Really nice use of the palette. The rocks are amazing

Wow

Godlike!

Wow - Gorgeous 

Liking the backgroud so much!

Dang...I couldn't resist calling out "HOLY COW" when this finished loading for me. What a humongous, breathtaking mockup.

Looks so great

Awesome tileset, man

I must have missed this one, love the palette, the foreground is especially sharp 

Awesome work man!

 Awesome, congratulations!!

 Great work and congrats on first place!!!

 YOU DESERVE IT! ;) I knew you were going to earn the first place :B

 Was going to comment on the palette until I read your description. Nice work. I think the spider bots could use a tilt in perspective to match the background more.

another "hardcore" picture. awsome!

Everything reads so perfectly. I've learned something new today.  Amazing level of color and contrast handling.

Decisive winner.

 A definite award worthy piece here

 Clearly not an ideal palette but you made the best of it. 

this is very enjoyable

Man. You smashed that palette!

Lovely pic.

Whoa, very well done  :]

 Top! fantastic use of palete.

 I have to agree with Emperor_Pixel, this is winning material right here. Wouldn't expect anything less from you and I really think you made good use of the palette.

 Oh, we all know who won the challenge now.

xD

Superb work as always. You've really made this pallet work.

I get so excited whenever I see that preview banner. Always those lovely speculars

*drool

 Fantastic use of the palette. I'm blown.

 nailed

could have put some blue into the background though for more depth :D or maybe even have a disortion effect to show the heat

The piece is amazing and the way you used the palette too. Problem I see with the palette is that there isn't a good buffer for that green.

 Wow, nice pallette utilisation.  Nailed it!

 I agree about the palette. It looks good at first and 11 seems like plenty of colors but so many of them are similar and desaturated. It really only lends itself to backgrounds, which really shows in the beautiful backgrounds here!

You made that palette your bitch!  

 ok GG

Lovely mockup. Just looking at it makes me happy. :)

 Looks like the preview is much more interesting now :P Nice work!

 I love the rocks, agree with gecimen though

This shouldn't be coming from me but I'll confess; I didn't even bothered clicking on the preview until I realised the diagonal preview text. Bad, bad preview, amazing piece. And to be perfectly honest, seeing this piece, the palette looks quite good as well. I know though, there are those palettes that are hard to work with but turns out well.

 Holy shit.... I can't compete with this kind of people... ahhahah Nice job :') you deserver the first place

:( Yeah, I struggled with making a good desert palette - there probably should have been a lighter colour, huh. Anyway, your piece still turned out pretty nicely.