Tippcon aftermath

by TheGraveMind

This is my kind of xeno trophy

Tippcon was this past weekend. Since I used to go to Purdue, I couldn't pass on a chance to visit West Laf. I took my girlfriend with me to show her around while not playing in the tournament. While in numbers it wasn't as many people as I had expected, it was far more competitive with a lot of big names and top placers all in one room. I had brought a Nid list, so I was already losing some confidence from the go.

First match up was against Junkcrons. He also plays nids, so he knew exactly what to do. With something like 15 wraiths, 2 fliers and 3 barges, I was in for a tough fight. I had gotten a few enfeebles, so to make sure his wraiths didn't get instant killed by all of my S6, he played keep away the entire game. I couldn't hurt AV13 from afar. Hot dice on his end, and cold on my end saw the game go quickly with me killing 2 wraiths the entire game and having 6 gaunts left at the end.

From there I faced Draigo-wing and then a nurgle list, both of those I won by mostly board control, and scored almost full points. I then faced against a solid grey knight list, and while I felt like it was a close fight, I did little actual damage and lost by a lot. In the end though, 2-2 wasn't bad, and had enough extra points to squeak into the top 8, along with the other tyranid player.

Day two saw my first round against a necron list very similar to what I faced day 1, and at the bottom of turn 4, it looked like I might pull out a win. But alas you can't keep a good robot down, and we tied on objectives and I lost by kill points, with me having first blood, and him with slay the warlord.

Since I was out of the running and had a girlfriend to show around the city, I didn't stay for the rest of the finals, but Since it came to Nemesis and Spag fighting it out at the last table for a second year, I'm sure they will have a story to tell. Though through it all, I managed to leave with best Xenos, beating the other Tyranid player by 1 tiny point.

So the pros/cons of tippcon?
PROS

• The Missions; They were creative and still competitive. Multiple relics with other objectives, along with wonky deployment meant for a fun game, though maybe a little reworking to avoid the chaos it brought.
• The Tables; Though they were more like 4.5 by 6ft, The tables were nicely spread out. Before each game we were able to place our terrain. Being able to put a hill where needed was good, and there was a lot of terrain per table.
• The venue: The Best Western had a very nice conference room, and there was plenty of space for even a Starwars event on the other half. It was a very nice location right off of 65.

Cons

• The Missions; I am not a fan of playing two missions at the same time as primary. Especially when the majority of missions were Kill points vs multiple objectives.
• The objectives; Mysterious objectives are silly and random, and only benefit certain armies. They just extra rolling and are very one sided. Also being able to place objectives instead of preplaced meant I lost more than one game because my opponent got 3 of the five, and placed the all the furthest back possible so I had no chance of ever getting to them.

• The terrain; While there was plenty of terrain, it was mostly large flat hills/plateaus. I would have liked to see them cut down a bit and stacked taller. I couldn't ever put a gaunt out of line of sight. There were also very few ruins or pieces of large area terrain. While I did enjoy placing terrain, I feel it ended up taking to long. Having some key features set, and allowing smaller ones to be placed would have been a nice compromise.

These are by no means a knock on the guys running Tippcon. They did a great job, just some things I would like them to consider. I know next year I'd be happy to bring up some local terrain if they want.

If you couldn't make it to Tippcon, but are interested in local tournaments, then check the Even Calendar over at 40k Prey.