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The whole tournament from top to bottom was a disaster.

It took place two weeks ago and no one has talked about the Broadside Bash which is the second event in the GW tournament circuit, including GW. Maybe it is like a prison rape where no one talks about it afterwards. So I thought I would post my thoughts on the event.

Where to start? In no order…

#1. Two hour rounds.
Really? 2 hour games for a 2000 point tournament? My games barely made it to round #5, and I place and play my army pretty fast. In round #3, I played against an Ultramarine army that held his whole army in reserve till the bottom of turn #2 and we still only got in 2 turns. Smart_Alex brought horde orks, and he only got in 3 turns for the most part. For the GW GTs they give you 2.5 hours for 1750 points and even then it is dicey for some armies.

#2. The tables
The tables were on knee level. I am 6’4” and trying to check “true-line-of-sight” was a major pain. Not only that, but to bend over and move your models was an issue. The tables were so low that you could not slide your chair under the table and you had to sit sideways because there was no room in the isles. Between sitting and turning sideways to see the table, bending over to move models, and bending way down to check LOS, my back was killing me after day one. I should have listened to it when it told me to stay home on day 2.

#3. The crowding
The tables were packed in like sardines. There was no room to move, or to get by anyone. If you had a table that was against the wall, the person who had his back to the wall could not move. The irony is that there were over 30 40k players in a smaller room, and 14 fantasy players in a larger room. At least they could have done is move some of the 40k player to the fantasy room.

#4. The orginizers
They have a web page that was never updated. The link to their forum takes you to the 2008 broadside bash forum instead of the 2009 forum. Not that it would do you any good because the organizers never answered questions there. Also most of the links on the web page just said “coming soon”.

#5. Orginizers part 2
There was an armored company list there. Really? Armored company? All of the non-codex lists are banned from any event where the orginizers know what they are doing. The reason why is that none of the other lists have been updated to make them 5th edition compatible. I ended up in an argument with some people that were there saying that all of the sub-lists were legal.

#6. Orginizers #3.
The initial pairings where done by comp score. Good luck finding what your comp score was, or how it was derived.

Russ B. did end up with a well deserved win with his well painted Black Templar army. I will post my bat rep of our game in the next day or two.

All-in-all it was a waste to pay $65 and to drive 6 hours for that level of professionalism. I expected more and I was very disappointed. All I can do is vote with my wallet and not show up next year.

1: 2 hours is a joke really, since there are alot of horde players about it will make getting in a full fight impossible.

2: comfort is one of the main things that needs to be taken into account, tables should be waist height ish.

3: only thing i can think of is finding a bigger venue for it, it seems popular, so a larger venue may work well and reduce crowding.
last thing i would want when im gaming is being pushed about by people walking past.

4: thats just sloppy really.

5: they should have an all or none policy.
AC is a sub form of guard, but then you could easily say traitor guard are aswell, or kroot merc's are a sub from tau.

6: i could see that getting annoying.


seems like what you would expect for a cheap £10 tourney, but not a well known one.
seems alot of things are going down hill these days.

I've never understood tournament setups that don't take into consideration the 300 lb+ people. There's almost always at least one person there like that, often more, and if you don't make space considerations for them it makes a lot of people miserable. Plus, spreading the tables out helps alleviate a little bit of the gamer funk problem.

Sorry to hear it was such a poor experience.

Well i've been saying the same thing over in our battle report that you wrote up. Couple of my issues

1) I'm pretty sure they called one game in 1 hour 45 minutes

2) Seconding communication. It's been 2 weeks and the results still aren't on their website.

3) They don't answer email or in person questions in any reasonable form. It was like pulling teeth for Allan and I to get our comp scores and even then they just shrugged off the ridiculous scores we got.

4) There were only 31 people in the 40k tournement. Way to small which shows that not updating your site or responding to questions probably seriously hampered attendance.

5) The organizers failed to mention that the parking structure was under construction and that we would have to park at least a block away (the distance wasn't a big deal, it was the fact that you didn't know about it till you pulled up)

6) Nothing, and I mean nothing, started at the time it was scheduled. This is probably the reason they kept cutting every round short.

7) The tables made my back hurt and i only weigh about 190 and 5'8". I felt bad for guys like Allan and my buddy who is also 6'4" who had to bend and contort to see. What's worse is with a little bit of work those tables raise up easily. My buddy uses them for work all the time.

8) The tank company thing was ridiculous. They let him play since he drove from modesto but really there are rules for a reason.

9) Second the cramped quarters, apparently the hotel had booked a second convention for the same weekend (at least that's what I heard from a retailer there)

10) They weren't consistant on the scoring rules. They handed out the GT scenarios which had a set scoring but then "announced" that it was only 7-10-15 scores with bonuses possible. By annouced I mean attempted to yell it in a hall packed with 30 guys all trying to set up armies for their first game.

11) I really felt bad for the fantasy guys who had like 15 people show up to play in the tourney.

12) Basically it's a tournement that unless they make huge strides next year that I don't think will be around. Good thing the SCGWL is running one for us too.

I was horribly irritated at the professionalism.

sorry to heat about the poorly run organization there Blackmoor. Come back to Florida.