Connecticon40k: July 2013

Connecticon 2013 is now over. All in all though there were a few Hiccups it was a great success. I'll start with the Overall Numbers

I had 8 Teams Pre-register for The team event on Friday. A decent number and about what I expected. While 26 players pre-registered for the 2000 point GT, which while not hitting my ideal 32 was still more than double the players in attendance last year. Furthermore, we had a number of GT regulars from the North East in attendance. All in all very good.

So now for the hiccups. Of my 8 teams registered one player lost his teammate to Australia just weeks prior to the convention. No big issue here as I figured with extra players hanging around he would pick up a team-mate, or I could have my ringer play with him. Which is what I did.

Clay with My Ringer Sieu in Round 1.

While I was working out all that I got emails from 2 of my registered teams....they were stuck in the line and my 11 AM start was soon approaching (Connecticon drew around 15,000 people so lines were long, I cautioned my players to arrive early to make sure they got in.) Apparently there were some issues with the Network so things were going extra slow as well, and one team got fed up and left (they had not pre-reged). So now I was short a team, with one team stuck in line. But I started the rest of the teams on time. Around 11:30 my other stuck team arrived, and got to play me as the ringer....I'm a bad ringer....I did not want to ring, but my only ringer was already playing on a team....So I promptly went 3-0 as the ringer with 3 decisive victories (I told you I'm a bad ringer, on top of which my actual ringer was borrowing the ringer army which left me with essentially my GT list.....)

Here I am Getting ready to ring

After the first round my ringer informed me that he had to take (he was not reliable, won't be using him as a ringer next year.) off leaving a team 1 man down for round 2. But we were later able to catch a casual player to fill in that role for the last round. The Tournament wrapped up on time, everyone seemed to have a good time. Our Winning team was Simon Leen and Bill McFadden with their pairing of Grey Knights and Sisters.

Bill and Simon above thoughtfully taking down their IG opponents.

Other Team tourney Pics.

So after the team tourney was brought to a close my wife and I went over to East Coast Dog to enjoy some of the discounted local food available to Connecticon Attendees. I highly recommend this place if you are ever in Hartford. The service was friendly and the hot dogs were amazing. Havarti and Bacon on a hot dog yes please. After eating I returned to my hotel room and passed out so ready to resume the next day with the GT.

Thankfully for the GT no one got stuck in line. I did however have one player drop because he could not get off work. The good news was however, that I had a player attending the convention want to play so we still ended up at 26 players. The first day went off without a hitch and with 3 hour rounds every game played to a natural conclusion. After Day 1 there were 4 Undefeated players. John Anderson with his Nids, Daniel Bunker with Draigowing, and Bob Roda with Daemons all went 3-0, and Bill Souza went 2-0-1 with John leading in battle points. After the events for the day My Wife and I (with a few other friends) went out to dinner at Burger Baby, with 11 of the players from the event. Good food, nice atmosphere, and just a great opportunity for guys to hang out.

Players facing off on day 1.

Sisters Vs Space Wolves Results in out first Draw of the event, the players re-scored it 3 times before the actual result was determined.

Picture of the Sister Vs Wolves action.

Day 2 began a little rougher, I had several players late coming in (by 5ish minutes), and had one player message me that he had gotten sick and would not make it back. So I was down to 25 players, on top of which my ringer did not show up....so I would need to ring(I tried to find someone else but had little luck. I really need to find a reliable ringer for next year. I could just offer byes but with 3 hour rounds, I prefer not to, guys pay for 5 games.). So I rang, played against a Daemon Player in an absolute blood bath that he took the win in, which was good. The highlight of that match was my soul grinder charging his, both hitting and penetrating one time, and knocking of each others power fist...epic slap fight ensues. Round 1 due to its later start was also the only round of the tournament which had a game not end naturally, it still went to 5 but got called on time. After round one I had another player feeling under the weather so had my second drop, and while I was not happy that he was not feeling well, I was happy that I no longer needed to ring.