40k Tournament at RUDICON

[Horrible Hager]

I will be there, so there will be at least 1 member of the BC Adeptus making a showing.

[inzeos]

I'm guessing the $10 dollar fee is for the 1 day con pass for the day of the event? Or is there also an event fee?

I'm guessing if there is not an event fee there is probably not prize support?

Anyone know what their tables and or terrain are going to look like?

[inzeos]

If you are going to the 40K tournament at RUDICON tomorrow feel free and say introduce yourself if you see my army, since you probably don't know what I look like!

Space Marines - 1850 - RUDICON 12/04/2010


Pardon the crappy picture quality. Hard to produce a good exposure with one light and a mobile phone camera.

[fishboy]

How many showed up for this?

[inzeos]

I think there was like 16 people? I had to leave at round 2 as things ran way late. Did not start on time.

[inzeos]

Quick review of the event.

Information before hand was available on their web site; however, many bits of information were lacking like where to park and actual event fees. I emailed at the last moment someone at RAWG and they let me know to park in U lot on the weekends, which requires no permits. I brought with me initially $10 dollars for the one day registration fee; however, I stopped at the ATM to get some cash to pick up some board games from Baldo. Thankfully I brought more cash with me because the web site did not list on the 40K page that there was an additional $5 dollar fee to play, which was no biggie to me; however, could have been to some.

After arriving on campus I found out that the train club was having an open house, which I should have gone and checked out. They had nice clear signs marking where to go and turn once you were on the campus. RIT's campus is not completely unfamiliar to me as I was a student there for my first two years of my bachelors program and a member of CSH. However, that was back in 1998 and some things had changed a little bit. Once I found U lot, thank god that I printed out a map before I left my house that morning, I noticed my first RUDICON sign on the wall of the back of the SAU.

Once in side the SAU I quickly located the registration table, which was manned by two members I assume of the RWAG. I registered for the convention, which required my name and email address and took all of 5 minutes. No name badge or con pass was issued; however, they did use a green disposable wrist bracelet. Being new to the area it would have been nice to have seen name badges. This is where I was surprised and informed that the event I was attending was a paid event not a free event as listed on the web site. At the registration desk there was a free printed booklet for the conventions weekend of events. The booklet was pretty comprehensive; however, who ever does this part next year really needs to run a spell checker and proof read. A lot of information in the book also appeared to be absent on the website, which should be embarrassing for a technical school.

After my registration was completed I went into a large room not far from the registration tables and spotted the tables set up for the 40K event. Unfortunately this was at about 9:50 AM and people were still mingling around. I believe the event actually started at 11:00 AM or 11:30 AM, which further screwed up the timing and scheduling of the event. The timing of the rounds and when breaks would be was no where to be found. It seemed as if your game went up to the end of the round there was no break. So hopefully you packed some snacks with you. Unfortunately if you did there was no trash cans! I blame the trash cans on RIT and their always so bogglingly stupid policies. Student groups as I learned have free access to spaces on campus to run events; however, if they don't pay a fee the facilities department actually sends employees out to remove the trash cans. WTF?

My first game I was matched up against an Imperial Guard player who was playing a fairly balanced list for his army. Unfortunately unlike other events I've attended RUDICON did not require you to bring copies of your lists for your opponents. The 40K event leader who was running the event rolled up Dawn of War / Annihilation from the standard lists of missions. I allocated my Scout Biker's cluster bombs to a terrain piece and wrote it down on a piece of paper. Then initial deployment via the mission rules was 1 HQ and 2 Troops, everything else walks on or comes in via reserves. Round one was completely uneventful neither one of us was able to spot each other or in range to do anything. Round two was different, my dice betrayed me and rarely rolled anything over a two. On the bottom of round two my opponent was awarded with exceptional good rolling and began to decimate what little I had on the board. Did I mention that his HQ made it so my reserves on turn two had to come in on a 6 rather than a 5+? Turn 3 pretty much went just like turn 2 with my troops suffering heavy casualties and my shooting failing and my vehicles always seemingly immobilized. Turn four started to turn around for me. My reserves finally showed up. I deep striked in two Land Speeder Storms behind his gun line. My scout biker had also arrived by this point; however, their shooting dealt to many causalities and left them unable to assault. Fortunately for me my Land Speeder's landed with maybe an inch or two of scatter. The multi-melta from one speeder blew up a demolisher leman russ, while the melta gun from the crew in the same speeder blew up the normal leman russ. During the bottom of turn 4 my opponent knew that we were running out of time and opted to count for kill points and finished up the game by killing off just what he needed to win. Unfortunately for me if we had completed turn 5 things would have been surely a kill point tie if not a possible win in my favor. All and all I had a good opponent who was a good sport about answering my questions and being fair about typical things like is this or isn't this in cover.

