My Hillbilly experience started a bit earlier then others. On
wednesday night, as soon as I got off work, I went home, picked up
my shit, and took a shuttle with Ed Phillips to the airport. My
plane flew out at 11:30 PM, I had a 3 hour layover in Chicago, and I
arrived in Little Rock at 10:30 AM.

I dropped all my shit off at the Hotel, and then went and met Ed at
the River Market, an international food market where we got some
sammiches. From there we proceeded to the Chicago style Pizzeria
next to the Saucer, had a few drinks, and proceeded back to the
Hotel to take a nap. At around 4:30 Fletcher Brown got in. He met
us at the Hotel, and we hiked over to the Underground Pub, verbally
abusing General Pulaski's statue on the way.

At the pub we proceeded to get absolutely trashed, with Beers,
Screaming Nazis, and Carbombs to go around. we got to yell
obscenities at Karaoke singers, make fun of Jabba the DJ and
complain about the 80s soundtrack. From there we headed over to the
saucer, where we got even more drunk, abused the wait staff, and any
man, woman, or child unfortunate to put themselves in our path. We
closed our tab out, and grabbed a cab back to the Hotel.

Friday morning... well, Friday afternoon to be honest... we got
outta bed, and headed over to the Venue. There we met up with the
rest of the LD2 boys. I set up my army, talked a bunch of smack
with Roy, and waxed poetic on the joys and trials of running an Indy
GT. It was immensely gratifying to see people oohing and ahing over
my army, as I had put a ton of work into it right up to the day
before. Ed, Fletch and I went to the Flying Burrito to grab shitty
Mexican and be harassed by an angry bum who wanted to know if we
would have his back if the one legged transient out front attacked
him... According to him he could tell by my eyes that I was crazy.

After grabbing lunch we made our triumphant return to the Saucer,
where the "Fortress of Geekitude" was already set up downstairs.
For those who haven't been there, LD2 and a few select others, the
Scotts, a couple of the Hollywood guys, ect, pull all the couches
together to take over an entire wing of the Saucer. Shenanigans
ensued. Roy Scaife took my title to become honorary "Clumsy Drunk"
for the weekend, breaking not one, not two, but three pint glasses
over the course of the weekend. I managed to throw Shane Knapp to
the ground and make him beg for mercy in a rematch of our LAGT 2004
wrestling match. For those who don't know either of us, Shanes
about a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier then I am. We made
sure to alert all incoming women of Joe Hillegass' potency, ensuring
them that he would have them popping out babies on a regular basis
due to a convenient Cialis prescription. Jay White showed his ass
(among other things ;oP) and had to be summarily escorted back to
his room. Finally the Scotts, myself, Shane, and Johnny Haliburton
closed the place out. On the walk back to the Hotel we managed to
bang on several douchebag's cars who almost ran us over and nearly
got into altercations over native Arkansans poor driving skills.

Saturday morning came far too early. Still my roomies and I managed
to get up, showered, fed, and to the venue, me with a flask full of
SoCo Cranberry, with time to spare. Of course this didn't matter
much for me as my opponent, my good buddy, rat bastard though he is,
Ryan Woodroof from texas was half an hour late for round one.

My game with Ryan was fast paced, light hearted and fun. I stomped
his dwarves (a highlight being when a cannon and 20 crossbows at
close range all shot at my minotaurs and failed to kill a single
one), but as we are great friends he wasn't upset about this. a 20
point victory for me, and a beer owed to Ryan.

After game one it was time to set armies up for players choice and
get lunch. We went to the Doubletree Restaurant, where service is
slow and food is mediocre. Later we heard that one guy apparently
bit into his cheeseburger only to find a piece of jagged metal in
it. Suffice to say we will not be going back there. We legged it
back to the Venue with time to take a look at the armies. There
were some gorgeous examples of painting, Joe Rogers' Dogs of War
army jumping immediately to mind, as well as Tom Back's drunken
empire army. There was also a beautiful Ogre Army painted by a guy
I've met before but whose name I can never remember.

Round 2 began and I was looking across the table at the infamous
Mike Sells. It took me a couple of minutes to place him, but
finally I remembered that Ed and he had a terrible game at the
Hillbilly the previous year. This guy had the lowest sports at the
tournament by a good twenty points, and there is a reason for it.
Playing him is like playing a used car salesman, where everything is
pushed, and he tries to hide it by being loud and obnoxious. I got
stomped by his two, yes two, treemen wood elf army, and this was my
worst game of the weekend. A 7 point loss for me. I'm also fairly
certain he tanked my sports and comp. As an interesting side note,
apparently he told Shane in the next round that he was upset because
I measured my movement from my models instead of from my movement
trays, despite the fact that I told him this before the game began
and when he expressed doubts told him we could do it the other way.
Keep in mind my movement trays are about a half an inch thick for
display purposes.

