Blog Wars 7 - Feedback Discussion

Normally this post would be covering my games at Blog Wars 7 but since I didn't participate I'll use this as an opportunity to respond to some of the feedback from the comments section of the previous post. I was pleased to see some excellent discussion going on, that's exactly what I want from people so I can work out how to improve things for BW8. Please keep the comments coming either on here or by e-mail.

Missions & Scoring
As I said in the previous post, it seems the first two missions work pretty well. Obviously Cleanse the Xenos is particularly favourable for shooty armies but hopefully the objective missions level the playing field somewhat. I think it's important to have at least one mission without objectives not just for variety but also to give people a straightforward first game without too much thinking! The blood points system seemed to work well from my end at least and hopefully it wasn't a headache for you guys.

Personally, I loved going around the tables during the last two missions and seeing the armies smashing together in the middle of the board but it'd be great to hear more from you guys about how well the objective missions worked.

It seems from the comments that most people like the idea of the final mission being 6 turns with no scoring on game turn one. This makes sense to me as it minimises the advantage of going first and makes the game longer (since some had found it was over too quickly). I've also had a suggestion that a score sheet for this round would be helpful as a reminder to keep track of the points during the game. This is easily accomplished so I'll be implementing it assuming the mission doesn't change.

Please bear in mind that as I play more games of 7th edition the missions might evolve slightly. I'm keen to avoid changing things too much though so that people can start to get used to the Blog Wars format and plan their lists accordingly. Did people think the scoring system was straightforward? I know there were some minor issues but I'll take steps to minimise those.

Terrain
There were comments that the terrain was too sparse on the tables. I have to say that walking around I tend to agree. I have very little input into the scenery set up as I'm usually busy getting everything else set up. I'm not blaming Matt and Jamie though as I know they can struggle to get it all laid out in time before people arrive. There's plenty more scenery available at the venue though so we'll make a conscious effort to have more laid out. That being said I think it's important to have some more open tables. Not all battles are fought on city streets and it gets monotonous to play with the same ruins on every table.

Assuming the last mission stays the same I think it's important to consider terrain placement in relation to where the objectives will end up but this is something I can address fairly easily.

The Painting Competition
This is a tricky one. I know that this time around some people intentionally avoided voting for armies they'd seen win before either at BW or elsewhere. I can understand this but at the same time, best painted should be just that rather than "best painted that I haven't seen before". That creates one of two situations. Either people up their game to try and top the winning armies or they give in as they don't think they can compete. Obviously the former is preferable and I'd like to avoid the latter.

That being said, I think the BW regulars are fairly self policing in that they try and vote for something different. As has been pointed out, there were still some people playing their games whilst others were already voting on the best armies. This meant some armies may not have received the votes they deserved. Time is always tight but perhaps only opening the voting after all games have finished is possible.

I'd like to expand the painting competition and I think Best Conversion is a good idea to showcase that side of the hobby. Often I find the army that wins best painted is actually the best converted rather than the best technically skilled paint job. The conversions in one army can distract the eye away from another army that actually has a better paint job so giving a separate category should help. I may also include a Best Theme prize but I'm conscious that there'll be considerable overlap and there's only so much time for judging and voting. 

I like the idea of a showcase. This would allow the past winners to show off their armies without being eligible for votes (unless they've made significant changes) and it also works well for commission paintjobs. Potentially it will cause confusion if people aren't clear on who they can vote for. This can be addressed easily by having clearer labels for armies.

Conclusion
The consensus seems to be that there doesn't need to be many drastic changes but rather some tweaks here and there. I'd like to keep the debate going though so please comment below to give me more feedback to work with. Nothing is set in stone for BW8 yet so I'm open to suggestions on every aspect. I'll need to explore how to incorporate 7th edition so any thoughts on that are welcome too.

Blog Wars 7 Painting Competition (pic heavy)

I say this every time but the standard of painting was particularly high this time around. There were several armies that I'd have been happy to see win the best army and plenty of characters that could've taken that prize. As a reminder there's two prizes up for grabs, Best Painted Army and Best Painted Special Character. Yet again we managed to avoid a situation where the same person won both!!

Of the field of 38 players, 33 of them voted which is fantastic as it's nice to see people supporting the hobby side of the event too. It's also a better turn out than a general election.

Best Army Runners Up
This category was a closely fought affair with the winner scoring 7 votes and two players tied for second with 6 votes each. The first being Ben Greaves, playing in his first Blog War, with his tank heavy Astra Militarum army featuring Pask Ben's army has a beautiful weathered look to it with fantastic attention to detail.

The other player tied at 2nd was Dave Weston with his Tyranids. Dave's Tyranids have won numerous awards including Best Army at BW6 where he won despite them being presented on a red plastic tray. This time Dave had gone to town on his diorama as you can see in the pictures. I feel a little guilty that he put that extra effort in only to come second!

In fourth place with 4 votes was Martin Waine (another newcomer) with his Space Wolves featuring Canis and a whole host of wolves around him.

Best Army Winner
The winning army was Chris Benstead's stunning Iron Warriors army which features some excellent conversions, third party models and a well executed paint scheme that makes them really look gritty. Chris is one of only three people who've been to all seven Blog Wars events and he's always performed well in the painting competition winning Best Special Character twice and now also two awards for Best Army. I should point out that these awards were not all for the Iron Warriors, as in previous events Chris brought his equally beautifully painted Tyranids with Swarmlord. He also came second at BW5 meaning he's probably taken more prizes from me than anyone else!! I wonder why he keeps coming.....

