GottaCon 2011 – Steamroller Report from Bwafer

The intrepid Ben, aka bwafer, well known among the Vancouver scene for his affinity for speaking the unknowable (except to him) language of Swans, was among the attendees of GottaCon’s Steamroller event.  He originally posted his overview and summary in the forum at www.vancouvergamers.com, but I have stolen it from under his nose to repost here for those of you who might not frequent that particular part of the internet.  Without further introduction, I cede the floor.

Bwafer sez:

It was a very well-run tournament that went off without a hitch (at least, if there were any hitches or glitches, I was unaware of them), so I have to give props to Rida and Darren for ensuring that things went smoothly.

I only ended up facing one person who I’ve played before (Will), which was nice, because one of the reasons I wanted to go was to play against new people. The Vancouver crowd is great, but it’s always fun to play against fresh faces every now and then. I must say, I met some very friendly people who were lots of fun to play against.

When I arrived in Victoria on Friday evening, several things went wrong for me, including the fact that I realized that I had left a fairly important element of my Caine army at home – Caine himself. On Saturday morning I tried to buy a new Caine from a vendor there, in order to quickly glue him together so that I wouldn’t be stuck with just the one list. Unfortunately, it turned out that the vendor had already sold the only Caine that he had had in stock. Fortunately, he happened to have an already-assembled and undercoated Caine lying around that he was kind enough to let me borrow for the tournament. I was very impressed – this guy didn’t know me from Adam, and had no way of knowing whether I would walk off with the miniature, but he heard my plight and jumped in to rescue me. I made sure to give him my thanks and buy some stuff from him to reward his good karma before returning the mini.

The most tense and suspenseful moments for me came after the end of my last game. Going into that game, I knew that Paul (ed: that’s me!) had lost all of his previous games (ed: that’s not quite how I remember it…  who let this guy post this?), while there were four or five of us who had won only one game so far. If Paul lost his last game, he would take the coveted Whipping Boy title. If he won, there would be a number of us with the same win-loss record, and it would go to a tiebreaker. I lost my last game against an opponent who would have been in the running if he hadn’t beat me. Uehen had also lost his last game, giving him the same win-loss record as me. We both anxiously waited to see who would win between Paul and Ryan, to see if we still had a chance at the title and trophy. Paul won! We had a chance!

Uehen and I asked the others who had only won a single game whether they had won any control points – the first tiebreaker. It quickly became apparent that this was down to Uehen and myself, as we were the only ones who hadn’t won a single control point all tourney. It would be down to the second tiebreaker – points killed.

The scores were tallied, and it was announced that Uehen had taken it by a narrow margin. My heart fell, and I cursed him emphatically! In the heat of the moment, I might have even cast aspersions on his parentage – I was blinded by despair, so I can’t really be certain. Almost immediately, however, it was announced that a mistake had been made in the tally! Uehen’s total was actually higher than mine by a narrow margin, not lower! I leaped in the air in triumph, and gloated unrepentantly! Sorry for being such a poor sport about it Uehen, I got caught up in the moment. Maybe next year you’ll be able to take the title from me. Maybe next year.

It should be said that the local Vancouver Whipping Boy trophy is indeed coveted.  One of the fantastic local painters, Chad, did up a Skorne Paingiver Beasthandler plying his trade against an innocuous looking agonizer,  mounted on a base of a dark wood.  Take a look!

There are a couple more shots of the trophy here.  I wouldn’t have minded too much had I gotten to take that piece home.  Erh, I mean, lies!  Damn lies and falsehoods, I was never in the running for whipping boy!  I recall winning seven games out of the five played, and I rode across the water back to Vancouver on a unicorn, borne up by victory and the adulation of my peers.  cough.  I mean, thanks for the write-up, Ben!  Also, another round of thanks to the vendor who loaned the Caine model!  I would hazard a guess and say it was someone from Dice Bag Games, as they had HordesMachine stock at the convention.

If you are interested in seeing a small selection of Chad’s other work, check out his blog:  http://chadspaint.wordpress.com/ Therein you will find some shots of his work and information on how you too can commission something from him.  There are many instances of his work out in the wilds of Vancouver, as well as further afield.  I’m a big fan of his work, it is second to none.

One Response to “GottaCon 2011 – Steamroller Report from Bwafer”

1. Ben says:

   2011/02/10 at 07:52

   You’re absolutely correct that it was someone from Dice Bag Games who lent me the mini. Upon checking out their facebook page that you linked to, I can now tell you that it was Colin (I didn’t catch his name while I was there, and I’m terrible with names anyway, so I likely would have immediately forgotten it if I had). I was really impressed with him.