SRM’s Roundabout to the Challengers Cup 2025 – Shooting Myself in the Foot [SUSTAINED HITS 1]

Oh God Are We Doing This Again

I’m going to open this article with a confession: After the NOVA Open, I was not exactly feeling 40k. That nine-game GT slog left me physically and spiritually drained, and if you want to read a novella about that, then boy howdy do I have a loquacious travelogue for you. Now for a second confession: When I got the callup to fill in at the Challengers Cup for the Goonhammer team, I felt some trepidation. You see, for reasons that should be glaringly obvious to anyone with eyes, ears, a brain, or a heart, our folks from overseas didn’t really want to come to the United States right now. Personally, I was still pretty burnt out on 40k, but as Salt Lake City is an extremely short flight from where I live in Oregon, it at least would be an easy trip. With that, this second string of second strings was part of Team Goonhammer for the Challengers Cup, a six-round teams event for Warhammer 40,000.

What I Brought

While there was some back and forth over who would cover what faction, I was relieved when it was decided I would get to use my beloved Black Templars instead of turning my circa 2017 Knights collection into something usable in the current meta. Each team can only have one of each faction, with all Space Marine variants falling under the general Marine umbrella. While I’ve been extremely happy with the Black Templars codex proper, I’m still having a hard time working with the Detachments therein. I instead decided to use one I had some experience with, which is the Ironstorm Detachment. This was a mistake, but not one I’d really internalize until I’d lost my first game. Listen, there’s several reasons I wasn’t the first choice here.

Ironstorm Poisoned - Click to Expand

The idea here was to run Helbrecht in the Land Raider with the Crusaders, rolling up, providing an Overwatch-enforced no fly zone, and hurling a melee unit out that can deal with most threats. The Impulsor holding the Emperor’s Champion and Assault Intercessors would be an early staging piece, and a cruise missile I could throw into something I want dead as well. That unit is still cheap enough to do Actions or act as sacrifices if they have to, and can punch up decently into Knights. The two Repulsor Executioners would be supported by Techmarines to keep them firing and buff them regularly, and each would carry five Sword Brethren with a Marshal for those crucial Lethal Hits on 5+. Scouts would do objective/screening stuff and Infiltrators would keep Deep Strikers off my back.

Now there’s a few questions you might have, and if you don’t mind my construction of a man of Citadel Finestraw to make those arguments, I’ll lay them out now.

1. Why Ironstorm and not Gladius? It doesn’t feel right to me as a Templar Detachment, even though it’s flat out better. I also like the Detachment re-roll to turn my Repexes into Big Gladiators, essentially.
2. Why not 4x Sword Brethren and a Castellan with the Marshals instead of 5x Sword Brethren? I haven’t painted a second Castellan yet, and that adds around 40 points per unit. Also you weirdly get limited on weapon options when under five Sword Bros, and my dudes are modeled with a bunch of different pistols and such. They also don’t super need the re-rolls unless you’re fishing for crits, which yeah, that would be nice, huh.
3. Why Helbrecht with Crusaders instead of something else? Their Blood Surge move is a useful shooting deterrent, and Helby cranking up their damage output makes them much scarier. A full ten Sword Bros would be overkill into most targets, cost more, and be harder to move, and I prefer Sustained Hits, mixed weapons, and Blood Surging over re-rolling wounds on Assault Intercessors.
4. Don’t you need more scoring units? Yes I do, thanks for noticing! My notion was to blast my opponents away in the early turns and then grab objectives later, which doesn’t really work out against good opponents. Unfortunately, this event consisted mostly of good opponents.
5. Is that second Techmarine an Ultramarine? Yes; he’s part of the Astartes Exchange Program and his host battle-brothers are very nice.

Event Prep

My list included two Repulsors Executioner, yet I only had one painted. In a story I’ve already written and spoken about at length, I had to build and paint my second Repex in just over a week, and I was able to do exactly that. I didn’t get to use it in my test game, proxying a standard Repulsor instead, but it didn’t smell like varnish by the time I got to Utah, so that’s all well and good.

My single test game was a pretty solid victory against Votann, piloted by Matt, one of several local space dwarf enthusiasts. The game was largely testing just how dangerous these tanks could be into what types of targets, and shaking off the rust on a detachment I hadn’t played in a while. While it resulted in a win for me, what’s more important was just getting to practice how the Detachment played. It was also good to finally get a game in with Matt; despite being a local for quite some time, we hadn’t played before.

