Having said that, the two categories I'm talking about today barely had any entrants but I suspect that's because people were put off by the armies that were already laid out being such a high standard. The hobby side of things is a big part of what I love about this game and therefore it's always a shame that people don't display their armies for everyone to see. Even if you don't get any votes it might still serve as inspiration to someone. Maybe I should do a similar thing to GW and pick nominees myself for everyone to vote on?
Best Conversions
Anyway, let's start with Best Conversions. I'm considering renaming this to the "Ian Connolly Award" since he really goes to town on his conversion work and as a result was the only entry into this category. His Ork force included a massive bank of speakers into which he'd built an actual speaker that blared out music for his Orks to krump stuff to:
Obviously a hell of a lot of "counts as" in there but I'd certainly like to play against something so original. It's a great example of the passion people have for this hobby and I love seeing what people with significantly more imagination and talent than me can achieve.
Best Painted Army
As I said above, I think this is another category where people saw the army that was already down and decided not to display their's. Dave Weston's Genestealer Cult were the runaway winners with over two thirds of the votes with the rest going to Thomas Douch's Necrons:
Dave's armies are always a source of both inspiration and demoralisation for me. His style is perfect for 40K with all of his armies looking suitably grimdark. I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of playing against Dave at my events but he's been a regular fixture and his many painting accolades over the years are well deserved. You can check out more of his stuff on his blog, 40K Addict.
Right folks, come back tomorrow (or maybe Wednesday) to see the entries into the single minature categories.
Love those Fury Road Orks and Daves GSC. Great stuff. Shame, I loved seeing everyone’s armies on parade at BlogWars. Maybe a random raffle prize should go to a displayed army, that way everyone has an incentive to display? As well as Best Painted etc. Or to enter any of the best painted/converted etc the army needs to be displayed first for the “roll call” before entry, give out tickets/tokens during first part of lunch to every displayed army with which, players can then enter selected category?
ReplyDeleteI had the pleasure of taking on Ian's Orks and they are a great army to be opposite, especially when the large battlewagon affair rolls towards your fragile little clown elves. It did meet a sticky end at the hands of fusion but it was awesome to see it barrel across the table.
ReplyDeleteYeah it fluffed it against you, but over the rest of the day it had some fun squashing blood angels, guardsmen and cultists. But it definitely had more intimidation factor than anything else.
DeleteThanks for the kind words Alex, its a bittersweet victory if it dissuades folk from entering. I really liked it when you changed the format so you could only enter one category. I actually think the conversion may be the hardest category, although I guess it doesn't have to be an entire army I guess it really shows commitment, although i think I can still hear that Ork music still! ;)
ReplyDeleteThat said my position in the tournament shows I'm a painter not a gamer and as much as that is as competitive as I get I just like to show off the hobby, a sentiment I share with Nevermind the Blog Wars Best Painted Army winner Toby Liddiard 'let the hobby be the winner'.
Thanks again for organising everything, I look forward to September, just need to check I can come.
Knowing I could never compete with Daves army or any of the stuff in the painting categories (I can do tabletop standard reasonably well but i'm not kidding myself) I tend to focus on the converting aspect. It's nice to give myself a fun little themed project that is different to a normal army. THe overall paint job is basic at best and while I wonder what my models might look like in the hands of a more talented painter, I also kinda don't want to know :P
ReplyDeleteAll in all, an excellent day, thanks for doing it all these years :)
That is a great looking Ork army, some fantastic conversions there.
ReplyDeleteIt's a pity I couldn't make it this year. I was hoping my own Genestealer Cult could give Dave a run for his money (probably not, but a boy can dream!).