The weekend of October 29 – 30 saw the inaugural debut of BeakyCon held at the Marriott hotel in the Tampa airport (Florida). Here’s how it went down.
We had just under 40 players. This was a competitive track 40k tournament with no soft scores or sportsmanship. The top four players from Day One would move into the Golden Bracket for Day Two while the rest would slug it out in the Silver Bracket. Normally I am not one to take a lot of pictures but I decided it would be nice to have a few for this report and help tell the story about the GT.
My partner Matt Douthat and I arrived at the hotel early on Friday to start the setup. There was a lot of work hauling in the tables but finally late in the afternoon we had them all in the ballroom and could take a short break to eat. Matt really was a great help over the entire weekend in every aspect of running the event.
Others started arriving around 5pm to help start placing the terrain. Harold Cowan from Bradenton loaned us enough terrain to cover 12 tables and his stuff is really pretty awesome. Here you can see some of his terrain we used for the Golden Bracket on Day Two.
There were quite a few of there on Friday evening so we had some open gaming then called it a night. I got in my one game of the weekend versus a drop pod Space Wolf army played by my good buddy Teddy Woody.
Scott Lester was one of the first to arrive and also helped us break down on Sunday afternoon which was very much appreciated. 😀
Each morning started at 7:30 am so it was time to get some shut eye. The next morning Matt and I grabbed some breakfast and then opened up the registration. Everyone was prompt and the first round started on time.
We had a great crowd there and I really don’t remember any big issues over the entire weekend. Everything ran smoothly. James Caudill from Anthem Games arrived in the afternoon bringing lots of stock from his shop. I’m pretty sure James sold a lot of glue and dice over the course of the weekend.
We had three rounds on Saturday so lots and lots of games. There was a lot of Space Marine armies but there was a good representation from other armies, especially Dark Eldar. A couple of players brought their Tyranids so I was very interested to see how they would do since this is my current army.
Advertisement
Saturday finally came to an end and we had our four players who fought their way through the ranks to the Golden Bracket…
Brian Poole, Grey Knights
Nick Aad, Dark Eldar
Alan Blakesborough, Grey Knights
Max Rodriguez, Imperial Guard
Our top seed for the Silver Bracket was undefeated as well but due to not having a fully painted army just missed placing into the Golden Bracket as there was five bonus battle points. This was Brad Bitler playing Space Wolves.
Brad is a great painter but always so busy painting for friends he did not have time to complete his own army. Here are a couple of some dark eldar characters he has painted.
Advertisement
I went out to dinner with some friends then eventually headed over to a local microbrewery (Cigar City is quite awesome indeed) with a friend to sample some of their warez. The hour grew late and finally we had to go back… oh well.
Here is some of the prize support we gave away:
Subscribe to our newsletter!
Get Tabletop, RPG & Pop Culture news delivered directly to your inbox.
We handed out a total of four armies to our winners. There was also some awesome prize support from Games Workshop and Battlefoam as well.
The second day started… two rounds for the Golden Bracket and three for the Silver. The players in the Golden Bracket didn’t have to show up until the second round on Sunday (lucky bastards…). Heh! There were more rules questions to answer on the second day so Matt and I kept very busy. Here is some of the action from the Golden Bracket (Grey Knights vs. Imperial Guard & Grey Knights vs. Dark Eldar):
Advertisement
Brad was very busy in the Silver Bracket holding down the top seed there. The final round for the Golden Bracket would see Grey Knight versus Grey Knight in a mirror match (Coteaz versus Mordrak). The two GK armies had racked up so many battle points over the course of the first three rounds that they would take both first and second place. The final round for the Silver Bracket would see Space Wolves versus Mason Martindale’s beautiful mechanized eldar. Here are some pictures of the final round of the Silver Bracket.
It would be Orks (Mark Miller) versus Salamanders (Harold Cowan) vying for second place in the Silver Bracket.
We gave the top two tables a few extra minutes to finish their games. As expected Grey Knights came out on top while Brad Bitler’s mighty Space Wolves took the Silver Bracket. Mark Miller’s green horde came in second place for the Silver Bracket. We handed out the awards and the weekend finally came to a close. It was a fantastic time indeed.
Next year we plan to expand the event to 64 players with six rounds. There will still be Golden and Silver brackets so we can hand out even more awards and awesome loot.
Steve turner is a competitive Warhammer 40k player and avid hobbyist. He has been actively playing for over 20 years. He began writing for BoLS in 2013.