Lastly, you might think that looking over the event packet would be a good next step. Man, that really does sound like a good idea, I should have probably thought of that. The only thing I internalized from the packet was that instead of a nine-round grind of a GT, this was going to be two games a day with four hours allocated to each, plus a lunch break between. This isn’t just a comfortable schedule, it’s downright luxurious compared to the two and a half hour rounds you get at something like NOVA.

Day 0 – Short Flights and Good Hangs

While I had grand designs of driving to Salt Lake City, 13 hours of driving just wasn’t in the cards, so I opted to fly instead. It’s like 45 minutes in the air from Bend to SLC, so I hopped on a noonish flight and was at the Airbnb by 3pm. Rob and Norman were there to greet me, and we hung out for a while before more folks showed up. We were occupying a pair of houses in Sandy, a Salt Lake City suburb where the event was taking place. As we got there first, ours was Alpha House. Eventually eight of us would be split between Alpha House and Beta House, and once everyone was more or less gathered, we hit up a grocery store to stock up for the weekend. The view in the parking lot was better than it had any right to be.

This was already proving novel; typically my time at events is spent mapping out what restaurants can cater to my annoyingly specific set of allergies, but the goal here was to cook at home every night. We loaded up our cart with snacks, meat, beer (Kona Big Wave, my favorite beer to have obvious product placement in an anime, as well as Fat Tire, one of few absolute goods in this harrowed world) and headed back to the house. Rob was the architect of our meals this weekend, and offers a bit more insight on his side of things, but consider this article a companion piece from the perspective of someone for whom wordcount is akin to an experience point meter and vibes are all that matter. We have burgers and hot dogs from the grill and crack several beers before the night’s through. A few more folks filter in who were coming in later, and we get to planning out the next day’s matchups.

Here’s the bit that was newest to me, as I’ve never done a team event before. The next pairing is available ahead of time, and we’d figured out who would be best in to what armies in the weeks before the event, rating our preparedness for a selection of the meta’s greatest bugbears. This strategy meeting is where I realized I knew far less than I thought about the armies we’d be facing, and I regularly had my notions challenged. It became clear that even as immersed as I am in 40k, there’s a lot more to the meta and matchups than I’m truly keyed into. When we were done, Rob heard I’d never watched Big Top Burger, and we watched the existing hour of that before heading to bed. Hanging out, cooking and eating dinner together, doing homework, then winding down with “Oh shit you haven’t seen this? We gotta watch it!” was an echo of college dorm living, only without the crippling teenage social anxiety that got in the way of actually enjoying those years. In other words, it was a great night, and I was kinda bummed we had to play Warhammer tomorrow instead of just hanging out.

Day 1 – “Ironstorm? That’s a Choice.”

Despite going to bed early, I slept for roughly five hours, waking up constantly from every shift in sound and temperature throughout the night. The air conditioning in the house only worked when it wanted to, and I wouldn’t solve the puzzle of how to keep it running until our last day. Still, there were hams to be warred, and I would bring shame to both my household and employer if I stayed home to sleep. I crushed a can of Starbucks nitro cold brew coffee, had a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios with milk and a banana, and was off with the crew to the event.

My first revelation was: Wow, Scott likes listening to stadium country that explicitly namedrops the Chevy Silverado, I better make fun of him mercilessly about this fact. My second was: Wow, this event hall is nice as hell. Despite having tons of teams, there was loads of space between tables, ample lighting, and a manageable noise level.

At the start of each round was a pairing minigame, where one team would put forth a defender, the other would pick two attackers, and the defending team would pick one attacker and the table layout. Then the teams would alternate, back and forth until all eight matchups were determined. Scores were differential-based, and instead of the typical 0-100 scale of a typical 40k game, there would be 20 points to fight over. In other words, a total blowout could be 20-0, while a very close game could be as close as 10-10 and make for a draw, even if one player technically won. I’ll be real, I do not wholly understand the math here, and every time it was explained to me, my brain would put up a wall through which no information could enter. Please do not comment with the logic here; if I read it, my mental hold music will start playing and I’ll blank out and wake up in a field somewhere.

Game 1: Vs. Charlie’s Infernal Lance Chaos Knights (Emerald Dreams)

Charlie was defending, and as such had chosen a WTC layout for our game. I had never played on one of these before, would play on several more this event, and dearly hope I never play on them again. Setting up the board felt like taking a trigonometry test I’d never studied for, and took us maybe fifteen minutes. Once we were set up, I wondered why he’d taken this table, as while it would provide some protection from my shooting, it would make it exceedingly hard for his Knights to move around. Each of his thirteen War Dogs were named after a different pop culture dog, and while this detachment made it hard to track characters for my purposes, it was a very good matchup for me.