Anyway here's some shots of his army but for more pictures and details of his conversions please head over to Weemen.

 

Best Special Character Runners Up
This category was even closer with the winner scoring 6 votes, two players tied for second on 5 votes and a three way tie for fourth at 3 votes each. Martin Waine featured here again with his Canis Wolfborn tied with Michael Towers Sanguinius (counts as Mephiston). The three way tie for fourth was between Nathaniel Gibbs' Draigo (resplendent in gold). Chris Benstead's Abaddon and Dave Weston's Deathleaper.

Best Special Character Winner
The winning character came from Jamie Jackson's army. He was fielding Iron Hands (who lack a Special Character) so he dreamed up a Chapter Master on a bike conversion that would act as his SC. This is no ordinary Chapter Master though as, in typical Iron Hands fashion, he's actually more machine than man! For more information on the conversion and more shots of Jamie's army head over to his blog, Index Astartes. The rest of the army is beautifully painted and features some excellent conversion including a full track land raider and modified attack bike.

Honorable Mention
Despite forgetting that I'd said there'd be a TO's choice award at BW7 I wanted to mention one army that caught my eye. The first of which is Ian Connolly's pirate themed Dark Eldar army with some beautiful conversions and the best army list I've read in a long time. Instead of Power from Pain they gain Power from Rum as alcohol numbs their pain, makes them want to fight and then eventually makes them fearless (literally). The one and only time I had a Best Theme prize it was Ian who won it and I'm certain he'd win this time if I'd have kept it up.

Thanks to everyone for putting the effort in to make some cinematic looking battles. Sorry to anyone I haven't mentioned here. I look forward to seeing what people produce for BW8.

Blog Wars 7 - The Aftermath

The seventh (!) installment of Blog Wars was held at the NWGC in Stockport yesterday. Despite being the seventh blog war the tournament was the last one of 6th edition 40K. I'm still waiting until I've played more games of 7th edition before I make any decisions about what will happen at BW8. I've some ideas of what I want to do but I don't want to commit to anything until I've played more games.

Anyway, there was a Blog Wars record of 38 players in attendance yesterday. I want to start by thanking everyone who came along for making it such an enjoyable day. The atmosphere was a friendly one which is always my intention. When new players come in you never know how what to expect but everyone seemed to play in the spirit of the event. There are still three players who've been to every single Blog Wars with no sign of any of them missing one any time soon. Maybe they'll get entry to the 10th one for free if it gets that far.

I've often thought about expanding the event as it becomes more popular but I'm keen to keep numbers relatively low so that we can keep the close-knit atmosphere. I hope this is the one thing that brings people back time and time again. That being said I may extend it to 50 players if the demand is there in November for BW8.

Here are this year's final results. I ducked out this time so we have a new champion in the form of Gary Percival who played White Scars. Gary was on table two in the final game and scored a whopping 29/33 points to leapfrog Matt who struggled to score enough in the final game to hold onto first place. As ever these results will be added to the archive.

Scoring
In case you're wondering the reason the results aren't a whole number is that in the first round I use old school Blood Points as a scoring mechanism. These are then converted into tournament points but I leave the decimal place there to help me distinguish between closely matched scores. All victories are based on TP total (Primary VPs + Secondary VPs) and in the first game Gary only won his game by 0.2 TP!! I think it's great to be able to see just how decisive (or not) a victory is rather than just having a straight win/loss/draw up on the board.

I think the scoring system worked pretty well. There didn't seem to be any major issues that people came to me with but as ever I'm open to suggestions for improvements. I'll talk about the missions themselves shortly but the scoring system seemed to give a pretty good representation of what happened in the games. There was one game in round two that was won 2-1 where neither player controlled an objective and it came down to secondary VPs.

If you look at the bright green column of total points won (TW), you can see that 12/13th and 16/17th appear to be tied with and the goal difference (GD) between VPs scored and VPs lost appears the wrong way around. In actual fact Dave Weston scored 54.03 to Thomas Carr's 54.0 and Ken Morley scored 48.42 to Tom Brown's 48.38. That's incredibly close!

The Missions
I think the first mission works pretty well in that two armies basically try to smash each other in. I think it's a good way to start the day and having that round before lunch gives plenty of time for players to add up the points without it making the next round start late. The mission definitely favours some armies over others but I hope the others balance this out a little.

The second mission is interesting as your opponent's objective is worth more to you than your own. In one game this resulted in a 25-15 scoreline with neither player holding their own objective but one of them having control of the centre. As I say, there was also a game where no-one controlled anything! I think this mission prevents the boring games that Emperor's Will and Relic can sometimes create.

The final mission is a new one for Blog Wars. Control Freak has three central objectives that give a point up at the end of each player turn. For the most part I think people enjoyed playing a different kind of mission. When I decided to run this I didn't realise 7th edition would contain something similar in the form of Maelstrom of War but I'll be looking at those tactical objectives for inspiration to improve Control Freak. There were some players who commented that this game was over too quickly and that sometimes their opponent built up an unassailable lead leaving them as spectators.

I think this could be addressed by increasing the turn limit from 5 to 6 and preventing any points from being scored in the first game turn. That should go some way to preventing the person going first from having an advantage. This mission was a test of something different to try and break up the monotony of the rulebook missions so I'm keen for everyone to give me as much feedback as possible to help improve it.

