Tuesday 31 January 2017

Moosecon: All the fun of a big con in a single day!

So in late October or early November, my roommate Tacin and myself had just finished our gaming basement and we had been playing fairly regularly warmachine with my friend Felix when the idea popped up that we could look for a fun team tournament to play as a team and motivate us to play even more games of Warmachine.

Looking around we found the OTC and Moosecon. I was asking if there was still spots open for the Ottawa Team Tournament when I got an admin message that said they had sold out under 7 minutes. Moosecon had still two spots open in the team tournament so I jumped on the occasion and registered the three of us to the challenge.

To secure the spot I sent a payment via paypal and the Montréal Rhinodons were born!

The cool logo Anaid (Tacin's wife) did for us




And then, later on looked at the names for the other teams and saw their captains/players:

Team Taco Tuesday with Francesco (I believe captain for team Italy at WTC) and Marc-André Leblanc.
Team Arcane Assist with Tim Banky

All names I had eared before without having ever faced any of these guys...Meaning they had probably won a tournament or been fearsome enough that podcast or regular Montreal opponents had told tales of their reputation.

What had I done??!!?? Did I just sign the three of us to one of the most competitive event in Canada?

Oh at least regular opponent and friend Alain Seguin is going.
Oh never mind, his team captain dropped their team without warning.

Well, we have two months to prepare ourselves boys!

Game preparation and lack of sleep!


And preparing we did....well...as much as we could.

I really struggled finding a single list other than 3Doomy that I would enjoy playing and feel would be strong enough to win and complement  the other list...to the point I was tempted to bring my Skorne up to the very last minute.

I finally went with 3Doomy and a 2Grissel list made on the fly that I had never played but I thought would be different enough that I'd throw that in my last game when I'd be locked into it, if you have to lose, have fun doing it.
Tacin made Deneghra1 and Skarre1 lists and Felix some Helynna and Kaelissa lists.

The night before the tournament I painted the front arc of all my guys, helped Tacin make his lists, made sure the lists were packed properly, prepared tokens, got extra measuring tapes, collected the spray templates, etc...until 3:40 in the morning...the problem being that we needed to wake up at 5:00 (I usually go to bed at 5:00).

So after one hour of sleep and breakfeast, we got the car and joined Felix to leave Montreal and go to Ottawa.

9:30 We arrived at theWizard's Tower shop, first impression, it is narrow but tall and got a good selection of stock for key games (and lots of Magic, you want boosters in Korean, Russian, etc? = they probably have it at Wizard's Tower)
We write down our lists and hand them to the organizers

We learn that the Divide and Conquer rule will not be in effect so we can play the same list for the whole tournament, yay!

Felix with that ''I'm dead inside'' look.


10:00 first game: Montréal Rhinodons versus Tacos Tuesdays Team

pairing:

Myself (Trolls, 3Doomy/2Grissel) vs Francesco (Circle, 2Una/Wurmwood)
Felix (Retribution Hyelina/Kaelissa) vs Retribution (Rahn)
Tacin (Deneghra1/Skarre1) vs Cygnar

Each team has a mini-feat to swap two of their player's rank, we chose not to use ours as I'm probably the best answer into 2Una thanks to my 3Doomie list having a Glacier King (and its also not so bad into Wurmwood thanks to the amount of Pathfinders in it).

I drop 3Doomy and Francesco drops Wurmwood.

I discovered many things in this game:
1= you need more than one hour of sleep to go into a tournament (I knew that but messed up). It made me run my Glacier King right into charge range of all his beasts with nothing else to protect it, as such I had to feat very early (I believe round 1) to delay his horrible demise.
2= Mannikins from the Sentry Stone in circle DO NOT explode when they do their sprays...so now I understand why they are considered to be so good! (Good thing I got my second unit just the day before!)
3= 3Doomy can seriously kick some warpwolf ashes = in the crater left by the Glacier King's death to a Primaled Ghetorix and Pureblood, 3Doomy, benefitting from ''Charge of the Trolls'' from the Stone Scribe Chronicler, proceeded to kill one beast and put the other on the brink of death (something like 4 life left). Having a mini-feat that adds one extra dice and discard the lowest helps too.

I played so badly it never truly was a game.
On the table next to me, Felix is having a mirror match and prevailing....he even wins it!

Hyperion vs Helios: thanks Nyssor that Helynna can repair!

