Today I've reached my 100th post and I think it's quite fitting that it should be a report from yesterday's first ever Blog Wars tournament. I have to say I'm really pleased with how the event worked. Everyone showed up and we got going slightly earlier than planned. There was a nice variety of armies and opponents and although my performance was somewhat lacking 23rd out of 26 (1 draw & 2 losses). I had a brilliant time as all of the games could've gone either way. I'll post up some reports in the next few days.
I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who turned up. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. If there's enough interest I'd like to run another one. The results were as follows:
1st place - Andy Humphris (Ven - Sons of Sanguinius) - Dark Eldar - winning £50
2nd place - Andy Pattison (Songs of Sanguinius) - Imperial Guard - winning £30
3rd place - Ken Morley (Ignatum) - Tau Empire (!!!) - winning £20
Last place - Scott Rocco (From the Fang) - Chaos Space Marines - winning £10
Best painted army - Tim Wharton (A Guardsman's Guide to Glory - Elysians) and Drew Lord (Excommunicate Traitoris - Imperial Guard) - sharing £25
Best painted special character - Damian Hannon (Sons of Sanguinius) - Belial (DA) - winning £15
I also gave away some Finecast miniatures in the raffle. With no one winning two prizes that meant that of the 26 people there (including myself) 11 people took home prizes. Not bad for £15 entry I reckon.
Anyway, full results can be found on the Blog Wars page. I'll be taking down the banner in a couple of weeks but it will remain accessible through the tab at the top. There were some closely fought (and I hope enjoyable) games as well as some out and out thrashings. I'm extremely pleased with the winning armies. Obviously there was always going to be a guard list involved but for the only Dark Eldar army to win the grand prize is immense. I think there's an element of "oh shit I've never played these before, what do they do?" to it but that's not to take anything away from Andy (who wasn't even going to bring DE!). As an occasional Tau player I'm also thrilled that Ken achieved 3rd place.
As I said above I'd like to run the tournament again, hopefully later this year but definitely next year. It was by no means a perfect event and there's a few things I know I could improve on for next time:
- More players - due to there only being 26 of us it meant there were a couple of clashes in round 2 and 3 where people had played before. Easily solved and even in massive tournaments this happens but with more numbers it should be less likely. Only way I can get more players is by word of mouth and better advertising of the event.
- Bring a better laptop - I took my wife's laptop along to do the scores and act as a timer for the games, sadly since it's getting on a bit now it doesn't have HDMI so therefore I wasn't able to connect it to the big screen. Not a big deal since it wasn't a massive room but it'd be nice to see the timer better and not be squinting at a screen for the scores.
- Better thought out prizes - I wanted to avoid giving out a bundle of prizes to people only to have them swap it for something else. Therefore I opted for store credit at Maelstrom. If I choose to do this next time I'll definitely make a better arrangement with the staff and get some vouchers printed up.
- Better raffle prizes - I bought the finecast stuff on the day and unfortunately they'd not got a lot left so I was limited in my options. People seemed fairly pleased with them but I know I can do better next time with a bit more planning.
- Certificates - there was me thinking people wouldn't be bothered about a crappy certificate I'd made on my PC. However, I think there needs to be something presented to the winners at the end.
I also appeal to anyone that attended to send me their feedback on the event. How do you think it went? What could I do differently next time? Was 2.5 hours too long for games? Was the scenery decent? What do you think of the venue? etc etc. Please comment on this post or email me if there's something you don't want to post up on here. Also if people have pictures from the event they're happy to share then I'll try and create a web album with a selection.
Once again, thanks for making the first ever Blog Wars a success and I look forward to seeing all of you again for the next one! We need to knock that smile of Venerable's face. It's going to be unbearable to read his blog for the next few days!
So like I said in my post mate the only thing I would change is that I think that the scoring system should be tweaked.
ReplyDeleteThe example I used was open war where you get 20 for a win 10 for a draw and 5 for a loss, you then get an additional battle bonus of up to 10 for how many VP's you get. I think this adds an added dimension to a game rather than with the case of my game two it just becoming a game of attrition.
My other observation was the score cards, just wondering if you needed one each?
It was an excellent day. Really enjoy one day tournaments hope the next one is on a Saturday so we can have a session in the bar afterwards.
Though I didn't take part I enjoyed watching the event it seemed very well organised. From what I saw being able to walk around and watch mostly every game for a bit the atmosphere was very friendly and pretty much everyone seemed to be having fun.
ReplyDeleteI think the rules themselves could have maybe had a bit of a tweek to make the victory points count for more as there were a fair few games where it was a draw yet one player was almost tabled and the other unscathed.
Hope to enter the next one if I ever get my army painted. :)
Tweaking the scoring system is a good idea with victory point difference increasing and decreasing scores, making the list more varied.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, the inclusion of a 'who's who' bit over lunch would be a good idea as a lot of the non-gang bloggers were left wondering who everyone is?
