BOLTERCON 2024 Recap - We did all the things!
BOLTERCON is over, long live BOLTERCON!
After an amazing four days at the lovely Centre Park of West Chester, Bolters at Dawn is closing the book on BOLTERCON 2024. Starting at lunch on November 14th and not stopping until the late evening of November 17th, our hard-working and relentless Bolters at Dawn officer corps delivered Cincinnati’s Dopest Gaming Convention to our club members and community. Over one hundred ticket holders came through and played in one (or more) of our events
All gas no brakes no matter the cost
This year, in the spirit of continuous improvement (tinkering) we are going to throw out one big recap of BOLTERCON 2024. While there will be lots of words and pictures, a one stop to experience all the dopiness is what the people (and LLMs) want. Is it better than multiple recaps? Idk bby but we’re going to find out. In this blog post we will be covering the events in the order they appeared in the BOLTERCON 2024 Player Packet : Warhammer 40k GT, The Golden Bolter Painting Competition, Warhammer Age of Sigmar GT, Warhammer The Old World Doubles, Horus Heresy: Battle for Cypra Mundi II, Bolter Bowl I: Blood Bowl Tournament, and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Exterminatus. Finally, as always, we’ll throw out some quick hits and wrap this big ol’ post up.
Before we get started, we here at Bolters at Dawn want to give a huge shoutout to our VIP ticket holders! This group of fine people gave us extra money with the trust that we would put it to honorable uses at BOLTERCON. And boy howdy, did we ever. We showered our VIPs with event-exclusive swag and other goodies & treated them to the penultimate VIP experience (so far) at BOLTERCON. For the next BOLTERCON we hope to continue this tradition as it goes a long way to keeping BOLTERCON as dope as possible. The people crave it, so we will deliver it.
And just after our beloved VIPs, we have special thanks to all the sponsors and vendors that help our group put on this event every year: Monument Hobbies, AK Interactive, Game Envy, Kromlech, Battle Foam, and Games Workshop. Check out the vendors section of the Player Packet for more info!
Warhammer 40k GT
Our beloved 40k GT grows year after year, slowly and very surely. This year we had a 6 round tournament over Friday and Saturday with 42 attendees showing up to throw down. It’s truly a sight to behold when these high quality players bring their lovingly hobbied-up armies and play on our thematic terrain boards! We hear your feedback about some boards not being exactly perfectly compliant with common tournament formats & will be diligently addressing those issues going forward. But I mean, come on look at this dopeness:
You can dig into the details over at Best Coast Pairings , but without further ado here are the top 4 (because everyone else lost two games or more lol)!
| Place | Player | Faction | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Geoff Perry | Thousand Sons | 100 / 100 / 100 / 87 / 95 / 84 |
| 2 | Ryan Timms | Necrons | 79 / 59 / 81 / 69 / 95 / 71 |
| 3 | Chris Kentrup | Chaos Knights | 78 / 38 / 83 / 54 / 84 / 95 |
| 4 | Georde Murray | Imperial Knights | 62 / 86 / 31 / 49 / 58 / 62 |
Geoff had a commanding performance on the top table and in the end his armies mind bullets (and other big brained things) couldn’t be stopped by anyone. I’ll leave the commentary to James over at Goonhammer for the quick rundown:
Look, what can I say, Tzeentch’s plans for the year clearly included triple Mutalith builds, and such petty mortal concerns as “massive point hikes” and “allegations of being C tier” will not be allowed to get in the way. I do like the particular configuration of supporting tools Geoff has deployed here though – adding the big Rubricae unit on top of all that other heft is going to leave foes feeling so overwhelmed that the reduced Cabal Point crop and downgrading Rubricae to extra Tzaangors won’t bite nearly as hard. Cunning. Very cunning. Well done Geoff.
Big congrats to all the players who completed the feat of strength playing Warhammer 40k 10th Edition for two very long days! Be sure to go out of your way thank our very own Judiciar Extremis aka Ed for shepherding us though the event as the dedicated judge and keeping the train on the tracks.
But wait! There’s more:
- Booger Bowl Champion – The Warmaster aka Bradley Allen emerges from the shadows to reclaim his throne
- Purity Seal – Ork Actual aka Kyle Kollstedt takes home the trophy by being voted Best Sportsman by the people
I don’t have any awards pics, so here’s one from the 40k GT with lots of Cart Technologies on display!
