The Equinox Experience - 40k

As you can see from the previous post, Dunn Senior put up a post on the Equinox experience as a whole from the fantasy perspective, and I thought I would do one similar for 40k.

Here's my runthrough of observations.

What Worked:

Attendance - This was the third Equinox 40k event. The initial one had 27, the second sold out at 40, the third sold out at 40, however only 36 people seemed to have shown up.

Terrain - For the most part, terrain was adequate, which is more than you can usually say for any tournament ever. In half my games I was able to solidly block line of sight to my crucual units, meaning that not only was there enough terrain, but that it was suitable for 5th edition as well. So often terrain was never adapted from the abstract of 4th, and left LOS wide open, but that was less so here.
That being said, there were a couple of tables that seemed far more open, but these were by far the minority.

Table Numbers - I felt obliged to put this here purely because it was in Pete's 'what didn't work'... we had table numbers and they performed the required job perfectly adequately.

Primary Missions - While it would have been nice to have one or two primary kill-point missions, the primary missions in the pack were sufficiently different from the boring rulebook same ole hash to keep things interesting, while not going crazy or whacky and thus being random. They allowed for good solid competition and a way of determining the better in each game, which is what TO's should generally be aiming for.

Location - as mentioned by Pete, that side of town seems fairly optimal for the majority of participants.

Players Pack - for 40k, I was satisfied with the completeness of the pack, and the timing.

Weighting and Judging - Listen. Do you hear that? No? Neither do I. That is the sweet sweet sound of no one bitching. 108 games of 40k took place last weekend. In those 108 games, only 1 had a sports hit. The average painting mark was 37.39/40 - 38 was full marks for painting and another 2 marks on top of that for a display tray, so people I imagine are fairly happy there too. The impact this had was that it was almost entirely a battle point tournament, that happened to encourage people to make sure their models were painted and that noone threw their toys. That's a win in my book.

What could be improved:

Out of Towners - this is not for the event organisers to improve. This is for the community. TRAVEL TO EVENTS YOU LAZY BASTARDS :P! Unlike fantasy, the total number of out of towners was very, very low. While this is fantastic that Auckland has such a large and healthy 40k community, it would be fantastic to see more people coming from out of town.
If Haydn Korach can show up with 1 hours sleep, literally less than 6 hours after someone has made a literal attempt on his life, you can drag your latte sipping butt up the day before ;)!

Venue - While Pete thought it was fantastic, I feel that you are now reaching such a level of success with attendance that you are limiting yourself by the relatively low maximum cap of 40 per event. I am of course assuming you are striving to make the event bigger, better, and more prestigious in the future. Otherwise the venue itself was actually nice, even if I did destroy a toilet cubical both mornings.

Waiting List - With the event capped at 40, but only 36 showing up, it would have been great to have a list people could join to show up at late notice. I can think of a couple of people at least that were available and keen for that weekend, but their status was too unknown to commit early enough before sell out. The person I stayed with that weekend actively sacrificed his own attendence so his friend who wouldn't have been able to play otherwise could attend, so its always a little bit sad when you see that actually, they both could have played no problems.

Secondary Missions - This is an area we're all still looking at trying to improve, and I'm not sure any of us have it right. In this case however, the secondarys tended to be a bit too hand in hand with the primary, and the tale of "I either 20-0'd or got 20-0'd" seemed to be all too familiar over the weekend. You never want it to be counter intuitive so that it's almost impossible to 20-0, but ultimately what you strive for in your results is some sort of gradient between 10 and 20 for a win depending on how close the game was.

Round Draws - the same goes here as Petes feedback, something minor but from experience actually makes the life of the TO a lot easier.

Terrain - I mentioned that the terrain for the most part, was functional and great from a game perspective. Some of it needs a little love though, and is looking a bit tired. That being said, some of it is the same terrain that looked tired 5+ years ago when I eeked out a draw against Jack Dunn, so my expectations are low :D

All up, it's a pretty positive report card and hopefully I've not caused much offence for the first time in my life.

- Charlie