Tacin gets tabled but doesnt give a single scenario point, I managed to score one before geing crushed.

Tacin and myself went to check the awesome 40% off discounts and spend some hard earned cash.

The organizers had charged 5$ if we wanted to get pizza and pizza we got! Three slices per person, I was full!


I lost track of time, Game 2: Rhinodons vs The Almighty Undisputed Gods of WarmaHordes (If I'm not mistaken)


We look at the pairings
I'm facing Cygnar
Felix is facing Mercs
Tacin is facing Khador

No big deal so far. What? They used their feat and swaped? Okay I guess I'll face Khador, that should not be so bad, right? Right?

Oh man was I wrong.

Dhunian Knot? More like 'Dhunian Roadblock'...Or 'Dhunian Could you please Knot'


They used their feat SPECIFICALLY to allow their Khador player, Brian, to face me in case I'd drop 3Doomy and being the ignorant I am, I obliged and 3Doomy I dropped.

And that's how I learned that your average Khadoran Assault Kommando does not only fight for his motherland in Cephalyx's bases or Cygnaran trenches but he also makes grown men cry when he puts a cloud effect preventing healing for a round and thus negating the field marshal, feat and pretty much entire point of that list.
I got crushed but my opponent did an awesome pirate voice to score some ''captain of the con'' points.

Tacin managed to assassinate his opponent while Felix discovered that Ashlynn d'Elise Feat is ''worse than Calandra's Starcross'' (his own words, I might have to play Calandra against him just for the fun).

Brian,my khadoran opponent and myself discussed with an organizer about painting models, set some of our models on the side for them to be judged and then went and participated in the 15-minutes painting contest where you have to paint a Tharn that was spray-painted brown with translucent airbrush colors. A nightmare. 

Tacin and Felix pretending to paint


My painting nightmare got cut short by a minute as I got called to represent my team in the ''Lightning Round'' of a warmachine trivia, I'm usually pretty good about fluff, at least that's what I thought until I met the man with black mambas disguised as hands: Tim Banky,
I think he got only one question wrong, he reacted so quickly I think he was pushing the button before the end of the question. Insane. And I knew most answers.
I also discovered that Vilmont was born in 576 and not 976 as we answered.

At this point, I asked Anaid if she could get me a coffee and donut from the nearby Tim Hortons because I truly needed to wake up.


I Still havent kept track of the time, Game 3: Rhinodons vs Goat Team 6


We look at the pairings:
I'm facing Trolls
Felix is facing Menoth
Tacin is facing Circle.

Both Felix and myself do not want to face Menoth so we decide to throw Tacin and under the bus and swap him with Felix.

Turns out it was an amazing idea and Tacin would have had a second victory that day if he had not clocked out: his Skarre1 warjack and Kraken brick proved too weird for his opponent and he was plowing through menoth infantry and cavalry like nobody's business!

Trolls vs trolls proved to be a weird but amazing mirror universe match in which a Glacier King faces a Mountain King and Mulg faces Mulg.

I swear: he 's the evil twin!!!


We had a great first turn where we both talked like pirates (gotta get those 'king of con' points), recreating the 'Pirates of the Trolls Seas''.
I was facing Ragnor so I popped my feat early to wither his charge, which I did successfully thanks to Admonition and tons of healing but POW 25 Mountain King still hurts alot at dice +4.
My opponent used his feat to wither the countercharge and as he was playing Ragnor it totally worked, I ignored his Mountain King (not a single attack was made against it the whole game) and instead tried to headbutt and throw things around as to achieve a couple of ''king of the con'' achievements. I failed my one-handed throw of my mulg vs his, failed to hit on the Glacier King's headbutt.

I proceeded to take a beating but manage to get my bouncer in base to base with Ragnor.

Ragnor flees away and neutralize the Bouncer and that's when, thanks to 3Doomy being so awesome, I come up with an assassination run for Mulg:

Doomshaper goes, use again his +1 dice and discard the lowest for friendly faction warriors, smites enemy Mulg away from mine,casts two ''Stranglehold'' to kill runebearer scribes covering Ragnor. camps two.

My runeshapers try to do stuff and let me down.

I go to activate Mulg and end the game and then realize that one hour of sleep is definitely not enough: I forgot to get him back up as he was knocked down. Here goes my assassination run.
Out of despair, I clock out.
A great game and probably the closest I game to win one out of that tournament, if only I hadnt forgotten Mulg was knocked down!