The Golden Bolter Painting Competition
Ah yes, The Golden Bolter our beloved. Starting with the 2021 Invitational, we wanted to have a unique and challenging hobby competition free of the usual problems (like being a popularity contest) and focused on the purest expressions of hobby rage. First, contestants must field the entries in the 40k GT. Second, we use a completely uninterested 3rd party to perform the judging. There are exactly two awards: Best Painted Army and Best Painted Single Model.
Kenny Boucher, CEO of Next Level Painting Corporation, has graciously accepted the responsibility for the past few years. Due to his remote location (swamp dungeon in Florida), we set up Ye Olde Photo Booth which is manned by yours truly. I am not good at this but I know enough to get decent pics and ship them off to Kenny for him to do his thing. This year I had hoped to be free of this responsibility, but due to unforseeable circumstance Kenny was unable to attend in the flesh and judge The Golden Bolter. So here we are, doing the thing again!
After the 2rd round of the 40k GT, players came in droves to get their very excellent armies photographed. Whether or not you’re serious about the competition, you do get to come and get those glamor shots! But without further ado, I’ll hand things over to Kenny so he can explain the results in video!
Winner Best Painted Model – Drew Marfurt! His converted Knight Abominant definitely turned heads throughout the GT and certainly looked good stomping around the board in our match. Well done & PREPOSTEROUS!
Winner Best Painted Army – John Gemrich! We all know his Debt Company and look forward to seeing his updates in the wee hours. Now he brings home a well deserved award to top it all off. Congrats!
The competition just gets more and more intense every year. Those runners up were incredible and I highly suggest you take a look at all the entries in our Google Drive folder. These are raw and unedited so that the playing field is as even as possible. Will we be improving the Photo Booth tech going forward? You bet.
Before I forget, if you used the Photo Booth and were not in The Golden Bolter, your photos are in this Google Drive folder over here. Don’t see yours, let me know!
Warhammer Age of Sigmar GT
Last year we ran a smaller Age of Sigmar RTT to test the waters. This year, our Chief Hierophant of Degenerate Extremists aka Devon and our Czar of Occasional Corrections and Knowledgable Stances aka Gavin decided that they wanted to grow the even just a wee bit. They worked their asses off all year & we are ludicrously proud of what they were able to accomplish. And now I will hand the text-mic over to Devon:
Our first ever Age of Sigmar GT saw 24 players take the field on Saturday and Sunday, battling it out over 5 rounds to become the first BOLTERCON Age of Sigmar GT Champion. The event saw a pretty even spread of grand alliance representation, with Destruction slightly taking the cake for most represented.
While destruction represented in size, it did not necessarily come out on top in force. Our crowned champion was Harry Isaksson and his Seraphon. Harry led a very Aggradon Aggro list with the key feature being 3 reinforced units of Aggradon Lancers plus Seraphon good stuff. Congratulations Harry on taking the top of the pedestal!
Following up was Jon Anderson with the spooky ghosts who haunt the meta. In this list we see Awlrach and Reikenor as the tag team combo plus the classic Nighthaunt good stuff. Congrats to Jon for winning the place of Aspiring Champion! The rest of the placings and lists can be seen right here on the BCP.
In the additional winning categories, we saw the reigning hobby and hype champ Eric Bauer take home awards for best painted army and best sportsman (All five of Eric’s opponent’s voted him their best opponent!). Eric’s beautiful Sylvaneth army shined on the table with masterfully based minis and the now titled “5G Maple Trees”. Congratulations Eric on being the dopest dude in all the land!
That may be all the awards… but… but wait?!? A rumble can be heard deep in cavernous depths of the bottom table where two armies toiled in the dirt for the crown no one knew they needed to chase. That’s right, Taylor Barbieri and his Seraphon faced off against Jerome Zienner and his OBR in the first annual Gnoble Gnoblar match! Taylor Barbieri came out victorious and walked home with the much coveted and hand painted Gnoble Gnoblar trophy. Congratulations Taylor!
Before I hand off to one of our other great event coordinators, there are a few thanks to be said. First off, thank you to all of the players who made it out to this GT. I truly appreciated the turnout and it gave us the proof we need to make this event even bigger in 2025! While on the topic of turnout, I want to especially thank the Actual Trash Wargaming group for showing up in force. Lexington really rallied the troops and allowed us to fill out spots quickly.
I want to thank Gavin Peacock for helping coordinate this event and even step in when I needed to scurry off to a wedding my family had the audacity to schedule during BOLTERCON. Finally, I want to thank Gavin, Eric and the Gem Wargaming group (Dayton) for the help in making sure we had the tables and terrain we needed to make this event go off with a bang!