I think you got it pretty much spot on mate! I dont go to that many tournaments, so i couldnt really comment on the scoring system. Im easy, i'll go with anything!
ReplyDeleteI thought the awards and prizes were good. Game time was perfect i think, as well as the tables and terrain.
Maelstrom Games seemed like the perfect venue as well, and i thought it was good that we could go and spend that hard won store credit straight after the tourney!
I've posted all the pics that i took on my blog, so you should be able to get them off there easy enough.
Can't wait for the next one!
It was a brilliant day and I'm already looking forward to the next one. As for the comments you asked for:
ReplyDeleteI thought the prizes were fine as they were, store credit always works, and for a raffle its just good to have something tangible. I guess vouchers would be nice to be able to hand out to the winners.
I like the ideas suggested of allowing bonus points from Victory Points as it would help those that either draw of lose but go down fighting.
It would also be nice to perhaps have a favourite opponent award, perhaps one vote per person for their favourite from the day.
Please, please, please keep the requirement for a special character, it completely changed the lists from the standard ones you see in tournament reports and made the tournament what it was.
To help people get to know each other, perhaps you could have little name badges next time with our blogs and pseudonyms?
I think the 2.5hrs for the games was exactly right. All three of my games went the full 7 turns and any less time would have really pushed to finish them, and in all those games the later turns were important, both for and against me.
The scenery, although really nice looking, felt a little sparse to me, I'd have liked to see a bit more and more large line of sight blocking items. There seemed to be a lot of spare pieces in the room, but then I like a densely terrained battlefield so some may disagree with me on this. Otherwise, Maelstrom was a great venue.
Thats a bit of a long post, don't take it that I didn't enjoy myself, I'd be there in a flash even if none of the above changed. Great work and thanks once again.
- Andy
Was an awesome day mate - none of the stuff you say (prizes, timer or certificates) were an issue. I was just so brain dead I didn't notice that there was nothing in hand lol (I would ofcourse be the first person to get a prize to make that mistake ...)
ReplyDeleteCheers to everyone for voting for my dude, ones my brain recovers from the final 2 games I'll get cracking on the books I bought with it :D
I love the SC dynamic - and I think people will find even more interesting ways to include them in their list (I for one am thinking of landing Ezekiel in, so that I can run double SC's!!).
I was gutted I didn't get to meet everyone at the event, but I am trying to go out of my way to chat to those/comment on their blogs to the ones I did - a lot of guys I really look forward to meeting again (marc with the paladins, and adam from SW Blog, all the C&F guy's, the fellas from weemen that I got chatting to, and Andy from Ironwolves ... and many more).
Would be awesome if we could double the attendance - or get to 40ish - and even have a double day' - 5 or 6 games! would be crazy, but hell of a lot of fun.
Also normally I cringe at pictures of my models, but your camera doesn't make mine look terrible!
An extremely enjoyable event, my self and O'Shashar managed to get two of friends to come and watch and they are now both considering coming to the next event.
ReplyDeleteThe venue was brilliant, the boards and terrain were just about right. I personally like at least 6-8 large pieces of terrain (buildings/hills/area(difficult terrain)on the board. To help speed up the games it may be worth making a list of what terrain is what on a board to save the players negotiating at the beginning of each game and this then makes it fair across all boards.
The one thing I didn't like about the boards where the flocked surface I kept getting it all over my hands!
Tournament wise I can't say you could have done a better job and as this was my first tournament I can't compare it to anything, but I wish I did this ages ago!
I like the idea of name badges and a quick who's who session and the certificate idea is good aswell. I will definatly be looking at making the next tournament :)
Absolutely awesome day. Wouldn't change a thing...well, time perhaps...all my games finished early...Mwuahahahahahaha!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, for the first Blog Wars it was an amazing event, to think you took it out of an off hand comment in a post and turned it into a reality is an excellent reflection on your commitment to the hobby and to fun in general.
I know all the Sons of Sanguinius boys would like to personally thank you for your effort, but they can't be arsed so I'll say it...
thanks man, we freakin' love you dude.
oh and MAWR PLAYAZ! Next time to rape please as well.
Hope to see all of you again soon across the table and a huge thank you to my opponents, I really enjoyed our games (even if you didn't towards the ends lol) and would gladly play you again...except Bully. I hate playing you man.
Much love
Ven
You love it really.
ReplyDeleteHad an absolutely fantastic day mate. Can't think of anything much I would change to improve things. I like the idea of victory points giving a few extra tournament points.
ReplyDeleteWill certainly be coming to the next one. Thanks for organising it.
Brilliant event, and you have my gratitude for it.
ReplyDeleteI get all the guys wanting different tournament systems, but for me the point of this one (and the reason I came) was it's difference, it's freindly atmosphere and it's acessability.
I thik it did exactly what it set out to.
Thanks for all the feedback guys. I'm genuinely pleased that you enjoyed yourselves. I want the next one to be even better.
ReplyDeleteThere's some great stuff here but rather than try and respond to each comment individually I'm going to write a post tomorrow night with my plans.