Screw That!

So I won't be going back to Lone Wolf GT. $60 for entry, another $100 for a hotel, and two tanks of gas is a bit too much to pay for the shittiest single tournament I've ever been involved in.

A major part of the problem was my crappy performance with my crappy army. I've got no one to blame but myself for the performance of my list. I brought a soft list and played it badly. The few times I did everything right were foiled by the dice. It happens.

Another problem was I get tired of looking across the table at unpainted models. All five people I played had unfinished models on the table. 3/5 had major parts of their army unfinished and two of those had 60% or more with little or no paint at all. One of them had 2/3 of his army based black with a splash of red and silver so he could get credit for three colors in judging. He admitted as much to the paint judge.

The number of people who had bad days or weekends due to playing against those displaying abysmal behavior didn't help either. I didn't have any bad games, I just had too few good ones. One spent too much time talking smack to the organizers to pay attention to our game and one was pissy the entire game because of the way the comp scores worked. Around me, however, I saw players tantruming and throwing fits because things didn't go their way in games they were winning.

Questionable judging was the final straw. The armies that took prizes for appearance deserved their recognition. Looking down the list, there were armies that were judged far more harshly than deserved while others were given far better scores than deserved. It seems being local or affiliated with the right club was an important factor in paint judging. Two armies that had unfinished models on the table actually scored better than mine for paint. That guy with the three stripes of paint? He scored one point less than me for painting. The models he had that were painted were nice. They  weren't based. So lesson learned - based coat with a spray can, smear a couple of blotches of paint, and go. You'll get scored at mid level. Or be local. That seems to matter.

I realize that much of this is out of control of the TOs, but that last bit is on them. Judging paint is thankless and subjective, but the scores from LWGT show a distinct bias or base incompetence. Either is inexcusable.

Either way, the event left such a bad taste in my mouth that I think I'll save the money and effort next year and stay home.

EDIT: Some of the bitter has faded, and I realize much of my bad time was brought on by choices I made. Still probably not going next year.