I made it very clear this time that tabling doesn't give full VPs and I think for the most part people played with this in mind. There were a couple of very quick tablings where the winner didn't score full points but that's the idea. I was also aware of a couple of games where the guy doing the tabling was stalling for more points which isn't ideal but hopefully players can keep to the spirit of the competition and keep this to a minimum.

The End of 6th Edition
This was the last Blog Wars of 6th edition and I have to say for the most part it's been a good run. There's no doubt that there's some dirty combinations that can be created with the allies system but most of the players at BW seem to have kept their lists in the spirit of the event.

As I've said, I'll be trying to play plenty of games of 7th edition over the next few months so that BW8 will offer the best 7th edition experience possible. I will, of course, be blogging about it and I'll want your feedback on how BW8 adapts to the changes in the game.

Your Feedback
Blog Wars only works if I'm running an event that people actually want to attend. For that reason I rely on getting a good deal of feedback from the people who come along. This is especially important for the new guys so please get in touch with your impressions of the event (good or bad) so that I can make it better next time around.

Finally, I again want to thank everyone for coming along and the staff at the NWGC for their continued support of this event. I hope to see all of you again at BW8 in November. Keep an eye out for details of that.

Armies at Blog Wars 7 - The Obligatory Pie Chart Post

It's that time of (half) year again, the army lists are all in and with the exception of a couple of queries they're all good to go. Please check your emails (and junk folders) to see if I've picked up any issues with your list but otherwise if you haven't heard from me please go ahead and assume your list is fine. As usual I've updated the BW7 page with details of who's bringing what race (I'm calling them that until we start using 7th ed at Blog Wars and I have to start saying "Factions"). Of course, information in this form is of little use to you and tricky to digest (pie pun) so I think it's only right that I throw some pie charts your way.

Before tackling the latest pie charts help yourself to a slice of tasty BW6 pies and if you're still peckish some crusty BW5 pies. Back in November there was a meaty dose of Tyranids on display along with fairly equal portions of CSM, Eldar, Wolves and Tau.

Still hungry for more? Here's BW7's tasty goodness:

Primary Detachments

Although present at BW6, Chaos Daemons are a much bigger part of Blog Wars 7. Not suprisingly Tau are still very popular but perhaps what is surprising is that there aren't many Eldar armies. This becomes even more significant when you notice that there's actually quite a few Blood Angels players on board (4 to be precise).

The pleasing thing for me is that there's still a huge variety of different armies represented which I hope makes for a more interesting tournamet for you guys. The odds are actually against you meeting the same race twice and it's incredibly unlikely you'll meet the same one in all three of your games. I often find that makes a big difference to my enjoyment of a tournament. If I'm playing Necrons in every game then I get pretty mardy! Incidentally there's only one Necron player this time which has been the trend since BW5.

You'd expect there to be a decent number of Imperia... Astra Militarum players and indeed there's a decent chunk of them. This gets more interesting when we get to the Special Characters but worth noting here too. I'm extremely sad that in the last four Blog Wars we've only had a single Ork player. Hopefully that's about to change with the new codex but I won't hold my breath. On the other hand I'm happy to see that Space Wolves are still well represented (as this used to be a Space Wolves blog). Hopefully we'll see a new codex for them soon too.

Allied Detachments

The first thing to note here is that the number of people taking allies has increased fairly dramatically. At the first Blog Wars of 6th edition (BW4) there was very little uptake of the allies system. This has steadily increased to the point we're at now with over a third of the armies including allies of some kind. Of course some of these are Inquisition and Dataslates and there's only a single Tyranid list this time but still I think it's fairly solid increase.

I make little secret of the fact that I'm not a huge fan of allies but it does make for more variety in the lists I suppose. There's a big chunk of SM allies here, especially when you take the Stormwings into account. There's a formation in one of the other armies which isn't included here (as it's the same race as the primary) but there isn't much uptake on the formations front.

No other really stands out as a popular choice for allies but for the most part at least the allies used are Battle Brothers with the primary detachment. Interesting when you consider a lot of these combinations won't be as useful in 7th edition.

Special Characters
Finally, my favourite part of Blog Wars, the special characters. For those not aware, each army MUST include one in their primary detachment so there's guaranteed to be plenty of them in attendance. Some armies have taken more than one too. Coteaz proves to be a popular choice again (helped by the Inquistion codex of course) but Knight Commander Pask is the most popular with all four AM armies including him. Expect to see a lot of Leman Russ tanks this time!!

Happily though there's 29 different characters represented across the 38 lists (yes, there's been two dropouts). There's some characters I've never seen in play before like the Changeling, Ku'gath, Skarbrand and Masque from the Daemons lists. Kheradruakh is even making an appearance!

Conclusion
I have high hopes for this Blog War. There's a great mix of armies in attendance and a nice combination of veterans and new players to build the atmosphere. This is the first one I'm intentionally not playing in so I'm insanely jealous of you all getting to roll dice together. I will, of course, stand in if there's an odd number so I'll be posting up my backup list for you all to see in the coming days. I'll also be showing you what you'll be able to win both for the spot prizes and the raffle so stay tuned for that.

BW6 saw the biggest attendance yet (32) and as it stands at the moment we'll smash that with 38 players at Blog Wars 7. As ever, I'm hoping it'll be the best yet. If nothing else I hope it goes a bit more smoothly than last time!! One thing's for sure the raffle prizes are bigger than ever!!