We collected a bunch of photos of the event, so give it a browse and get those hype engines revved. That’s all for now, but stay tuned for more Bolter’s at Dawn AoS events happening at our Clubhouse (AoS Doubles RTT in February Baybeeeee) and for news on the bigger and bolder BOLTERCON Age of Sigmar GT in 2025!
Warhammer The Old World Doubles
A new game for us that feels a lot like an old game, The Old World is a game space where we wanted to try something novel in for BOLTERCON. With big time success running Warhammer 40k Doubles in the past, we thought: why not TOW Doubles? So then we did the thing and had an absolute blast in the process.
On Sunday, four teams squared off (HEYOOO) to challenge each other in a round-robin throw down. As with our other doubles events, we use a modified version of The Long War Doubles scoring where Battle Points are only worth 1/3rd of the overall score. Teams rate each other for sportsmanship and theme for another 1/3rd and the judges have a separate theme and hobby score for the remaining 1/3rd.
| Place | Team | Players | Faction | Final Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blue Moons | Bryant Hunger and Jyle Kollstedt | Orc & Goblin Tribes | 1559 |
| 2 | NEO Wasteland | Art Shulsky and Dave Jessup | Orc & Goblin Tribes | 1520 |
| 3 | Femur Friends | Mike Klebau and Alex Thornbury | Tomb Kings of Khemri | 1292 |
| 4 | Uhhhhhh | Grant Smallwood and DJ Budin | Kingdom of Bretonnia | 881 |
Check out the Best Coast Pairings page for the game scores. It was a real pleasure observing these matches and riffing on what is yet to come for The Old World. Much more to come from the Bolters at Dawn crew here!
Horus Heresy: Battle for Cypra Mundi II
We have no choice but to let our Hype and Morale Officer aka Alex take the wheel here!
Where we have been
In the BOLTERCON 2023 Horus Heresy event, the loyalist Forge World of Cypra Mundi was besieged by the Warmaster’s gnashing hordes. Despite the Loyalist’s best efforts, the Traitor forces secured a victory and established control over the orbital shipyard and the planet itself, with only the palace of the Fabricator-Padishah holding out against the besiegers. It was only a matter of time before this palace, called the Basileus, would fall to the Dark Mechanicum’s many hands, and ultimate control of the planet with it.
The Loyalist forces managed to regroup at the Mah Kappa logistics hub and blunt the advance of the Dark Mechanicum’s levies. This logistics hub served as a rallying point for the eventual rescue of the Fabricator-Padishah, and was the rallying point for a desperate, makeshift fleet over the course of the year.
In his desperation to overwhelm the Basileus, the Fabricator-General of the Dark Mechanicum attempted to find alternative means of disabling the void shields that protected the facility. The Creus System contained secrets of a djinn-daemon, and the Traitors went there to secure this knowledge. Unfortunately for them, the Loyalists had intercepted communications regarding the virus. The Dark Mechanicum’s forces suffered yet another major loss, securing only a single sample of the djinn-daemon.
Feeling prepared to retake the forge world and save the Fabricator-Padishah, the Loyalists converged upon Cypra Mundi for BOLTERCON 2024…
BOLTERCON 2024 Battle for Cypra Mundi II
The Loyalist forces contained Iron Hands, Mechanicum, Imperial Fists, Raven Guard, Alpha Legion (?), and Space Wolves.
Traitors included multiple Praetors of the Sons of Horus and Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Word Bearers, Blackshields, and Alpha Legion(?).
The Battle for Cypra Mundi took place over two battles, picked from the Core Rulebook and Goonhammer’s custom missions. The first battle was the Loyalists coming from orbit to retake the planet, while Traitors had to defend their conquest. Before the first game, each team was able to choose between a stance for their forces and various supplemental armaments that gave special rules. Both teams chose to be as aggressive as possible in the first game, and despite having the home advantage it was the Loyalists who kept their initiative from the past year going, winning a large majority of their games.
The second game was the Loyalist forces trying to save the great palace that was still under siege. While the Loyalists had the initiative, the Traitors managed to breach the void shields that protected their prey. Both forces fought bitterly but in the end it was the Loyalists who secured victory for their Fabricator-Padishah.
The end of the event saw the Traitors completely and utterly routed, losing control of not only the planet but the entire region that Cypra Mundi influenced. The Basileus remained standing, though with blackened walls and smoldering gun batteries. Cypra Mundi would remain a bulwark for the Emperor’s forces for the rest of the Heresy.
Special shout out to Christian for helping organize this and provide the story.
