of the hobby and, therefore, they need to be an important part of tournament.

    Unfortunately, because I’d been waiting for an indication of how the NoVA Open was going to handle Appearance and Sportsmanship awards, I put off announcing any system until it was too late.  (If you’re going to use an objective Appearance checklist, you need to advertise what it is with sufficient time to let participants try to adhere to it.)  That meant I had to fall back on the “Player’s Choice” approach we used at the last 40K IFL RTT: rank every other player.  Weight those ranks.  Whoever’s ranked highest wins an award.

    I can’t complain too much about this approach: I’ve won that award, but the approach is, overall, slapdash and doesn’t value enough what I consider to be important.

    Furthermore, I 1) didn’t allow for enough time for people to look at the other armies and 2) wasn’t successfully able to get people to leave them out on display.

    Because Game Parlor keeps poor hours (11AM to 9PM), and the NoVA Open format allows for two hour, fifteen minute rounds, time was tight, so I only scheduled a 30 minute lunch break.  When all was said and done, I should and could have stretched that out to an hour.  We were packed up and done before 8:30 (closer to 8), so an extra 30 minutes wouldn’t have hurt us.

    Yelling, “Don’t put your armies away before lunch” wouldn’t have hurt, either.

    I’m dissatisfied enough with how the soft stuff came out that I feel like I need to apologize to everyone for it.

  • Interesting thing: Mike Gatewood made an unhappy comment about how Doug always wins Best Appearance / Player’s Choice / etc.  Suggesting that it was a bad thing that one person consistently wins the same award time and time again with the same army.  In some ways, that’s fair.

    But really, I’m completely okay with that.  If you’re tired of seeing someone win “Prettiest Army” again and again: step up.  Make an army that looks better than his, and bring it out.  If one player has an auto-win for that, it’s certainly not their fault: it’s the community’s.

  • It looks like most everyone who made it out had a good time.  That’s very important to me.

Goodbye, NoVA Open

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Yesterday, I learned that the IFL Calendar (where I get all my info for gaming events) incorrectly listed the NoVA Open as being on the 7th.  It’s on the 14th.

Unfortunately, so is a good friend’s wedding.  So, even though the NoVA Open is only about 5 minutes from where I normally game, I’m not going to be there.  Depending on how pre-nuptial events go down, I have a hope of swinging by and helping set up the day before (because I’d like to be involved in some fashion or another), but that’s certainly not a lock yet.

This is quite disappointing to me, especially as my excitement for the event had really been picking up.  Now, I just need to let my excitement about the wedding crush the disappointment about the Open.

You folks have fun without me.  (If such a thing is possible.)

Assorted, brief topics

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After seeing this post about Secret Weapon Miniatures‘ tutorials on Tabletop Gaming News (you’ve got that in your RSS reader, right?), I decided to take MisterJustin at his word and e-mail him to request a tutorial on using their Oxide Weathering Pigments.

That kicked off an e-mail exchange with some solid advice about how I’d go about integrating them with the way I’m currently doing brass/bronze that made me feel comfortable enough ordering the powders to play around with.

I mention it because I was really impressed with the quick and extremely helpful response.  That’s fantastic customer support, that is.

Last night, I had an interview with Pat from The 11th Company.

Given that I’m still confused as to why anyone would bother reading anything I’d have to write about hobby stuff, I’m truly bewildered that anyone would want to listen to anything I’d have to say.  I think the chat went well: I’ll make a note here to let folks know when they can tune in and hear me sound like an idiot.

It looks like the Forgeworld Friendly Tournament I’ve been planning to run next weekend is probably going to be cancelled, which is disappointing.

There was a good initial wave of “I’ll be there!,” but now that we’re at a week out, we’ve still only got one (1) preregistration… so it seems like it’s probably for the best just to call it.  It’s a shame, because I think it could have filled a lack that the club’s had pretty much since 5th Ed. came out… but c’est la vie.