Blog Wars 7 - A Different Kind of Tournament (Part 3)

As promised this final post, in this increasingly self congratulatory series, will cover points and prizes. I know a lot of this stuff is repetition from last time I wrote about scoring etc but bear with me and hopefully it'll clear up the actually very simple scoring system for those who are going to attend and for anyone else who might be interested. Blog Wars 7 has now sold out but I'm still taking names for reserves just in case, let me know if you're interested. Anyway, here goes.

Scoring
I've never been content to simply run the rulebook missions and play out a win/draw/loss tournament. For me this plain doesn't work as a means of scoring. What you end up with is a bunch of guys on the same W/D/L ratio who don't really know who's winning. Of course, these kinds of tournaments usually have some way of separating those players who've all won 3 out of 3 games. In 5th edition this usually took the form of what was at the time called Victory Points but is now often referred to as Blood Points to avoid confusion (or create more, I'm not sure). Essentially, the overall winner will be the one who decimated his opponents but still also managed to grab a couple of objectives along the way. What it actually comes down to is the guy who tables everyone wins the event.

Now obviously, on paper that sounds pretty reasonable. Wipe all three of your opponents from the table and you ought to be beating the guy who won his games despite losing more of his army than his opponents did. Makes sense. Well, for me at least, not quite. You see the thing that keeps most of us coming back to this game despite numerous apparent attempts by GW to put us off is that there's some depth to it. Why bother with scenarios/missions if you can just ignore them and table your opponent? Those objectives were vital to the mission and you've all but ignored them. The kind of list that does it tends to be pretty boring for both operator and victim too.

Enter 6th edition style Victory Points. Now we've got a way of understanding how well you play the mission. All but one of the rulebook missions awards these new VPs for controlling one or more objectives. Determining the winner is simple then, the guy with the most VPs wins. Blog Wars goes a bit further by increasing the values of these objectives but the point is the same. By recording these directly in each round we can easily see who's scored the most. Even better if we record your opponent's VPs to see just how convincing those victories were. Trouble is, the ugly issue of tabling hasn't been dealt with. Totally annihilate your opponent and you'll still score max VPs. Well strictly speaking and, in fact, RAW that isn't the case. The rulebook states on page 122:

"If one player concedes the battle, or his entire army is wiped out, the game ends and a crushing victory goes to his opponent. Likewise, if at the end of any game turn, one player has no models on the battlefield, his opponent automatically wins."

In case you wondered what a "crushing victory" is, the paragraph above defines it by saying:

"Indeed, if the winner has twice the Victory Points of his opponent, it can be considered a crushing victory!"

That could mean you scored 2 VPs to your opponent's single VP. So then, you win the game then but nowhere (that I can see at least) does the rulebook state that tabling gives maximum VPs. This is something the tournament scene seems to have collectively decided should be the case. Well, as the title of the post says, Blog Wars is different. As you might've read after the controversy of BW6, tabling does not give maximum VPs in the objective missions at Blog Wars. Obviously, in the first mission where you're supposed to try and wipe out your opponent, doing so will give you maximum VPs though.

Now, this isn't a perfect solution. It can lead to a situation where a player deliberately keeps his opponent's units alive so he can get onto the objectives or else encourages a player to throw the game when faced with insurmountable odds. Neither situation appeals to me but I can only trust in the sportmanship of the participants that this kind of thing will be kept to a minimum.

The tabling rules when combined with the tweaked scenarios should hopefully encourage people to approach their list building differently. It's no good having an awesome deathstar if you can't hold the objectives in Control Freak but you'll need more than just tough troops to claim your opponent's objective in Emperor's Relic. I want people to have to think beyond building a list that simply vaporises enemies and grabs the objectives after turn 5.

Will it work though? Unfortunately there's only one way to find out! Perhaps this all sounds a bit naive and I'll be proved wrong by a handful of players who still bring the top tier lists and win. Better to try something different though than keep on flogging the same system that simply doesn't work and expect it to fix itself.

If you're coming to BW7 please take some time to read through the scenarios and scoring section of the event details. Now is the time to ask questions!

Prizes
All this talk about points means I've really got to talk about prizes. The tournament itself will keep the same prize format as at Blog Wars 6:

1st Place: Certificate & £25 Element Games voucher
2nd Place: Certificate & £15 Element Games voucher
3rd Place: Certificate & £10 Element Games voucher
Last Place: Certificate, £5 Element Games voucher & Limited Edition Wooden Spoon!
Best Painted Army: Certificate & £15 Element Games voucher
Best Painted Special Character: Certificate & £10 Element Games voucher

Remember, these figures are effectively increased by the discount available in-store on the day (see Element Games for discounts on individual items). In addition, I'm pleased to announce that Den of Imagination have been kind enough to sponsor the event so there'll be additional prizes for the tournament winners. Here's a shot of what they'll be providing:

1st place - Box of Necron Canoptek Wraiths, DoI dice bag with 20 DoI dice and a DoI badge.

2nd place - DoI dice bag with 10 DoI dice and a DoI badge.

3rd place - DoI dice bag with 5 DoI dice and a DoI badge.

In case you aren't familiar with them they're a Polish company who provide a miniature painting service. Their commissions are tiered so that you can choose the right combination of finish and cost for you. Head over to their website for more examples of their work but here's a shot of some Imperial Fists and also a Chaos centurion conversion they produced which they call a Khorne Gore Engine!

As any veteran will tell you though, the main event is the raffle. Everyone is automatically included in the raffle simply by buying an event ticket. As I've already revealed the top prize will be an Imperial Knight but I won't be revealing the other prizes until closer to the event. All I will say is that with imminent release of 7th edition the prizes will likely be related to that. Rest assured that with such a large number of tickets sold there'll be even better than ever!

