Here are the final, official results for the Origins Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader Tournament for 2010:
|
Name - Army
|
Battle |
Sports |
Painting |
Total |
| Patrick Smith - Imperial Guard |
57 |
15 |
16 |
88 |
| Michael Hernandez - Tyranids |
53 |
13 |
14 |
80 |
| Joe Miksa - Space Marines |
38 |
15 |
12 |
65 |
| David Talbott - Necrons |
34 |
14 |
15 |
64 |
| Allen Blunt - Imperial Guard |
30 |
14 |
14 |
59 |
| Michael St. Clair - Daemonhunters |
33 |
15 |
9 |
57 |
| Ken Boone - Orks |
24 |
15 |
17 |
56 |
| Stuart Moll - Orks |
32 |
14 |
9 |
56 |
| Craig Collins - Dark Angels |
27 |
13 |
14 |
54 |
| Steven Olk - Imperial Guard |
30 |
12 |
12 |
54 |
| Joshua Shivak - Imperial Guard |
31 |
15 |
7 |
53 |
| Tom McFarland - Tau |
30 |
14 |
8 |
52 |
| Hyde Anderson - Nids |
20 |
15 |
15 |
51 |
| Michael Brown - Tyranids |
31 |
14 |
4 |
50 |
| Steven Beasley - Eldar |
29 |
14 |
4 |
47 |
| Nick Soika - Tau |
18 |
12 |
11 |
41 |
| Chris Kruso - Space Marines |
22 |
15 |
4 |
41 |
| Brian Vorhees - Orks |
WD |
| CS Barnhaus - Space Marines |
WD |
Some notes on how the scoring was done --
-
Each player received a score of 0-5 in sportsmanship from each of his opponents giving a possible range of total sportsman results from 0-15
-
Battle scores are the sum total of the scenario points from all three games. The basic range was from 0-20 per game, but some extra bonus points could raise results over 20.
-
Five judges went through and graded painting individually from 0-20. Their totals were then averaged to get the final result. Anyone who did not put out their army to be judged received an automatic 4.
-
No one could win more than a single award
-
Eight people tied for Best Sportsman so the award went to the person with the worst OVERALL* score -- it's harder to be fun to play with when you are losing. (* EDIT - We intended for it to be lowest overall, to put the trophy within reach of someone new to the hobby, unlike all the other awards. It was not lowest battle score, we apologise for the typo.)
-
Ken Boone had the best painting score, but was disqualified from the Best Painter award because he did not personally paint his army. Likewise, as Patrick won Grand Champion he could not also claim Best Painter. The resulting tie between David and Hyde was decided in the former's favor after all the judges went back and reexamined the armies once again.
Our thanks to all who participated! We look forward to doing this again next year!
Saturday was the time for the big Rogue Trader Tournament -- and the big prizes which you can see in the picture below.
Click This and Any Picture to See Larger Version
We had a larger turn out than last year, but one still not quite as big as it should have been as Origins messed up the tournament listing in its Convention Book, giving it the description for our "By Kids for Kids" Ork Pile game rather than the correct one. This in turn caused at least a handful people that we know about to think the RTT was for teenagers and not attend (although when they stopped by the game later and found out the truth they were sorely disappointed). Nevertheless, it was almost a full house.
Here are a few pictures of the tournament in the midst of the action:
There were a number of nicely painted armies, so I made sure to get copies of the ones that impressed me the most. However, first a few notes on how the judging was done.
There were five painting judges that all individually went around to judge each army while the players were off at lunch. We didn't join together to discuss armies this time around, instead just giving a score from 0-20 with 0 being bare metal and 20 a Grand Daemon level army. Once we had finished the total scores were added up and then averaged out. In the end there were two armies tied for first so we asked the players to put out their armies once again, this time for a group judging session. The winner here ended up getting the top prize.
