Conflict GT: Tournament Prep

With Great Gaming, comes Great Responsibility.  In other words, before going to a GT, remember to do your homework!
With the Conflict GT coming this weekend, I am certain that many players in the New York area are currently spending this snowed-in day gathering their dice and packing miniatures into foam.   Grand tournaments carry a work-load all their own, and every step requires attention if you expect to have a smooth experience at the event.  Sure, some preparation is obvious.  For example, I spent some time around new-year's taking photos and having Staples print up a supply of army books for the list I am bringing this weekend.  That part was a no-brainer.  I honestly do appreciate the "due dates" that tournament organizers often include with registration.  Not only does this force players to pick a list and stick with it, but it makes the night before an event much more peaceful  You cannot lay awake shuffling points in your head, as the list has already been locked-in and confirmed.  Another area that demands focus, is the gathering and packing of dice, templates, pens, note-paper and measuring tapes.  I know, this stuff is like Gamer 101; only a real fool would pay to enter a competitive event without considering these things!  However, there exists other kinds of prep-work that are not as obvious, but remain just as important.

I spent most of last night preparing with a variety of space-relation puzzles.  Display boards and figure cases are like a one player game!  While both Old Shatter Hands from The Tau of War and Neil Gilstrap of The 11th Company have recommended bringing a cart to tournaments, to make the between-game times easier, I have yet to purchased a much maligned hobo-cart of my own.  Instead, I have relegated the miniature carrying-duties to a few GW large plastic army transports, and a Battlefoam Display board.  While these items work just fine to move models around, the real struggle comes from fitting a large army such as Imperial Guard into such constraints.

After shifting the foam around in my army transports, I am able to fit the 1750 tournament army I am bringing this weekend to Conflict just fine.  What was more interesting, was finding a way to use my display board to both transport and, well, display my army.  The photo above is just an example of how packed the board gets, although my final army list is not displayed here.  After arranging the models to my liking, I took a good overhead photo of the board to serve as a template for arranging models this weekend between games. 

Not a ton to report today, just sharing the burden with my fellow gamers.  If anyone out there has any tips for making preparation for tournament play easier, I would love to hear it!