The most sun soaked laid back competitive Warhammer 40k event brought to you by Frontline Gaming, the SoCal Open located at its permanent residency the Del Mar Fairgrounds in upscale California town of Del Mar.

This year the SoCal Open with the never ending growth of the Warhammer 40k hobby, will see its largest turnout ever, bring players from across the country to participate in most likely the last super major event of the year.

Adding to the excitement is the anticipation is how Space Marines will do, now that their OP status has been firmly embedded. This will also be post Iron Hands nerf adding a bit to the mystery.

Expect the usual West Coast faces, like Brandon Grant and Don Hooson. Though this year will have tons of state folks, with current 1# ranked ITC player Jim Vesal and former ITC champion Nick Nanavati showing up. Throw in players like John Lennon, and Steve Pampreen, you have really strong crowd.

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As always Blood of Kittens will be at the event to cover. I got my shiny new iPhone and will be Facing Live streaming and posting here.

Below is a rough break down of the fractions, which could change by the time the event starts, but as you can see Space Marines represent over 25% which is actually where I think is where they should stand as the iconic faction for the game.

• 52 Space Marines
• 23 Asuryani
• 18 Astra Militarum
• 18 Tau
• 18 Daemons
• 13 Necrons
• 8 Drukhari
• 8 Orks
• 7 Chaos Knights
• 7 Tyranids
• 7 Imperial guard
• 7 Death Guard
• 6 Chaos Space Marines
• 5 Deathwatch
• 5 Genestealer Cult
• 4 Custodes
• 4 Ad-Mech
• 3 Sisters of Battle
• 3 Space Wolves
• 2 Imperial Knights
• 2 Blood Angels
• 1 Imperial Agents
• 1 Dark angels
• 1 Tyranids
• 1 Harlequins
• 1 Grey Knights

Someone did a great infographic of the top units taken at SoCal Open click on the link below

SoCal Open 2019 Most Units Per Faction

 Check back to this post from Oct 26th to 27th for Total
Coverage

Round 6

SO TAU are the winners beating Knights and everything else in its way! The final game was a 1 won win as well which you can check on the Frontline Twitch Stream.

Second place did go to White Scar Marines, followed by one of my favorite lists by Colin Mcdade with this Blood Angels, Deathwatch, Raven Guard bag of goodies.

There was no drama to speak of and looks like fun times had by everyone.

The table is set for a non-Space Marine finals as Tau face off against Knights with Brian Pullen vs. Junior Afleje. All the rest of undefeated tables will be feature Space Marines vs. Not-Space Marines. Which will look like this.

Table 2 Allen Marshall (Ultramarines) vs. Colin Mcdade (BA/DW and some Raven Guard)
Table 3 John Lennon (White Scars) vs. Carlos Kaiser (Custodes)
Table 4 Jaxen Hoffman (Imperial Guard) vs. Steven Pampreen (Raven Guard)

So plenty of chances for Marines to redeem themselves and only 1 Xenos player has a has a chance to go undefeated!

Round 5

So far anti-Space Marine prayers have been answered with Brian Pullen taking down Nick Nanavati and Junior Aflleje taking out Matt Estrada. So unless someone jumps either of those guys we are looking at a Tau vs. Knight-Guard final table! We wait a Thomas vs. Lennon game to see if Space goes 0-3 vs not Space Marines, that is if we are ok counting Blood Angels.

Good thing is we are going to get Space Marine vs. Space Marine action with the hopes of the non-Space Marine world resting with Brian Pullan and Junior Aflleje to stem the tide.

Check out the Twitch stream game should be epic Thomas vs John. https://www.twitch.tv/frontlinegaming_tv

Other great matches

Nick n. vs. Brian P

Junior vs. Matt Estrada

Carls K. vs. Nicholas Hodson

Round 4

Round 4 is the round where we saw Space Marines boost past the pack to take the top slots over not-Space Marines. Of the 13 Undefeated players left we have only 4 not Space Marines and Thomas playing Blood Angels, and Colin McDade as Deathwatch/BA/Iron Hands.

Looks like we will be getting some nice matches that will determine if this is going to be a Space Marine love fest or if you the other factions have a chance.

• Nick Nanavati (Iron Hands) <WON> vs. Anthony Birdsong (Smash Gunz Orks)
• Brian Pullen (Tau) <WON> vs. Raymond Ahumada (Spice of Life Eldar)
• Ruben Fernandez (White Scars) vs. Thomas (Only Blood Angel player alive) Thomas Hegstrom Oakey <WON>
• Colin McDade <WON> (Death Watch, Blood Angel, Ravenguard Soup) vs. Richard (Did I just Tie You) Siegler (Tau)
• John (Joined the space marine bandwagon) Lennon (White Scars) <WON> vs. Ken (Yo Dog) Bouche  (Chaos Space Marines)

That at least are the pairings unless we have some unexpected drops tomorrow.

Round 3

Pairings are out and we got some good matches starting to happen right off the bat with top table…

Raymond Ahumada (Eldar) vs. Steven (formly Ork player) Pampreen (Raven Guard)

Richard Kilton (Orks) vs. Junior Aflleje (Knights/IG)

Don Hooson (Chaos Space Marines) vs Ruben Fernandez (White Scars)

Richard Cozart (Imperial Guard) vs John Lennon (White Scars)

So far, not Space Marines are holding their own, for how long tomorrow will tell.

Big story, as Jim Vesal lost his round 3 match up to nasty and beautifully painted Ork Army, super bad match up for his Jim’s army. Nick N. won his game as expected, tomorrow should be games where he will really be tested.

Ruben Beat Don Hoosen taking him out of the SoCal Champ Running and leaving one less not Space Marine out of the top.

Steven Lost to Raymond by 1 point because he forgot about a flying spiritseer!

Junior Wrecked Richard as well.

Round 2

Unlike round 1, round 2 doesn’t look to have any real marquee matchups beyond

Junior Afllejo (Knights/IG) vs. Daniel Olivas (Eldar)

We shall see how it goes!

Nick Nanavati, Jim Vesal, Steve Pampreen, Richard Siegler, Brian Pullen, Don Hooson go 2-0

Looks like from the Stream game Daniel Olivas lost and might drop, which is a risk when there is no way a 1 loss player can win the event or place.

Round 1

As usual not many major competitors are facing off for round 1, but this time we have 2 games that pairs up a few contenders.

Brandon Grant (Imperial Guard) vs. Ruben “Formerly Eldar Flyer Spam” Fernandez  (White Scars)
Brian Pullan (Tau) vs. Mike Snider (White Scars)

Even Nick Nanavati (Iron Hands) vs. Ben Neal (Ultramarines) could be a close game.

Major News Looks like Brandon Grant has lost, so he almost certainly won’t be going to 3 peat at the SoCal Open. Brian and Nick N. won their games pretty handily and no other major upsets appear to happen for round 1, but the big news is Brandon Grant lost.