Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Perfecting Tournaments with Dice, Time, and Judges
Goatboy here with some wisdom from my last big GW GT about how to make make your tournaments perfect.
After an amazing weekend at the KC Open hosted by the fine people at GW I want to talk a bit about some of the competitive thoughts I had running thru my head while throwing dice. There is a lot to like about competitive 40k with the biggest “prize” for myself being just seeing my friends. I know I have talked a lot about how while I love painting and playing with little models it is all the people I interact with that really drives home why I spend all my time with this hobby. I happen to be a bit of an extrovert (duh Goatboy) so I crave this interaction and these events feed my hunger for nonsense.
Your Dice Will Abandon You – Accept It
So if you haven’t tried a competitive event and are thinking about it – you should. It is a lot of fun and there are a ton out there from local events, big RTT’s, bigger events to and even those fun GW options. Just make sure you go knowing that dice will fail you, charges will not happen, and saves will abandon you all in the name of competitive fisticuffs on the battlefields of the Grim Future. Plus if you see me there in one of my many Golden Girls shirts and hot pink hoodie say hi.
Beware of Slow Playing
Things I noticed while playing and the big one I think we should all talk about is time taken during a game. Each player should have the same amount of time utilized just to allow for a truly even game experience. It has been a long time since I was last “slow” played and let me tell you it was frustrating then and still frustrating now. Of course this isn’t about calling anyone out and just something to think about when you get to the table top. You should not only be thinking about your experience as there are two people on the table.
This could mean you need to utilize a Chess Clock to ensure you get your time and your opponent gets theirs. It could mean you just need to pay attention more to your turns and just play efficiently. It could also mean you should really plan out a lot more of your games in your head too. All of these things need to be something you keep a check on because no one likes to hear how you only got to turn 2 or 3 in a game. No one likes to only experience getting to turn 2 or 3 as well. It ends up creating a bad game for two people and usually the TO has to deal with the fallout as well.
Active Judging
Next up it is the thought of Active Judging. I will say I am always for Active Judging as it will hopefully keep me from messing up and ensuring we don’t have witch hunts after an event. It is a way to keep ahead of issues that might show up and just ensure everyone is playing the same game. I am never upset if someone brings up a rule I screwed up and hope that anything caught during a game helps keep the other player from looking bad later. We all know that lately there has been some shady stuff in games from bad army lists to just not cool behavior during a game. Until we really step up more and try to nip this stuff out of the game will continue to see this show up during events. The bigger issue is just making sure you have enough judges who are up to date and willing to watch games.
All of this goes into just the idea that all events need to be more active on tables whether there is time issues or game play issues. We all know what armies are good and how most games should interact based on averages. We also should just try to pay attention more. It will save your reputation and the events if we just make sure everything is on the up and up.
Promoting Faction Winners
The other thought I had and something I think shows up in a lot of events is best “faction” winners. I always love this award and really incentivizes running weird things in hopes you are either the only one – or the best one. Throw a bunch of blisters into a box, get a cool little trophy that says best Mahrine!, and let the winner feel like a bad ass walking up and picking up an award. Its such a simple thing and one of the easier ways to get some more diversity with a chance for a “prize”. Let this prize just be for “pure” factions too as a way to keep some of the soup stuff and other big keyword armies at bay from some of the fun awards. It also means you only need X for each army book instead of trying to figure out best “Aeldari” or best “Chaos Jerkface”.
What would yall want to add to Competitive Events? Do we just want the hotels to be cheaper, the event has more swag, and we win all our games? Do you want more prizes? How about more cool hats and Golden Girls swag?
What do you think it is missing from the big events?