Eric Bauer won the Pride of the Legion prize for having our event players favorite army. He was rocking a very well done 1500 points of Sons of Horus. Congrats to him!
Interested in a big bucket (digital) of pictures of the event? Look no further than the Google Drive folder for just such things!
Where are we going
With the traitor forces repelled from Cypra Mundi and the surrounding systems a new theater of war is emerging. Going into 2025 we will see another campaign and a larger BOLTERCON 2025 event that moves away from Cypra Mundi. Stay tuned and make sure you are in our Discord so as to not miss out.
We have learned a lot running the Cypra Mundi story and are eager to continue to sharpen our skills. We appreciate your participation so far and look forward to more great battles!
Bolter Bowl I: Blood Bowl Tournament
We here at Bolters at Dawn are currently discovering just what a hoot Blood Bowl is to play. We’ve got a few games under our belts (collectively) and thought we’d throw out a Thursday event – 3 rounds of distilled Blow Bowl rules learning together! It was great to get all the pitches deployed and see those sweet sweet teams all painted up (yes that is a Stompa full of Malort lurking around).
NOTE: three of our players received their teams on Wednesday night as part of the VIP package. They assembled, painted, and even read their rules to some extent before Thursday afternoon! The Painting Zone was in full swing and the results speak for themselves.
Enough pics, now time for who won the things, which you can see in gory detail over at TourPlay:
- 1st Place – The Walking Dead piloted by our Propaganda Enforcement and Needful Information Secretary aka Nate
- 2nd Place – Gnoblar Gnibblers coached by our Chief Hierophant of Degenerate Extremists aka Devon
- Best Painted Team – Excess At Dawn done up right by our Praetorian of Righteous Indignation and Careful Kudos aka Joe
Okokokok one more pic because Nate loves winning things:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Exterminatus
Will Thackery graciously offered to run a Sunday game of Dark Heresy. After 3 extremely long days (and nights) of maximum tabletop rage, people were really looking forward to some mind-scarringly frightening grim dark RPG action! The group of intrepid explorers set up in a quiet part of the hall and got to work.
From the office of Uriah Kerst for immediate release to appropriately credentialed parties:
To be entered into the Library of the Calixis Sector Ordo Hereticus :
4 new Acolytes of the Holy Inquisition were diverted from their transit to the sector capital Calixis for initiation and training by the order of Inquisitor Uriah Kerst. Instead they were sent as an emergency response team to Sepheris Secundus regarding Incident CS-SS-40296.b. See
for details about the worker uprising immediately preceding. Despite a lack of any training and minimal guidance from superiors, this hodgepodge group consisting of an Adeptus Ministorum Clerk, a former Guardsman, a hive ganger mercenary, and a former assassin were able to quickly penetrate the depths of the Gorgonid Mine to the source of the problem, a large crystalline stone tainted by Chaos. On the way they fought no less than 3 engagements with mine workers, mutants in the depths of the tunnels, and lastly some small demonic entity the crystal summoned to defend itself. They cleverly used an appropriated grenade from the local Guard unit to destroy the cursed stone before they were killed by the demon, ending the source of corruption.
Damage from their mission was minimal, and the mine was able to resume normal working conditions. The group is recommended for advanced training classes, after a thorough examination for any signs of corruption.
speculates that were not from the , but disagrees due to and instead posits that the striking workers were actually . Uriah Kerst, Inquisitor
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From Will: Thanks to Joe, Brad, Brent, and Brian for a great session! It was the perfect way to end the event on Sunday after a weekend of Warhammer.
That’s A Wrap!
In review, did you know that I didn’t even cover all the events at BOLTERCON this year? There was a well received Battletech event to help people learn to play, hosted by our Bolters at Dawn member Cameron Khars! He came down from Columbus and brought that robot hype to the people and the people were extremely pleased.
Also, our Judiciar Extremis hosted the annual ritual of Only Paints:
I won’t go into detail because there isn’t much that hasn’t been redacted from the official records. Let the images of struggle at Only Paints be your guide.
And with that, I must bid all of our wonderful VIPs, blessed club members, hard-working officers, and auspicious community members a good day (for now). BOLTERCON 2024 is in the history books, and BOLTERCON 2025 arises like the sun – bright, causes burns without proper precautions, and absolutely cannot be stopped from doing its thing.
Please keep abreast of all the latest Bolters at Dawn news in our very hype Discord and on this very blog. Also, our more youthful members are giving much needed coaching on THE GRAM so check us out there as well!