Rochester 40k GT Log

Note: Many of the times listed are approximate due to my memory and lack of a watch.

Friday Night.

7:09pm, depart for Nate’s place.

7:12pm, depart Tim’s drive-thru for Nate’s place.

8:02pm approximately, drive to Nate’s delayed by accident south of Barrie.

10:17pm, arrive Nate’s place. No light’s on, no sound. Knock on door, no response.

10:18pm, knock again, no response.

10:19pm, knock harder than before, no response. Considering Nate had previously indicated he would be asleep by that time I decided to sleep in car (my car is huge) for 3:30am departure; this way Nate could sleep.

10:30pm approximately, I sleep.

Saturday.

12:30am approx, Nate wakes me. I go into Nate`s house. He had stayed up for a while and gone to bed, getting up to notice me parked outside. He had already called the wife. I call wife, who is thankfully sleepy.

12:45am approx, I sleep.

3:15am approx, I awake. Load up Nate`s car. We go directly to pick up Testors and Greg without delay.

3:50am approx, we depart Tim`s drive-thru for Rochester. En route, I am hassled for my sleeping in car antics of the previous night.

5:20am approx, arrive Lewiston border crossing. Nate promptly explains that we have nothing with us other than personal belongings and our armies. The border guard asks a few more questions about our armies but we are otherwise allowed to pass, with our armies.

5:25pm approx, depart border for Rochester. Conversation descends to hilarious rubbish. We begin to speak with horrible southern drawls. Our collective IQ drops and the conversation becomes so vulgar and offensive that I cannot repeat it, even on the forum. I would have been ashamed of myself if it all wasn`t so funny, and my IQ wasn`t so low...good times. Even Testors broke down and joined in with a great story regarding a nuclear weapons search while he camped out at a country club.

7:15am approx, arrive Rochester. Locate venue. Begin scouting for breakfast place.

7:25am approx, given directions to breakfast location at gas station.

7:30am approx, arrive at breakfast place and eat. Food good.

8:00am approx, depart breakfast place for GT venue.

8:15am approx, arrive at GT and check in. Play follows.

Round 1, play daemon hunter. Turn 1 and I use chaos gate ability per scenario (deep strike) to kill my grey hunter unit. Game continues with much pain and suffering punctuated by scouts failing to drop a chimera and an inability to pass armour saves. I am tabled by turn 4 in a kill point oriented scenario. Score a whopping 2 battle points. Otherwise a good game.

Everyone else in Canadian group does well in the round. Testors scores a perfect 50.

Round 2, play chaos marines. This game was a tough one, and I knew it early. Two units only had to survive the game for the primary. I managed to kill his 2 starting units by turn 2 or 3. My land raider and bikes were my starters. The land raider stayed busy by shooting up a lot of his crap but bought it in the end. My bikes hid in a corner until turn 6, where a single las cannon shot zapped one (failed cover) and the unit panicked and ran off. The rest of the game had been steadily sliding his way and I only scraped a few points again (I think I drew on one objective or something). This match would have more closely resembled a draw (I wouldn’t play it different) if a few dice rolls would have gone better for me, and worse for him. A result closer than what the points yielded.

Canadian group does well except for Testors and Nate, who both manage zeroes. Greg manages to draw against a death wing list. Greg gets lots of grief for this. Nate is unhappy with the combination of failing to take out armour with tons of shooting and 7 of 8 failed leadership tests.

Round 3, play daemons. Escort model off opposite table edge scenario. Long river piece across table with only one bridge. Bloodletters arrive with escort model in terrain within a few inches of my deployment zone. Try to drive my land raider with escort model over bridge and am held up by crazy daemon walker things. Kill bloodcrusher unit with combination of bolter fire and blood claw assault. Everything else a mess. Flamers crippled the lord and blood claw unit I planned to use to intercept his bloodletters; he assaults and kills the unit with the letters after anyway (game was in hand); his super-slaanesh daemon eats a couple of units (including 2 HQs); my escort model, making a run for it with blood claws is eaten by a daemon walker thing. Was crushed again. A good game but I was out of it after his escorted model arrived so close to my edge, making it tough to do much other than play for the remaining objectives. Got flat out zeroed here (tabled too).

The group trudges on, with Ricky’s orks leading the charge. Cory’s daemons are bogging down in draws for objectives. Nate’s game 3 was another loss, though less disastrous than game 2. Nate really, really unhappy. Testor’s, shooting for the +2 bonus battle points for not putting his escorted model in a transport, loses out on the 20 for keeping him alive. That wacky university math.

Day 1 afterthoughts. I was unprepared for the event. My weak knowledge of the rules and lack of practice were major issues. To add fuel to the fire, my need to focus on game due to the aforementioned issues caused me to be less chatty and a little quiet, not making the best games for my opponents, I suspect. I`m feeling that foot slogging assault marines are crap regardless.

8:00pm approx, pack up and depart for hotel.

8:30pm approx, check in at hotel.

9:00pm approx, depart for restaurant.

9:30pm approx, arrive restaurant with some delay getting seated. We eat, we drink, and the conversation devolves a great deal. We are vulgar and crude and have a great deal of fun. Greg is razzed over his death wing draw. Nate is razzed over his combination 2 losses and being zeroed for game 2. I get some hassle over last nights sleep-in-car antics. $6.95 pitchers is good.