Since there’s no point in wasting them, I figure I might as well post the scenarios I’d been planning on using.  (Apologies for imperfect formatting; I uploaded the Word doc into Google Docs, and that made things a little wonky.)  They were all pretty straightforward: core book missions modified just a little bit:

  • Seize Ground, but with objective points accruing as the game proceeds… not just at the end of the game.
  • Annihilation, but with Kill Points weighted by Force Org chart
  • Capture & Control, but without objective control being determined by the last scoring unit to be near it.

I’d just recycle these for use in the IFL RTT in July, but given its proximity to the NoVA Open, we’re going to use that format.

6/19 – 40K ForgeWorld-Friendly Tournament

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Something that came out of the discussion about how to run the IFL RTT this past weekend was an observation that, before 5th Ed. came out, Flyers and other units from Imperial Armour books were par for the course at IFL tournaments.  When 5th ed came out, that vanished.

Now, I’ve got opinions about the default inclusion of Forgeworld rules that don’t necessarily jive, I think, with the wider 40K blogosphere (there’s a blog post on that rattling around in my head)… but regardless of what I think should and shouldn’t belong in a tournament baseline, there’s always room for tournaments that step away from the baseline.

So, I’ll be running a tournament with the express purpose of encouraging folks to break out their ForgeWorld models.

When: 6/19
Size: 16 Players
Registration Fee
This is not an IFL Member’s only event.  Everybody’s welcome!
Preregistration is $5 for IFL Members,  $10 for non-IFL Members.  Registration at the door is $10 for IFL Members, $15 for non-IFL Members.
Pre-registration can be given to any IFL council member (Ben, Chris K, Chris S, Doug or Me) or gifted via PayPal to Treasury@IronFistLeague.com (be sure to note in your payment what you are paying for).
Army Composition
  • 2,000 points
  • Legal GW Codices and Army Lists from Imperial Armour books only.
  • Forge World and GW Datasheet models and units are allowed. However:
    • See the Adepticon 2010 Imperial Armor & Apocalypse Units document to reference what armies can take what, as well as where to find the most recent rules for those models and units.
    • No Superheavies or gargantuan creatures.  On the off chance that doesn’t cover everything, no models with structure points, power fields or void shields.  No units identified as “WMD” in the Gladiator document.
    • You must provide rules for anything you put on the table.  If you do not have a hard copy of the rules (the FW book, a photocopy of the rules, etc.) for a model/unit, you may not put it on the table.
    • Be prepared to answer questions about your units.  Be prepared to repeat yourself.
  • The rules for Flyers found in Apocalypse will be used, rather than the rules for Flyers found in the various Imperial Armour books, with the following changes to update them to 5th Edition:
    • Flyers without  Hover Mode must always begin the game in reserve.
    • Blast weapons that do not have the anti-aircraft special rule cannot hit flyers
    • Units embarked in a flying transport that is not in Hover Mode never count as scoring units so long as they are embarked.
  • All models must be painted to, at minimum, the Three Color standard.
Scoring
  • Battle Points – (5-20 points, plus 4 possible bonus points/game) Scenarios will fundamentally be based on the rulebook missions, tweaked with some rules from the Battle Missions book.  VP will be tracked, at the very least, for tie-breaking.
  • Appearance – (0-30 points) Scored using the Army Appearance Checklist found in the Grand Tournament 2008 Packet.  This score will be reduced to 75% (that is, calculated score * .75).
  • Sportsmanship – (0-10 points/game) Scored using the Army Appearance Checklist found in the Grand Tournament 2008 Packet.
  • Favorite Player – (2 points/vote) Each player will note their favorite player.  Criteria for this is up to the player: you like their army the most, their attitude the best, or they paid you $10.
Prizes
100% of entry fee, plus (possibly, waiting on a vote) prize support from the IFL, will be split across the following prizes:
  • Highest Overall (40%)
  • Most Battle Points (30%)
  • Highest Soft Score (30%) (Everything but Battle Points)
Ties for overall will be broken by soft scores, then battle points, then overall VP.  Ties for battle points will be broken by overall VP, then soft scores.  Ties for soft score will be broken by battle points, then overall VP.
Sign up in this thread here, please, or in the comments on this thread.  If we run out of space, I’ll fill spaces by timestamp.

I’m pretty confident about the format here.

