Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Good Times at Sparkle Party Death Match 4

In the still dark early hours of Sunday July 27th, a group of five black sheep assembled for a drive up to Seattle Center Armory for the Sparkle Party Death Match 4 tournament.  This one day, three round tournament is hosted by the Dimensional Cascade podcast crew.  We piled into the two cars and headed out for a four hour drive hoping to make it by 10 am for the check-in time.

This tournament was held in a second floor room of the Seattle Center Armory which lies in the large public area grouped together with the Space Needle, and some museums and theaters.  The main floor of the armory is full of different places to get food and drinks, which was super convenient.  Definitely a bonus for having the tournament here.  We arrived a little before 10 am and made our way through the Seattle Center grounds to the armory with time to spare.

We got checked in and were given some cool dice holders for turn and wound counters, and started to bust out the armies to prepare for battle.  Attending we had Chris with his Nurgle Demons, Josh with his no-infantry Warriors of Chaos, Taylor with his Ogres, Wiley and his Tomb Kings, and I had my Lizardmen.  As players assembled, we saw some familiar faces in a couple "Smooth Criminals" from SE Washington, as well as the Chumphammer crew from Vancouver B.C., Canada.  The rest of the attendee's I assume were mostly locals from Seattle and surrounding area.

The time schedule for this tournament was a little later and spread out than I'm used to which ended up being perfect considering the long drive for us to get there.  The first game kicked off at 11 and the chaos and dimensional cascades ensued.  The timing and rounds went really smoothly, so my regards to the tournament organizer and other staff for doing a great job.  Each time someone rolled a dimensional cascade result for a spell miscast, they were brought up for an award, which seems like a nice consolation and did not really feel like an interruption.

As far as the games go, I ended up getting to play all three games against local Seattle area players, and really enjoyed all three games.  I first played a fellow Lizardmen general named Nick, followed by two ogre players, Noah who had a really impressive looking icy themed army followed by Eric who gave me the toughest fight of my games ultimately crushing me.  There was also a painting competition as part of the event which got several top quality entries, I felt really lucky to get third place for it with my Forge World Basilisk as I thought several other entries were more impressive.



The first three places in all categories were awarded at the end, resulting in some people like Patrick from Chumphammer to end the night with a huge set of medals hanging around their necks.  It was good fun, and I really like that the medals are useful in themselves being the same size as Warhammer templates.  We wrapped up the night with some much needed nourishment and beers at nearby Mcmenamins Queen Anne.  I'll definitely be looking forward to attending future Sparkle Party Death Match events.

Some pictures of the event have been shared by the organizers here.