For Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy Battles
The dust settles. Another 175 battles played out over 2 days to find our best in Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40K and Lord of the Rings took place on the weekend of the 14th and 15th of July, over two levels of the Mecure Hotel in Hobart.
Again we saw a number of competitors from interstate, many of whom did quite well. We also hosted Laurie Goodridge and Kevin Walker from Games Workshop. They, in turn, hosted a presentation of upcoming releases, and the ever oblique and humorous 'The Not Cookies' quiz.
It was good to see continued strong representation from the two bigger Tasmanian gaming clubs, Realm of Gaming and Van Diemans Wargaming Club. Thanks to Craig Woodfield's suggestion of using the Overlord Gaming Tournament software, we were able to restrict players games by not matching them against the same gaming club members. This eased the frustration of veteran 'States' players of having to play the same gamers as in recreational play.
As usual we had a very high average of sportsmanship scores, which is fantastic to see in such competitive circumstances. The amount of effort gone into getting armies ready for the Tournament was also largely impressive. Matt Cleaver's 13th Company Space Wolves army was painted and converted to a great standard and, appropriately, took out Best Painted Army in Warhammer 40K. Mark Dewis had his revamped Jade Warriors Space Marine Chapter entirely deployed in Drop Pods, and Adrian Griffin had a mechanised company of Death Guard Traitor Marines (units of 7, mounted in 7 tanks). Also standing out was Roy Diprose's converted Adeptus Mechanicus themed army. The Warhammer Room on the ground floor of the Mercure saw 29 gamers converge to do battle for glory, for points, and to avoid the everlasting shame of being beaten by Cookie. Unfortunately one unlucky visitor suffered ignominious defeat to the Cookie, and shall forever after be forced to suffer because of this. Some spectacular armies were presented, including Jamie Downard's Chaos Mortal force, Troy Dolliver's Vampire Counts and many others. The overall standard of presentation was very good, despite the occasional unpainted model making an appearance, but these will certainly be painted by next year. The atmosphere in the room was also really good - mostly due to the heaters being turned off before the start of play by 29 smelly gamers - but there were very few rules disputes and everyone certainly had a good time. This may have been helped by the ready availability of beer from the bar for those of an age to enjoy the amber fluid. The final victory of Mariusz Rybak in Best General and Overall was certainly hard won, with many competitors eager to test themselves against his forces - but only next year's Tournament will tell if he can continue the string of victories...
There was some interest from the public, Jamie Downward featured in a small article in the Sunday Mercury, and a few passers-by mentioned they were Lord of the Rings players and discussed what they thought about taking for the next Tournament.
A big thank you to all of the players who helped make this a successfull and wholly enjoyable weekend.
Thanks also to the people who make this weekend happen every year:
Damon Hawker - Event Organiser, Owner
Heath Newell - Event Organiser / Overlord and whipping master
Narrelle Newell - For telling the doctor they couldn't have the baby this weekend because of a nerdy Warhammer Tournament!
Craig Woodfield - Creator of the Rules Pack's / Warmaster
Jarrod Coad - Single-handedly ruling the WHFB Room with an Iron Fist, being a willing pack mule for setting and packing up and digging through army lists for Composition Scores
Simon Marshal - Terrain Gimp, Bye Buster and all round TSC slave
Mark Wilson - As above, but also efficient enough to take out second place in the LotR tourney at the same time
Mark Dewis - Brain busting crawl through the illegalities of army list creation for Composition Scores
Laurie Goodridge - Prize support, slave duties and recieving occasional ear bashing about tournament
Damien Harper - Slave duties also, and for being able to squish a huge truck in a teeny parking space
Andrew Turnock - Setup slave, and probably helping convince Damien the above was an acceptable idea
Todd ... Floor judge and rule jockey
Dale Fyfe - data entry (so if the scores are all wrong, it's his fault!)
And also to all those people whom I have forgotten, just make sure you work harder next year so your effort is more memorable!(j/k)