Speaking of which, first up are Dave Talbot's purple Necrons which went on to win Best Painting:
Dave's army had a nice unity of theme and the highlighting was quite crisp and tidy. Likewise, his "lightning" effects on some of his Necron's weapons worked very effectively, better certainly than just leaving the regular green plastic untouched.
The main weakness of his army was that he just didn't give it enough time. If you pick up the models and look at their bottom sides you see usually just basic, at times messy, coloring or in the case of the Scarabs only primer black. Still, kudos for Dave at being clever at how he "hid" these defects so that from a view from above (the typical perspective) these shortcuts can't be seen.
Second place painting went to Hyde and his yellow Tyranid force.
Again, this was another painting job with a good overall theme that certainly fit what you might expect from a bunch of killer bugs. The shading and highlighting technique was also nicely done.
However, in the end Mike's force suffered from the same basic issue as Dave's (not surprising as I believe they both did their armies together in a short period of time) -- the overall level of finish was mediocre. This is more of an issue with Tyranids as they have a lot more pits and corners where the lack of time to finish well becomes all too noticeable. There were as a result a lot of bare white primer in the recesses of the models despite the fact that everything else was done well. This was the reason why the Necrons beat out the bugs -- too much unfinished detail work.
Still, first and second place look quite good overall, especially from the classic "five foot" distance. Seeing what Dave and Hyde can do with just a few weeks worth of (a lot of) effort makes me eager to see what they could produce if they gave themselves, say, a few months!
Next up are Ken Boone's orks. Really a nice paint job, so much so that they would have won Best Painting if Ken had been the one who painted them -- using an army that someone else painted automatically disqualifies you from winning Best Painting (although you get regular painting scores that are put toward winning overall).
One conversion and paint job I really liked was these Tervigons:
I hadn't seen this design before, but I really like it. Definitely Tyranid, yet unique -- a sort of mix between Screamer Killer and monstrous crab.
And now for the winners of the 2010 Origins Rogue Trader Tournament
Best Sportsman -- Chris Kruso
Best Painting -- Dave Talbot
Best General -- Mike Hernandez
And, for the second year in a row...
Grand Champion -- Patrick Smith
Thanks to all who participated and especially Armourygames in Pickerington for supplying the prize support.
More to come...
The big event on Friday was the (we hope) World's Largest Apocalypse Game. I had planned on having video of the event, but my video camera died (apparently sitting on a shelf for a few months was too taxing). So, instead I came up with another way of letting you see the entire board.
Just click on the individual parts of the above pseudo-mosaic to see the entire Apocalypse board going from left to right. We had around 110,000 points of units on the tables and most of them are there, all save those that would later enter from reserves.
Also, we ran 40K Space Hulk that day and every day.
Notice our 40KOrigins.com black and Red dice at the bottom of the image. Everyone who attended one of our events received one (or more).
More to come...
A new event this year was a 40K Warhammer Pairs tournament. 750 points per player and if you didn't come with a partner we'd find you one. Here are some pictures from the event (Click to see larger version).
We are offering the same nice trophies for the Rogue Trader Tournament as last year, but this year we are also offering trophies for the winners of our Pairs and Eight-Army Tournament. The first one just finished, so here is what the winning pair received. However, the Eight-Army Tourny isn't until Sunday.
Click to Embiggen
I would like to take this chance to thank Armorcast for donating some of their cool cinematic effects blisters as additional prizes for the Pairs Tournament. Everyone who played got to take one home -- along with some of our special 40KOrigins.com dice!
More extensive Origins reports to come.
Stating that the new Wolf Guard rules make for an effective substitute for a Dark Angels Deathwing army, but let’s do a direct comparison of two 1500 point army lists and see what differences pop up.
However, let me first list what I consider to be the “average” Deathwing force:
• The Big Leader in charge (who allows for terminators to go as troops)
• Another character to add some extra punch
• 3-5 Terminator Squads
• 1-2 Dreadnoughts, usually with Drop Pods so they can join the infantry in deployment
Keeping that in mind let me produce two roughly comparable lists, one using the Dark Angels rules and the other the Space Wolves.
