Battle For Middle England - My First SBG Tournament Review

Thermo · **Posted:** Tue Oct 29, 2013 7:54 am

Welcome to my first ever review of my first ever strategy battle game tournament, which happened this weekend in Preston, as part of The Great British Hobbit League.

Hear how me and my mounted Rohirrim list faired, who won the tournament prizes, my review of how I felt the tournament went and why I think you should get involved in next years Great British Hobbit League if you can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIn5T-ZH26g&feature=youtu.be

This is a low quality video for speed of upload, but you don't need to watch me in high definition gabbing away, just stick it on when you've got half an hour of painting to be done and hear me discuss the Battle for Middle England, warts and all. Then please comment on the channel and let me know if you agree, disagree or want to know more about getting involved in the Great British Hobbit League next year or have questions!

If you stick with the podcast to the end, there are some pictures from the tournament too. So I hope you enjoy my review, happy strategy battle gaming everyone!

Dr Grant · **Joined:** Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:50 pm **Posts:** 1339

Hey James, great report, really interesting to hear what you thought and glad to see that you thought the positives outweighed the negatives. A few points...

I utterly agree with you about the scenery thing. A Goblin Town board like that is awesome for fun games, looks cool and makes for an interesting challenge but IMO was far too biased for a tournament game. Like you said you didn't really have a chance on that board, it wasn't just you though, I played Sam J on that board and the narrow walkways meant he couldn't bring his horde numbers to bear against me so he suffered there too. You have to be really careful with scenery like that, rivers are another example, if you played on a board with a river that was declared shallow water you'd have a huge advantage as all your cavalry could just bolt down the river pretty much untouchable! That's one area where the GW tournaments do well, the tables have less scenery and it's far more boring but it is standardised and no-one gets an advantage/disadvantage.

The second point is the Best Army thing and again I totally agree with you. I have no idea quite why those three armies were nominated but it was certainly odd and there wasn't anything about it in the rules pack. The norm for indie tourneys is for everyone to put their army on display over lunch one day and you can vote for whoever you want. The only tournies where nominations take place are the official GW ones. During those the 4 TOs go around and agree which 3-6 armies should be nominated and then those armies are displayed in the cabinets over lunch on the second day. That works well as there's far more choice due to the larger numbers so it's good to narrow down the field, they normally do a really good job of picking the best ones too. So yeah, try not to let that put you off, 9 times out of 10 you'd be able to vote for Southies dwarves! The other thing was the way you voted, I think you picked up on a recurring theme of disorganisation and that's what led to the slightly confusing Best Army voting. At most tournies there will be a Best Army slip handed to you and you write down the name and slip it in a box, a far less awkward system.

Finally there's the North/South regular opponents thing. This one's far trickier, the reality is that everyone who goes wants to play new people and not their normal opponents (I hate playing Tom at tournies, particularly Ferals against elves as I've played him so often and we've probably spent the last few months playing with those same armies in prep for the tourny) but as we're a small community it's almost impossible. I think you got really unlucky in that you played 4 games against 3 regular opponents, if you had been able to play the other 3 games you would have, of course, come up against everyone else who you hadn't played, it's just a shame you only got to play your regular opponents. The other thing you can do is ask to swap in the first round, most people are alright with this as it doesn't make a difference. If you come up against a regular opponent, have a word with the table next to you, they should be willing to switch.

It was really good to meet you and a shame we didn't get to play, you're an absolutely top bloke and you've got the perfect attitude. Your decision to abdicate in your last game was incredibly generous (although again you should never have been put in that position, at ANY other tournament the TO would sit out the game) and demonstrates EXACTLY the attitude you want to encounter at these events - you completely deserved the most sporting award, well done mate.

Robshaw · **Joined:** Thu Jun 20, 2013 12:06 am **Posts:** 100

Honest and too the point there. That was not making excuses James , It seems like a nightmare from high school back in year 8 ( Special Kid brings in board , and you just have to be in a good sportsman and accept it if its not catering to your force like you did. (No offence to the person who does own that board ). After watching this i think i shall plan to come to one of the next tournaments.

Now i was wondering if i could get a list of the players who came with their one ring ID as im totally confused as to who came when you said all those names in the YouTube video. Cavalry on Goblin Town.... My response would of been to laugh at it , not get at all negative about it , not that you did but sometimes people can feel that vibe about things.

