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| by Dashofpepper | September 2nd, 2010 - 3:27 pm
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Hey folks!
Since being crowned King of Warhammer 40k and being ranked the top 40k player in the country, I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails, PMs, phone calls, fan-mail, and even a plane flying over with a banner asking me how I manage to do so well.
Well, I didn’t want to answer them all individually, so I thought I’d give a bit of a walkthrough of my typical day and how I keep in top form for tournaments.
1030: The Early Bird Gets the Worm!
My day starts early! I roll out of bed filled with vigor for a new day and immediately sit down in front of my computer to surf the internet looking for new tactics or rules loopholes that need consideration. You can’t let a day go by without looking for possibilities that you haven’t explored before! The absolute worst possibility in 40k is to be surprised by someone pulling a fast one on you and pretty much all the pros work hard to stay on top of new information.
1130-1230: Exercise!
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| by Danny Internets | August 28th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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After the explosion of NOVA coverage some of you might have been wondering why I’ve suddenly been so quiet, especially with the epic drama thread going on over yonder. It’s because I’ve been working on a not-so-secret project for our gaming club: the website for our first very own Grand freaking Tournament!
So here it is, the big announcement: The Battle for Salvation club will be hosting its first annual Battle for Salvation Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament on October 9-10 in White Plains, NY. For our first stab at a two-day event we’ve decided to take a page from Mike Brandt’s book and go with the NOVA format, especially given its great success earlier this month.
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| by Dashofpepper | August 27th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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Hey folks!
After the book-long drama thread that is still eating babies a bit further down the page, I thought that I would bring something a little bit lighter to Bald and Screaming.
A long time ago, in a far away MMO called World of Warcraft, I used to make songs (parodies) to make fun of my guild-mates. A couple years later, while playing another MMO (EVE Online) under the name “Curzon Dax,” I had an epic space fight with the self-proclaimed PvP master and teacher of an alliance (I was a complete noob), and I spanked him. I thought it would make a funny parody, and so I wrote a song, performed it, and uploaded it to the interweb. It was an instant hit; while I’m not a particularly gifted singer, the content and delivery were funny and it ended with thousands of downloads, masses of mail, and comedy that would haunt “Sabre A” for the rest of his EVE career. Just like that, my career making parodies was born.
Two albums and several years (and a million+ downloads, Youtube videos, etc), I don’t play Eve Online anymore…but from time to time the parody bug bites me.
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| by Danny Internets | August 24th, 2010 - 6:29 pm
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So it looks like THQ and Vigil Games are taking a page from the Bioware marketing book and are releasing a string of game trailers for Dark Millennium in order to showcase the various playable races. First up: The Imperium of Man. Nothing on which classes will be playable, though you can guess at least a few of them from the video footage (Techpriest, Space Marine, possibly the Scout and Imperial Guardsman). Have a gander:
Not really sure what it is, but I’m having trouble getting excited over this one. I enjoyed Warhammer Online for a while and even went back to it recently, but again it fails to hold my attention. Anyone else feel the same?
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| by Danny Internets | August 23rd, 2010 - 8:30 am
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I first met Nick a few months ago during this year’s ‘Ard Boyz Preliminaries at The Only Game in Town (Somerville, NJ). In fact, we actually squared off against each other in the final round with him playing reserves-based Tyranids and me with my Imperial Guard. Nick is an very skillful player who is knowledgeable not just of the weaknesses of the opposition, but also of his own army, a refreshing hubris that I believe enhances his play greatly.
In term of the army, Nick plays a Fatecrusher list with a typical core and some atypical filler, but at NOVA he was able to beat the odds (or at least the internet’s odds) and win the majority of his games, edging yours truly out of a spot in the championships by 0.01 points! In fact, Daemons performed well across the board, with at least two (or three?) of three players going 3-1. Obviously insignificant from a statistical standpoint, it remains anecdotally interesting in the most mech-dominated tournament atmosphere I’ve ever seen.
Oh, and did I mention that he, like Tony Kopach, is only 16? You’d never know it from looking at him though (I thought for sure he was in college). That just makes his success here all the more extraordinary.
Nick’s Chaos Daemons:
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| by Danny Internets | August 22nd, 2010 - 8:30 am
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For more evidence that a tournament with a competitive format doesn’t yield a pack of chest-thumping barbarians shuffling unpainted grey legions across the tables, I present exhibits F through U.
Below are some miscellaneous pictures I snapped during the Friday night Whiskey Challenge, the Saturday tournament, and the Sunday championships. I didn’t nearly as many pictures as I should have, and there are a number of absolutely stunning armies that escaped my lens (you can catch some of them at St. John’s blog, 3+ Save, including one of the coolest Eldar schemes of all time).
