Show Notes
5-17-14
Intro
- Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube! Join our Forums, too! If you would like to be a guest on the show, email Reece at Contact@FrontlineGaming.org
- We sell tabletop games and supplies at 20% off! Hit us up for your next gaming order at Orders@FrontlineGaming.org or visit our webstore at FrontlineGaming.org.
News
- GET YOUR PRE-ORDERS IN! Yeah, that’s right, the new 40K rule book set of 3 books is now up for pre-order! You know the drill, 25% off your entire order if you order the new rule book! That includes non GW stuff like Privateer Press and Infinity, etc. There are some exclusions to this which we will let you know about if you order them. No, this is not 25% off of our 20% off.. We charge a flat $6.99 flat shipping within the USA and we cannot sell GW product outside of the USA, sorry.
- New releases from the very awesome Darklands line.
- BAO news, Christian A asks if we are waiting to see what happens with 6.5/7th ed 40K before pulling the trigger on the BAO. That is part of it, but, it is more the incredibly high prices that have slowed us down. We are at the contract negotiation stage with a hotel in Santa Clara, though. It looks promising.
- A new Space Hulk Video Game will be coming out!
- The Storm of Silence results are up in the ITC! We have had a lot of movement in the rankings, too.
- Top Ten 40K: Pajama Pants just fell to 11!
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1 Alexander Yuen 2 Alexander Fennell 3 Chuck Arnett 4 Eric Hoerger 5 Adam Tricola 6 Josh Sands 7 Ben Cromwell 8 Nick Rose 9 Jason Peterson 10 Christopher Morris
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- Best of Currently:
- Blood Angels: Pascal Rogen
- Daemons: Adrien Jeanniard
- Chaos Space Marines: Justin Adams
- Dark Angels: Aaron Wisch
- Dark Eldar: Bryan Gregory
- Eldar: Alex Yuen
- Grey Knights: Gordy Danke
- Astra Militarum: Gareth Hunt
- Imperial Knights: Vince Price
- Necrons: Chris Morris
- Orks: Don Maddock
- Sisters: Obi Hampton
- Marines: Eric Hoerger
- Wolves: Keith Jenkins
- Tau: Chuck Arnett
- Tyranids: Tie for first between Geoff Robinson and Cooper Waddell
- Top Ten 40K: Pajama Pants just fell to 11!
- The next event in the ITC Circuit is the Golden Gargant at KublaCon in the bay area, Sunday May 25th.
- After that is the Guardian Cup up in Portland the following weekend, May 21 through June 1st, at Guardian Games, which we have an interview with the TO, Aaron at the end of the next show.
- Check out the Mech Maker Kickstarter! You can custom make your own robot dude. http://kck.st/1nbWUE1
Rumors: The Rumor Section is gathered from the web and is not in any way information we receive from any manufacturer nor is it necessarily accurate. This section of the podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only.
- 7th is sounding pretty awesome, actually. Unbound armies seem to require opponent permission. Most tournaments outside of Ard Boyz style events will probably not allow them they way they look now.
- The changes to the psychic phase will really cut back on spamming psychic powers which will be good for the game if done right. The powers are still good, and help a ton, but the odds of getting a power go down and everyone gets psychic defense which is a good thing. That was one of the main problems with 6th.
- Ignores cover going to a -2 to cover is awesome, thank goodness! That will help balance things out a ton.
- Vehicles getting tougher sounds cool, too. They needed it.
- Missions changing every turn based on drawing cards with objectives on them and being able to choose what you want sounds interesting. We will have to wait and see how that one pans out.
- FMCs only taking a single grounding check per phase and only if they take a wound is interesting. That could make FMCs so much harder to hurt, but, it sounds like you may get a bonus to hit them if you hold still which really balances it out. Time will tell on that one. Interceptor/Skyfire no longer giving full BS when firing at ground targets it big, as it really makes Tau think twice about taking it. It appears that if you have Skyfire, you will always snapfire on ground targets.
- Bikes/Skimmers having to choose to jink and in so doing snap firing seems fair. There’s no reason some vehicles always get a save and other don’t, particularly things like the Wave Serpent. This will really tone those down which is good.
- Consolidating into combat is pretty powerful on its own, but we need to see more of how this works before passing judgment.
- Allies matrix is changing and you can ally with come the apocalypse armies? Interesting.
- In general it feels like a lot of the things that made 6th fall just short of awesome are being addressed. Time will tell, though. We have to read the entire book and play some games first to see how it all comes together, but things sound promising so far.