I immediately popped my Impulsor forward, holding the center and keeping my dudes inside safe. He went for it, scoring a few points with Marked for Death and Overwhelming Force, but it was easy for me to retake the center with the Land Raider Redeemer. I rolled that sucker up, dumped out Helbrecht’s squad, and turned the only clear area of the board into a kill zone. He rolled up a War Dog, got Overwatched by the Redeemer, and took so many wounds that once he charged my Crusader squad, Helbrecht’s Mortal Wound ability finished off the Dog before it could even strike. This happened twice. My Repexes put in some serious work here, and my melee units destroyed everything they touched. It was a serious rout, and Charlie was an absolute delight to play.

Result: 19-1 Victory (97-49)

With over an hour left in the round, an hour between rounds, and my teammates all occupied with their games, I had plenty of time for lunch. I could have stuck with the convention center concessions or walked to one of the fast casual joints nearby, but there was another event going on at the same time. In the neighboring hall was, I shit you not, the My Gluten-Free World Expo. Figuring twenty bucks would be as much as I’d spend on lunch anywhere else, I wandered in and reverted to a feral foraging animal. Ravenous, I was two-fisting free samples from every stall I could, Over the course of an hour and a half, I’d had an unmeted smorgasbord of brownie, cookie, cake, pancake, waffle, bread, nut, energy bar, granola, chili, meat, and cheese. I took note of a few vendors for later perusal, but for the most part I was simply Pac-Man waka-waka-ing through a maze of treats. With the exception of some beverages and Energhee (flavored clarified butter you’re supposed to eat like Go-Gurt, a full body experience I would not replicate), everything was delicious, and I’d somehow walked away with pockets full of brownies and a bag full of cheese. Would this lead to a disastrous sugar crash in thirty minutes? Who knows!

Game 2: Vs. Jason’s Spearhead-At-Arms Imperial Knights (Xenos Petting Zoo)

We’d done well in our first round, and if my dudes worked so well into Knights of one flavor, they should do well into the other, right? Jason’s list had two Knight Defenders in it, which he explained wasn’t actually good in this detachment, but he’d kinda thrown the list together at the last minute and didn’t really think it through. For the uninitiated (watch our video on it!) this detachment lets big Knights buff multiple little Knights, but they can’t overlap their abilities. It incentivizes taking distinct Knights, and he’d beefed that in the army building step. He was also a beer or two in, and I figured I had this game.

Dear reader, I did not have this game.

While Jason has something of a Drunken Master approach to Warhammer (something that other teammates of his would reference to me over the course of the event) it was probably my dice that were drunk. Despite playing pretty well for the first three turns, my luck wasn’t really cooperating with the game plan, and I could actively feel my brain start to shut off. Turns out the room temperature $4 coffee I’d picked up wasn’t strong enough to push through a sugar crash and a bad night’s sleep. His damage reduction buff from the Defenders made Sword Brethren significantly less useful, and more than once I’d make my attacks, and he’d fail exactly how many saves he’d need to for his Knights to die – provided they didn’t have that key damage reduction. In the third turn, Helbrecht and his squad had finally gotten into a decent position, and a 6″ charge would let me not only wipe a pair of his Armigers, but also take the central objective and score an Area Denial card. In classic form, even with a Command Re-roll, I beefed it. Jason and I looked at each other with the knowledge that this die roll just lost me the game. While Helbrecht and his increasingly dwindling pals went on to kill both Knight Defenders, I lagged behind on points, and the game ended in a loss for me. There were like three models left per side though, so that’s cool.

Result: 7-13 Defeat (72-90)

Jason and I hung out for a while at the bar, which had a Fortaleza Tequila tasting as well as cocktails and $8 Modelos. We talked Warhammer mostly, a bit about our personal journeys and local scenes. It was a genuinely pleasant hang; Jason’s a great dude and his crew are good people. After downing the cocktail he generously paid for, I headed back to the house with the Goonhammer crew.

We hadn’t done so well that round, despite feeling very positive about our pairings. Fortunately, defeat goes down much easier with beers, steak, and bourbon. While that shotgun blast of heart disease vectors will likely be what turns my 35th birthday into the halfway point of my life, it was good as hell. Rob grilled up asparagus and some perfect medium rare steaks while I mashed the potatoes. It was hearty, buttery, savory goodness all around, and I went to bed shortly thereafter. I’d dug out a box fan from Rob’s room and with an open window and headphones in, that made sleeping easier than the night before.