For Round 3 I was playing Alan Gomez's Orcs and Goblins in the claim
the outhouse scenario. Alan had a very interesting O&G list with
four units of squig hoppers and the night goblin riding the giant
squig. He also had two units of spider riders, and two boar
chariots, both things people don't generally take in tourney lists.
Alan had some bad luck that I got a chance to capitalize on,
including my furies springing his fanatics on the very first round,
not a single one of them reaching my furies, and then proceeding to
double back at his own army, taking out a bunch of squig hoppers as
they went. One highlight for me was watching my two spawn eat
through an entire unit of Orc boys over the course of eight rounds
of combat, finally breaking them and running them down. The game was
a blast and it got my mind off of the previous round. Another 20
point victory.

As Round 3 ended, I submitted my entries for the painting
competition and met up with the rest of the LD2 crowd to grab
dinner. LD2 headed back to the underground pub for dinner, as Ed,
Fletch and I had enjoyed our previous experience. Unfortunately
there was a shitty garage band playing way to loud and service was
horrendously slow (at least for me). After eating and grabbing a
few beers we headed back to the saucer for a night cap. Saturday
was very low key, and all I drank was a large bottle of Framboise
Lembic. We left around midnight and trekked back to our hotel,
making a stop on the way to engage in the time honored tradition of
peeing on General Pulaski's statue.

Sunday Morning I was feeling almost completely recovered, as I had
gotten to bed by one the night before. We took a cab to the venue,
I retrieved my entries from the painting competition, and the games
began.

Round 4 saw me facing a gimongous beastmen horde, with two large
units of beasts, two small units of beasts, a bestigor unit, two
units of four minotaurs, two beast chariots, a giant, furies, and
several units of warhounds. My opponent, whose name I cannot
remember for the life of me despite having met him several times
before, was an absolute blast to play, and came very close to
getting my favorite opponent vote. The tide swung back and fourth
in this game. In the very last turn, thinking it much more in my
favor then it actually was, I threw away the win, throwing a unit of
marauder horsemen into a beast herd just because I thought it'd be
fun. My Marauders lost combat, and though they held, he reduced
them to half strength, giving him 45 victory points. After points
were counted, I was 13 points away from a 20 point victory rather
then a 15 point draw. Oh well, it was still an incredibly fun game.

In the Final round I played Adam Clark, a man I had been seeing at
Hillbillies for years, but had only just met formally this year over
drinks. Adam has won 2nd best sportsman at a hillbilly, has won
best painted, and despite being a dirty socialist kiwi is an all
around great guy. His high elves are exceptionally pretty, with
great conversions all around, including a scratch built Dragon. The
game was a blast, and very, very close, with only 10 models left on
the board at the end of the game, 5 on his side and 5 on mine.
Luckily, one of my five models was my 500 point demon prince, and
the game was a solid victory in my favor, giving me another 20
points. One exceptional highlight for me is when my two chariots
and two spawn charged his dragon at the bottom of round 1, killing
the dragon and running the general down. This was nearly balanced
by the fact that I couldn't make a leadership check to save my life,
as the vast majority of points I gave up were due to failed panics
and failed rallies. I gave Adam my favorite opponent vote, and he
later told me he gave me his due to the fact that I didn't get upset
when I had ridiculous strings of bad luck and just laughed at the
dice and kept playing instead.

After game five we packed away our armies and helped clean up, then
LD2 convened for the awards ceremony. As the awards ceremony began,
I was hoping to place in the top three for painting. When second
and third place where announced, and neither was me, I was fairly
certain that I either had a (very) unlikely overall, or I had best
painted. Still it was a great honor when my name was called,
especially knowing the quality of the other armies in attendance.

Other interesting awards included LD2 taking two of three best
general awards with soft armies. Todd Thacker took best General
with his very friendly dwarves, and Ed took third best general with
his RIDICULOUSLY soft Lizzies. Just goes to show, those two are
some of the absolute best players in the game.

Overall I finished fifth, with a 10th place finish in battle, 45th
in sports, and 1st in paint, a showing I'm very proud of. It was a
phenomenal tournament, and all of my opponents, with one notable
exception, were great games. I'll be back next year whether it's
Memphis or Arkansas.