Sportsmanship and Appearance scores are there, and are objective.  Everyone showing up knows how they’ll be calculated.  I think that’s key.

The GT Sportsmanship checklist kinda-sorta covers comp the way I think it should be expressed.

Discounting bonus points and favorite player votes, hard and soft scores both roll up to the same maximum point level.  This is either very clever or a big mistake… but it’s intentional, regardless.

Shockingly, I’ve already written up the scenarios.  I think they’ll be fun; different enough from standard games to be interesting, but without too many special rules to make them goofy.

If you’re in the area, and can make it out to Game Parlor Chantilly, this should hopefully be a really good time!

IFL 2nd Quarter RTT

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We had the IFL 40K RTT yesterday.

The format was… imperfect.  Due to the excessive squeaking of a couple of squeaky wheels, the format was changed at the last minute to something that was pretty clearly put together by a Fantasy player without much familiarity with 40K.  Given that that’s what the TO was (non-40K-playing fellow council member Ben was doing the 40K playing council members a solid and running the 40K tournament so they could all play), this isn’t enormously surprising.

That’s not to say that it was a bad format.  Just not perfect.

All of the games had a special scenario rule.  Victory conditions were based entirely on Victory Points (with a margin of >= 300 points required for a win vs. a draw), and there were a couple of bonus victory points.

The problem with relying on VP is that they remove all of the checks that KP impose on the game.  They might not be perfect, but they really do provide a disincentive to loading up on transports and minimum strength units.

Also, it was at 1,800, which is a weird points level.  I’m quite certain this wasn’t intentional: just a non-40K player quickly trying to change tournament rules while 1) annoyed and 2) on vacation.

My List

HQ
Bloodthirster – Unholy Might
Bloodthirster – Unholy Might

Elites
Bloodcrushers x4 – Fury of Khorne, Icon, Musician

Troops
Bloodletters x16 – Fury of Khorne, Icon
Bloodletters x8 – Fury of Khorne, Icon

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x8 – Karanak
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury of Khorne

Heavy Support
Soul Grinder – Phlegm
Soul Grinder – Phlegm

In each game, I blew every single Powers of Chaos roll, and ended up with my Reserves Wave coming in at the beginning of each game.  Once is odds.  Three times is just goofy.  The scatter dice made up for it, though, as I nailed an unbelievable number of Deep Strike rolls: I think I don’t think I scatter more than twice in a single game.

Game 1

vs. Jeff Payne’s Eldar

HQ
Eldrad
Yriel

Elites
Striking Scorpions x10 – Exarch w/ Stalker & Scorpion Claw
– Wave Serpent – TL Shuriken Catapults, TL Shuriken Cannon, Spirit Stones

Troops
Storm Guardians x11 – Warlock w/ Embolden & Singing Spear, Fusion Gun x2
– Wave Serpent – TL Shuriken Catapults, TL Bright Lances, Spirit Stones
Storm Guardians x11 – Warlock w/ Destructor, Flamer x2
– Wave Serpent – TL Shuriken Catapults, TL Bright Lances, Spirit Stones
Guardian Jetbikes x8 – Warlock w/ Embolden, Singing Spear, Shuriken Cannon x2, TL Shuriken Catapults x4

Fast Attack
Vyper – Scatter Laser, TL Shuriken Catapults

Heavy Support 
Fire Prism – Holo-Field, Spirit Stones
Fire Prism – Holo-Field, Spirit Stones

Scenario rules involved a single Night Fight-style roll that affected all units on the table and got progressively worse as the game progressed.  Turn 1 was 6d6+6″ on down to Turn 7 as d6+6″.

It’s weird; every time I have a Disagreement with another IFL member, it turns out that within a couple of weeks, I’m at a tournament at Game Parlor Woodbridge playing them and the game proves theraputic.

Jeff and I had a very good game that, given the circumstances, was much closer than it should have been.

Mechanized is something that gives my army heartburn, and mechanized Eldar is even worse.  Jeff decided to throw caution to the wind and get in my face with the Guardians.  This actually worked quite well: a 5+(i) is still only a 5+ save, after all.