Incidentally, it's worth considering placing an order with Element Games to pick up on the day. Whilst they offer free postage on orders over £80 it's still a great idea to place an order for collection on the day to save faffing around waiting for delivery or paying extra for it. Of course their store will be open during BW7 but by putting in an order you can be sure they've got what you need in stock. With the next edition of 40K out soon Blog Wars 7 will be a good opportunity to pick up the new stuff at a discount.

Blog Wars 7 - SOLD OUT!

Just a quick post tonight to say that Blog Wars 7 has officially sold out! Assuming everyone turns up this will be the biggest attendance at a Blog War ever! I've also opened up three spots for reserves. If you'd like to be added to the list then simply email me with the Contact Me link on the right. It'd be great if I could get some local guys to jump in to the reserve slots as then I'd be able to cope with one or two drop outs on the day. There's usually at least one drop out in the last few weeks before the event so it's worth getting your name on the reserve list. I've toyed with the idea of opening up some more places but I think 40 is a decent amount. Too few people and it's hard to avoid duplicate matchups but too many and the close-knit atmosphere is lost. Perhaps I'll look at it again for BW8 if it proves as popular.

There's a huge chunk of people coming from a nearby gaming club but still, I'm pleased to see that despite the issues of Blog Wars 6, there are still folks who want to come along! It's also interesting to see that people don't seem too put off by me not permitting Escalation, Forge World or Imperial Knights. There's a great mix of people this time around. There's plenty of veterans including Matt, Graham and Chris who'll have been to all 7! There are also about 15 new guys who've heard about the event through friends. It promises to be a great atmosphere and with large numbers I'm pretty happy with my decision not to play this time. It should allow me to focus on the organisation and make it run smoothly. Well, pretty happy, I'm still a little sad that I don't get to throw some dice with people who are becoming friends rather than just entrants in my tournament.

I'll be getting in touch with everyone on the list in the next week or so. I'll remind you all about the list deadline and send out a PDF of the rules pack too. Please take time to read everything. I know there'll still be some who don't so I'll explain everything as clearly as I can on the day but it's easier to answer queries in advance than trying to sort them last minute. Likewise for any general rules queries (remember BW7 will use 6th edition regardless of what gets released in a couple of weeks).

There'll be the usual build up posts including the ever-popular pie charts giving a break down of the armies (once I've had the lists) and of course, the prizes! Remember the top raffle prize this time around is an Imperial Knight which, all being well, will be allowed in BW8. That should give the winner enough time to get it painted!

Blog Wars 7 - A Different Kind of Tournament (Part 2)

Let me start with a not in any way subtle plug and point out that there are just four tickets remaining for Blog Wars 7. If you'd like to come along you've only got just over three weeks left to snatch up one of those last four spots.

Incidentally, one of the guys who's already bought a ticket got in touch with me with a rules query but also said the following:

"I've been so looking forward to attending an event where it's not all about how nasty a list you can make! It's never been about that for me. I just wanted to let you know that I will definitely be taking Astra Militarum for my army with Pask as my special character. I have absolutely zero chance of winning as I only have 2 scoring units in my list but I've always wanted to do a tank company and Blog wars has given me that chance!"

"This is the first tournament I've been to in over 4 years. You've got me really excited!"

I was absolutely thrilled to hear this and it nicely brings me onto what I want to talk about today. When I set up Blog Wars I wanted it to be a refreshing change from other tournaments out there. I'd contemplated running a tournament from the first time I attended one. The first one I went to was the Freebootaz Open Doubles. The key thing about that tournament for me was the friendly atmosphere and excellent prize support. We received all received a set of GF9 counters as a door prize which I'm still using in every single game of 40K and the prizes were all decent. I think we came third and won a spray gun each (which I traded in at GW actually) but first place was a copy of the Dark Heresy RPG book each with second being some scenery boxes I think.

Contrast this with the second tournament I went to and I was disappointed to find that GW didn't offer anything in the form of prizes at their events, apart from a certificate. Still, the atmosphere was excellent and I made friends at that tournament that I'm still gaming with today. The Claws and Fists guys were there and thanks to Graham at least one of them has made an appearance at every Blog Wars so far. Anyway, when it came to planning the first Blog Wars I knew I wanted to create a friendly atmosphere and offer brilliant prize support. I've actually tried to get GF9 to offer some sponsorship for the event but so far, despite an initially positive repsonse, I'm yet to receive anything. Still, I'm looking forward to again working with Element Games and the new sponsor Den of Imagination to bring the best prize support possible.

There were a few detractors at the time who scoffed at the idea of a friendly event saying that you'd always get a core of competitive players "spoiling it for everyone else". Whilst it's true that there's been a few competitive players at each event, the vast majority of people have been in it for the fun and even the top table players have been a decent lot.

Back to the email though. I've talked before about comp and explored various possibilities for encouraging people to play interesting/fun lists rather than boring spam. In the end I abandoned the idea of comp as I didn't feel comfortable penalising certain lists over others. Of course, Blog Wars has it's own (as far as I know) unique comp in the form of the compulsory special character. This is proving to be more challenging recently with supplements and races without SCs like Iron Hands but I reckon this is one of the things that's kept BW interesting so, for now at least, it stays.

Whilst there were several issues at BW6 (from which I learnt a great deal), the atmosphere was mostly excellent and I can only hope for the same from BW7. There's still a decent core of regulars there amongst around a dozen new guys. I've always been keen to grow Blog Wars via word of mouth rather than publishing it on the forums and I think that's another key factor in maintaining the friendly atmosphere.

