Hey, everyone, Chandler here with a rundown on this past weekend’s Come the Apocalypse GT. The event was held in Enterprise, Alabama at our local FLGS, Fanatix Enterprise.
We had 32 players register and 30 people played in the event. Although we have held several ITC and non-ITC tournaments here over the years, this was our first ever Grand Tournament level event. I’m going to include a rundown of what we did leading up to the event, as well as the results.
Planning the Event
As I stated above, this was the first ever GT level event that our group was putting together and we faced a number of challenges. First, our location is rather rural. If you’ve never heard of Enterprise, AL, well, welcome to about 95% of the rest of the world. We are a small town located in the southeast corner of the state. The closest major cities to us are New Orleans and Atlanta, both about a 4 hour drive! We knew coming into this event that filling it would be a huge undertaking given our location, but one we were willing to take on. We have a strong community of players here, despite our rural location, and it continues to grow every year, but we knew we would be leaning heavily on people willing to travel to attend our event. Thus we began an aggressive internet advertising campaign.
We began planning this event late in 2016 which gave us nearly a year to prepare. We setup a website for the event, created a social media page and a Facebook event and got our event on Best Coast Pairings. Additionally, we started doing a podcast, which you can find on iTunes and Google Play Music called, Come the Apocalypse. We are currently 8 episodes in so check us out if you need something to listen to while you slug through those painting sessions. Over the past few years we have also networked with a lot of players via social media, but most importantly, by traveling to events and meeting people. That was probably one of the most important things that helped us make the event happen. Getting face to face interaction with other like minded players really helped give us credibility and encouraged attendance.
Second, the biggest hurdle any group faces when organizing an event of this size, is terrain and tables. Fortunately we got a good sponsorship through gamemat.eu who provided us with some help in that department. Our local FLGS shop owner, Mike Campany, also managed to get us quite a bit of terrain and the rest we set out to build/make ourselves. Our goal with the terrain, especially after the launch of 8th edition, was to provide good line of sight blocking terrain in the center of each table. I feel that we definitely were able to handle that. Our community came together and got the terrain done with pieces to spare.
The Event
We had people come in from all over the tri-state area. Many came up from Florida as well as Mississippi, and northern Alabama. We filled the event with no problem and had only one no-show on day 1. We wanted a very chill vibe which encouraged sportsmanship and positive attitudes and I feel we accomplished that. As a TO I never once got called over to a table to resolve a heated dispute. For a GT level event that is really awesome. So kudos goes out to the attendees for being such wonderful people.
The lists were tough and there were some amazing players in attendance. Our event was scored on a combination of sportsmanship, painting, and battle points accrued over the course of the tournament. Sportsmanship was a simple default to thumbs-up for every player with the requirement being to thumbs-down a player, a judge would have been called over well before the game ended. Painting was done using the Warzone Atlanta painting rubric, which doesn’t necessarily judge quality itself, but rather a guideline of items that cover painting.
For our missions we used modified Eternal War missions with secondaries with battle points being based on margin of victory. Overall this went over smoothly and we didn’t really get any complaints over mission design.
Prizes and Awards
Our prizes were as follows:
- Best Overall: Player with highest combined score between battle points, painting, and sportsmanship
- Best General: Player with the highest number of battle points in the event
- Best Painted: Voted upon by peers
- Best Sportsmanship: Voted upon by peers.
Additionally we gave out some random door prizes, the good old wooden spoon award, and gift certificates for 2nd and 3rd place in battle points. We knew coming into the event that we wanted some unique trophies as well, and our FLGS owner, Mike Campany, put together two awesome trophies for the event.
Best Sportsmanship was a 5 way tie which we felt was really awesome. Each player got a Primaris character.
Best Painted went to Doug Kus for his amazing Nurgle themed Black Legion army. Doug had a lot of conversion work in his army and it was beautiful. A well deserved honor. He was also one of our winners of Best Sportsmanship as well.
Best General went to Michael Lee who brought a brutal list featuring four Grand Master Nemesis Dreadknights and two vanguard detachments filled with assassins and Celestine. He went 5-0 in the event with his list (more on that below.) In a field of strong competitors Mike was a stand-up guy with an absolutely savage list designed to contend with a meta full of conscripts and horrors of which there were plenty of both in abundance at the event.
Best Overall went to Mark Perry who went 4-1 with an amazing Black Legion list revolving around Fabius Bile, Abaddon and recycling cultists. His army also was beautifully painted and received a max paint score which put him up at the top. Mark is a great guy and had a fantastic army to boot. A well earned Best Overall win.
Michael Lee’s Dreadknight list was absolutely brutal. With an army full of characters he was able to really take advantage of the 8th edition rules on targeting them. With the speed of Celestine and the Eversor assassins as well as the utter psychic denial with the Cullexus combined with the conscript deleting Dreadknights, Michael was able to come away 5-0. That said, it wasn’t an easy road for him and all of his opponents were tough as you might imagine. And here’s his list:
Supreme Command Detachment
Grand Master Nemesis Dreadknight – 285
– Teleporter
– Heavy Psycannon
– Gatling Psilencer
– Nemesis Great Sword
– Dreadfist
– Domina Liber Damonica
Grand Master Nemesis Dreadknight – 285
– Teleporter
– Heavy Psycannon
– Gatling Psilencer
– Nemesis Great Sword
– Dreadfist
Grand Master Nemesis Dreadknight – 285
– Teleporter
– Heavy Psycannon
– Gatling Psilencer
– Nemesis Great Sword
– Dreadfist
Grand Master Nemesis Dreadknight – 285
– Teleporter
– Heavy Psycannon
– Gatling Psilencer
– Nemesis Great Sword
– Dreadfist
Vanguard Detachment
Primaris Psyker – 40
Astropath – 15
Astropath – 15
Astropath – 15
Astropath – 15
Cullexus Assassin – 85
Cullexus Assassin – 85
Vanguard Detachment
Celestine – 150
Cullexus Assassin – 85
Eversor Assassin – 70
Eversor Assassin – 70
Eversor Assassin – 70
Eversor Assassin – 70
Eversor Assassin – 70
Total 1995 Points Command Points: 6
Final Thoughts
Overall, it was a wonderful event. We set out to have an event that would encourage all aspects of the hobby and I feel we accomplished our goal in that regard. Feedback from the attendees was all positive and we were happy to host our first ever GT. It was a lot of work by a lot of people in the community, but it was well worth it.
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