Bilbos Birthday Bash 2012- The Report!

Bilbos Birthday Bash 2012,  has concluded, another awesome year for what is now the only other Indy GT for LotR SBG left other than Adepticon.  It was a great weekend. I had a great time with some great company.  Final Scores are posted below I did very well for going 3-3 coming in 4th place overall due to high soft scores. I also snagged Best Appearance , Evil Army for my Angmar Army.  Top, top stuff this year, in the appearance department, most notably Jim Wappel who brought his professional touch to the event blowing everyones mind with pretty much the best stuff I've seen for the game ever. Pages of White Dwarf included. My pictures dont do it justice. He got the Best Overall appearance award, while Jeremy Williams  and I split the individual good/evil appearance trophies. In the gameplay department, Kyle Toth blew all the competitiion of the water winning over all by 40 points!..I thought my 18 point lead at the Adepticon Championships was high, well he over doubled it.

Alot of first's this year, alot of new players, new awards, catered lunch. We had seven players (23% of the field) drop out within 48 hours of the tourney, that is was huge number and a bummer the positive note is given who wasnt here, and the new players that were, I dont think 40 players is an unreasonable number next year getting back to 2011's attendance. Despite my fondness for Tim at the Chicago Battle Bunker, and the staff always courtesy and friendly. I think this event has run its course there. With tourney and the game as it stands, some other venue would be much better suited. GW offers no prize support, it was all donated or purchased from entry fees and the Bunker in its new configuration is just too crowded..Having to play a LotR tourney shoulder to shoulder with casual games of 40K wasn't ideal. Minor points of an otherwise great weekend. I'd love to see BBB become along the lines of some the popular WFB tourneys here which a two day affairs in hotel ballrooms with amenities, places to stay for out of towners, etc. The one thing I do miss about WFB, certainly not "The Game" but the quality of the Events. BBB is the cream of the crop for the system by far (now that GitD has rode into the sunset for LotR) but despite the fun time at dinner saturday night, better access to things like coffee, alcohol, food and bathrooms without the GW store restrictions would be nice.

Anyway not to sour the events of the weekend in anyway. again a great time, and everyone went home thinking about what the bringing to Adepticon and what the new hobbit movies are going bring , will know in just a month.!

If you are interested in my games and some analysis..I didnt keep track of enough for proper battle reports but my games went down like this.  Scenarios were Domination , Lords of Battle, and Reconnoiter.

Saturday

 Grey Company vs Corsairs of Umbar- Minor Defeat

Angmar vs Erebor  Major Defeat 

Angmar vs Rohan  Minor Victory

Sunday

Grey Company vs Moria- Minor Victory

Angmar vs Rohan- Minor Defeat

Grey Company vs Mordor - Major Victory

My Grey Company performed stellar, I faced a nasty Corsairs army first round, I have played them in years, and hadnt played my Grey Company in this configuration ever, or at all in over a year. It took me awhile to back in the swing, I'll chalk that first game up to being very very rusty, over the GC list in the new books at 30 models is very powerful.  My Angmar list has some good tricks, again learning them under pressure. Hadnt never used any of the new models (witch king, bhurdur or the shade) in a game before  Shade is keeper at 100 points, Bhurdur no way at 110 he's just not worth it.

while he looks awesome, another Orc Captain and 8 Warriors and another tracker would have made a much more formidable force.  Anyway that's all I have on BBB, as always props to Brent and Chris for running it and all the hardwork..I'll close it out with a bunch of pictures of alot of James Wappel's stuff and the final results.