As the Holiday creeps in, somethings are not meant to be.

December 1, 2010

Last November 26, 2010, I woke up earlier than usual, around 5:00am.

This was the first day of the 2010 Warhammer 40 Grand Tournament, to be held at Glorietta 4 Art Space.

Getting ready for the event, I had a full breakfast and left for the battle bunker to pick up my Witchhunter army.

I check the bags for each item that is essential for the tournament. Dice, templates, army book, 3 sets of armylist, a set of printed missions.

I was hopeful to be able to play well this year. As the excitement grew, I pack all the bags in the car and head for my office in Makati City.

My office is located at 71-79 Sen. Gil J. Puyat Avenue, corner Filmore street, Makati City. Cash and Carry Supermarket and Mall is just around the corner. It would only take me 15 minutes to get from my office to Glorietta 4.

I arrived at the office around 7:30am. Opened up the gate and all the air conditioner and computer servers. Lights went up and went straight to my desk.

I took my army bag up and made a final check of my Witch Hunter army. I found out the Inquisitor model was not painted properly and only based color in black.

I had still two hours to spare so I started to paint the entire model white and decided just to use washes on the model.

As it turned out, time passes so fast that it was almost 10am when I had just finish washing it with red and blue washses.

Quickly and excitedly, I raced down the flight of stairs and went straight to the parking area.

I took my trusted employee with me to drive me to Glorietta 4 entrance so I do not need to park the car myself saving me some time.

As we turn left off Filmore street crossed Buendia and planned to take a left Finlandia street, the traffic turned out to be heavy. I decided to push towards Glorietta 4 via South Super Highway, take the clover leaf and head towards Edsa and Ayala.

To my utter dismay and cause my blood to rise, the entire South Superhighway up to Edsa is totally jump pack with cars, container trucks and buses. To make matters worse it was moving at a slow pace. After 30 minutes I kept calling Henri Tecson and texted him and Ian Siongco alternately on whats happenning. But with the excitement of the Grand Tournament and thier responsiblity of officiating the tournament, I did not get a single reply.

With a heavy heart, we had to turn back towards Sen Gil J Puyat(Buendia Ave) via Evangelista Street in Pasay City.

It took us another 30 minutes to go back where we started and passed by Finlandia street crossed Buedia toward Makati Medical City. As we turned right on Ayala, traffic eased up a bit.
My blood pressure was rising and the thought of not being able to play and participate in the Grand Tournament was on my mind.

I finally arrived Glorietta 4 and just to find out I forgot to check where the actual location of the tournament will be held.

With the guard checking the bag, I ask about the NG tournament and he mentioned it was on the 3rd floor Art Space area.

The tournament already started and it seemed all the tables were taken already. Henry and Ian told me that 22 players where in attendance and I would be playing Bye.

It was a sad day for me for being late to arrive.

If I joined the tournament the number would be odd and it would ruined the parings since a bye would automatically be a minor win. I decided it was not meant to be for me to play at the GT this year. I politely told Freddie Tan, Henri Tecson, and Ian Siongco that it would be better I passed so to make it easier for the organizers to do the pairings.

It was great to see the number of people participating the tournament has increased this year.

The consolation was that Freddie Tan invited a cosplayer of a Sister of Battle Seraphim. We took pictures of entire group with the Sister of Battle. It was not entirely a bad day.

Next time, I better make sure I would leave earlier for the Warhammer 40 Grand Tournament in the year 2011.

Cheers,

Oberon