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Hey all, I am currently in the process of creating a tourney and proposing it to my local hobby store. One of the workers said that they would love to do it, all i would have to do would be to present it to the owner. We pretty much have the location and other stuff all worked out. They do monthly free tourneys, but they aren't as satisfying as real tourneys. Here are the basics of what i think should be in the tourney so far:

Entry fee $10-20
2-day tourney
1999+1 points

Here is where i would want criticism and comments on people with experience in tourneys. What would you like to see in a tourney? What is the perfect tournament in your opinion? Should i make missions for each game standard? Should it be random missions? What should the missions be?

How should elimination be processed? should it be a round-robin? Single elimination? double? I'm thinking about 20-35 people will most likely be there so it won't be a huge tourney. How should we score the wins? should we score by type of win (major win (including tabling), minor win)? and how would those be calculated?

Finally how would you like to see the pot be divided up? like 50% to winner, 25% to best painted and 25% to overall best (sportsmanship, painting, competition)

Any other tips and help from experience in tournaments would be really appreciated.

This is basically a tournament where you guys (the players with a lot of tournament experience) can tell me what works and what doesn't for tournaments, and what you would like to see in one.

Let me know everything you think about it.

Thanks,
Thisisnotpancho

First of all, good on you for taking the initiative! Doing this kind of thing will help to make the community strong.

We (Team Zero Comp) run a ton of tournaments and have gotten a pretty good feel for it.

The closer you stay to the book, the better. It makes things super easy for players to come in and play "right out of the box" and it makes your life easier. We play a combination of 3 book missions simultaneously, and it works well to stay close to the book while also avoiding the bad match-ups straight book missions can cause.

We use a very simply and clearly defined thumbs up, thumbs down sports policy that is there only to punish really poor sportsmanship and not to allow players to influence each others' score which leads to all kinds of problems.

Comp really depends on your area. We don't use it as it is subjective and 99% of the time the #1 thing people complain about. Better just to ditch it, IMO, and make your life easier. However, if you live in an area where people demand it, then you're going to have to make the most of it!

Prize support will reflect the type of event you run. For a competitive event, the larger portion typically goes to the champion. For soft score heavier events, you usually spread the prizes around more evenly.

We have found it is better to keep the painting and playing awards separate as often, players are good at one and not the other and you don't want to punish anyone for not being good at a part of the hobby that doesn't interest them as much.

Terrain! This is the most important part of a good event. Make sure you've got enough of it and that it is at least decently painted. This is the biggest impact you will have on your players so don't skimp on it!

Make sure everything is transparent. You don't want to have even the suggestion of unfairness. We use a Swiss pairing software called Swiss perfect and it is awesome. If you have a good amount of players and you're using Swiss Pairings (best way to do it, honestly) this will make your life infinitely easier.

Round robin and double elimination aren't realistic in 40K unless you're playing very small games. The game just takes too long to play. Swiss is best mathematically, but it requires a lot of rounds for bigger events. If you'll have 64 players or less, it's perfect though as 5 rounds works great over 2 days.

Swiss makes it easy for pairings too, as you simply pair the players with like scores with one another. Again, using Swiss Perfect makes this as easy as possible.

Make sure all your rules and scoring systems are posted well in advance so players have time to prepare.

Be prepared as the TO. You're already doing a good job of gathering information so that bodes well. But come with everything you need: player packets, score sheets, FAQ's, Errats, Codecis, etc. This will make your life much, much easier.

I hope that helps and feel free to shoot any other questions you have out there.

Good luck with it!

 Reecius wrote:
First of all, good on you for taking the initiative! Doing this kind of thing will help to make the community strong.

Comp really depends on your area. We don't use it as it is subjective and 99% of the time the #1 thing people complain about. Better just to ditch it, IMO, and make your life easier. However, if you live in an area where people demand it, then you're going to have to make the most of it!

Prize support will reflect the type of event you run. For a competitive event, the larger portion typically goes to the champion. For soft score heavier events, you usually spread the prizes around more evenly.

Good luck with it!

First of all, what do you mean by comp?

Secondly, what types of missions do you think are the best for the tournament?

thirdly, does it sound alright to divide up the pot 50% for winner and 25%/25% for best painted/best overall? or maybe a 40%/15%/15% and the other 30% goes to the setup and rental of the space for the tournament?

And you don't suggest using set missions? I think i would like to present the hobby store with as many options as possible and the pros/cons for each option so that they can make the final decision.

OK, sorry, I assumed you knew what some of the stuff I was talking about meant.

Comp=composition scoring. That is giving someone points based on your opinion of their list. Usually it is meant to combat "cheese" however you define that, but it almost always results in skewing the power levels and pissing off your attendees!

Yes, you have set missions, those should be available in your player packet well ahead of time. As I was saying, for our events, we use a combination of 3 book missions simultaneously. Here's a complete description of the latest version of our rules: http://www.frontlinegaming.org/community/comikaze/comikzae-2012/

That is really detailed and should help you with some ideas.

As for prize support that is up to you. I don't know what the store owner expects, what your players expect, what kind of event it is, etc.

We usually give a big first prize, and then pretty evenly divide the remaining money between paint and play awards.