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HI all,

I recently started up a indipendant gaming club (Ambrosden Gaming Club) and have been thinking about organiseing a local 40k tournamant, in the summer. The porblem is I've never been in one!

So I would like to know from all you dakka folk, what do you like in a tournament?

Story lead?
Army size?
Played over one day or a weekend?

What sort of points bonus to give for good painting etc. Or should there be seperate prizes for best army, wooden spoon awards and so on
Any tips you have and I'd be very greatful. Thank you.

If you are just starting out then I'd recommend:

1. Attend a tournament first. See what worked, what didn't. If you don't know how these things go then it's best not to make a lot of people mad by missing basic stuff.

2. Keep it to a single day, 3 rounds. It will be FAR easier on you. Only do multi day events when you have a bit of competency.

3. Army Size: - this is going to boil down to how much time you are going to allow. If you are doing 3 rounds and allow 3 hours per round, then you could do 1750 or 2k. If you are talking 2 to 2 1/2 hours then 1500. Essentially, how long do you want to be in the store:

4. Plan for breaks, like 20 minutes or so between rounds with, potentially, a lunch break in there.

5. Prizes, etc, should be based entirely upon the amount of money you collect as entry fees. How many players do you think you can round up? 8, 12, 16?? If you can only get 4 guys and you are charging $10 a head then you have $40, less any expenses, to work with. Expenses MIGHT include a fee paid to wherever you are planning on running the event, terrain - if you that place doesn't have any, etc. If you are doing this at a regular gaming store then you might be good. If you are trying to do this out of a hotel then it could get expensive very very quickly.


To sum up: You really need to attend a local tournament. Maybe 2 or 3. While there watch what's going on and talk to the TO. Ask the other players if they'd be interested in a tournament you will put on; have an idea of venue first.

All the advice I can give is start small if you dont have the experience. lower points and less time with fewer rounds.

Maybe if you have good regulars at your store you can get them to play test for you while you get to know the ropes and as a thanks for their help let them in free or on the cheap?

I second everything clively just said. One thing to bear in mind is that the single most important factor when it comes to running an enjoyable tournament (the personalities of the players who attend) is pretty much out of your control. So you have to make sure that as many of the things that you CAN control go perfectly as you can manage in order to compensate for the occassional "ass-hat" attendee.

Attention to the small details is important. Make sure there is somewhere at the venue itself (Or nearby) where players can stock up on snacks and (preferably) grab a decent meal at lunchtime.

A really handy little trick to keep the atmosphere pleasent (Literally) is to leave a few bottles of spray-on deoderant in the venue toilets and make sure everyone knows they are available for their use. Even the most hygience conscious gamer can start to pong a bit after a sweating out a few close-fought games, and all those bodies packed in a room can raise the temperature quickly.

Both yourself and your players will quickly come to appreciate the availability of deoderent in the toilet. Don't forget to bring out the airfreshner at lunchtime either. Spray when most people are out getting dinner, and not when people are actually eating in the gaming room.

The nature of the prizes you offer can help set the tone of the tournament. Offering the prize of a pound of cheese for the "cheesiest" army list, a tin of spam for the "spammiest" list and a wooden spoon or sympathy card for the player who comes last can encourage an atmosphere of friendly competition. On the other hand, if you offer a cash- prize for the players with the most competitive list (instead of just the winners), it will encourage a more charged competitive environment where players bring the best lists they can.

Finding the right balance between competitiveness and fun for your target audience is the hardest part of running your first tournament. Get it wrong and you'll alienate one half of the community. It's easy to tell when you have the balance right: If, by game three, the guys at the bottom tables are laughing uproariously and slapping each other on the back while the top table guys are sweating it out in silence, then you know you've hit the sweet spot.

Thanks for al the info guys. I am playing my first tourniment soon, so with that I shoul dbe good for a one day event at my club in the summer.

My pleasure. Couple more things before I forget:

Start small. Don't try to cram people into the hall butt to butt and elbow to elbow. Gamers really appreciate a
couple of square feet or so at the end of each table where they can safely place their miniatures. Nothing spoils a players concentration like having to keep one eye on the reserved or dead units balanced precariously atop a tray on an unoccupied seat. With the possible exception of clashing buttocks with the player on the table behind.

Run a mini tournament just for your gaming group first as a test-run before throwing the doors open to all-comers. Your local gaming group will be more forgiving than strangers and something will go wrong in your first tournament. Eight players is a good number for a test run.

Make sure the venue has decent lighting. Lots of people like to take photographs of their games and the various armies.

Set aside an area where tournament goers can display their armies for the painting competition, either before game one or at lunch time.

Make sure there is always a member of the tournament staff at the venue during lunchtime to keep an eye on peoples kit. No-one wants to bag their entire army just to go get lunch, so lots of valuable models will be left in the gaming room even if you ask players not too.

