Games Workshop’s conquest of the west continues
this year with the sights and sounds of Conflict Vancouver.
To document the action we have sent embedded reporter,
Dave Noyle, along with the Games Workshop events team.
He will attempt to relate to you a blow-by-blow account
right from the front lines as Conflict erupts at the
University of British Columbia.
Hello everyone, it is early morning at Conflict and the
event is setup and ready for action. All around me are
scenes of battle from a myriad of locals; jungles, cities;
even the depths of space await the eager combatants within
this hall. As for myself I am recovering well after escaping
Toronto before the fury of nature came down upon the
city. I can see that the crew is about to open the doors;
I’m going to take cover by the Sneak Peeks booth
and prepare.
The Sneak Peeks booth is the first stop for many visitors
to the Conflict. In Vancouver we have the Canadian unveiling
of the new Black Templars models. The new plastic Space
Marine Scouts and the stalwart Sword Brothers are receiving
a fair share of attention. The crowd is getting rather
thick here; I’m going to move to the gaming area
to see what I can see.
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My first destination is the “Raiders of the Space-Lanes” attraction.
Here a raiding party of Dark Eldar ships has engaged
the Imperial Fleet. The Imperials have the Eldar out-gunned
but the raiders have the elements of speed and surprise
on their side. The action is pretty intense with torpedoes
and lance fire being exchanged at a rapid rate.
My next stop is the “Apocalypse Tau” table.
This free for all Warhammer 40,000 battle is being hosted
by the men of Warcraft Games. During a break in the action
I took a moment to talk to Jason, one of the guys in
control of the table. Each player is given control of
a Kill Team and given an objective to meet. Things get
interesting when the random event cards come into play
unleashing everything from booby traps to Napalm strikes.
My next destination is the “5 minutes to evac” scenario
being run by Checkpoint Charlie’s. Amid cries of “For
the Emperor!” a team of Grey Knights attempts to
survive the onslaught of a massive Lost and the Damned
force. I spoke with one of the men in charge, John Paul,
and discovered that they had found the scenario back
in issue 279 of White Dwarf magazine. Things did not
go so well for the defenders of the Imperium in the end
with only two Grey Knights left against a tide of the
Damned.
Next I descended into the
murky swamps where “Thar
be Zombies!” All around me brave teams of adventurers
were questing to destroy the Zombie menace. I stopped
to talk to Jeremy whose Bretonnians Knights were on
the verge of running through some Bloated Corpses.
I had
to retreat as the press of bodies trying to get a chance
to prove themselves against the walking dead was almost
as thick as the dead themselves.
It was then when I remembered I had a pressing mission,
I had to judge the Warpstone painting competition. For
the few of you out there who have had to judge painting
before let me tell you, it is not easy. After visiting
Conflicts all over the country I can tell you that some
of the finest painters attend Conflict Vancouver. With
over a hundred entries this is easily the biggest Warpstone
in the nation. After agonizing over detail after detail
I cast my votes and moved on. Before leaving though I
took a chance to talk to Kelly Kim about his fantastic
entry in the Warhammer 40,000 large model competition,
a Thunderhawk Gunship. Kelly told me that that he had
not used an airbrush but painted the entire model as
if it was a smaller miniature. Overall the piece took
him 60 hours to build and paint, with an hour and a half
spent just painting rivets! The skulls on the front of
the canopy were hand painted and he had elected to go
with a Turbo-Laser instead of the Battle Cannon for that
extra punch against tanks.
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After a job well done I took a look at the action in
the The Lord of The Rings tournament. Here the tournament
organizer Kieran Dunleavy (who is quite fond of lavender)
filled me in on the progress. The tournament features
doubles of Good and Bad players competing for the top
places. The doubles angle constantly has players wondering
how their partners are doing as their combined score
determines who wins. In the end the team of Danny Majdanac
(Good) and Brent Wilson (Evil) took home the top prize.
I left the world of Middle-Earth
and returned to the 41st Millennium at the “Mostly Harmless” table.
Max, the table’s ringleader told me that this game
involves small forces racing towards the goal or “treasure” in
the pyramid at the end. While the different
teams could hamper each other in obvious ways
(with
guns and such)
event cards would allow for extra surprises
to crop up.
Moving through the crowd
I came to an old familiar sight, a game of Necromunda
called “Bag the Sump Thing.” This
urban combat features two old rivals the Delaque gang “Les
Enfants Terrible” and the Escher “Valkyries” in
a competition to slay the “Sump Thing.” This
event being run by the Vancouver Gaming Guild
is but a sample of their 12-gang free-for-all
games.
A frenzy of dice on the table
over caught my eye and I moved to the “Top of the World” scenario
being run by Imperial Hobbies. The game pits a 1000-point
force of Imperial Guard against 1500 points of Tyranids.
A match-up made even more unfair when you realize that
the Tyranids “recycle” when
they die. Fortunately all the Guard have
to do
is survive in
order to win.
The most amazing thing is the entire table
(Tyranids and all) was put together by
three guys (plus
a friend) in a week! The lads even took
the time to set everything
up for me so I could snap the photos below.
I moved on to the Mad Grox and Ascension to Power build,
play, and take area only to be repelled by throngs of
eager players. Both of these events allow players to
take home a creation of their own devising, but only
after playing with it in a race or challenge of the Chaos
Gods. The pictures below are all I could snap before
being turned aside by hoards of eager players.
Finally I made my way to a trio of games
being run by a club called Thor’s
Hideout. These three amazing tables
were built by
Thor Rechlo
and Robert
Metzner and
they demonstrate what great skill these
men have in the field of terrain construction.
These talented
gentlemen
even sell some of their wares through
Table Top Scenery (Robert) and Mighty
Miniatures
(Thor).
All of the
terrain from the sky-scraping cityscape
to
the steaming jungles
were built over three years using polystyrene
and ultrastone. The lads had to rent
a trailer just to
get all of their
tables to the event! Thor and Robert
really love the games and build these
amazing
terrain pieces
to take
the game to the next level. And it
certainly works as
at the time of this interview they
had over a 150 players in one day.
With talents
such
as
these we
will be seeing
more of Thor and Robert in the future.
That pretty much wraps up my day of
Conflict in Vancouver, but there
is much more
for you to see. Make sure
to check out the winners of the Warpstone
competition (Jack
Gay’s
Chaos Bomber has to be seen to be
believed) and the action from the
Hall of Heroes
tournament. Till next
time.
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