What you did with that Mumak was... EPIC! KITING it around was very clever, shame we did not see some epic Eomer throwing spear action

Also glad to see the stereotype of the "Tabletop Gamer" IS being broken , more diversity although as a southerner ( well east Anglia) Northern accents scare the hell out of me

Overall i thought you showed a very honest interpretation of the tournament and dont apologize if you feel its whining , just be blunt and honest however if people feel offended then so be it.

SouthernDunedain · **Posted:** Tue Oct 29, 2013 9:23 pm

Nice report buddy. I totally agree with everything you said and the others above.

I appreciate the comments about my army aswell

makes all the time spent converting worth it. I'll make sure to bring them to the next northern tournament. If you want to use them for a tournament yourself, shout and I'll be more than happy to lend them to you.

I'm also looking forward to seeing the interview I did despite my initial reluctance.

SuicidalMarsbar · **Joined:** Sun Apr 24, 2011 1:14 am **Posts:** 1712

Sorry again I couldn't make it y'all, but it seems everything was somehow fun without me.

I know how it is being ill and conceding games for your opponents sake, happens every time I play Dr.G and once I even lost on purpose just to cure him of his illness. On another note your attitude is exactly what the hobby needs, you get discussions going and focus on putting hobby stuff out there for us all to gobble up. Watching/listening battle reports is a nice change to hovering around forums till something fun happens.

Although I gotta say I am the worst at having a recognizable/existent theme when I make lists and allying elves n dwarves is really not the worst atrocity you can commit. Hopefully we'll meet at the next event and you can face the monster mash.

crixalis · **Joined:** Wed Mar 13, 2013 12:45 pm **Posts:** 170

Dr Grant wrote:

Your decision to abdicate in your last game was incredibly generous (although again you should never have been put in that position, at ANY other tournament the TO would sit out the game)

Was there no planning for this scenario, i.e. a spare player being organised to be there, on the chance that one of the registered players don't show?

Or was this planned and the spare player couldn't come?

SouthernDunedain · **Posted:** Sun Nov 03, 2013 9:53 am

There was an odd number of players which meant the bottom players all had to take a bye. Usually, if this happens the TO is supposed to sit out but because he wanted to increase his league position, a few of us were 'asked nicely' if we wanted to take byes.

Hope that makes sense.

Beowulf03809 · **Posted:** Wed Nov 06, 2013 3:51 pm

I enjoyed this vid and can sympathize with a number of your points, good and otherwise, from my first official Games Day event a few years ago. It was actually my only official GW tournament but I have played in and even run local games as well.

I absolutely agree that you should NOT have repeated using the GT board. Similarly though there are some boards that really favor Cav...or really favor flying models, or shooters, etc. I think it's important, as you said, that there is consistency. It makes it easier to deal with a game on a board that really hurts you if EVERYONE is doing the same. And typically the army that does really well on a controlled board like that will have more vulnerability on other board types.

I play WWII as well (Flames of War) and there are options for winter boards, visibility factors, various terrain and road impacts on movement, buildings, day/night scenarios, etc. Some combos of these will favor infantry, some armor, some artillery, and so on. A well balanced force can usually do well on multiple. But the key is if you are having an event then EVERYONE should have a turn at the Winter tables, or a Night game. And it would be best if the scenario played at that particular table was consistent as well.

So if a GT board was being used then a specific scenario should have been decided on for that table (one that minimizes the overall impact as much as possible, IMO) and everyone should have had a game there. And if there are too many players for that sort of rotation and a second GT table wasn't available then a similar restrictive tables (such as Moria caves or very dense Mirkwood w/ few path options) could be used to give similar effect.

It is also too bad how many bye games you had and regardless of how points are going everyone should either get a bye or else have a point adjustment applied to compensate. And "best army", "favorite army", whatever should have some guidelines published in advance so people know how they will be judged, what may disqualify them, etc., well before committing a force.

Having run a relatively small ( > 15 participants ) local tournament for SBG and some other events ( Babylon 5, Car Wars, and some others) earlier in life I will say that you can't plan for everything, you can easily get caught up in excitement of one thing or another, and mistakes will be made. I think it's very important to have co-TOs just to help reduce this. And I have a lot of appreciation and respect for anyone that does pull off an event that most players come away feeling happy about.

Thanks for taking the time to present this, and I look forward to catching up on your other vids.

Battle For Middle England - My First SBG Tournament Review

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