Rant Session
Tactics Corner
Rules Lawyer
List Review
So, I noticed you all hated my three Imperial Knight and Grey Knight list. Based of the feedback I changed to the following:
White Scars primary
HQ Captain on bike with artificer armor, shield eternal, and thunder hammer
Command squad
Apothecary
3x storm shields and 2x power swords for other three bikers
Bike squad
Sgt with lightning claw
2x grav guns
Bike squad
Sgt with power axe
Plasma and grav
Bike squad
Sgt with power fist
Plasma and grav
Bike squad
Sgt with grav pistol
Melta gun and flamer
Heavy support
Stalker… Brand new and needs paint!!!
Allies
Imperial Knights Errants… The ones with the Melta Cannons
I wonder how long that result from LVO will hold out for the top BA player:P.
I played the doubles with Adrien, yay warm fuzzies!
Hey, you have it while it lasts!
Negotiating with a hotel takes about 10 minutes.
Not when thousands of dollars are on the line and a bad contract could literally ruin a small business. But that’s awesome that you’ve been able to negotiate with hotels quickly in your experience. We just need to make sure everything makes sense and we ask all the right questions.
Lol! Mike, you kill me, dude. That was the best joke I’ve heard all day! hahaha, oh man, no, negotiating with a hotel for a 5 figure contract does not take 10 minutes. Not even remotely close. Hahaha
There was once a My little pony convention in Vegas where they promised ALOT of stuff(Show Actors mostly) and only recieved half the expected attendees. They where not able to pay the actors and the hotel axed the convention and kicked all the attendees out of the hotel(This was in the middle of it) with no way to get home.
The people who ran it are now on the Lamb.
Conventions can be fucking serious
Yeah, exactly. It is a HUGE gamble. Huge. We basically bet our business when we do it. It is not something to be taken lightly.
I just googled that con… holy crap.
LOL shut you face
I heard it takes about two minutes.
You just sign on the dotted line, don’t you ?
No, that is selling your soul
Nice 🙂
“Tau think twice about taking it. It appears that if you have Skyfire, you will always snapfire on ground targets.”
Reece, actually this change won’t affect Tau at all, because the wargear they have (Velocity Tracker) says that a model with it can *choose* whether or not to have sky fire each time it shoots, so they’ll still be effective against both ground and air targets.
Ah yes, good point. Stupid Tau! lol
Sir we aren’t stupid we just know how to make our technology work in multiple situations 😛
I swear, Frankie sounds depressed whenever he isnt with someone else in the podcast.
how can hotsauceman1 refer to a my little pony convention without anyone raising a eyebrow? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
Meh, he is a known brony.
he even said the people who ran it are “out on a lamb” HE IS BEGGING TO BE TEASED ABOUT ANIMAL SEX PEOPLE…
I was using an example 😛
Besides, It isnt surprising. There are conventiions for everything now
Good podcast. Great job Frankie holding it down! I don’t think you sound depressed but there is less opening for jokes when you are by yourself. Haha
ROFLMAO Reece you kill ME! My best friend(Doug) works in a REAL hotel with a CASINO and SPA and 5 restaurants and negotiations take 2 maybe 3 phone calls. As far as negotiating goes I’m an expert and engage in the activity daily as a finance director. I negotiate 5 figure deals all day everyday. Please stop insulting our intelligence and just say there won’t be a BAOGT this year or if it will it will be when your damn well ready to get around to it.
The half ass excuses and ambiguous implications are frustrating at best. I can’t understand while you have forsaken the tournament that gave you boys your start in this world.
You make it sound like your attempting a hostile takeover of a billion dollar corporation. You don’t negotiate with a hotel over the course of days or weeks. The fact that you think we are all that stupid is disconcerting. And BTW, ask all the questions you want, but you’d be better off starting with reviewing their standard contract and requesting any amendments necessary to your specific needs. Although I doubt your needs aren’t already addressed therein. You may only hold one maybe two tournaments a year but they(hotel) do it all year. It’s also laughable that you have as much as experience as you claim but protest to need all this time to iron out details(that we both know don’t exist). I understand if there are mitigating factors or even outright apathy but making a simple transaction like hotel / convention room use out to be neuro-surgery is a bit absurd. Please remember that at least a few of your clients are actual adults.
Well the truth is I have a hard time reading so it takes me a while to get a contract ironed out which is why it’s taking so long. I knew I should have gotten hooked on phonics when I was younger but oh well I’ll get one figured out eventually I’m sure lol. I’m glad that you’re so excited for the BAO this year and hopefully we can get into a nice hotel were we can grow it into an even larger event. Thanks for your enthusiasm Mike.