Day 2 – Second Verse, Worse than the First

This day began much like the last, only I didn’t feel like a shuffling corpse. The same breakfast, the same bad country music, the same ribbing that walks the line between friendly and affectionately hostile.

Game 3: Vs. Victor’s Liberator Assault Group Blood Angels (GitHammer)

In a battle of G_Hammer vs. G_Hammer, we paired into GitHammer. I felt good going into this matchup as I play against LAG Blood Angels all the time at home, but I guess it was too early to remember that I lose against them nearly as often. This was another loathsome WTC layout, meaning I didn’t have particularly good firing lanes and my army was functionally cut off from itself. In a regular occurrence for this event, one of my RepExes would have nothing to do for turns at a time, meaning both it and its attendant Techmarine were dead weight. I played very cagey here, as he jailed me pretty early with loads of jumping idiots. He kept feeding a squad to my Redeemer each turn to keep it from rolling up the board, and he had a big 10-brick of Death Company with Lemartes in the middle of the board. Figuring that the damage reduction would be wasted on my Crusader squad, I sent them in there, trying my damnedest to zone out the Sanguinor from coming in with my Infiltrators.

Regrettably, Victor was still able to do so, and while I made him spent a few command points to get him into that combat, it wasn’t enough. That gilded Fights First asshole precisioned out Helbrecht, and I ended up losing my whole Crusader squad and Helbrecht in exchange for two Death Company models. That felt pretty lousy, and absolutely was game ending for me. Some skirmishing over the north objective got me a few points and my units up there killed some stuff, but I wasn’t out on objectives early enough to actually get points, and this was another defeat. If only I had advance and charge, advance and shoot, fall back and shoot, or any of those other on-demand abilities available to me. If only there was a detachment with those exact abilities built in that all of my opponents could question me for not taking. I wonder what that fantasy world would look like?

Result: 6-14 Defeat (57-82)

For lunch I swung by the concession stand for some tacos, but when I mentioned a soy allergy they just shrugged and said I probably shouldn’t eat there. Instead I grabbed a salad and a coffee at the other stand and munched on some of my scroungings from the day before. This time I caught up with the team, talked with Goatboy about some Real Life Shit for a while, and was just happy to be off my feet. While the time between rounds is often spent with buds at any given event, the nature of teams events keep you closer, which I really appreciate. It also helps when all of our tables are near each other, so finding each other comes naturally.

Game 4: Vs. Lance’s War Horde Orks (Xenos Petting Zoo Nevada)

This team was another branch of our opponents from the second round, and were similarly chill and fun to hang with. I got paired into Orks, a matchup I was more than ready for. While the layout was another WTC one, I was able to get a few angles to pop his transports early. However, I’d dealt with Waaagh! before, and I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of it, or deal with all those Orks with invulnerable saves. On the top of turn 2, I was able to call a Waaagh! of my own – hurling Helbrecht and his Crusaders across the board into a huge squad of 20 Boyz, Ghaz, and a Big Mek that let them move through units and terrain. I’d properly zoned out Ghaz, so I murdered 20 Boyz with impunity. Even after a retaliatory Fight on Death stratagem from the Orks, I’d only lost a couple Neophytes, and was still very much in business to do some damage. My Redeemer parked in the middle of the board, striding across the two objectives our mission had placed there, and would proceed to do what it always does: Fire Overwatch and refuse to die. Lance would throw units of Beastsnaggas into it, only to bounce off, get burned alive, and try again.

Unfortunately for me though, the terrain kept my vehicles from moving up the board efficiently, and I wasn’t able to snag the side objectives from him until later into the game. As before, one of my RepExes and its itinerant Sword Brethren wouldn’t really be in position for most of the game. Lance was ahead on primary scoring for most of the game while I racked up secondary points, and the final score could not have been closer. If anything, this is what my army’s game plan was, tempered by the terrain layout and some good playing on my opponent’s part. It was an absolutely phenomenal game, and some of the most fun I’d have all event.

Result: 10-10 Draw (66-65)

That night we had steak and chicken tacos, and life couldn’t have been much better. Rob handled the meat on the grill, I sautéed peppers and onions, and everyone got to build their own tacos. At least 1% of my body mass was guacamole by the end of the night. The tacos were great, the hangs immaculate, and we naturally wound down with more “Oh my god dude you gotta watch this” videos. Norman said this felt like college, I countered that it felt how I wished college felt. I’ve called NOVA “nerd summer camp” for several years, but this felt more like that sort of lackadaisical late summer hang than the comparatively breakneck pace of NOVA. I figured out how the A/C worked, finally, and we were all off to bed at like 10:30.