Prizes, team standing and King of the Con were announced.



Team Tacos Tuesday won the tournament.

Tim Banky won King of the Con! (With a crazy big beer bottle, the type you see in the old cartoons with ''xxx' on the sticker)

Someone whose name I can't remember (sorry) won the Best Painted miniature award (I never saw what it was). He won a Windsor and Newton series 7 paintbrush.

Brian Latour (my Khadoran opponent) won the Best Painted Army award. (and his army was quite nice indeed) It won him a Khador Bombshell Babe or something.

Brian Latour (again!) won the 15 minutes Speed Painting contest

Yours truly won the Nice Try award, I was surprised as I thought this award was more of a joke for a badly painted model but it turns out my War Wagon, despite having suffered from the transport was deemed worthy to win an award by the judges and it was more of a 'second place best painted' award. Cool! I always wanted to win some 'best army' or 'best painted'! It got me a extra large Agrax Earthshade paintpot.

50 shades of Agrax Earth


Tim Banky (if I remember) won the ''Goddammit Moon Moon'' award for worse assembled model.

I won a ''Best Sportsmanship'' award, which truly surprised me as I was so tired I was not my natural 'fun opponent' self, I was more of a brooding silent and makes mistakes opponent. I guess I did make one or two jokes here and there but it wasnt until that Tim Horton coffee just before round 3 that I felt I was close to the game experience I'd like to offer. At least I'm glad people had fun facing me despite my horrible score! It got me a Trollkin Kilt Lifter, cool!

And then we went and collected 'king of con' loots in order of points collected, I managed to get a free Gobber Thinker which is a cool model and I was quite happy to get one as he can work for many of my armies. I was surprised it didnt get picked as I was middle of the pack in term of points, having failed miserably at all my attempts in my last game, Felix got something like 10$ of store credit which allowed him to pick a Garryth 'make Retribution great again' for 3.50$ and Tacin got a 5$ store credit and picked some more stuff for Anaid's Khadoran army.

My loot!


We helped pack a little, made our goodbyes to that great community and then asked the store staff for a good place to eat and enjoy some much earned beer.

It was only 7:30PM but felt like 11:30PM, thats how exhausted we were. Tournaments are a tiring thing for the casuals we are!

After a fairly good burger at the Works,

Blurry? I'll blame the beer or the lack of sleep.



 we began our journey home, saw FOUR accidents (a car that flipped over completely and rammed a three, two cars that crashed on the side and one truck that BURNED as I've never seen before something burn so much and so well), we managed to make it alive and despite all these accidents that we were passing there was still idiots speeding on the frozen roads.


''Moosecon: All the fun of a big con in a single day'' and boy, what a day!


The entire Montreal Rhinodons team loved the Moosecon experience...count us in for next year!!!
I got the Tibbers the day before but these two Gladiators at 45$-40% are some of the awesome stuff I got at Wizard's Tower...can you feel that sweet Skorne Army incoming?!?

A big thanks to all the organizers (and the store for hosting) = it was awesome, felt like a con (all those mini-events!) and the ''King of the Con'' achievements are a great idea.
10/10 would definitely recommend and do again! (Although I was tempted to substract 0.25 for the brown basecoat with translucent airbrush paints for the painting contest, it felt like a fun sadistic joke!)

Thanks for reading, now get painting or playing!
(note: published with no proofreading as its already 6:00AM and I dont want to have 1hr sleep days anytime soon!)

2 comments:

  1. It was good to see you guys come out. I enjoyed playing you (I was the Cygnar player on the Almighty Undisputed Gods of Warmahordes team who got assassinated by your cryx player). You guys were great opponents and I look forward to seeing you guys whenever they do this again

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the kind words! As I said we had a blast and the whole team is looking forward to the next Moosecon!
      We also discussed a little bit with some of the judges and organizers about upcoming events to see if we can make it to any other team tournament (maybe even a single tournament or two) in the Ottawa-Kingston area as its only 2hrs and a half away from Montréal.

      If you guys enjoy team tournament, allow me to promote the Chaosludik 2017 ( http://www.chaosludik.net/p/home.html )
      = its has a really nice 3-men team tournament and also some solo events usually on two different days (Saturday and Sunday) with tons of other games on the side...and its all done in Montréal!

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