As we pause this Memorial Day weekend to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in order to ensure our freedom, it is only fitting that we celebrate their lives by pushing plastic soldiers around and rolling dice to re-enact their battles.
This was my first trip down to NashCon - a miniature wargaming convention held just south of Nashville by the
HMGS Mid-South Chapter. Not knowing what to expect, when I was asked to come down and run Kings of War (and this was actually the 2nd time I had been asked. Last year I had been asked to do it as well, but got very little interest, and it fell just before our family vacation (meaning it would have been three weekends out of town in a row (with Origins two weeks later)). Getting a bit more response than before (actually, two different people asked me to run it) I thoguht it would be fun. I also figured I'd run a Dreadball tournament down there as well.
One of the best parts (as a tournament organizer) of Nashcon turned out to be the prize support - as the convention provided quite a bit. For the Kings of War tournament I got several items from Gavin at
BoltAction.us, including an Army Painter starter paint set, a set of walls (and everyone needs more terrain) and Fleabag Riders (I always feel it is good prizes when I'm just a little bit reluctant to give them away because I'd like them myself!). Even more impressive however was the awesome battle sword from Todd Perkins and the
Laughing Corpse gaming club. They were running the 40K tournament, and created a Best General sword for us.
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| The sword was just so awesome to be able to give away! |
When I first submitted this event, I expected it to be small (not knowing of many people playing in TN) so I set it at 1000 pts (I view this as a 'beginner' tournament). I then got some feedback that a local club would get up to 18 people on their monthly Kings of War days - so I didn't know quite what to expect. As it turned out, it was on the small side, with five players (and that nasty ringer guy, who keeps bringing Abyssal Dwarfs and doesn't lose enough with them).
One of the biggest drawbacks to playing the ringer army is I tend to forget to get pictures of the other games - which I did the first round. I played by Abyssal Dwarfs against Rebecca and her Orcs, Jon played his undead against Paul and his dwarfs, and Matt played his undead against Terrell's Kingdoms of Men army.
In the second round, I played Jon (he hates when he has to play his old man, but managed to do better than he expected with a solid draw), Matt played Paul and Rebecca played Terrell.
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| Paul rolls the dice against Matt |
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| Terrell counts his hits as Rebecca calmly watches |
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| Abyssal Dwarfs getting flanked by the undead |
In the final set of games, I played Terrell, Jon played Matt, and Rebecca played Paul.
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| Terrell getting distracted from the fight for the portal |
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| Jon carefully measuring his catapult shot against Matt |
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| Paul is flabbergasted by Rebecca's bold move |
When it was all over, Jon came out on top. I had to adjust the scoring a bit, as out of the five only one (Jon) (and the ringer, which doesn't count) had a fully painted army. So I decided NOT to judge painting this time (but I had better see more painted armies next year!) so Champion and Best General were effectively the same award. Rebecca walked away with an opportunity to excel at another game with a copy of Mars Attacks!, and everyone else got to choose one of the prizes donated by the convention.
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| Paul, Terrell, Rebecca, Matt and Jon |
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| And the winner of the awesome sword and (not nearly as awesome next to the sword) champion plaque |
So while small, it was a fun tournament and I look forward to possibly doing it again next year.
I did mention that I set up a Dreadball tournament as well. This was then upgraded to an NADC South regional championship - where the winner would receive a coveted Blaine trophy, and free admission to the Adepticorp NADC Championship at Adepticon 2016. Did I mention that this was generally a Historical Miniatures event? It turns out that most people coming to a miniature event aren't interested in a board game championship - and except for my son (who I brought with me) I didn't have anyone show up for this. So Blaine goes unclaimed for now.
Below are the final results - which as always were generated using
warscore. Head over to there to check out the current US Kings of War standings.
I also wanted to give a special thanks to Matt - also known on the Mantic forums as DustCrusher - as he is the creator of the fantastic
unit cards that I have been using for the past two years when I demo Kings of War (and I am definitely going to miss these when I start teaching the 2.0 version at Origins and Gencon)
Nashcon 2015
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