The Deathwing Force (1500 Points):
• Belial with two Lightning Claws
• Interrogator-Chaplain in Terminator Armor
• 5 terminators with Apothecary, 1 chainfist and assault cannon
• 5 terminators with 1 chainfist and assault cannon
• 5 terminators with 1 chainfist and assault cannon
• 5 terminators with 1 chainfist and assault cannon
• Dreadnought with TL Lascannon in Drop Pod
The Wolfwing Force (1499 Points):
• Logan Grimnar
• Wolf Priest in Terminator Armor
• 4 WG Terminators with 3 PF, 2 combi-plasma in Drop Pod w/DW*
• 4 WG Terminators with 3 PF, 2 combi-plasma in Drop Pod w/DW*
• 5 WG Terminators with 4 power fists and assault cannon in Drop Pod
• 5 WG Terminators with 4 power fists and assault cannon in Drop Pod
• Dreadnought with TL Lascannon in Drop Pod
* There are only 4 members in order to make sure that the characters have space in the drop pod
So, just what are the differences between the two and how well do they compare?
The Deathwing force has 23 models, 5 heavy weapons, 2 vehicles, 21 storm bolters, 5 power weapons, and 16 power fists. They are all fearless and can teleport wherever they wish to go.
The Wolfwing force has 21 models, 5 heavy weapons, 6 vehicles, 16 storm bolters, 4 combi-plasmas, 5 power weapons, 14 power fists, and Logan’s funky “I can be anything” axe. They have great leadership, acute senses, counter-attack, and everyone has a drop pod to use.
In terms of firepower it’s a toss-up: The Deathwing assault cannons are more dependable, but the Wolfwing has enough extra Deathwind and combi-plasma guns to produce even more damage - just not in a way you can necessarily rely upon. That is, you need to be careful in how you use the latter to get the most out of it.
In close combat the Space Wolves are clearly going to be superior with the possible exception of vehicles since the Deathwing come with extra chainfists. Whether or not this is important will depend greatly on the sort of enemy it’s facing – usually, this won’t be a big deal. By comparison, Space Wolves – especially with the abilities of Logan Grimnar – are going to go up against even specialized close-combat armies with a good chance of success (only their fewer numbers really hamper them, a deficiency the Deathwing shares).
To my mind the real advantage of the Wolfwing isn’t per se whether or not purposefully identical armies in design as the same in power (it seems to me that generally speaking they are), but that the Wolfwing gives you so many different options. It’s easy to switch out abilities, add different sorts of troopers to any of the units, and so forth.
In other words, you aren’t as likely to get bored with army selection nearly as quickly as with the Deathwing. It also gives you many more ways to adapt to the forces you play.
Just a quick post (life is just too damn busy) -- here are two more videos from Origins 2009. We are approaching almost a 1000 views for the World's Largest Apocalypse game video so I thought I would add some more coverage. Likewise, there is also a video showing our table from the convention, including good pictures of the awards and prizes for the RTT.
Hi everyone. I just wanted to poke my head in here to let you all know the following....
- I am holding a small 40k tournament at the Armoury in Pickerington on Nov. 7th. 3 rounds, 2 hours each.
- 1500 point armies, WSYWIG models only, and only the current codex. No imperial armour or other non codex units allowed.
- Please bring a clearly legible printed copy of your list with you.
- We start rolling dice at noon, so please arrive well before that to get checked in and get your list approved.
- I like to stay on or ahead of schedule, , so I WILL stop you rolling dice in the middle of a combat if I call time and you are still going. I do give warning at the half hour, 15 minute, and 5 minute marks though.
- $10 entry to help cover prize support, and I give awards to the winner and best sportsman!! There are only 12 spots open, and they will go quickly, so call the store at 614-833-1331 to get paid up and registered in advance!
I hope to see you there!