Also take note of the quality of terrain, which was outstanding and of consistent quality across both the 40k and WFB boards.
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| by Dashofpepper | August 21st, 2010 - 8:30 am
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Hey folks! I wrote a thoughtful assessment of my local problems over at Dakka, but it got locked shortly after being posted….so I thought I would begin my authorship at Bald and Screaming with a Dramafest™.
If you’re reading this, you hopefully know who I am – I write Battle Reports. Here’s a few of the tournaments that I’ve done batreps for.
Since most of my batreps devolve into drama even when they shouldn’t, here’s a fair warning to you, the reader: Making personal attacks to other Dakka B&S posters commentors in this thread article is likely to result with you not posting commenting on Dakka B&S. So don’t. The point of this thread article is:
1. Humor for you.
2. Warning for the general populace about this store and its patrons.
3. Cathartic therapy for me.
Setting the stage
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| by Danny Internets | August 20th, 2010 - 5:54 pm
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I met Chumbalaya (aka Frodo, apparently) during the Whiskey Challenge on Friday and to my surprise we ended up squaring off against one another during the third game of the tournament! While I may have burnt down the Shire, Chumby was able to beat his other opponents so savagely that he managed to secure himself a spot as one of the top 3-1 finishers of the day and continued on to day 2.
Chumbalaya’s list is noteworthy because, in conjunction with the other Space Wolves lists posted, it showcases the wide variety of build types open to the codex for competitive play. Even the better army books only feature two or three competitive army types, however the Space Wolves can pump out just about any variation of mech, semi-mech, or full infantry and retain the potential to crush face. This army demonstrates the last of those variants and doesn’t contain a single vehicle, instead relying on in-your-face threats such as Thunderwolf Cavalry and Lone Wolfs to dictate target priority backed up by an assload (scientifically accurate term) of BS4 krak and frag missiles.
Frodo’s doom squad went a little something like this:
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| by Danny Internets | August 20th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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Justin Hilderbrandt (aka Dashofpepper) is the last but not the least of the NOVA Open players to go undefeated at the end of the first day. While I don’t think particularly highly of Orks, Dash clearly knows how to play them as evidenced not only by his performance in the tournament, but by his (extremely) narrow loss to Stelek’s Space Wolves during the Friday night Whiskey Challenge.
Note that Dash takes an unconventional build here, opting for more Battlewagons over what have become modern staples of successful Ork armies, such as Killa Kans and massed Warbuggies. Perhaps the most unconventional element is the huge mob of (15) Burna Boyz in a Battlewagon. Because Battlewagons are open-topped the template can be placed touching any part of the vehicle when fired…and multipled by 15 since there’s no limit to the number of models firing out. If you let that unit survive you can kiss a full unit goodbye every turn – nothing short of Plague Marines survive 80-100 S4 AP5 hits.
Lastly, I learned one more nuance to this list in the brief dealings I had with Justin over the weekend. Initially I thought that Ghazghkull would ride with one of the Boyz squads (the one without the Big Mek) to diffuse the threat levels more evenly across the 3 wagons, however Dash told me that he puts him with the Burnas because it’s more valuable to have a powerklaw in each vehicle to make use of the boarding planks.
And the last of the Tournament Ace lists is as follows:
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| by Danny Internets | August 19th, 2010 - 12:00 pm
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It’s not surprising that Eric Furman’s Eldar took the Greater Than the Sum (Best Painted) award at the NOVA Open this year. I had about 40 minutes to kill after my first game so I thought I’d poke around and snap some shots of some of the more striking armies that people brought with them to the tournament. This was one of the first I came across and I found myself returning to it throughout the day, and directing others to go take a look.
This Eldar army features some of the most expertly painted miniatures that I’ve ever seen on display. Looking back on the day, I should have taken more pictures. I also should have learned how to focus my camera.
Email Danny Internets
TastyTaste: After about the first 15 comments I thought to myself wouldn’t it be fun to calculate the average...
Tyr'sVanguard: I suppose I get belligerently drunk too often to be a champion… :(
Dashofpepper: Hod, that has nothing to do with my success. The flash cards on the other hand, have everything to do...
Hod: @Dash Sex good. I think thats sacrifice enough. Though one thing you do present that has been the staple of...
yermom: I guess thats why im only 13th. I spend far too much time with females!
Green7: Why havenbt they ever put in the results for BoLScon ? Paul Murphy would be ranked #1 if they did. I talked...
Yur Ahlozer: wow fail.
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