I've been painting as much as I could. Then I took a few days off cause I thought I was back on schedule. Man have I put a lot of work into my landraider. It is the biggest thing in my army so it is a natural center piece, so it had to look cool. I had hoped to have it and the defiler finished by the end of this weekend.
I've been watching the NFL playoffs. They are both a distraction and good background noise. To bad about the Browns though. Owen says the football fans at the GT will be accomedated. I also want to keep my webpages up to date and ramble on about all the mad schemes I have. Since I'm on my third beer tonight my painting is only going to go downhill so instead I'll try to write coherently.
Tomorrow I made plans to meet Dave to watch the Bucs game at a bar. Then my mother and sister are coming to town. My margin of error is getting smaller and smaller. This weekend I have to put in as much time as I can. Hopefully I can get most of my web related stuff finished too.
Although I rarely play, and it looks like I won't play a game between this GT and my last one. I do paint and scheme. My miniature gallery is only going to get more vast and I want to write down some of my schemes mainly so I don't forget. I've broken it up into three parts.
This is another Nurgle Grand Tournament army. This one may be more old school then mine, but perhaps it benefitted from some heavy mail ordering. Since I seem to be linking to all the stuff I've meant to link to for months, here is some GW Nurgle stuff.
I still remember when there was only 3-4 Chaos players period on the 40K mailing list, now it seems everyone and their dog has a Nurgle army, but few keep their website online for a decade or more as I've been deleting many busted links of late.
All this linking has gotten me side tracked. I won't even mention watching the hockey game... At least I'm almost done painting my Landraider green. To some it may not seem like much, but to me this represented a lot of time and effort. Any way I and presumably all other entrants have received their copy of the tournament program. I've also briefly discussed this with Bill who is entering fantasy. (Steve one of my opponents in Calgary is also entering fantasy.) Bill is of the opinion that army selection shouldn't be judged nor be a part of the scoring. Usually all the people "out to win" are up in arms about painting being a criteria. I don't argue as much as I used to, but for those who are "out to win" the tie breakers for the trophies are painting and sportsmanship scores.
The scoring break down is different from Calgary I believe, as well as possibly the weightings. The biggest change in my mind is army selection is being judged after the game. So now you play, get your ass whooped and then decided if your opponent had a fun army to play against. I think this will lead to a few more low scores in a category that was already very difficult to do well in. Bill thinks some players are prejudice against some armies, I'd never even considered that but I suppose it could be true. All in all it is definitely difficult to win especially as the field gets larger and people travel from further away.
| Criteria | Calgary 2002 | Vancouver 2003 |
|---|---|---|
| Game Play | 72 pts | 60 pts |
| Sportsmanship | 42 pts | 42 pts |
| Painting and Conversions | 40 pts | 40 pts |
| Army Selection | 24 pts | 24 pts |
| Knowledge (Quiz) | 10 pts | No longer Used!? |
Besides the demise of the quiz, for which there was rampant answer sharing in Calgary it appears on the surfaces that a greater emphasis is being placed on Painting and Sportsmanship. Besides being used as the tie breaker for the trophies, these categories did not decrease in weighting while Game Play did. This is offset somewhat by the demise of the quiz, but looking at the percentages:
| Criteria | Calgary 2002 | Vancouver 2003 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Game Play | 38.2% | 36.1% | - 2.1% |
| Sportsmanship | 22.3% | 25.3% | + 3% |
| Painting and Conversions | 21.2% | 24.1% | +2.9% |
| Army Selection | 12.8% | 14.5% | + 1.7% |
| Knowledge (Quiz) | 5.4% | No longer Used!? | - 5.4% |
Maybe I got the urge to work all this out because it was RRSP season and I've been looking at P/E and Dividend Yields for the last few days. Anyway hopefully my charts show that for the 2003 Canadian GT season Painting and Sportsmanship have increased in importance while knowing the rules and background and being good (and lucky) has been decreased. I still maintain to maximize your score you need fanatical followers who will trumpet you at every opportunity as I believe in buzz. It is just like at a conference to elect a new political party leader except without the news coverage and hopefully less drunk driving. :-P
Seven Days to the Grand Tournament