Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Out Of The Basement Gaming Tournament

Spent a busy few days a little over a week ago painting up 1850 points worth of Imperial Fists. The reason is, of course, because of a tournament! I was a little burnt out after all that painting and gaming, but am now recharged hobby wise. I'll get some photos of my army up soon.

Last weekend (July 3rd and 4th) was the second annual Out of the Basement 40k and Warhammer Fantasy Battles Tournament. It's put on by a great local gaming group called Out of the Basement Gaming. The goal of the tournament is to host a great weekend of gaming with fun, balanced lists. The very best Dark Elves and Imperial Guard lists are allowed, but not warmly welcomed. An army composition system rewards softer lists with a score multiplier. I'm not sure of the exact formula, but I do know that if an army that received a comp score of 1 tied a game with an army that received a comp score of 5 (perfect score), the army with the comp score of 5 would receive a good deal more victory points in the competition for the Best General and Best Overall Awards.

The points limit was 1850 for 40k and 2250 for Fantasy. The comp for 40k worked as following:

The army has fewer than two Special Characters.1 point
The army does not have duplicate HQs. 1 point
The army has fewer than three choices from each Elite, Fast, and Heavy support catagory. 1 point
The army is balanced and fun to play against. 1 point
I would like to play this army again. 1 point

A player awarded 1 point for each of the above criteria that their opponent's army list met.


The comp system seemed to succeed in producing a tournament with sporting gamers who brought lists that were both fun to play, and play against. There was only one Imperial Guard leaf blower list. The other guard players (at least the ones I met), were good sports who cared that both they and their opponent had an enjoyable game. The same could be said of all of the players I faced. To me, this is how games of toy soldiers are meant to be played. The first goal is for both players to have fun!

Every list I faced was balanced, every opponent was sporting, and every game was a blast. The other players I talked to all said the same thing. The tournament was also very well run. The winners of the Best Sportsman, Best Painted Army, Best General, and Best Overall Awards for both game systems were announced within 30-40 minutes of the last game.

The trophy for winning one of the awards is a metal stein (beer mug). If you win one and bring it to the tournament in any following year, you get it filled for free with the beer of your choice at the party the tournament organizers hold at a pub they rent out on the Saturday night.

This was the second tournament I have ever entered. My first tourney was the first one held by Out of the Basement Gaming last year. Going into that tourney, I had only played 3 games. I finished with 1 minor victory, 1 draw, and 4 losses of varying degrees. Things went much better this year. On the first day, I started with a loss and followed it up with two major wins. The following day, I had two draws, one of which was a draw with the secondary objective completed.

In that first draw, my scouts assaulted a loan Chaos marine in the final assault phase of the game, and promptly did not kill him. Had they killed him, the objective they were on would have been held by me, and the result would have been a victory. Five scouts with close combat weapons. 20 attacks. I thought victory was mine! My opponent was very relieved and we both had a good laugh about it. In the second draw, those same scouts failed a leadership check after suffering 25% casualties from shooting, and were unable to regroup because of an enemy unit within 6 inches. This mission was kill points, the game ended on that turn, and the scouts counted as destroyed, making the result a tie. I couldn't get mad at the little guys though, since they did knock out two moving tanks with their grenades earlier in the game.

A fantastic tournament (which motivated a huge amount of painting). I definitely look forward to next year's! (Which, by the way, will be seeing some goodies from a Forge World order I recently placed. Stay tuned for more on that).

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