Day 3 – Going Big and Going Home

One more morning, much like the last, and we were off to the event. While the night before we’d looked at pairings and folks were very confident about a few of my matchups, I never felt that same confidence. I was really feeling the sting of taking Ironstorm and effectively bricking 150ish points on Techmarines who seldom did much, then spending most of my CP on core stratagems instead of anything specific. I feel like when you’re only spending CP on those generic ones, you’re doing something wrong. I’d get to make those same mistakes again in my first match of the day.

Game 5: Vs. Charles’ Skysplinter Assault Drukhari (Hobby Goblins)

Drukhari have been a tough matchup for me since they were still called Dark Eldar, often being extremely hard for my comparatively ponderous Space Marines to catch. Multiple times my opponent would ask me if I could do standard Gladius things, and I’d dejectedly say no, I can’t do anything about that. I had to hide early on to avoid getting a baker’s dozen Darklances into one of my tanks, but in my attempts to both screen out my backfield and cover stuff for secondary play, I ended up with my tanks outside of range of my Techmarines. Even well rested, my brain wasn’t cooperating. The game centered around a standoff in the middle of the board. Lelith Hesperax and some Wyches were holed up in a building, and while I didn’t want to charge them and eat that Fights First flurry of attacks, I also had to take that objective somehow, and he’d parked on all the other objectives early on.

Unfortunately this game was marred by some rules disagreements. Even though they were all resolved amicably with a judge, it felt bad having my opponent try to game the consolidation rules. I had Helbrecht on an objective within 3″ of his Wyches, and he wanted to consolidate onto the objective with the read that he had models within 3″ of the objective but not my unit, so he could consolidate with just those models. That isn’t how it works, so he had to keep his Wyches back. He also argued we were using WTC terrain rules to maximize the number of attacks he was getting, but I’m pretty sure that decision just meant my dudes on Double Stuf Oreo-sized bases got more attacks. He also argued that vehicles essentially could never get cover unless they were fully in it, which is also wrong, but I was too tired and am agreeable to a fault, so I just let it happen, whatever. God went out to get a pack of smokes and hasn’t come back, and we’re all stuck eating his leftovers.

I had a swing of good luck early on when he pushed hard with a Raider full of Incubi into Overwatch range of my Land Raider Redeemer, which meant I blew it up in his turn and his dudes couldn’t charge as a result. I then mulched that squad, and a scrappy battle emerged over my backfield where Infiltrators had to actually fight against an incursion of Warriors and Mandrakes. While my Phoboys defended the objective admirably, it wasn’t enough to win the game. I’d like to believe my opponent just got rules wrong and wasn’t actively malicious, as he seemed like a pretty genuine dude. What I learned from this game is that I should be less hesitant to check rules and call judges. Even in events like this, people are gonna get shit wrong, intentionally or not.

Result: 6-14 Defeat (63-85)

I had a fair bit of time, so I walked over to Crisp & Green, hopping only one fence for a healthy-coded slop bowl. I needed vegetables, goddammit, and walking along that six-lane road, I got to take in a smidge of Utah’s natural splendor. The problem is that every time you see a gorgeous mountain or vista from here, there’s a 7-Eleven just out of frame. I checked my allergies with the guy behind the counter and on their website, got a buffalo chicken salad, and ate my order in the airport-esque surrounds of a modern fast casual restaurant. It was tasty but nothing to write home about.

Game 6: Vs. Phil’s Final Day Genestealer Cults (Denver 40k Fight Club)

Genestealer Cults are an absolute blind spot for me. I play them maybe once a year, and when I do, the game is typically a bamboozling mess that goes to time. When I asked Phil if he needed a clock, he assured me he did not, and his confidence was well earned. Phil knew exactly what he was doing, which units were baits, what to spend his resources on, and how to layer effects to make sure my shit would die with express speed. He’d throw cheap units up the board for their innate Mortal Wound abilities, I’d clear them out, and then he’d do it again, bringing them back in the best position to score objectives or do some damage. I had to attempt zoning out as best I could, with cheap glass cannons arriving seemingly every turn. Simultaneously, Ridgerunners were marking my vehicles while bevvies of Mining Lasers took advantage of that, cutting through my armor and grinding my wound counts down.

