What is War Kings? It is a Kings of War Grand Tournament being held near Dayton Ohio the weekend of April 21-22 2018. You can sign up for it here.
Ok, so that's all you need to know, and we'll be sold out soon? Ok, maybe you'd like a little more information.
Anyone who reads this most likely already knows I like a little game called Kings of War. I've been promoting it since 2013, running small tournaments and teaching people how to play the game. I had watched the tournament scene grow from the few that I was able to run to the point that it seems like there is almost a tournament every weekend.
So this year, our club, the Ohio War Kings has decided it is time to run our own big tournament. Grand Tournaments are two day events with 5 or 6 rounds. They tend to bring in some of the best players, sometimes from all over the country.
One thing we were missing was a qualifying tournament for the Masters in the midwest region in Ohio, and in the spring. We had several towards the fall, so we decided to put ours in April. Unfortunately that is the month the huge Lone Wolf tournament takes place, so that may impact us a bit (even though it is 1000 miles (almost exactly) from our event).
So we picked a couple of dates, and then began looking at places to hold it. Up until this time, I had always run tournaments either at conventions or game stores. The few that weren't at one of these (the original Manticon for example) were organized by someone else, so for me it was all the same. For the first time I had to find a place. No one every says how challenging that can be.
We had some ideas for some cool places to try to have this (one was a local brew pub that supports local gaming), but after determining our budget we just couldn't afford them. The next thing was to get some quotes for room from hotels. I was actually very disappointed at how few of them even bothered to respond. Most of the ones that did would require us to sell out our event (honestly, not very likely our very first year) just to break even on the room.
We did eventually find one that was fairly reasonable (and it happens to be across the street from where I work), so it is being held at the Wingate by Wyndham Dayton - Fairborn. We got decent rates on the banquet hall, and even a block of rooms for our players.
Once we locked in our date, I set up a web page and paypal shopping cart, and opened it up for registration. We added a Facebook event and put it up on kowtournaments.com. My wife helped with the logo (modified from our Ohio War Kings club logo), and we made up flyers to start handing out at other tournaments and conventions.
One thing that is nice about tournaments as nearly all of them are slightly different, each in their own way. This keeps the players thinking (they can't just bring the same list to every event) and just keeps it from getting boring.
The previous two years at the Gem City Massacre we used the idea of players bringing terrain and taking it with them to each table (as opposed to the tables being set up in advance by the TO). While we thought about doing this again, it would be too much of a headache for something this big. Someone suggested (I don't remember if it was my son (but he claims he has all my good ideas anymore) or not) that we have everyone bring their own War King to the tournament - similar to what was done for the International Campaign Day. It fit our named too well not to do it, so that is now a requirement.
So here we are, three months out from Ohio's first Kings of War Grand Tournament. It is a midwest qualifier for the 2018 Masters Championship (and possibly Mid-Atlantic as well !). 2250 points (250 of which can be used for your War King).
Watch this space for more information as it becomes available. I want to talk about building your own War King to lead your force, who our sponsors are, and even some of the players you may or may not have heard of that have signed up.
Because it is all fun and games . . .
Anyone who reads this most likely already knows I like a little game called Kings of War. I've been promoting it since 2013, running small tournaments and teaching people how to play the game. I had watched the tournament scene grow from the few that I was able to run to the point that it seems like there is almost a tournament every weekend.
So this year, our club, the Ohio War Kings has decided it is time to run our own big tournament. Grand Tournaments are two day events with 5 or 6 rounds. They tend to bring in some of the best players, sometimes from all over the country.
One thing we were missing was a qualifying tournament for the Masters in the midwest region in Ohio, and in the spring. We had several towards the fall, so we decided to put ours in April. Unfortunately that is the month the huge Lone Wolf tournament takes place, so that may impact us a bit (even though it is 1000 miles (almost exactly) from our event).
So we picked a couple of dates, and then began looking at places to hold it. Up until this time, I had always run tournaments either at conventions or game stores. The few that weren't at one of these (the original Manticon for example) were organized by someone else, so for me it was all the same. For the first time I had to find a place. No one every says how challenging that can be.
We had some ideas for some cool places to try to have this (one was a local brew pub that supports local gaming), but after determining our budget we just couldn't afford them. The next thing was to get some quotes for room from hotels. I was actually very disappointed at how few of them even bothered to respond. Most of the ones that did would require us to sell out our event (honestly, not very likely our very first year) just to break even on the room.
We did eventually find one that was fairly reasonable (and it happens to be across the street from where I work), so it is being held at the Wingate by Wyndham Dayton - Fairborn. We got decent rates on the banquet hall, and even a block of rooms for our players.
One thing that is nice about tournaments as nearly all of them are slightly different, each in their own way. This keeps the players thinking (they can't just bring the same list to every event) and just keeps it from getting boring.
The previous two years at the Gem City Massacre we used the idea of players bringing terrain and taking it with them to each table (as opposed to the tables being set up in advance by the TO). While we thought about doing this again, it would be too much of a headache for something this big. Someone suggested (I don't remember if it was my son (but he claims he has all my good ideas anymore) or not) that we have everyone bring their own War King to the tournament - similar to what was done for the International Campaign Day. It fit our named too well not to do it, so that is now a requirement.
So here we are, three months out from Ohio's first Kings of War Grand Tournament. It is a midwest qualifier for the 2018 Masters Championship (and possibly Mid-Atlantic as well !). 2250 points (250 of which can be used for your War King).
Watch this space for more information as it becomes available. I want to talk about building your own War King to lead your force, who our sponsors are, and even some of the players you may or may not have heard of that have signed up.
Because it is all fun and games . . .
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