Singapore 40k Tourney - How to Spend a Weekend

After an almost uneventful drive to JB (almost – a Legionnaire actually forgot to pack something truly crucial and had it couriered same day to JB), we met up with Quake at Pelangi Mall, who guided us to the hotel.

And the place, Compact Hotel, is pretty cool. At RM99 nett (shared 2 to the room), it overlooks the Causeway, is clean, has running hot water, is comfy and totally recommendable. It’s even got a funky car park (you should check it out just for that). Plus I had a Tzeentchy room number (1602).

As most of us didn’t have much sleep the night before (painting mah), it was only natural that we immediately went out looking for food and drink as soon as we checked in. Ok, Dann actually stayed in for a couple of hours to paint his Monolith, but we did all eventually go out for some makan.

Doc tried to tempt us with excessive amounts of Tiger combat drugs, but we managed to eventually pass Ld and went back to the hotel at a reasonable time. Lord Akkarin managed to unleash some killer dispel scrolls and got past lash of submission to join us at the hotel just before lights out.
=At precisely 0530 hrs on Sunday 8th June, I was packing up stuff in the room when the guys called from the lobby, raring to go (!). We left one of our transports at the hotel, and packed into 2 vehicles to make the crossing.

We were at the Singapore Immigration checkpoint when Ravenscream revealed that this was the first time he had been anywhere outside Malaysia. How about that? The first time overseas and it’s for a 40k tourney! How cool is that?

Traffic was lighter than expected and we arrived at Chua Chu Kang Community Center at around 0645 hrs, and were delighted to find that parking is free on Sundays! We messaged the organizers to let them know we’d arrived (“what, already?”) and went off to get breakfast. And we had what was simply the best roti prata telor and kopi ever (at RM6+ it had to be good, yes), and the team feasted well.

Antu joined us at the venue, where 40k tables occupied about a third of the hall, with the rest occupied by WFB tables, Warmachine, Catan, a couple of card game and boardgame things, as well as demo games for GW core games, and even FoW (by none other than the Edwin himself).

At around 0930, the 40k gamers were asked to display their armies, and everyone was given a form to vote for their top 3 painted and top 3 themed armies (you can’t vote for yourself). Judges were also going table to table scoring the armies for painting and theme.

This was one of my favourite points of the whole thing. I was able to check out some really cool armies that you don’t find back home. There was a Daemonhunter army with Krieg troops and Land Raider Mk.II from Forgeworld, a nice-looking Iron Warriors army and a great all-infantry IG Drop Trooper force (with only 3 Sentinels for armoured support), among others.

Dice started rolling for the 40k tourney itself at around 1000 hrs. I won’t get into the details of the gaming side, suffice to say that it was 9 hours of furious battle filled with the clatter of dice-chucking, the huzzahs of the victors and the howls of the vanquished. Ok, maybe not so dramatic, but something like that.

What was certain was that we had a great time gaming with people and armies we had not played against before (2 exceptions which couldn’t be helped – round 2 Excise vs Asco, round 3 Quake vs Executor), with nice terrain and interesting scenarios.

The scenarios themselves were nicely conceived. The first one – Dawn of War – was a modified cleanse, with our objective markers offering lots of bonus VP (only infantry can capture those – it’s like raising the flag in the PC game). The second one – Fog of War – was purely objective-based, each player must take 2 objectives, with one of them kept secret to the opponent and only shared with the judges. The last one – God of War – was an excellent no-holds-barred total annihilation scenario.

I must say that the tourney was very well run. Nothing was delayed. Breaks and lunch and dinner were just the right time – not too long, not too short. The staff, despite being obviously snowed-under, were friendly and helpful. Lots of good marks all-round.

The last dice was chucked at around 1900 hrs, and while we were waiting for the results to be tallied, we had lots of pictures taken of the team. And not just by our own cameras. It seems that 11 people turning up in the same black shirts attracts a lot of attention, and for a good 10-15 minutes, there was a galaxy of camera flashes that kinda blinded us. Nice to feel like a celebrity once in awhile J. Legionnaire Dice caught some attention too – not only because they look great, but also because it became obvious that a bunch of people were using the same dice. We also took the opportunity to spam (legally) the flyer pre-announcing Legio Malaysia’s RTT in November.

All in all, we had a great time. Most of Team Malaysia were tourney noobs, and it’s good to see the team have a good time. I haven’t got the detailed results, but this is how the team members’ games went:

Player Army Wins Losses Draws
Quake Eldar (chaotic) 3 - -
Ravenscream Tau 3 - -
Lord Akkarin World Eaters 2 - 1
Asco Imperial Guard 2 1 -
Executor Chaos 2 1 -
Excise Blood Angels 2 1 -
Doc Dark Eldar 1 1 1
Danntoh Necrons 1 1 1
Antu Necrons 1 1 1
Joe Necrons 1 2 -
Spunkybass Thousand Sons 1 2 -

And the final results? Wow. Out of the 6 awards for the 40k tourney, Malaysians bagged 3:

First Overall: QUAKE! (Eldar)
His brilliantly themed Khornate Eldar army played to character and went for blood, annihilating armies and making them happy for it too. And Quake hadn’t touched 40k for a year. Congratulations!

2nd Overall: Me (!) (Thousand Sons)
Everyone, myself especially, was totally surprised by this one. I was massacred twice, and TA’d the opponent once. But apparently I maxed out on painting, theme and sportsmanship to earn enough points for it.

3rd Overall: Tsui
I didn’t play with this guy – anybody can add here? Congratulations anyways!

Best Painted: Doc Selvam (Dark Eldar)
Not bad at all for a first-timer with his first ever 40k army. This might just get Doc to spend more time off the Old World. And all this while taking the all-important role of master tempter of Tiger combat drugs too, like the good haemonculi he is. Congratulations!

Best Theme: Marc Chong (Iron Warriors)
Great-looking Iron Warriors army, whose lord had the misfortune of being the victim of the only time my Gift of Chaos power actually worked. Congratulations! And thanks for being such a great sport.

Best Sportsmanship: Benard Low (Grey Knights)
This guy is brave, fielding a pure Grey Knight army in a tournament. But hey, the army looked great, and having chatted with him for awhile, it was obvious why he won this award – he’s just a great guy, who happens to own 15 dreadnoughts, and is eyeing that excellent new chaplain one from Forgeworld. Congratulations!

Anyways, that was simply one of the best tourneys I’ve been to. My congratulations and hats off to Dom, Donkey, Damien and all of the organizing team, staff and judges. You guys did awesomely well.

And for Team Malaysia – this is just the beginning. The unique experience of the tourney gave us some great memories – and we’re going to create more! Thanks guys!

Btw, we took lots of great pics. I’ll put them up as soon as we get them together.