This might all sound pedestrian to someone who plays against Genestealer Cults often, but this was only my second game against them all edition, and maybe my third game with them ever. It didn’t help that Phil absolutely knew what he was doing and played a genuinely great game, keeping me at arm’s length until the time was right. Still, I put up a good fight, and when he actually did expose his Ridge Runners in the endgame to get those crucial hits off, I was able to blast them off the board. As predicted, our game was done well before time, and I was able to talk to him about some strategies and gaps in my army for the future. I promise, I am not a complete bumpkin.

Result: 8-12 Defeat (59-74)

Scott had to drop for some obligation or another and our last round was filled in by Michael from GitHammer, whose Orks got absolutely bodied. We weren’t gonna win this thing, but losing Scott meant losing our best-scoring player and first defender. As we also didn’t bring a studio apartment-sized display board, we also weren’t going to win Best Painted, though we got into the showcase and got some little medals for our troubles. I’m happy to say my Templars got a gold, which I packed into my case as we closed for the day. We headed back to the house for one last hang and one last dinner. The spread was BBQ chicken, sausage, salad, and mashed potatoes, and half of us hung out at the table while the rest watched the football game.

My flight was that evening, so after dinner I packed up my stuff and got a ride from Boon over to the airport. Turns out not a lot of folks are flying out of SLC at 8pm, and it was a smooth path through there. I hung out at Salt Lake City Brewing Co. and had a red ale that tasted like a middling ESB, a Mexican lager that just tasted like corn, and a Gin IPA that I sampled for novelty’s sake. It is certainly a novelty, and that’s the most I can say for it. The football game tied, leaving the other people at the bar abundantly whelmed, and I talked with a dude from Oakland about traveling and life on the East Coast. He sells plastic tubing, and did not ask about my own profession.

With a belly full of grilled goodness and mediocre beer, I got onto the plane, booted up XCOM 2 on my iPad, and made several tactical mistakes I’m still paying for now in the sub-hour time between takeoff and landing. My wife was waiting for me at the airport, and I was home just a smidge after midnight.

Tl;dr: Team Events Own

While NOVA (and to a lesser extent, the Tacoma Open) left me pretty exhausted and generally sick of 40k, I came out of this more enthusiastic than I went in. I was immediately modifying my list, taking the advice of my teammates and opponents, and begrudgingly moving towards Gladius Task Force, at least for now. With a competitive 40k league coming in my local community, I’m already getting test games with tweaked lists, focusing on what worked and dropping what didn’t. I learned that I really need those quick units to deal with screens, get early objectives, and actually put some points on the scoreboard early on. I’m also thinking that infiltrating my Scouts isn’t really worth it, as they just die on the first turn every single game. They’re likely more useful starting in the backfield and just doing the uppy-downy thing. There’s still a lot I like about this list and all of my Templar lists are going to look at least somewhat similar by nature of what’s good and what’s painted, but it was clear that a lot of shit just wasn’t working for me.

More importantly, I learned that teams events kick ass. My normal events – NOVA, Adepticon, and the GW Opens – often have so much time dedicated to the GT that you don’t get to spend any time with the people around you. While that’s less of a big deal at something like the Tacoma Open which is so regional, in the case of events where people fly in from all over the place, you want to actually spend time with them, building those friendships and making those connections.

At NOVA, I was so much Squidward, watching the Spongebobs and Patricks in my life joyously frolicking from the window of my GT-shaped prison. Teams events, or at least this particular team event, had so much of that hangout time built in, and resultantly it was way more chill despite being an extremely competitive event. There’s no time to decompress with sub-three hour rounds; no time to take in the scenery or make fun little discoveries. How pissed would I have been if there was a whole expo just for food I can specifically eat right next door to the Tacoma Open, and my schedule didn’t allow me to visit it and become more brownie than man? How upset would I be if I missed grilling steaks and burgers with my pals because I was in some accursed shadow round or night game? How tense would I be into armies like Genestealer Cults or Orks without such a comfortable time buffer? I won’t say that I’ll never attend a GT again or anything so absolute, but I’ve seen the other side now, and it’s gonna be hard to go back. My key takeaway from the last several NOVAs is that while Warhammer is a great facilitator for these relationships, it’s time spent with those folks after the game that matters. I’ll just quote Norman again here, as I think it sums things up better than I could:

 “Damn, it’s a shame we have to play Warhammer this weekend.”

Also don’t tell Norman I quoted him, he’d get an ego about it and things would get weird.

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