Lets do some simple math to analyze the “5 figures” you threw out there. We both know that if you obligate yourself to enough rooms that the convention space is included at no add’l charge. SO:
If you increase last years attendance by 30%(which is a bit optimistic maybe) bringing registered and paid attendees close to 200.
Lets assume that 50% of people will stay at the hotel(which is probably way too high, but for arguments sake.). So if you are unwise enough to play the margin where you see that type of growth and assume that many locals will stay in the hotel you’d be obligated to 100 rooms.
If you obligate yourself to 100 rooms and you pay anything more than $50 a room you are foolish and would not even have made it this far.
So at 100 rooms(way too many) and $50 a room(way too much) you’d only be paying out $5000.00 which is only 50% of “5 figures).
Lets say that you are arranging food and beverage concessions along with the rooms.
Lets assume you obligate yourself to 150 registered players eating at the hotel and drinking there too, and just for the sake of argument lets assume you have to prepay the concessions just to get your percentage of sales. So at 150 prepaid meals @ 10.00 a person(hotel food is can be expensive even at wholesale prices) that’s another $1500. Even if you don’t capture a single penny of concessions you’ll still only be financially obligating yourself to maybe $6500 on the total high side…..
In actuality your probably negotiating over a block of rooms numbering around 50-75 and maybe your discussing something in the neighborhood of $3500.00. Lets just be real….
You do realize you sound ridiculous judging our positions with nothing but conjecture, right? You’re throwing imaginary numbers around completely ignorant of the facts and then presuming to judge our position based on those figures pulled out of the air. There are SO many other factors in play that you are not considering.
Math is math and common sense is just that…common.
You show me a draft from your account with 5 figures or even a contract obligating you to for 5 figures and I’ll eat a copy of it on a video bat rep. If you can’t I get a free Tablewar/FLG 6×4 gaming mat…deal?
You caught us red handed mike. The truth is we’d rather sit on our gaming mat couches and relax then throw an event that we make huge money at. Lol it’s really funny how easy people think doing things are when they are on the sidelines. I’m not insulting you or saying you’ve never dealt with hotels or anything. I’m just saying you haven’t thrown a gaming event like we have and we’re not rolling in 6500 dollars we can just throw away if that was the figures we were getting. Which if we were getting something that cheap we would sign right away we’re not stupid either well Reece went to college and I graduated from middle school so that’s something. Anyways Mike I’m really happy you’re enthusiastic about the BAO and if you would like to help us find a venue that’s makes sense in the bay. then with your background it sounds you’re very qualified we would appreciate the help. Or at least some good leads.
come one guys…it doesn’t cost $10,000 in up front costs to hold a tournament in some Santa Clara hotel. it’s just hilarious to even consider….. I’d be happy to help and I’d be even happier to be the catalyst that expedited my beloved BAOGT.
If it does cost $10,000 UP FRONT then let’s just go back to the fairgrounds…. what was the problem with that place?
Was it really so bad there? parking was a little frakked up but in lieu of thousands of dollars and an already established venue let’s just get the ball rolling. Everyday wasted not selling tickets is momentum lost and never regained. I sincerely think you are all remiss for not capitalizing on the success of the LVOGT(by announcing the BAOGT immediately following) I can only imagine that you were just plumb exhausted from your efforts there and the ensuing batch of gaming mats en route from China.
you guys have my email…. send me anything you want help with or anything you just want me to see so i can eat my words here.
I’m sorry I can’t be the fanboy that all these kiss asses are but I will be happy to focus my zeal for your benefit and I sincerely want to see you guys succeed. I just have a funny way of showing it. 8)
Mike, I know you mean well dude, but you come across as a serious jerk. There’s no need to berate us, or call our other customers kiss-asses. That’s just asking for people to not want to listen to anything you say.
I have two quotes on my computer right now, for over $10K a day in just food and beverage commitments alone, that isn’t even considering ballroom rental, hotel room commitments, etc.
It is not even 10% as easy to do as you make it sound. It’s not as simple as calling any hotel. First of all, you need one with enough square footage in a single ballroom. That alone eliminates 99% of the possible venues. You also need one with the space and availability on a good weekend, too. Most of these places are booked on weekends that would work for us. I can’t tell you how many places I found that could have worked that weren’t available on any weekend for the rest of the year.