There was a lot more back and forth than there needed to be in that game, and I’m thankful for it.  It certainly made it a fun game.

I lost, of course.

Game 2

vs. Frank Abel‘s Space Marines

HQ
Shrike
Librarian – Terminator Armor, Epistolary, Avenger, Null Zone, Storm Shield

Elites
Assault Terminators x6 – Lightning Claws x1, Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield x6
Venerable Dreadnought – Multi-Melta, DCCW w/ Heavy Flamer, Extra Armor

Troops
Tactical Squad x10 – Meltagun, Lascannon
– Razorback – TL Assault Cannon, Dozer Blade, Extra Armor
Tactical Squad x10 – Meltagun, Lascannon
– Razorback – TL Assault Cannon, Dozer Blade, Extra Armor
Tactical Squad x10 – Flamer, Plasma Cannon

Heavy Support
Land Raider Crusader

Scenario was especially weird: all movement was cut in half, even fleeing, running, and the assault fall-in.  Also, all line of sight was reduced to 20″.  Think about that.

Frank is really my kryptonite.  I don’t think I’ve ever beaten him; it’s weird.

The range restriction on shooting didn’t handicap him nearly as much as it could have because I was all up in his face as quickly as possible.  The movement penalty was a huge problem for me, though.  Early on his Librarian and the Terminators assaulted the Bloodthirster, who pasted the Librarian as quickly as possible.  (Null Zone bad!)

The terminators, and then Shrike, ended up chewing their way through the small unit of Bloodletters before getting stuck in with the large unit in a combat that lasted the rest of the game.  Bloodthirsters died to massed fire, which is usually what kills them.

In the end, it was a pretty close game.  Had my last Bloodcrusher survived long enough to toss some attacks on Shrike in the last round, we’d probably have drawn.  A very good game, though.

Game 3

vs. Scott Ripley’s Blood Angels

(probably going to get this wrong, but we’ll try)

HQ
Company Captain – Combi-melta, Power Weapon

Elites
Furioso Dreadnought – Librarian, Blood Lance, Sanguine Sword, Extra Armor, Magna-Grapple
Furioso Dreadnought – Blood Talons, Extra Armor, Magna-Grapple
Sanguinary Priest – Powerfist, Meltabombs
Corbulo

Troops
Scouts x 5 – Sniper Rifle x5
Tactical Squad x10 – Missile Launcher, Power Sword, Plasmagun
– Rhino – Extra Armor
Assault Squad x10 – Hand Flamer, Power Weapon
– Razorback – TL Lascannon, Extra Armor

Fast Attack
Vanguard Veterans x5 – Power Weapon, Meltabombs, Plasma Pistol

Heavy Support
Devastator Squad x5 – Lascannon x2, Missile Launcher x2
Storm Raven – TL Lascannon, TL Multimelta, Extra Armor, Locator Beacon

Scenario involved d3 Strength 6 meteors falling from the sky and hitting non-vehicle units on a 6 and vehicles on a 5 and a 6.  Ultimately, they really didn’t cause anything to happen, though.

This game was… not great.  Scott’s models weren’t even in the neighborhood of WYSIWYG.  I’m down with the occasional, “This Stormbolter is really a Heavy Flamer,” sort of thing.  This was altogether different.  Guys had weapons that they didn’t have, all sorts of things.

Also, he started his entire army in Reserve.  Now, I get that this sounds a little hypocritical coming from a Daemon player (trust me: I’d love to be able to bring them all in at the beginning of the game), but I’ve found that keeping your entire army in reserve is a great way to start the game off on the wrong foot.

Finally, his converted Storm Raven was… let’s charitably call it enormous.  Built out of a Star Wars shuttle with a Rhino stuck on the front, it was at least 4″x12″.  That would probably be okay, except then he stuck Corbulo with his aura effect in it… that aura had a range that covered something like a third of the table!

