GenCon 2012 Day 1

OK, so you know you're at GenCon when...this is not considered unusual.

Hey, Brian Ferry...I found Mamouna. She's in Indianapolis.

It's the start of Day 1, and at the Privateer tournament area all is quiet.

The tournament organizers have been very busy getting all the tables ready.

And there are some great terrain set-ups in the Iron Arena for players to game on.

Sweet boards.

OK, it's 10:00 AM on Thursday, and the first tournament gets underway. There are 76 guys in it. My first opponent is Charles Kleinwort. Nice fellow. He has a Trollblood list and is playing Gunbeorn.

My 'jacks cross the ridge and wind up laying waste to just about every troll on the table. Game 1 is a win, and I'm feeling confident.

Then, in round 2, I get paired with Nick Crumptin. He's "Crump" from the Muse on Minis podcasts. He's a very good player, and his Circle army went 5-0 today. Oh, that means he beat me. But it's how he beat me that bears mentioning. He had to slam his own Warlock over my caster to get the killing blow in. I've never seen that before.

During a break I ran into Walter Ritz, and old friend from Toronto. He's a role player, and a very fun guy. It was great to connect with him again.

Back at the tourney, I play Rick Sidebotham and stumble into a very bad match up with Menoth. He runs a list with 50 weapon masters. My 'jacks get torn apart. Oh, the day's not looking good.

Game 4 and I'm up against Jason Knox's Cygnar army, which includes and Stormstrider and Stormwall colossal. I work my way through Haley's Temporal Barrier with Perdition and apply Deathjack to face. Jason is sad.

Game 5 and I run into another Warmachine community personality. This is Jake VanMeter who is better known as Neutralize on the forums and podcasts. He played an Everblight army and ground me into the dirt.

So, the first tournament ended after 12 hours. I take 29th place. It's late at night, but another tourney starts at 11:00 PM. I'm in it. I grab some food and get ready. In the mean time, you can't swing a cat without hitting community celebrities. Ran into Jason Flanzer...another Warmachine podcast staple.

All through the day, the Iron Arena (non-structured play area) was going strong.

OK, midnight madness descends and we're into the next tournament. My first opponent is a great guy from Australia by the name of Tobias Ford running a Retribution army. He gets a lucky spray attack off on turn two, killing me inside of 20 minutes. Bastard.

My next opponent is Brian Leugers, also known as LordOfChange from the Prime Generation podcast. He is playing Everblight, but this time I grind them down and win the scenario handily. Yay.

In the wee hours of the morning, I play round 3 against Marc Parvis from Florida. He brings a Khador Colossal out and I spend all game beating it down. In the end, I have nothing left to deal with his infantry, and another game goes into the loss column.

The all night tournament ends just before 5:00 AM, but the whole day is worth it. I get lucky and come out with a painted army prize.

Holy crap, are there really 3 more days of this to come. I'm beat. I't just past 6:00 AM and I've been up for nearly 24 hours. Time to get some sleep.

'Til next time.