Bay Area Open 2022 Coverage

Back after a three year Covid induced hiatus; is the event that started Frontline and ITC rolling, the Bay Area Open or just known as the BAO. Expect to see over 150 players mostly from the American West Coast, with a few notable exceptions. This means the event is pretty wide open when it comes to a potential winner, as we don’t have of the big league players from the rest of North America.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow a few players that will certainly perform very well at this years BAO Warhammer 40k Championships.

Here is a few such players to watch out for…

1. Bay Area Open 2022 Stephen Box with Blood Angels
2. Bay Area Open 2022 Jeff Poole with Aeldari lost round 3
3. Bay Area Open 2022 Michael Costello with Tyranids
4. Bay Area Open 2022 Tyler Bortel with Tyranids
5. Bay Area Open 2022 Paul McKelvey with T’au Empire lost round 4
6. Bay Area Open 2022 Jesse McGowan with Sisters of Battle lost round 3
7. Bay Area Open 2022 Adrian Phillips with Orks lost round 3
8. Bay Area Open Jake Nelson with Thousand Sons had to take a loss round 1 for missing his game

Here is a fairly close Faction Breakdown for the Bay Area Open 2022.

1. Aeldari 22
2. T’au Empire 18
3. Tyranids 12
4. Death Guard 10
5. Sisters of Battle 10
6. Chaos Knights 9
7. Thousand Sons 7
8. Orks 6
9. Dark Angels 5
10. Grey Knights 5
11. Astra Militarum 5 
12. Adeptus Astartes 5
13. Chaos Daemons / Chaos Space Marines 5
14. Adeptus Custodes 4
15. Imperial Knights 4
16. Space Wolves 4
17. Necrons 4
18. Genestealer Cults 4
19. Ad-Mech 3
20. Blood Angels 3
21. Drukhari 2
22. Black Templars 2

As expected tons of Aeldari, T’au Empire, and Tyranids. It is though great to see Death Guard having a great showing and the return of Sisters of Battle, who are having a bit of renaissance since the Balance Datasheet changes. 

As always expect continuous coverage of the BAO throughout the weekend with pictures, videos, and results! 

 Check back periodically May 27th to 29th for Continuous Coverage

Army Gallery 

Round 1

Round 1 is typically not that exciting unless you a solid random pairings, from the looks of the games nothing is really too crazy and my top predictions should move on safely to the next round.

• Stephen Box Won his game in quick fashion makes sense when facing a mix Chaos list.
• Jeff Poole Won his Game
• Paul Mckelvey Won his Game
• Tyler Bortel won his Game
• To Watch the live on stream head on over to: https://www.twitch.tv/frontlinegaming_tv

Round 2

Round 2 as predicted had all my picks for possible winners of this event win there games. Looks like no crazy matchups, but let’s take a look at what factions doing so far…

1. Aeldari out of 22 players 14 are still Undefeated
2. T’au Empire out of 18 players 12 are still Undefeated
3. Tyranids out of 12  players 10 are still Undefeated
4. Death Guard out of 10 players 4 are still Undefeated
5. Sisters of Battle out of 10 players 7 are still Undefeated
6. Chaos Knights out of 9 players 4 are still Undefeated
7. Thousand Sons out of 7 players 2 are still Undefeated
8. Orks out of 6 players 2 are still Undefeated
9. Dark Angels out of 4 players 1 is  still Undefeated
10. Grey Knights out of 5 players 1 is still Undefeated
11. Astra Militarum out of 5 players 0 are still Undefeated
12. Adeptus Astartes out of 5 players 0 are still Undefeated
13. Chaos Daemons / Chaos Space Marines out of 4 players 1 is still Undefeated
14. Adeptus Custodes out of 3 players 1 is still Undefeated
15. Imperial Knights out of 4 players 3 are still Undefeated
16. Space Wolves out of 3 players 3 are still Undefeated
17. Necrons out of 4 players 3 are still Undefeated
18. Genestealer Cults out of 3 players 0 are still Undefeated
19. Ad-Mech out of 1 player 0 are still Undefeated
20. Blood Angels out of 2 players 1 is still Undefeated
21. Drukhari out of 2 players 1 is still Undefeated
22. Black Templars out of 2 0 are still Undefeated

One strange thing of note is the amount of ties that happened round 1 with  4 of them!

• Stephen Box Won his game
• Paul McKelvey Won his game
• Jesse McGowan Won his game
• Lukas Troller Won his game

Round 3

Round things are when stuff starts to get spicy and, with former ITC champ Paul McKelvey against Tabletop Titans Adrian Phillips. Other than that no really crazy matchups with the best players.

Here are the following factions that have been knocked out in the first 2 rounds

• Black Templars
• Ad-mech
• Necrons
• Adeptus Astartes
• Astra Militarum
• Genestealer Cults
• Adeptus Custodes
• Chaos Daemons
• Chaos Space Marines
• Dark Angels
• Imperial Knights
  • • • • Paul beat Adrian with a brutal alpha strike against two battlewagons.
        • The biggest Upset was Jon Blake beating Jeff Poole with this Drukhari.
        • Stephen Box won his game.
        • Tyler Bortel won his game.
        • Jesse McGowan lost his game

Round 4

Round 4 of large is usually when things get interesting, but with BAO using random win loss pairings and not battle point pairings it adds a little bit of randomness to who faces who. While this is meant to prevent people from adjusting scores to avoid certain players/matchups it also can cause funky situations where people are playing against below or above their skill level.

As is here are the match ups for Round 4 for the remaining no all win players.

This means the only remaining undefeated factions still alive in this event for the final 16…

• 4 Tyranids
• 3 Aeldari
• 3 T’au Empire
• 2 Sisters of Battle
• 1 Death Guard
• 1 Grey Knights
• 1 Space Wolves
• 1 Blood Angels

Not a surprising spread considering the top armies currently.

Round 5

Round 5 saw another one of my picks lose with Paul McKelvey losing to Aeldari. That leaves three of my picks undefeated for day 3 still alive with Stephen Box, Tyler Bortel, and Michael Costello still in the running. Of course with the number of players and how things have shaken out we will see mostly one loss players make it to day 3 for final single elimination top 8, but we are now looking at 1 or 2 undefeated making it to the elimination rounds. 

Round 5 no loss or tie Pairings

Brian and Tyler Nutt tied,  Tyler Bortel, Israel Sanchez, Stephen Box won!

Round 6

Thanks to a tie by one of the top tables we will have some funky things to deal with with pairings for the round with a few players possibly playing down into easier matchups making for interesting results.

We are down to basically needs Nids, Aeldari, and Blood Angels who are still undefeated with no losses. 

We got the final 8

1. Bay Area Open 2022 Stephen Box with Blood Angels
2. Bay Area Open 2022 Tyler Nutt with Tyranids
3. Bay Area Open 2022 Ashton Frizzell with Chaos Knights
4. Bay Area Open 2022 Dustin Lane with T’au Empire
5. Bay Area Open 2022 with Jesse Sell with Sisters of Battle
6. Bay Area Open 2022 Paul McKelvey with T’au Empire
7. Bay Area Open 2022 Michael Costello with Tyranids
8. Bay Area Open 2022 David Hetherington with Tyranids

Three of my picks to make the Top 8 made it through and fairly certain one of these 3 will win the entire event. Can’t wait to see! I will be turning the coverage over to Frontline where you can follow the event on their twitch channel.

https://www.twitch.tv/frontlinegaming_tv