Sorry if this all sounds a bit self congratulatory but sometimes the hassle of organsing the event can get me down and if nothing else it's nice to have someone feed back that they're excited about the event. Cheesy as it sounds it makes the amount of free time (and painting time) I sacrifice, seem worthwhile. I'm always thrilled by the positive comments I get on here. I also welcome the criticism and try to use it to improve the event. I'd hope that if someone attends a Blog War and doesn't enjoy it they'll at least give it a second chance.

In the next post (and probably the last in this odd little series) I'm going to talk about points and of course they mean prizes so I'll mention them too!

Blog Wars 7 - A Quick Word on 7th Edition

Blog Wars 7 is just under six weeks away (meaning the list deadline is under four weeks away) but there are still 9 tickets available for anyone wanting to join us. Head over to the BW7 page for more details.

Today I just wanted to post about the rumoured new edition of the 40K rulebook and how it will affect Blog Wars 7 (since a few people have been in touch to ask me). As it stands new codices are permitted provided they're released before the list submission deadline (in this case May 31st). In this current world of weekly releases though, a codex released on May 31st itself would not be permitted. Codices don't have far reaching implications for the rules of the game itself. Of course, they may shift the meta in a different direction but the core rules stay the same. Obviously that isn't true of a new edition of the rulebook.

Rumours currently have it that 7th edition (or 6.5th depending on your view) will be with us on May 24th. That means potentially that pre-orders will be announced on that date for release on May 31st. Even if the book itself is in peoples' hands by May 24th that would only give people a week to digest the new rules and change their armies accordingly in time for the submission deadline. That simply isn't long enough. Trouble is, we may not truly get a 7th edition but rather some tweaks to 6th that don't change things drastically. In that case it would be quite feasible for people to read up on the changes in a week and they aren't likely to affect peoples' lists significantly. My personal view is that the latter is more likely and the supposed "7th edition" will actually just be all of the crazy shit we've had released in various forms rolled into a single rulebook. This will help prevent the dicussions about what is or isn't legal in standard 40K.

Realistcally though, with the best will in the world and a copy of the rulebook on release day, I'll simply not have time to digest the changes to decided whether or not to use it at Blog Wars 7. I think the best course of action then is to say that the current rules will be in force. Think of Blog Wars 7 as your last chance to play the old rules before the new ones come in. Ironic really that my 7th tournament may be the last of 6th!

As always, keep questions coming about rule clarifications and anything else you're unsure of before the event.

UPDATE: Now that we have something more concrete and we know it'll be released on 24th May I can confirm that BW7 will NOT be using the 7th edition rules but will adhere to the 6th edition rulebook. Looking forward to the new book but I really don't know what the fuss is about Unbound armies. It was always an option to ignore the FOC and most tournaments won't allow it. Still, always exciting to get a new ruleset.

Blog Wars 7 - A Different Kind of Tournament (Part 1)

There's just over two months to go until Blog Wars 7 (there are still tickets left - hint hint) and I thought I'd take the opportunity to give you some background to the event and discuss a few queries people have had about the latest incarnation. Hopefully by the end of these 2-3 articles I'll have addressed all of the issues that have arisen or may arise. If not, please let me know but wait until I've finished these articles as I may be addressing your concern in a later post.

Over the last few years of running Blog Wars I've learnt a lot of things about how to create a tournament that everyone will enjoy. The process is equal parts frustrating and rewarding. For every person you make happy with the event you piss one off it seems. All of the decisions I make about Blog Wars are intended to make the day more enjoyable for the players whilst streamlining things so that organisation is easier. This in turn makes the event more enjoyable as, in theory at least, it should run smoothly. I can't pretend the event is perfect though, I've certainly made mistakes in the past but hopefully the next event is always better as a result.

The way GW are messing with 40K at the moment there are a number of issues I need to address and explain why I've made the decisions that I have. I don't want to put anyone off from attending Blog Wars (which is why it isn't blogger only despite the name) but at the same time I want to run a tournament that's a departure from the norm. It's very easy to feel pressured into making a decision about something but you have to keep telling yourself that no one has to attend the tournament. I'm sure the compulsory special character thing puts people off, as does the tabling rules (more on that in a bit) but ultimately if people don't like it there are other tournaments out there that do things differently. Might sound harsh but it comes back to not being able to please everyone and forcing myself to stop (somewhat forlornly) trying.

Forge World
There's no question that Forge World units are now perfectly 40K legal. Well at least to me there isn't. The current rules allow for FW units in conventional games of 40K. That being said, they aren't allowed at Blog Wars. I'm always in two minds about this decision. On the one hand there's a lot of interesting units and new combinations that are possible and FW units can often plug gaps in some of the older/weaker codices making them more viable. On the other hand there are some stupidly good units in there (I hesitate to use the term "broken"). One example is the Red Scorpions librarian (Severin Loth) who can simply choose his powers from particular disciplines. It wouldn't have sounded so bad in 5th but since every other psyker (pretty much at least) rolls for random powers it seems a bit unreasonable that you can take him and be sure to get what you need. There are other examples too but like so many other things in 40K a few powerful units give some perfectly reasonable ones a bad rep.