I wiped out his Devastators with a Soul Grinder in the second turn, which meant he really didn’t have anything with which to deal with my Bloodthirsters.  He threw his Dreadnoughts at them.  This was, in a word, awesome.  Khorne created Bloodthirsters with the express purpose of completely bitchifying Dreadnoughts.  The Furioso wouldn’t even get the chance to think about swinging before the ‘Thirster would vomit five penetrating hits into its face.  The sheer pwnitude involved in ‘Thirster-on-Furioso action was enough to really improve my attitude about the game.

Overall, I made it out of the day 1/2/0, which isn’t anything to complain about.  I had two good games, plus a third that ended on an up-note.

More significantly, I won the Player’s Choice award!  It was supposed to be a conflation of all of the various soft scores, but it looks like it worked out to be mostly an Appearance ranking thing.  I’m very flattered and proud about this.  Honestly, I think the display board is what pushed it over the edge: there were a lot of really awesome armies there (like Doug’s and Kevin’s, which were my two favorites).

Sweeping Generalization

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I’m just going to put this out there:

The more stridently you argue to have comp and sportsmanship scores removed from tournaments, the more you convince me that you’re a horrible sportsman.

I’ve yet to see a perfect comp and/or sportsmanship system.  Produce a system, and it’ll be easy to find fault with it.  They’re all flawed.

But you know what?

Nothing’s perfect, and something’s better than nothing.  A flawed comp/sportsmanship system that, in some way, encourages good comp and sportsmanship and/or discourages bad comp and sportsmanship is better than none.

I mention this, because there are a couple of people on the IFL Forum who, in my opinion, have reached the point of threadcrapping with their compulsive need to interject their strident opposition to comp scores at any and every opportunity.

While I haven’t played all of these people, but I have played some of them… and the reasons for those I have played against to object are crystal-clear.  They’re terrible sportsmen!  (“Bad” isn’t enough; “terrible” is.)  Of course this-or-that person thinks sports and comp should be dropped: their terrible scores in those categories hurt them!

Now, maybe I’m being unfair to the ones I haven’t played.  Maybe they aren’t bad guys.  Maybe they just have some other, more legitimate reasons that I just haven’t been clued in on.  I can’t comprehend what those reasons could be, though, and when you stand next to and agree with the guy who hates sportsmanship because he’s a terrible sport with that much vehemence…

Battle for the Cure!

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Saturday was Battle for the Cure… the first of what is bound to be many.

To say that it was successful would be to understate.  Game Vault was, as always, an excellent host.  Turnout was great. (With 24/25? people?)  The scenarios were solid.  We raised an $1,405 for the Race for the Cure.

That’s right.  $1,405.

The silent auction did well; there were a lot of things (backpacks, Flames of War sets) donated by Game Vault and Games Workshop, several painted minis (one of which, an Azrael painted by double-Golden Daemon and Forgeworld Best in Show winner Andrew Wylie, went for ~$110!) as well as several folks offering painting services.  My offer to paint a squad of ~10 models ended up going for $130!  (A sum that is as ridiculous as it is flattering.)  Frank did a magnificent job putting it all together.

All three of my games were extremely close.

My list:

MAXIMUM KHORNAGE
Chaos Daemons – 2,000 points
HQ
Bloodthirster – Death Strike, Unholy Might
Bloodthirster – Death Strike, Unholy Might
Elites
Bloodcrushers x4 – Fury of Khorne, Icon of Khorne, Instrument of Khorne
Troops
Bloodletters x16 – Fury of Khorne, Icon of Khorne
Bloodletters x8 – Fury of Khorne, Icon of Khorne
Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x8 – Karanak, Fury of Khorne
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury of Khorne
Heavy Support
Daemon Prince – Mark of Khorne, Death Strike, Instrument of Chaos, Iron Hide
Daemon Prince – Mark of Khorne, Death Strike, Instrument of Chaos, Iron Hide
Daemon Prince – Mark of Khorne, Death Strike, Instrument of Chaos, Iron Hide

Game 1

My first game was against fellow IFLer Mike Gatewood’s Eldar.  Scenario was built around getting to an objective in the middle of the board and hanging onto it.  Secondary victory condition was modified Kill Points, tertiary was table quarters.