Just make it clear that while there will be someone present in the gaming room, neither you or the venue are responsible for anything that does go missing. You're only human and it's impossible to keep track of what bag/army/display board belongs to what face.

Try to keep the terrain on each table consistent. I'm not saying you should have every table set up identically, using identical terrain, but try to ensure that each table has the same number of ruins, same number (and height) of LOS blockers, same amount of area terrain, same amount of linear obstacles etc. That way no one catch complain that they lost a particular game because of the scenery.

It's preferable to have fewer tables with good terrain than more tables, all of which look like a billiard board. The Tau and Eldar players don't need any more help, believe me.

Set out clear and accurate rules for the tournament and scenarios in the scenario pack. If you are using main book scenarios, either explain which missions and deployment will be used in each round in advance (so that players can tailor their lists accordingly) or make it clear that you, the TO, will roll each rounds mission and deployment at the beginning of each round. You don't want some tables playing Emperor's Will and others playing Relic in the same round. Certain missions and deployments encourage draws rather than wins and if different tables are playing different missions in the same round, the results will be skewed drastically.

And last of all, good luck and welcome to the wonderful, whacky world of a tournament organiser!

Keeping expenses in mind:

I like enough terrain on every table, so - 25% with some LOS-blocking. So, unless you're going to spend a lot on GW's ruins/terrains products, I'd do the following:

a. go to the fabric store for 6x4' felt battle mats, a few green, a few tan, maybe one black. Buy some green for forrest Area Terrain and gray for ruin AT. Cut into round & angular shapes respectively. Not too pricy, especially if you have a girl take you when stuff is on sale
b. foam core ruins on masonite, with wee bits of sand or kitty litter. Glue. Primer black or gray. "Stipple" or dry brush. Quick, cheap. Bunch articles on the 'Net
c. For foliage, buy fish tank 'plants' and glue 'em to small pieces of masonite. easily moves about for AT.
d. Ask for donations or loans from your local crew
e. Tubs to store. This could be a big logistics issue for you to figure out.
f. tables - will Tesco be the cheap UK place to go for light, but strong playing tables? Buy enough 6x4' plywood boards (and cajole a bloke with the lorry to bring 'em! ) to place *on* those tables. Those tables will be your largest expenses, I'd think.

2. Running the tourney efficiently -
a. signing up and pairing at the beginning of the day. Don't wait too long to get the show rolling. Be prepared to either have a ringer for odd numbers, or a points system for an odd-man-out buy. Also, sometimes it's cool to allow grudge matches and 'call outs' But it should not take too long to square off your pairings. You ought to have a dry-erase or some other display board save your voice. Number your tables with 3x5" cards.

Fred vs. Bob - Table 1
Fran vs. Jane - Table 2
etc.

b. round times. A TO that keeps the games on time and the day moving makes a good tourney. There will be one pair of guys who might be playing slow. I like it when the TO has a hard, "Dice Down" call at the specified time, especially round 1, so everyone gets a decent amount of time to eat lunch. Round 3 sucks when you're hungry. Make it a *FLAT* 2:15 or 2:30 with no exceptions. Venues often say 'no' to food inside (drinks or candy, ok), so consider that.

c. calculating of winners (that is, not too much down time waiting for results). So, to you, Godeth, work on some faux game results with 12 or 16 phony names and scores and see how fast you can crank out the Winner, Best Paint & such. There are lotsa systems, so try Excel or Swiss pairing systems .

Size? As others have said, make it 1500 for the first one.

Story lead? - Err. There was some Christmas comedy mixed into last month, but otherwise, sticking with the RB missions (don't use the Relic) is just fine. No mysterious Terrain or Escalation. Check with your local crew if they like Data sheets & Allies and such. Post any restrictions on that stuff a couple weeks in advance.

Have score sheets preprinted with simple (relatively) scoring items for players to fill out and hand in to you. It saves a lot of asking and talking.
Who won. Bonus points (for tie-breakers)
Sports mark
Paint score

 Godeth wrote:
What sort of points bonus to give for good painting etc. Or should there be seperate prizes for best army, wooden spoon awards and so on
Any tips you have and I'd be very greatful. Thank you.

All those are great. Change it up. Here's some examples of categories to mix & match:

Best Overal
Best Paint
Best Sportmanship
Best Imperial army performance
Best Xeno army performance
Wooden Spoon


Painting could be simply Thumbs Up/Down from the players, leaving the TO to only tally the votes. Try that first before you go with a complicated rating system on basing, 3 paint min, highlights, shading, conversions, etc.

At the moment, that would be the logistics stuff that would need to be in place if *I* were to try to organize one. All that and having a place to do it, owner's permission and cooperation, etc.

I have no-idea how to work out prize support.

Wow Some great bits and info in all that guys. Thank you very much.