Post Nurgle 3.0
I started writing this about six months ago, but I held off publishing it until I painted the campaign badge on my West Coast Mayhem army. I just finished painting about 50 ensignia, I used the same techniques as before just different colors. The colors I used were Chaos Black, Foundation Orange and Fiery Orange. I opted for a classic Nurgle symbol of three circles connected by three lines with the letters "W", "C", and "M" written inside. I opted for orange as it is a color I've been using more and more in my Nurgle army, plus the last two campaign badges were white/red and blue/silver.
Tournament Scoring
How to score a tournament has been a headache since GW or whoever first got the idea to have a Warhammer or 40K tournament. I know there was much discussion on the 40K mailing list back in the day and still Warseer or whatever online board you want will debate this crap. Many, many scoring systems have been tried and no matter what people complain.
After West Coast Mayhem concluded and I didn't win anything I wasn't really upset but when I learned that I got 22 in army presentation, thus tying for 12th in army presentation I was disappointed and since other people were asking I asked why my army didn't do better?
I was told by a tournament organizer that they used a pure checkbox system and he pushed everything on to the tournament participants. Then the guy who won the overall tournament said it was just how the cookie crumbles and you never know how painting judging is going to go... Neither of these were very good answers and after they posted a more detailed account of how scoring was done, I pointed out I got all but one plus and zero minuses. I could have even have gotten the final plus if I had declared my lone plague marine squad in a rhino as Fast Attack. I wasn't sure if that was legal and I honestly didn't care, you need more than max army composition to win a tournament.
A couple days later, after the scores had gone to GW, it was revealed that a mistake was made by the tournament organizers checking a box or in their spreadsheet or something. I didn't finish with 22 for Army Presentation but 26, the guy said he didn't notice my army was in a custom made display base? Of all the things, how could you miss that, it was physically larger than my entire army...
Anyway I went from 22 to 26 which made me go from tied for 11th or 12th to tied for 2nd or third or something in army presentation. I can't say this made me happy. I'm almost never happy anymore, not since March 2005...
Regardless I hope the 7th Gamers learn from West Coast Mayhem and put on even better tournaments in the future. I can't say I will enter one, but I can't say I won't either. I just don't know what the future holds anymore. I may try my luck at Astronomicon or one of the big US tournaments, or I may never enter another one, I just don't know.
True Story
The Kroot guy I played at Checkpoint Charlie's also entered West Coast Mayhem. He said something like "I see you brought the good painted stuff today." I was shocked, I told him I had the exact same army that he had spent hours playing against at Checkpoint Charlie's. He didn't believe me. Why don't people believe me? I always tell the truth. It is printed right on their frickin' computer screen but people still don't believe me or they just don't care...
This guy did not paint his own army. Yet being one of my peers he may have been called upon to judge the painting of my army. This does not sound like the ideal person to judge the quality of miniature painting. How do you remember me and remember my army enough to spot it out of thirty others, but not remember how it was painted?
Onward to Moscow
That is something my great uncle Charlie used to always say. After a not a very good six months I decided to register for Astronomi-con Vancouver. This is one of the funnest tournaments going and now it travels from its home in Winterpeg to the sunny climes of Vancouver. It also goes to Toronto, but who cares about Toronto. :-) This means another GT journal will be begun, but it will hopefully conclude at the Las Vegas GT, unless GW cuts that one as well. Astronomi-con is 1500 points and I've decided in order to ensure that everything will be painted in a timely manner and acknowleging how much time I'm devoting to my studies, to go with the Diseased Sons greatest hits army list. Very few new models will be painted to take advantage of the new codex, instead I'll take basically 1500 points of stuff that is already finished and looks good.
I'll also be working towards a more varried Chaos force with troops worshiping the pantheon of gods as well as Chaos Undivided. I also plan to paint greenskins in 2008 for both Warhammer Fantasy Battle and 40K. So nurgle.muschamp.ca will be undergoing a major overhaul soon.