Dust Warfare Tournament at Gencon 2013

This past Friday, the Dust Devils International put on a Dust Warfare tournament at Gencon 2013.  They said that they would post the results of the tournament on the DDI website, so I will not put the results here - other than saying that, while the Indy Dust Warfare guys put on a good show, we didn't bring home the title.  :)

Speaking of titles - the prizes were very cool - plaques for the top 3 winners, a custom Dust Tablewar case, and quite a bit of Dust Premium models.  My personal favorite was the award for the top place finisher -- a really cool painted award that looked to be cut from the side of an aircraft.  Sadly, the picture below is as close as I will be coming to it -- maybe better luck next time.  :)

There were 13 attendees from around the country - 6 from Indy and the other 7 from around North America - including North Carolina, Detroit, Atlanta, and Canada.  There was a good distribution of armies - 6 Axis, 4 Allied, and 3 SSU (if I remember correctly).

Seemingly, the tournament went well - everyone seemed to have a great time, I didn't see or hear anyone being a jerk, and there seemed to be lots of close, but fun, games.  In particular, the battle builder for the tournament seemed to be well-received - it was created by the tournament organizer, Major Malfunction, and it was interesting since it moved many of the 'common' missions, objectives, and conditions up into the top of the battle builder results.  So, while it was possible to get to them, it was difficult and, in almost all cases, you were going to get something unusual elsewhere in your game.  I know I really enjoyed it as did several of the other Indy players.

Paolo was wandering around, and came by to check out the tournament a few times - including doing the judging of the painting competition and posing for pictures.  He also very generously signed some items for some people - including drawing some sketches, like the one below in my (now retired from active playing) Dust Warfare Rulebook.  :)

Here are some pictures of (most of) the armies there:
Axis:

Allies:

SSU:

Finally, most of the Indy guys stuck around to help clean up.  Since the tournament took most of the day - the exhibit hall was closed when we took all the terrain and equipment back to the GF9 / Battlefront booth - below is a panoramic pic of the exhibit hall after closing.  It was a pretty amazing sight, especially given how ABSOLUTELY packed it is the rest of the time.

All in all - it was a great time and a great tournament -- it was particularly nice getting to meet some of the people we interact with online about Dust - ItsUncertainWho, Major Malfunction, Ken, etc.  Like all good tournaments, I walked away excited for more gaming, with some new ideas for armies, and looking forward to the next Dust tournament.  Many thanks to the DDI guys for putting on the event, and all the players for coming out, having fun, and embodying the first rule of gaming.

Tomorrow - I'll try to get together some pictures from the games.