11:00pm approx, depart restaurant for hotel.

11:15pm, arrive hotel. Commence drinking some shitty beer at the hotel bar and chatting some more. Testors manages to avoid being carded.

Sunday

12:00am, we retire to our rooms. More chat, discuss new space wolves. I gripe about the appearance of certain models in the book.

12:30am approx, sleep.

6:30am approx, wake and shower.

7:00am, check out and depart for breakfast.

7:45am, arrive at Ihop. Oh yeah! Chris chickens out on a massive order (QB Scramble?) topped with steak or something ridiculous. Much discussion of previous day and day to come. Scrambled eggs with sirloin tips totally delicious. I pity Nate’s next opponent.

8:30am approx, depart for GT.

8:45am, arrive GT and setup for game 4.

Round 4, play chaos marines. Buddy brought his kid along. When his kid would speak I would roll lots of 1s. Wish his kid would never speak. Close game. He had some bad luck with terminator saves but did well for the rest of it. This was an objective marker/victory point mission. I managed to draw the primary and secondary with a bonus point thrown in for a whopping 18 points. Yeeha. The game ended on turn 5 due to random game length. I was confident that I could have got more points with a turn 6. An okay game, at best. The kid was generally okay except for the last turn. Not a bad game, but I’ve had much better. At least I got the points.

Team Canada bounced back except for Chris who managed to drop his display board, infantry included, at the start of the game. Yikes. Thankfully, the damage was minimal. Nate’s strong showing recovered his spirits.
The previous day’s lunch was punctuated by salty pizza. I stuck with the pizza again. The rest went with Blimpie subs. Cory and Chris’ BLTs were lots of ‘B’ and mayo with reduced amounts of LT. A small pig was likely required for each sub. Consequentially, neither sub was finished (Cory removed a great deal of bacon before even starting). Nate went with the extra, extra meat. He only managed to put half of it down before giving it up. They really need to offer defibrillators with food like that.

The bet. Nate and Testors debate the various benefits of Swooping Hawks for Eldar. The topic of strength on their grenades come up and a bet is placed. Nate says S4 and Testors says S3. Testors puts up 27 cents Canadian, while moneybags Stevens drops $3 Canadian and 48 cent US. Upon return to the GT venue, the S4 is verified and Testors is genuinely cash free.

Round 5, play Necrons. Holy human skins, Batman, three units of flayed ones! Nice and fluffy with Nightbringer thrown in. A nercon force with a distinct assault element. In many respects, this was my most enjoyable game. We each had to choose a troop suicide squad with an option of upgrades. Their survival was the primary. I chose the grey hunters and plopped them in the land raider. He chose a unit of warriors. I ploughed forward and managed to keep breaking his flayed but never managed to wipe them out until late turn 4. Nightbringer broke my lord with thunder hammer and claws unit with 2 fists and they ended up fleeing off the table after (within 6” of nightbringer). Pansy wolf lord knows fear. Nightbringer eats land raider. Nightbringer eats grey hunters before getting dragged down by battle leader with frost blade. Scouts show up late, manage to kill necron lord who gets up afterwards and helps finish the scouts off. Main group of claws (after killing flayed ones) gets too bogged down in terrain to engage remaining necron warriors. Stomped again but I managed to get the tertiary and some bonuses. A great game against a really bizarre list. Lots of carnage but I was competitive to the end (I was 1 kill point from gaining the secondary). 13 points.

Team Canada does well again, even though Ricky had his first difficult score (15 points??).

Day two afterthoughts. I focused more on just having fun than playing and my experience was drastically improved. Ground assault marines still suck.
My final result was 43 battle points, which was very low. My final tally was 171 points ranking me 64th of 66 players. Not finishing last was a good thing. In the grand analysis, my play was lacking and my list was under-powered. I consider that there were two games where dice decided my fate more so than play (games 2 and 4), another where it was a combo of dice and play (game 1), another where my list was overpowered (game 3) and one game where my play was the biggest factor (games 5).
Everyone I played was a great sport, even round 4 with his kid, which made it a great time, all around.

Ricky wins overall. Cory wins sportsman. Testors wins painted. Nate wins the Smokin’ Boots award for his round 2 belly-flop. Not a bad run for Canada. Most importantly, I learned, and I quote, “Doorbells are for suckers.”

6:00pm approx, depart for home. Some great, less vulgar, discussion about the tourney and our games. Greg and Nate ponder Adepticon options considering their experiences. I discuss several topics with Testors including his Warmaster’s Fantasy list and display board for the March event. Lots of chat.

7:30pm approx, arrive Queenston border crossing. Long wait in traffic. Nate avoids the use of terms ‘armies’ and ‘war game’ as we cross back into Canada. Fewer questions follow.

8:15pm approx, depart border for KW.

8:45pm approx, stop for food at Swiss Chalet. Harvest special good. Pie good.

9:45pm approx, depart for KW.

11:45pm approx, arrive at Nate’s after dropping off Greg and Testors.

Monday

12:00am approx, depart Nate’s.

12:15pm approx, stop for gas. Depart for Midland.

2:30am, arrive home Midland.

7am, wake and prepare dog for spay appointment at 8am. So tired.

All round, this was a blast of trip. Probably my best road trip ever.

Netter