You also need a good room rate, and $50 a night is not even remotely close for hotels in the bay area. Haggling like a spice merchant, I am lucky to get them down to $90 a night on a non-weekend night and that is with a big room commitment which in all likelihood we wouldn’t be able to fill as most of the people coming to the BAO are local. The prices here are WAY higher than in other places in the country.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of finding the right place, the right size at the right time at the right price. It has turned out to be much more difficult that we had predicted, or than you think it is.
The Barn is fine for local people, but the labor involved with setting it up and breaking it down is NUTS. We literally do EVERYTHING, including sweeping the floors, getting, food, etc. It’s a lot to do. We don’t mind hard work at all, but when you factor in that it is incredibly difficult for people to get there that are flying, and that a lot of folks had issues with the hotels nearby being crazy sleazy, we don’t want to go back. It’s time for the BAO to grow up into a real convention. The Barn is a last ditch option, but we don’t want to go there if possible.
At any rate, you are free to think what you want. You are way off on the numbers, the issues in play and the ease of doing this in the bay though, for what it matters. And, as I always say, if it is so easy to do then by all means, show us what’s up and host an event. If you are right, the proof will be in the pudding.
If you do do the barn again call me up for help you set it up
Thanks for the offer, buddy, much appreciated!
The problem was the fairgrounds was
1: Bad part of Antioch
2: Hard to find and near a school
3: Poorly lit during the day(One of the paint judges told me that it was hard to judge because of the lighting.
4: People want food, their is none around other then what they bring
5: Doesnt have good tables nor good floors(My ankles hurt)
6: they still have to negotiate for a hotel
But sadly I might not be able to go 🙁 Stupid job
I don’t think Reece ever said it was $10,000 up front.
He said it was a $10,000+ commitment.
Although you might be right, and they should have promoted BAOGT right after LVOGT. But to be honest, I’m perfectly happy with them promoting it once they have a date and location. If you lock in a date before you’ve got a booking with the hotel, then you aren’t in a flexible bargaining position!
We simply couldn’t coordinate two events at once that size, it wasn’t possible. We were working 16 hour days getting ready for the LVO, there was not enough time in the day to do more. Ideally though, yes, we would like to roll from one event to another and starting 2015 that is the plan, but this year it was not feasible.
And yeah, we never said anything about upfront cost, it was the bill at the end that you worry about. If you get hit with a $30,000 bill after you already lost money on an event, you are going to have to declare BK, or sell assets, or something. It would be terrible.
Then stop showing it, Oadius. It’s not that we expect you to kiss Reece’s ass, we just want you stop being a pompous ass. Your messiah complex is nauseating.
Being a douche is a funny way of showing it. You should consider the fact that youre insulting the very people who are trying to run the tournament for you and all the other players. So maybe stop bitching and show your support for the guys who are trying to bring you the cheapest and most efficient tournment they can. I dont understand people like you and the internet…
ass kissers say what?>
bro they sell rooms in Reno 2 for 1 for $50.00 at a Triple A, 4 diamond, world class resort.
They sell buffets here for $24.99 at dinner time with service and beverage included to non locals…
if 250 people come to the “con” then they’ll have to consume $20.00 a day just for you guys to break even. Why would you bother when Mcdonald’s is just around the corner? How about the $5.00 pizza from Little Caesar’s?
Why don’t you just hook up with some food trucks that’ll show up at the barn and you’ll have no out of pocket expenses at all…I’m sure they’ll be happy to oblige with the 250 people+ people that will be showing up.
….
Well, it’s obvious you know far better than anybody else what’s involved.
Why don’t you run your own tournament?
This is not Reno. This is the Bay Area of California. We passed New York as the most expensive place to live in the country. You are comparing apples and oranges. You think you know what you’re talking about but you don’t. It is stupid expensive here, much, much more so than anywhere else we’ve done business, including LA. The suggestions you make are proactive, which is appreciated, but honestly, you are so far off on the numbers. At this point, letting it drop would be a good idea. Trust me that we are working on finding a location that makes financial sense, and that as soon as that is done, we will pull the trigger on the BAO. We have no reason to do otherwise.
And seriously, stop insulting people, Mike. It does nothing at all to advance your cause and I don’t want to have to delete anyone’s posts. We try to let folks do what they want, but showing each other respect is the one and only rule here so follow it.
Who is this idiot?
Frankie’s loneliness is palpable.
Yeah, it would be tough to do the podcast solo. I appreciate the effort he went to though! Great work, Frankie!