US GT's Canceled

I heard that Games Workshop's GT are now canceled. This is very disappointing to me. This is the second time that they have canceled the events well into the year (also in 2007 I believe it was).

In the early days the Grand Tournament was truly an event you must attend if you were crazy about the hobby. Just a chance to drool over the other fantastic models that clearly were far above the norm was reason enough to attend. Along with a great level of painting and modeling, was a real effort to make these events something special. There were guests of honor, special bitz ordering, and sometimes even a raffle to get a kit months before release. After a few years things started to go downhill, partly because of the added capacity needed and partly because of the effort put into running it. For example, I won 3rd best painted and the trophies for the 225 person tournament were laminated certificates! Not to mention the Lord of the Rings trophies were completely forgotten.

Now we get to this point, where there is a bad economy, everyone needs to do cutbacks, and the level of Independent Tournaments exceeds what we have seen in the past. I could care less what the reasoning behind it is, all I know is that it is time for me to get the folks I know together and start running our own in the North East. I've built the tables for other manufacturer's tournaments, and easily can handle the logistical planning. I know folks who can handle the web design, player networking, artists, and just about any other aspect we need covered.

I hope this prompts you to jump into organizing your own events as well. It has been a great run, but now with the likes of Adepticon and other high end venues, the times are changing. Get out and be a part of that change!

Plans for Baltimore Games Day

For Games Day, the club will be doing a 40k Apocalypse display. What I'd like to bring is the new 6' x 12' table, existing and new scenery pieces on it and Apocalypse Datasheets or Formations on display.

So far for the display we have:

Marines-
Space Marine Battle Company
Ancients Formation
Deathknell Formation
Linebreaker Squadrons

Guard-
Emperor's Hammer Formation
Baneblade

Navy-
Lightning Fighter
Thunderbolt

Orks-
Green Tide

Chaos-
Daemon Swarm
Plague of Zombies
Chaos Termi Formation

Tyranids-
Heirodule Formation
Harridan

Necrons-
Undying Legion
Shroudweaver War Cell
Doomsday Monolith Formation

Basically we set up the table similar to a game in play, do up some nice color cards describing the models and point costs, and chat with folks about getting your collections to this stage. There are no points totals to work with or anything like that, just displaying stuff from the Apocalypse books and the terrain.