Perhaps my decision to ban Forge World is, in part at least, down to me never having dabbled with the IA books. There's no question the hobby is expensive but FW takes it to another level. It's a shame though that some of the more interesting armies (e.g. Elysians) are prevented by a blanket ban. However, Blog Wars often features tournament newbies and they're unlikely to have had much exposure to FW. It's another set of rules to learn, another set of books for me to consult when checking lists and a difficult expense to justify for some. For now at least I'm sticking with the ban.

Allies and Inquisition
I've said on many occasions that I'm not a fan of the allies system. It's fine in principle but let down by abuse in tournament lists (like soo many things). The Inquisition book has similar issues for me, I can see why they might be present from a fluff perspective but ultimately they'll get used to bring in Coteaz and/or a few servo skulls. That being said this is the first Blog Wars where there Inquisition Codex has been available so I want to use BW7 as an experiment to see how many people will actually make use of it and if they do, how much effect it actually has.

I know some events use a system where Inquisition (or knight titans etc) take up the allies slot but I want to leave things as they are for now and perhaps look down that path if I think it's necessary for BW8. Similarly for allies, there are a lot of powerful combinations that can be created but by banning those you only make some mono-codex builds stronger. In this case at least I think banning allies would piss off more people than it would please so both allies and Inquistion are permitted at BW7.

Dataslates and Formations
As it stands at the moment there aren't really any overpowered dataslates. Of course Cypher is useful but he's quite a points sink and not especially tricky to kill. He hasn't been too much of an issue in the games we've had with him. I've not had much chance to play test the formations but again none of them seem especially "broken". For now at least both will be permitted at Blog Wars and I'll review them after BW7 to see if that's the right call or not.

Escalation, Stronghold Assault and Imperial Knights

I've lumped these together here but I could actually discuss all three at length in individual posts. Ultimately my problem with Escalation comes down to the Revenant and the Transcendant C'Tan. These two units can potentially win games on their own irrespective of their opponent and even their own supporting units. There are other Lords of War that are powerful but these two simply aren't much fun at 1,850pts. Playing against them in the right environment can be fun. The kind of game where you tailor your lists to try and take them down can actually be enjoyable but in a tournament setting, particularly Blog Wars, I think they'd ruin people's days. Of course people tout them as the ultimate counter to some of the deathstars but for the most part those armies don't feature at Blog Wars and I hope BW7 will be no different. The scenarios will hopefully make the common deathstars less effective anyway.

Stronghold Assault is inextricably linked to Escalation in a lot of ways. One book counters the other. Without having Escalation I don't feel the Stronghold Assault stuff is necessary. Both are perfectly reasonable in Apocalypse or even higher point limit games of 40K but they're too much for 1,850pts. For that reason neither will be allowed at Blog Wars 7.

Finally we come to Imperial Knights. I don't for a second think that they're overpowered. I don't think they're indestructible and I don't think they're especially deadly. So why am I not allowing them? Well I'm pretty torn to be honest. On the one hand they aren't too tricky to deal with but there's that potential for their D weaponry (either the CC weapon or Stomp) to achieve something devastating. I'm of the opinion that D-weapons have no place in regular 40K and despite them being worlds away from a Revenant I'm still not happy to allow them. I appreciate the irony when I'm giving one away in the raffle but of all of the things that I'm prohibiting at Blog Wars they're probably the most likely to be permitted at future events.

Conclusion
Making decisions about these things without testing them is always difficult. That isn't to say I don't playtest them at all but rather that I can't hope to test them on a full tournament scale. No matter how much testing I can do in my own games or by visiting other events, there's still the possibility that things will be very different at Blog Wars. Perhaps there'll be something that I should've permitted that I haven't or vice versa but unfortunately the only way to find out is by experimenting.

I've said before and it's still true that I want Blog Wars to be different from other events. What works on the competitive scene doesn't always mesh well with my (perhaps naive) ideal of a friendly tournament. I hope people appreciate the thought that goes into my events and that it shows in the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Anyway, in the next post I'll be talking more about the scenarios and scoring. I appreciate I've done these kind of posts before but there are new issues (mostly of GW's creation) that I wanted to address so please bear with me.

As ever, I want your feedback on these decisions and I'm always prepared to listen to compelling arguments for why I'm making the wrong choice about something.

Win an Imperial Knight at Blog Wars 7!

When the Imperial Knight hit the GW website most people probably thought to themselves, "gonna have to get me one of those". I, on the other hand, looked at the pictures and thought "I've got to give away one of those!". Therefore I'm delighted to announce that the top raffle prize at Blog Wars 7 will not be a Wraithknight this time around but rather a spangly new Imperial Knight! This is, of course, assuming that I sell 30 tickets and with 11 sold so far I'm confident I'll be giving one of these bad boys away to someone who comes along in June.

I'd like to remind you all at this point that entry to the Blog Wars Raffle is included in your £15 ticket for the tournament. Not only that but there'll be plenty of other prizes to win too! In fact, if I manage to sell 40 tickets for the event I'll still offer a Wraithknight as second prize in the raffle! 

To those of you not familiar with Blog Wars I encourage you to click on the big logo on the right (mobile users click here) which will take you over to the BW7 page where you can read all of the details of the event. Tickets can be purchased using the link on the desktop version of the blog or by emailing me using the Contact Me link. I'd like to remind everyone that you don't actually need to have a blog to attend.

I'll be announcing further prizes as we get closer to the event but I'm already pretty excited about giving one of these bad boys away.

Blog Wars 7 - 14th June 2014 - Tickets Now on Sale!

