40K: The Comp Police (and other stories)

Librarian + sanctuary, shrouding, might of titan, quicksilver, vortex of doom
Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor + psyocculum, serve skull
Henchmen – 2 crusaders, 1 death cult assassin, 2 plasma cannon servitors, 1 heavy bolter servitor, 1 jokaero, 2 acolytes w/ melta, 2 naked acolytes, chimera
Techmarine + psykotroke grenades, rad grenades, blind grenades
5 Terminators – 1 warding stave, 1 halberd, 1 hammer, 1 psycannon, brotherhood banner
10 Strike Knights – 2 psycannons
5 Strike Knights – 2 halberds, 1 hammer, 1 psycannon, razorback w psybolt ammo, hunter killer
Storm Raven + typhoon missiles, lascannons
Dreadnought + 2x tl autocannons, psybolt ammo
Nemesis Dreadknight + teleporter, heavy incinerator

So it’s a “rainbow” list with no duplication and built for max comp. It had lots of flexibility, so much it’s hard to decide which way to go with it sometimes and it’s definitely not an easy list to play coming from Tyranids. When I make the right decisions though, it’s a brutal army.

The lynchpin is a unit designed to fight the “meta”. The inquisitor joins the henchmen and makes them bs10 when targeting psykers or units with attached psykers. My hopes were to pop open some transports with the other shooting units and then lay down some bs10 plasma cannons on units with runepriests, farseers, etc. If my opponent doesn’t have psykers, I can zoom up in the chimera and melta some stuff or jump out and get annoying with the assassin and crusaders.

The librarian and techmarine are there as force multpliers with all their powers and grenades. If I’m lucky with terrain, I can pull the 2+ fortified ruins/shrouding shenanigans. The Dreadknight and Storm Raven provide mobility and disruption and are the models I wanted to use for fun value.

Overall, it’s a list with a wide variety of fun and (hopefully) effective choices.

Why Da Boyz? Can you let our audience know why you’re parting with your hard-earned hobby money to attend this event?

Aaron:  DaBoyz GT is hosted by our local club and has been going strong for several years. The guys put on an awesome event with the best thematic terrain you will find in America, fun missions, and top-notch prize support. Enforced comp isn’t my first choice when it comes to tournament format, but it does offer a fun change to the open format spamfests. It’s also a great opportunity to meet some of the prominent players and bloggers. Last year I had the opportunity to meet the entire USA ETC team, 4 BoLS contributors, and several bloggers. You can’t beat the price too with an entry fee half of other comparable GT’s.

You run a blog call Synaps3.  What’s the blogging experience been like for you?

Aaron:  It’s been really enjoyable and rewarding. I initially started blogging to fill the void when I got burned out painting and couldn’t find a game. Tyranids were a great topic because so many people love the army but struggle with it and seek advice. I was moderately successful with the army so the blog drew a lot of interest once I started posting battle reports and tactics articles. Several of my loyal readers despise me for picking up Grey Knights, but playing a second army has given me a lot of new ideas and inspiration to return to ‘Nids after the GT. I’ve also been blessed with a great many supportive readers.

Thanks Aaron – I really appreciate you taking the time to stop in and show off your new toys!

And that’s that, folks… HOLD THE PRESSES!

I was about to finish this article off, but my mail made the mail-sound, and lo!  Jay, or J-Dog as nobody-but-me calls him, took time away from his very busy week to answer some questions…

…and though I’m not going to dish on comp, there’s nothing that says I can’t get J-Dog to do it!

Jay… so exactly how much do you regret beating me in the first championship round of the Adepticon tournament?

Jay:  I feel bad, but getting to go to the ETC was totally awesome. I honestly think my army was built to beat your army. I will be back at AdeptiCon next year, so maybe you can get your revenge!

After Da Boyz last year, the talk was about ditching the comp system. I was so confident in what I heard I left believing Da Boyz had seen its last year of comp… what changed? Why the decision to continue to embrace this style of event?

Jay:  One of the things we do every year to get feedback from the players is to do a survey of the players that attend. We had over 80 survey forms filled out and majority of them wanted the comp system to stay, but with some changes. We want to do what the players want to do.

