I successfully made it out to Games Day! I had an awesome time, because that’s what you do at Games Day. Staff there is always super, but they seemed even nicer this year: I suspect that’s because they weren’t in Baltimore.
Golden Daemon
The primary motivator for me was, as I’ve said, the Golden Daemon. My entries were:
The Battle Bunker folk were super-helpful in working with me on arrangements to enter these things and get them back to me, despite being at a wedding that afternoon. (As it turns out, the wedding started late enough that, had I changed at Games Day, I could have easily stuck around for the whole shebang and then made it in time, but c’est la vie.)
I’d planned on entering the Fimir to Single Model and the Ratwyrm into Monster; I found out the Fimir had to be entered as a Monster, so I bumped the Ratwyrm down to the Open category. On reflection, I should have put him in the conversion contest: I think it’d have done okay in that. Also, I really should have powered through the Demigryphs to enter them: I think they’d have done well (I suppose there’s always next year).
It’s important to note that I could not win, because I had to leave early. I have no illusions that, if I’d been able to stick around later I’d have done better, and I knew it going in. My goal, as it has been since the first time I entered has been to put in as good a showing as possible (and hopefully make Final Cut).
The Ratwyrm failed to make First Cut. The Flamers and the Fimir made First Cut, but went no further. Although that makes this the worst showing I’ve had yet, I’m still pleased. A few things made a cut of some sort, I got to watch people take pictures of my minis and say nice things about them. My ego was sufficiently stroked. More significantly, there was some seriously amazing stuff in the competition: you’re not allowed to feel back about losing out to some of this stuff. I’ve got a photodump at the end of this post: you’ll see.
I have no clue how the competition actually turned out: I had to boogie while they were making the Final Cut decisions. I really need to track that information down.
I think that, for next year, I’m actually going to try to compete. So far, it’s been, “I think I’m going to put something in the Golden Daemon; what do I have that I think might do okay?” Next year? I’m stepping it up.
Consumerism
Let’s face it: that’s basically 75% of why Games Day exists. I hopped in the ForgeWorld line after submitting my entries, where I was successfully able to overspend. Exuberance made it easy for the FW staff (who were freaking on it, man) to do things like talk me into buying a Marienburg Class Land Ship (“You want a Land Ship, too, don’t you? … Yes, you do. … Here, I’ll just go get one for you.”).
Aside from picking up a few assorted odds, ends, and show-only minis, my haul:
- Wolf Rats (x2)
- Warlord on Brood Horror
- Manann’s Blades Command (x2)
- Manann’s Blades (x2)
- Theodore Bruckner
- The Land Ship (:sigh:)
- IA – Aeronautica (updated points costs = must buy)
- Tamurkhan
Tamurkhan’s really the only purchase in there that I have buyer’s remorse about. It’s gorgeous, but since I’m ultimately so likely to use so little of it (something like 5 pages?), it was a mistake. I’ll probably resell it soonish.
Aeronautica’s recosting of the Barracuda down to 130 means now I can run it, which means now I should run it, which means now I should paint it, which means now I revisit my Tau. :sigh:
Fantasy Flight Games had a stand, as usual. I’d have loaded up on 40KRPG books, but they’re so much cheaper online. Also, not buying them is considerably lighter than buying them. I did pick up the two POD Death Angel expansions (Deathwing & Tyranid) I didn’t have, though.
Miscellanea
Did anyone else hear about this? They announced it, apparently, the day before. It’s Talisman… in Space. They had two prototype copies of the game they were using for demos. I didn’t have the chance to sit in on one, though.
I got to chat with both Chung of Wargamers Consortium and Les of AwesomePaintJob (mostly about how they’ve helped meake me not terrified of my airbrush. Very, very cool dudes.
It was great to see the same dang set of faces that I’ve been seeing for years at Games Day. Like, really, really great.
I don’t want to rumor-monger, but one of the staff suggested that it might be Games Day Dallas next year. If that happens: I’ll definitely be there (and by “I’ll definitely be there,” I mean “we’ll definitely visit Mrs. Rushputin’s family in Dallas that weekend, so that I might go to Games Day as well”).
Anyway, I think that just about covers everything that isn’t photodump. So, let’s get on with that.
The quality of these isn’t quite what I’d like: they were done with my phone’s camera. Still, they’re not bad, and it’s not like GW won’t post much, much better photos of this stuff at some point.
Armies on Parade
On reflection… that’s kind of an ass-ton of pictures. I’ll throw up the rest in a post tomorrow.