The time has finally come for Blog Wars 7 tickets to go on sale! I know I say this every time but I can't believe the event has received so much support over the years. I hope to see a lot of the regulars in attendance along with some new faces. I'd like to remind everyone that despite the name this is no longer an event exclusively for bloggers.

Scenarios & Scoring
Over the weekend I've been tweaking the scenarios for Blog Wars 7. I was originally planning on keeping them the same as BW6 but I wanted to adjust things slightly to hopefully create more interesting games with an emphasis on bloody battles rather than sitting back and shooting each other from range.

The maximum number of points available in each round has been adjusted to 33 (30 primary, 3 secondary). This is largely to make the maths easier on my end but once again the idea is to minimise the number of clashes and to encourage people to push for those extra few VPs here and there. As I said in an earlier post the score cards have been redesigned to hopefully make filling them out a lot easier. I've worked on the spreadsheet a little too, once again this should make the event run more smoothly. I'm keeping the somewhat controversial rules on tabling too.

The first round will be effectively Purge the Alien but with the points based on unit values rather than a single VP per unit. In a slight change from BW6 the SC is now worth 100 bonus points not 150. This is basically just to make the maths simpler. This is the only round where tabling will give you maximum points too. Speaking of which if you're playing an army that is capable of giving away extra points by spawning units or with VP bonuses these will still count towards your total but the maximum is fixed at 30 VPs. This means people aren't penalised just because they didn't play Tyranids, Daemons or whatever in the first round.

The second round is Emperor's Relic again with the only difference from the Blog Wars 6 version being that the VPs for each objective have changed slightly. This will hopefully encourage people to push for their opponents objective to get maximum points. In this round tabling will not give you full points so if you want them you're going to have to slog across the board or find another way of taking your opponent's objective.

The final round features a new scenario that I've pretty much stolen verbatim from my local tournament venue, The Outpost. I'm calling it Control Freak and basically there's control points which are worth 1VP for every player turn you control them. The game is limited to 5 turns so again, there's 30 primary VPs on offer. Tabling simply ends the scoring where it is when the last model dies.

Obviously I can understand the issues people have with the tabling rules but I don't want to encourage people to bring leafblower style lists that shoot their opponent off the board regardless of the mission being played. There's no point having objectives in that case. Please bear this in mind when writing your lists, if you only bring two scoring units then you simply can't score full VPs in anything but the first round.

Ticket Costs and Prizes 
Tickets remain at £15 which is the same as they cost at the original Blog Wars three years ago. I'm determined to keep them at that price for as long as I can. For your £15 you get lunch, 3 games of 40K in a friendly atmosphere, free entry into the raffle (prizes to be announced) and the chance to win spot prizes throughout the day.

I'm contacting a few companies about sponsorship of the event as I'd like to offer even more prizes than ever before. Stay tuned to the blog to find out if I manage to get anyone interested!

As ever you can either use the PayPal button on the right or contact me via email to buy multiple tickets. I'll be asking for email addresses for all players so if your regular email differs from your PayPal account please let me know.

Conclusion
Please take the time to read through the rules pack by clicking on the big Blog Wars logo on the right or clicking here. If you've got any questions about anything (but in particular the scenarios) then please comment here or email me directly using the Contact Me link on the right.

Finally I'd like to point out that I'll only be playing in the event that we have an odd number on the day. This will mean I'll be on hand to referee if necessary and that the event should run more smoothly. If I do play, I'll be running a friendlier list (no Tau in sight) and I won't be eligible for any prizes.

Blog Wars 7 - Saturday June 14th 2014

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that the logo to the right has changed to a big purple 7. That means I've updated the Blog Wars page with details of the next event which will take place on Saturday June 14th next year.

As I discussed a few days ago I'd like to keep things pretty similar for Blog Wars 7. I want people to feel like they can refine their list from BW6 now that they've seen how the scenarios play out. Hopefully I can keep them missions nearly identical for both events this year. I don't want them to become boring but chances are you won't be playing them in between so that shouldn't be an issue.

The scoring system has been refined a little so that there shouldn't be any clashes and hopefully the new scorecards and spreadsheet will minimise any errors in entry whilst also making sure people are scoring things correctly.

Throughout the event I'll make it abundantly clear that tabling won't score maximum VPs in the objective games but I want to mention it from the start so that people can design their lists with that in mind. If you only have two troops you simply won't be able to take maximum points in the objective missions. I know this will favour armies that can spam cheap troops but with allies in the mix this shouldn't present too much of an issue. With the pace of GW's codex updates I don't expect there'll be many books that would struggle to cover the objectives.

Any event with custom scenarios (no matter how similar they are to the rulebook variants) will require an element of list tailoring and BW is no different. At the end of the day the competitive tournament isn't the main reason to come to Blog Wars 7. I hope veterans of previous events can back me up when I say the friendly atmosphere is what it's all about.

Tickets will remain at the bargain price of £15 including lunch. Assuming a decent attendance there'll be similar or better prize support. I'm going to look at other sponsors to try and improve this even further so stay tuned. Tickets aren't on sale yet but will be soon. It'll probably be in the new year though to minimise the number of people who buy one and then drop out nearer the time.

I've made the decision to only play in the tournament if we have an odd number on the day. This will address the two main issues of Blog Wars 6 in that I'll be able to give refereeing and organisation my full attention and secondly that I won't win the bloody thing again! It also means I won't need stand-ins and there won't be the usual last minute panic when people don't show up on the day.

As ever the tournament is designed with the players in mind so if you have any suggestions for things I can do differently then please please get in touch. Otherwise check out the details and  I hope to see you all there.