Winter tournament season is coming!

Burrr! I woke up this morning to a brisk 33 degrees. Even the dogs did not want to go out this morning.

So Fall is here and old man winter is coming down the road. I wanted to talk about up coming tournaments in the Midwest and how the weather affects gaming around here.



Best part of Fall is the return of chili season.

Gaming around northwest Iowa can be challenging in the summer. Add snow and ice, and it becomes down right dangerous. My old gaming group was an hours drive away. I used to drive every week to get some games in even in the winter. There was many a night where I drove white knuckled home on roads where the plows had turned in for the night.




Not many of these lying around my house.


This summer I cut down on how much driving I do to game. Money has made it so. I now try to attend a tournament once a month or drive no more than a couple times to get games in. I have been driving over to Vermilion to play Zach. He is an awesome player, and sometimes appears on the Independent Characters podcast.

As I can not just go to every tournament around here I have to pick and choose. This means doing research and stay up on whats coming up. Not as easy as it sounds with all these groups in my areas using different forums and boards. So whats coming up around Northwest Iowa......

Ard Boyz September 17th at the Game Shoppe in Omaha. While I turned down my invite I got from my 4th place finish (1st and another could not go), others might be looking for the nearest venue around here. The next closest is Minneapolis.

KhorneHusker RTT October 15th at Brookestone, Omaha. This RTT is 1750 for points and is 3 games. This is my October trip and looks to be a fun RTT. They will be using scenarios for the 2012 Bugeater GT and I'm excited to get some play time with them. I am also going to drive out to Vermilion, SD and test my list vs Zach. Hopefully I can get him to get up early in the morning and go down too... :) Link to their flier.

RockCon's  The Gentlemen's GT November 5th and 6th in Rockford, IL. This mini GT is 5 games over 2 days at 1850 points. This is a 3 day convention with the GT on Saturday and Sunday. While I have never been there, this con is intriguing. Decent number of games and it is a straight, yet far shot straight east for me. November is a light month around here, so this is still a possibility for me. I have also heard good things on a podcast about this tournament. Link to their info.

Legion Games RTT November 12th in Burnsville, MN. A regular 3 game RTT at 2000 points. I have been to Legion before and these are great RTTs. Tough competition with internet famous players like Hulksmash from Dakka regularly playing there. I also love how they do free beverages all day with your paid entry fee. A very nice touch. If I do not go to RockCon, this is my second choice. Link here to their calendar.

Legion Games Big Payout tournament December 10th. Not sure on the details on this tournament yet, but I believe it is an invite only tournament based on previous Legion tournaments. I'm putting it up as a reminder that I need more info on this event.

Game Shoppe RTT December 10th in Bellvue, Omaha. This my second option for December. No info at this time on points or number of games.

Nothing planned for January at this time. I'll be watching, but the weather starts getting nasty around this time. February has a couple big events and the only other regional GT at this time.



Terrain Specialties guys. L-R Dan, Darren, Matt, and Jeff.



February 17th-19th Con of the North's RTT presented by Terrain Specialties and sponsored by The Source Game store. The RTT is on Sunday the 19th but they have GW based games on Friday and Saturday. This is an all around great event with the best looking terrain I have ever seen. Only down side to this trip is it always snows sometime that weekend. Be prepared for bad weather driving. It is also a tough RTT to get into as their 30+ slots sell out in November/December. I have chosen to attend CotN with my family and not the GT listed next.

The Dark Star GT February 11th and 12th. This is a 1850 point 5 games GT in Moundsview, MN. Were it not for Con of the North being the week after, I would be going to this GT. As it is also in February, one must consider the weather for this tournament also. This is also a first year event, and there are zero past tournaments to draw info on. I hope it does well and chooses a different month next year. Link on info for the DS GT.

Holy schedules batman! You still with me? I hope this helps some locals out for games in our area. This looks pretty good for one event per month like I wanted to do. Spring and Summer look very busy with Adepticon and the Bugeater GT on my docket. If I missed any, go ahead and leave a comment below.

That's my 2 cents on this winters plans.