So over the weekend I ran and umpired Runefang VII. It was 2400 points and required participants to bring an army that had a Swedish Comp score of at least 11.
The event attracted 16 people but unfortunately one had to drop out the day before so there was an odd number. This necessitated me playing as the Bye Buster in addition to umpiring.
I am lucky that I've got things running pretty slickly these days and playing as the buster didn't cause me any problems. I used a daemon list and this plays pretty quickly leaving me ample time to answer questions, input results and during afternoon tiffin on Saturday, pop in to GW to buy the White Dwarf.
The event seemed very relaxed and a few people commented on how laid back and friendly it was. Certainly from an umpiring viewpoint there weren't too many curly questions. One came up about assaults in building but it was covered in the FAQs.
Last game on Saturday one player had a wedding to go to so this dropped it back to even numbers. This allowed me to mark the presentation of the armies using my amended checklist. I found this straightforward and by breaking things into Painting - Detail - Basing - Conversions it allowed me to objectively mark the armies rapidly. I could also tell players where they lost points. In the end the average score was 31-32 out of 35. The top three scoring armies were also the top three armies for players choice.
Maximum sports were scored by all players which reflected the laid back nature.
For the bye I gave the player 20 BPs and max Sports this always causes a conundrum as you don't want it to influence results. In this case no prize winner played the bye. It also illustrates the reason I go out of my way to ensure we have even numbers if at all possible.
The only downside for me was the low numbers. Last year some people requested greater variety in the type of events. His year I have tried to create this variety by changing point sizes and comp systems. However the number of people attending events has actually fallen dramatically. So it seems at least in part the community hasn't backed what the more vocal elements requested. In future I will be inclined to run permissive comp - FOB Lite - and stick to 2400 points until the numbers show some recovery [people tend to attend if there are less restrictions]. I'll leave the variety to other events.
However the lower numbers didn't at all dampen what was for me at least a very fun event.
Posted with Blogsy
I think you do all that a TO can to get people along to events. It's up to us as gamers to turn up.
ReplyDeleteThe only observation I'd make is that perhaps we are spoiled for choice, especially here in Wellington. With a FOB event every 2-3 months, as well as CtA, Vermintide and other events we get a lot of options. Maybe it's reached the point of saturation, and the available pool of players can't commit to so many events.
It's a nice problem to have as a player, but if it's unsupportable for TOs then something has to give.
Looking forward to getting back into it after September.
Well, I know most of the Kapiti contingent are still keen, but with Hamish's partner having just had a baby and myself 3 months pregnant, it's kinda put a damper on Warhammer for the moment :( Hoping to make a couple events over the year, but after nearly throwing up on the table at NZTC due to morning sickness (found this out post tournament), I'm thinking I might have to leave it for the moment. Really missing playing the tournament scene this year though. Hopefully I'll be doing a couple next year though
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