* A rather fine run tournament last weekend and apologies for the late post *
Well well well, Mr. Craig I see we meet again as you've decided to give running another tournament a go (see Gaelcon ROFE).
So here I am stuck in a car with nordies and DGGers.... this should be an interesting trip. So after a long and eventful journey, thanks for eating those beans Rowan!, we settle in for a few pints and the lads attempt to poison me with beer, instead of cider, to take me out of the running for the tournament. Tricky tricky nordies.
So game one was a little tardy starting off, for shame Craig, and each table was missing a key piece of terrain. Not that I was complaining with me pew pew! [Ed: I assume he has a shooty list] I've actually found something almost as annoying the empty promise of free tea and coffee - optional donation tea and coffee! Yeah thanks for guilt tripping me into that one lads!
At this point I would like to make a complaint to the club known as the Warheads, you should not allow Maynard to stretch out Floody's Warpcon t-shirt, thus making it unwearable by Floody and giving Warpcon free advertising where they pay for everything else (and then some).
Now back to Itzacon...
Jesus lads, what's with the price? I could find a cheaper polish hooker and she'd only steal my kidneys. Strangely I feel like the discount is more of a slap in the face, because the more people we con (pardon the pun) [Ed: The joke is in the convention name, Itz-a-con (hyphens added for clarity)] into coming the better the discount gets. I would expect at least a 10% royalty payment for each person someone brings in a group.
Ah Sunday morning wargaming! Nothing beats it you know... except when the pub isn't and doesn't open.... What the fudge? Are you actively trying to piss wargamers off this weekend or something? I really hope that late opening fee for the bar wasn't just for Saturday night because if it was you guys just got pwned by some council/college official who's probably laughing all the way to his heroine dealer or the non-Dublin equivalent.
I'd like to end this post with the following, I hate my dice (GG Keavney).
* Now a dedication to the winner of Itzacon 40k last weekend - Peter 'Good Show' Scott *
Opponents 5/5
Venue 5/5
Food 2/5
Rules Pack 5/5
Terrain/Tables 4/5
Organization 5/5
Prizes 4/5
Value for Money 2/5
Overall 18/20
That gives a decent score of 50/60.
So, first off my apologies for the short and late review this time. A slight technical glitch and real world shite caused my notes and time to vanish.
So once again a stunning bunch of opponents and sorry to my first opponent Eanna, who was the first person to face the new BT list I was running combined with the fantastic dice rolls I had, as it did not fair well for him. Thanks for the great and challenging games go to: Eanna (as above), Phil, Nick, Rowan and Mark. Damn the dice gods!
The venue was great but there could have been a much more efficient use of the space that was all around us. On the whole the space + area + proximity to the bar was great. The food on site was really good but again no kind of snacks for the gamers (see DDIV + III + Warpcon 2011) to keep those blood sugar levels high. The tea and coffee was free, if you could find a cup. There was a lovely donation option when you got this. I actually had Itzacon down for 3/5 for food however after the poison attempt of the Mars/caramel squares for charity I had to deduct a point. Fire the baker.
Again I'd like to state I have no problem with the 2 Kill points difference thing that you use at Itzacon Craig hence the 5/5 for the rules pack and I'd like someone that actually has an issue with it to explain (plainly) why they do without using sentences like "my army is borked by this change" as I could say the same thing of objective missions and tyranid players using Tervigons. It's nice to see new missions being tried and maybe if we see a couple more attempts at new spins to old mission types it could be better for the tournament scene.
The terrain, while sufficient, really does need one more piece of LOS blocking terrain per table. I have no issues with the quality/standard of the terrain, as it's of a high calibre but really it should be 25% of the table not 20%-22% with a decent LOS blocking piece somewhere. Randomizing tables instead of having "top tables" is something I'd like to see it avoid playing on the same table twice (I believe the program Johnny gave you Craig has this ability).
Organization was fantastic but watch those round times. The prizes could also have been a bit better for the price overall.
Okay, so the whole price issue is probably a touchy subject at this point, given the whole mess that ensued and while it is nice to see where the money is going it is clearly being mis-managed in some way, shape or form. This is more directed at all tournaments/cons, especially the few that have come to the communities attention lately, where there is a very large gaping hole between the price wargamers pay into the event and the amount of funds spent on them for the weekend but I digress and will leave this argument to the finer minds of our community.
Overall the entire weekend was fantastically run by Craig and fun was had by all. The pizza was great, although my stomach had a bit of a "don't bloody try it" moment so I had to stop eating half way through. It's also always good to get change when you buy drinks!
Thank you to all for the fun weekend and hope to see you all again soon.
Next Up: Vatiretcon and my first review on a fellow club member (oh joy)! So grab the popcorn and sit back and watch the gloves come off and sparks fly.