I also feel a lot of players are sick of playing a Space Wolves with 15 missle launchers or a Grey Knights Player with 3 to 6 dreadnoughts.

You’re aware Ye Ol’ Blogosphere talks mad crap about Comp-style events! Why do you think that’s the case?

Jay:  Maybe they hate what they don’t understand. It is funny because I want to say 99% of events have comp. I would argue that the only event I am aware of that does not have comp is Bay Area Open. One of the main reasons is that they use basic rule book missions with no modifications. Let take this past AdeptiCon Champions Tournament as an example. Every mission had kill points as part of the mission. You could have built your lists with a lot of kill points and tried to win the other two missions, but you are losing before you even start. It is easier to build low kill points armies. This is very similar to what Blackmoor did at the Nova. There is hidden comp everywhere, but ours in not hidden.

The army rubric this year is interesting. Let’s see if I have this right; 1) the player will develop an army using the guidelines supplied by the outline, then, assuming the army in question meets the minimum requirements, it will be submitted and 2) five judges will score it, gifting additional points depending on the ‘fluffiness’ of the list. Have I got that right? 

Jay:  1) Yes. 2) The additional judge’s points are partially for fluffiness, but mostly because we know the rubric is not perfect. Some really fluffy armies get hurt by it and we would like to give them some points back. On the other hand some armies can “break” the rubric and this was the only way we could try to level the playing field.

In previous years, the judges’ scores were something of a sticking point. They were seen as subjective. Do the judges have an outline of sorts – a secret measure by which they’ll review the list?

Jay:  No secret measure exists, we will be looking at Codex exploration; did the player pull some units that you don’t see every day? Or did they just take the best units from their codex and spam those units? We have a vast amount of experience with all of the armies of 40K, so we can judge armies fairly. While it is still subjective, we believe that the matrix is going to help a lot this year.

You’ve obviously put a lot of thought into it; what do you want players to know about it?

Jay:  We want our GT to represent how we started playing the game years ago. Our group always prided itself on being all around players, good sports, good hobbyists, good players, and most importantly have fun. That’s why we have the tourney set up this way. We want to reward the well round players that our group tradition has evolved from over the years.

Now that we’ve addressed the system, let’s move right past it. Last year I attended and had an absolute blast! It was truly sick how much fun I had! What’s the secret here – what sets Da Boyz apart from other tournaments?

Jay:  I think it starts with our group as a whole and just wanting to have a good time. You will notice that there is a trend now to copy what is being done with the Nova Open. A lot of events have copied that system. It is great system, but not everyone wants to play in that type of system. It has a lot of games and is a very competitive event. You have one bad game of dice rolling or make one mistake you are done.

Our terrain is another thing we pride ourselves on. We spend a lot of time making tables that make players say “wow” that is awesome; I want to play on that one. We feel playing on a cool table is just as important as the miniatures we are playing with or against.

We also give out a ton of prizes. Just for the 40K singles event we have 22 places where prizes are allocated to be given out. Everyone argues that our event is not competitive, but just the opposite is true. We draw some of the very best players from across North America. Come on we even have Goatboy coming again. I think he is going to bring tons of donuts to hand out evey time he wins a game.

Is there still time to get in on this year’s event?

Jay:  Yes but we are only going to have limited tickets available at the doors. We have 96 people signed up just for the 40k Singles event so far and we have 12 teams signed up for our “ETC” event on Friday.

What’s the first step in getting involved?

Go to our web site DaBoyzGT.com

And there you have it!  Cool, right?  Drop a line to let Aaron know you appreciate his work… and if you’ve a mind, check out his blog and hit the ever-important ‘Follow’ button.

Look, if you have the extra cash and some free time, think about attending Da Boyz this weekend.  I attended last year and the experience was top notch.  Comp or no comp, if you’re not attending tournaments for the experience than you’ll end up an unhappy camper.

Da Boyz is an established event.  It’s that good, so keep it on your tournament calendar. 

Thoughts?  Comments?  Hugs and gropings?