The first half of the game was him charging me, me counter-charging him, him counter-charging me, and so on.  It looked like the bulk of the game was going to be spent in a big furball that sucks up every unit on the board until… :pop: all of his models in the throwdown evaporated.  A lot of back-and-forth.

Other highlights included five Bloodletters pwned the Avatar in one round of combat, as well as an unending battle between a Daemon Prince and a Wraithlord.  (Toughness 8 is tough!).

I ended up losing, but it was close. His third Wraithlord’s Move Through Cover roll was responsible for a 17 point swing: had he rolled nothing higher than a 4, I’d have pulled it off.  He rolled a 5, though, and killed the crap out of the scraps of Bloodletters that were holding onto the objective.

A really great, close game.

Game 2

My second game was against another fellow IFLer, Mark Callan, and his Salamanders.  Scenario was built around a “three day battle:” odd numbered turns had Dawn of War.  Five objectives.  Secondary was normal Kill Points, tertiary was table quarters.

This game was hard to judge.  I was unable to get a single wound through a Stormshield.  If you had a Stormshield, you were invincible.  I have to admit that this got a little frustrating.

Again, a lot of back and forth.  I killed the living crap out of anything that didn’t have a Stormshield, though.

What was shocking was that we tied in every way: we tied on objectives, we tied on Kill Points, we tied on table quarters.  I won the game with one point: I had a unit in his deployment zone, which good for a single bonus point.

It was a good game.  The Storm Shield thing drove me up a wall, but it was exciting and close despite that.

Game 3

I have to admit that I forgot the name of my third opponent.  He was running Space Wolves.  Scenario was built around a extra “runner” character and having them camp an objective in the center of the table.  Again, Kill Points, quarters.

This game started out a bit frustrating.  It was hard to tell where one squad started and the other ended (because they were a mishmash of marines, space wolves and chaos marines).  His Thunderwolves were on cavalry bases, of all things.  (“Canis Wolfborn being on a big base doesn’t mean all Thunderwolves are supposed to be on a big base.  Besides, they don’t even sell big bases.”  I expressed 1) why that that’s pure ridiculosity and 2) that they do sell them.  He spaced them out as a result, though, so I really can’t complain.)

It chugged along.  Not a whole lot of back and forth initially: just starting at one end and chewing it up.  Had extremely good luck chasing the Thunderwolves and a full squad of Grey Hunters off the table.

The last three rounds saw everything I had trying to kill his runner and him trying to kill mine.  Ultimately, I was able to wear his runner down and, in the very last round of the game, free my runner from combat.

I’m curious to see the final scores, but I can’t complain about three close games (or two wins).

The event was extremely successful, so we’re definitely going to see a repeat next year.  Hopefully, with more lead-in, we’ll be able to get the extra support we almost got this year (but couldn’t, because we didn’t have enough lead-in).

Battle for the Cure

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Frank is running a tournament mid-March (3/20) called “Battle for the Cure.”  At the same time, we’ll be running a silent auction, auctioning off various donations.

Tournament fees and the proceeds will go to sponsor fellow IFL’er Bill Donovan’s participation in the Susan G. Komen’s Race for the Cure.  He’s been doing it for years, but this will be our first year doing something organized to support him.

Breast cancer’s very recently touched my family: my mother’s spent the better part of last year fighting it (and beating it)… so it’s something that I’ve been pretty cognizant of, lately.

I’ll be donating to the auction: I’ll paint a squad of ~10 models for the winning bidder.  I’m not the best painter in the world, but I am a Golden Daemon finalist, so I think that should be worth something.  (I’m a little tempted to make a high bid for my own services: I don’t particularly enjoy painting for other people :) )

Of course, this is further motivation for me to have my army nicely and completely painted in time for the tournament, so I can point to it.  “See, I’m a good painter.  You should spend money on boobs and, in doing so, get a nicely painted squad.”  Given that the tournament is one week after my previous target date, that should be doable, but it’s a 2,000 point tournament.  So, one more week… but 150 more points.

Anyway, if you’re in the area (within driving distance of Fredericksburg, VA), you should check it out.  It should be a lot of fun, and it’s for a very good cause.  More information about the event can be found on the IFL Forum or on the Game Vault Forum.