Round 2 I played Rick P. who was the event organizer. He was fielding Tyranids, which I have not played much at all let and never with the new codex. Rick kindly gave me an over view of his army and high lighted various abilities and upgrades that units had. I believe we had gotten through 3 total turns possibly 4. Rick unfortunately had to step away from the game a few times to keep an eye on the rest of the tournament, which to me was not a big deal. My dice fortunately rolled closer to what they should statistically roll. Rick managed to pull off an amazing number of 5+ armor saves and 4+ cover saves. My marines managed to load up wounds on many of Rick's multi-wound models. However, I had made a tactical mistake in this game. I had placed two of the three objectives on my side of the board, which probably made Rick's life easier as he could walk more stuff across the board. We ended up with one contested objective and two other objectives with no troops in range. Had we gone another turn Rick would have had control of an objective and had we gone two more turns I would have had the third objective again resulting in a tie. Rick like my prior opponent was a great sport about explaining details of his army and clarifying rules when I was incorrect about them or if neither of us had dealt with the rule situation before. One example was about how the mechanics work on a twin-linked scattering weapon.

At this point I had bow out of the tournament. Round 3 of 4 was expected to start at 4:30 PM or 5:00 PM. I had a day pass away from my wife and 8 week old infant until about 6:00 or 7:00 PM; however, if we started round 3 at 5 it probably would not have been done by 7 PM and I would surely not have been able to stay for round 4. Having ended up at this point with one loss and one draw I exited the tournament.

I'm looking forward to the event again next year, which hopefully might be organized a little better with people showing up on time for the start of the event. For me this was my first time playing in over a year. I recently relocated from Boston to Rochester with my wife. We spent the majority of our first year here fixing things in her grandparents home, which we later purchased from them and eventually welcomed into the world our first child. This coming year I'm excited to get more regular gaming in at the various shops and clubs.

If you attended RUDICON this year how was your experience?

PS. Maybe this was not such a quick review Hoped you found it useful.

[Krusty (zack)]

so youre saying that we should all be glad we didnt go?

ive heard from someone else that it was a pretty big letdown considering how long it had been scheduled for

[forsakenimp]

The people that showed up were great, and the armies were Good non-netdeck armies. Mostly well-painted too, except for a few armies that hadn't even been primed.

I have to echo the sentiments about how it was run. There were few details beforehand, and no mention of the fee, however cheap it was. The event organizers did not adhere to any time schedule whatsoever, except noting when games were supposed to end at the start of each game (note: These times were not followed). The event organizers also played, which is usually an iffy proposition, but caused no problems on this particular day. The person above thought it was 4 rounds- I had the impression it was three rounds, but I booked out of there at the end of my Round 3 game, as I had to be on the road by 7- I foolishly assumed a 10 oclock start time would leave me with enough time. It probably would have, if it had been followed.

The missions were strait outta the book, with two modifications- VP were recorded to settle ties at the end of the tournament, and the 2 objective mission saw a third objective placed in the center of the table. While this does make it rather like the d3+2 mission, it certainly made it better than the usual draw-fest that is that horrible mission.

I don't know if it was allowed, but they could have made money by selling food/drink inside the con. The first two places I found didn't accept cash on the weekends, until I found a place that was now open (It had been closed when I entered the con space). If the Con had bought some pizzas and soda cans, they could have made a killing.

The terrain was very good, well-placed and good looking. Also plentiful- most every table I saw had the recommended 25%. The Tables were felt laid out on two wheeled tables pushed together- there was an issue where a table's wheels were not locked, and I accidently almost pulled the tables apart. The felt moved quite often.

All in all, it felt like a spur-of-the-moment event ran by your buddies. Not horrible, but not the usual standard of something you pay money to attend. Still, the people were great and so were the armies, so they have a good base to grow from if they decide to improve for next year.

[Dorian]

I was also at the tournament. I apologize my army wasn't painted, the past month was spent painting my fantasy army for the tournament Sunday.

I am a member of RWAG & understand many of the complaints (I have quite a few of my own). I will be directing Rich to this thread at the meeting tomorrow (12/7). As for next year I will be doing my best to organize the tournament myself, I believe Rich will be on co-op.

With this in mind any concerns / criticisms will be greatly appreciated. I have already taken note of those posted above & am in contact with MST40k (out of Buffalo) about their concerns so next year will not see the same mistakes.

[inzeos]

Dec 7, 2010 0:12:44 GMT -5 Dorian said:

I was also at the tournament. I apologize my army wasn't painted, the past month was spent painting my fantasy army for the tournament Sunday.

I am a member of RWAG & understand many of the complaints (I have quite a few of my own). I will be directing Rich to this thread at the meeting tomorrow (12/7). As for next year I will be doing my best to organize the tournament myself, I believe Rich will be on co-op.

With this in mind any concerns / criticisms will be greatly appreciated. I have already taken note of those posted above & am in contact with MST40k (out of Buffalo) about their concerns so next year will not see the same mistakes.

That is a good start. I'm sure some issues you can address and or fix others I imagine might be out of your control.

[fishboy]

Dorian the main reason I did not go was due to lack of information up front. From the outside the event looked very disorganized and I was afraid I was going to waste a day. I would recommend more info up front such as times, costs, and prize support as well as specific locations.

[inzeos]

Dec 8, 2010 18:47:05 GMT -5 fishboy said:

Dorian the main reason I did not go was due to lack of information up front. From the outside the event looked very disorganized and I was afraid I was going to waste a day. I would recommend more info up front such as times, costs, and prize support as well as specific locations.

I strongly agree with fishboy's comments. If I had not been house bound for the last few months with an infant I probably would have skipped; however, I needed a good excuse to get out of the house.