Thank you, everyone, for voting!
The competition level was really high. As fluister said, a lot of pieces didn't make the cut (and a lot of those were good pieces!). I think they tried to have 6 or so per category make first cut. I think it's a good choice, since at some point people just get tired of voting on figures. Keeping it at a smaller number means people can actually go through all the entries, take their time, and give them an honest score.
I feel like last year the first cut surprised people, but this time around it was laid out pretty clearly in the rules. Still, I'm sure a lot of people just read the category descriptions and don't go that thoroughly through the rest of the written stuff.
The big drama, in my opinion, is them dropping a few categories last minute. I guess if they can't get a certain number of entries to make first cut, then they condense the category with something else. I understand it, but I also think it really sucks for the people who entered that category and would have made first cut if it'd been an option. Looks like most of those pieces were moved to similar categories (a historical unit got moved to fantasy squad and a historical vehicle went to sci-fi vehicle). The main person that got screwed was BAM as his vikings just disappeared from the competition. Yeah, he already had a piece in fantasy squad... but still, I think they should have put it in their for voting. Based on past rules his highest placed entry would win the trophy and the next place would go to the runner up (assuming both placed in the top three). Maybe the judges felt the reavers were the better piece, but that's still only half the score. It'd be nicer to let the online voters see both and decide. I understand why they did it, I just would have handled it a little differently.
I will say it was really nice that they added a bust category. There were a ton of busts and all at high level. Lumping them in with the full figure large scale entries would have meant a lot of top work didn't even get through first cut. Sounds like they were planning to offer a bust category next year anyway, so this was just an early surprise (probably due to them dropping two historical categories). Well, whoever wins the bust category should buy BAM a drink since it came at the expense of his vikings!
