NZ Team Championships - A TO's Roundup

The NZ Teams Championships were a fortnight ago and over the time since the event I have been able to reflect on how the tournament went.

So What Worked

• Teams of Four - it allowed a spread of armies so the matchup process was important and teams had to think about how they would approach different situations
• Matchup Process - stolen shamelessly from overseas, it allowed teams to try and engineer beneficial matchups
• The Players - all the players embraced the concept. Teams signed up early giving the event financial viability and all turned up to celebrate Warhammer
• Painted Armies - requiring painted armies was important. It meant that there had to be some investment in the process of list creation
• The Venue - was exactly the right size for the number of players, close to food outlets and with offstreet parking. It got very hot on Saturday though.
•  Scoresheets/Software - worked perfectly. The Swiss Draw was only compromised once which required a bottom up build but my visions of nightmares constructing the draw (I've done 10 player 6 round draws before) didn't eventuate
• Twitter Buzz/Blog Smashtalk - this created a real buzz before the event and this carried through to the two days. The banter was great.
• Two Officials - I thought Locky and Ryan did a great job marshalling the event. Locky was a great umpire taking no nonsense. Two people meant there was always coverage
• Trophies - I was happy with the reaction to the trophies. I wanted podium teams to have a decent keepsake and I also wanted to fund a permanent trophy (as I've done via the Warlords for the Masters). I've been asked why there weren't prices for Best Sport and Best Painted and the reason is I think they are more suited for individual events. 
• No Formal Beauty Parade - driven by the timetable. It was very hard to fit everything in allotted time and felt that the 30 minutes required for a beauty pageant was best spent elsewhere.

What Didn't Work

• Four Games On Saturday - the biggest complaint I had was that four games on the Saturday was one game too much. For some it was too tiring and for others it impinged on the social side of the event. I agree with both criticisms and will definitely go 3/3 next year. It will obviously mean later finish which will impact more on out of towners
• Scoring - there needs to be a whiteboard/datashow reporting the round by round scores. This keeps teams informed and also ensures everyone is on a level playing field. This will occur for next year.
• Eventual 1st and 2nd Didn't Play - this is a rarity but also an outcome of six rounds, ten teams and Swiss Chess. There was only one round where Top Down Swiss Chess didn't work and that was Round 5. Here modified Swiss Chess was used to ensure teams didn't have to replay previous opponent while ensuring top teams played highest scoring opponent available. Solution is more teams or less rounds. Will say First Place went 5-1, 2nd, 3rd and 4th  Places were all 4-2. Generally I suppose you expect top team to go unbeaten - demonstrates how hard fought it was.
• Friday Opening - having the hall open on Friday evening was a bit of a damp squib. One game was played, I thought there might be more. I guess travel precludes it.

Overall I was very happy with the outcome for the inaugural event. I am currently talking to venues now for 2014 but they are unable to confirm until September.