After getting back from another exciting trip to Seattle for the March TSHFT tourney, I woke up today to check in on all the latest 40k gossip and much to my delight I see Ard’ Boyz is officially gone! This travesty of the hobby has finally come to a much-needed end! Of all the GW ideas over the years this was one of the worst, with its only saving grace being you could win a LOT of free stuff from GW. It was the allure of free stuff that eventually became the only reason to participated for many– only leading to more douchery because…

It couldn’t be for the paint jobs because you played bare models.

It couldn’t be for the competition because many first round events couldn’t even muster anyone to play.

It couldn’t be for the balance because playing at 2500 in 2 1/2 hour games with ridiculous missions only highlighted some of the worst things about tournaments.

And since Ard’ Boyz went with regional Finals (few years ago) you couldn’t even get all the “best players” from across the country to face off.

So all you had left was the free prizes and no cost to play and with GW knowing that you could imagine that was really a good return on its investment

Either way I salute Games Workshop North America for ending this sad spectacle! You could really see it coming with the GW huge new paint push in the coming weeks. You really cannot have something that celebrates unpainted armies, especially when you are about to dedicate a shit ton of resources to a new paint line. Then you also have 6th and 25th anniversary going on the rest of the year so you can see it as an easy decision for GW to pull the plug.

The best thing about the death of Ard’ Boyz is maybe GW will think of something better as a replacement. What are the chances of that though? I can see GW flipping the switch and going super fluffy bunny with an event that focuses on all aspects of the hobby. GW could go all Machiavellian on it and create something that gets people into their hobby centers and leaves out the independent retailers.

Either way I am happy to see it dead and gone. Now we all can return to supporting the real tournaments put on by the fans for the fans, which in the face of GW lack of care have been doing a fantastic job support our hobby.