Tournaments at Origins 2017

So another Origins has come and gone. This was a more challenging one than before (but that is another post). Instead, let's talk about the fantastic pair of tournaments we had.

via GIPHY

The Ohio War Kings have begun the 'interesting' transition to a 'real club', and I would count our official 'birth day' as Origins 2017. And to commemorate it, we had the largest Kings of War tournament I have organized. (Yes, Adepticon and Manticon are bigger tournaments I run, but other people get them together, so I don't have to do too much more than show up on the day and wrangle the players (which can be akin to herding cats)).

Origins has been pretty much my baby to organize and run. Mantic may finally come back next year, but the Ohio War Kings definitely will.

The big tournament was Saturday June 17th, and we had a whopping 22 players. Two of the people who had pre-submitted their lists were unable to make it (unfortunately, real life tends to get in the way of gaming), but two more showed up unexpectedly to fill their places. I has set the event at 24 spaces, and while we had the physical tables to go a little bigger, I wasn't sure if my terrain would stretch far enough.

So with 11 tables set up, we kicked off the first game at 12:30.

Round 1 under way

Some people have asked why we started so late in the day. Well Origins is a HUGE convention. There is so much to do there, and the exhibit hall is big enough that it will take at least a few hours to get through it. I simply want to give the players time to enjoy a little of the convention. This way they can go to the exhibit hall for a couple of hours (it is open from 10 to 6) before the tournament starts, and even for a bit during the dinner break (from 5 to 6:30). Plus there isn't nearly as much going on in the evenings as during the day (there are scheduled events running from 8 am to midnight, but very little to see and do in the evenings if you aren't already in a scheduled event).

Stephen Malone v Derrick Byrd - Columbus v Cleveland

Jon Carter v Arden Bartlett - Jon gets to play someone new for once

Jesse Cornwell v Felix Castro - the battle of the 'nice guys'

Eric Reiss v Amy Stamper (Eric has only been playing for a few months)

Dave Frank v Jordan Reiss - Who says wargamers don't cosplay?

Kim Reiss v Roger Connor - I asked him afterward how it felt to beat up on a woman :-)

Donny Harville v Bob Boggs in only his second tournament, still getting a feel for the game

Cyle Pool v Kara Brown, fresh from her win the previous night

Dave Baker v Grace Patterson - we had four women in the tournament which is fantastic!

Jason Herald v Lee Wygant - Lee was the ringer and was very excited that he did get to play to even out the field.

Andrew Summers v Tom Ziegler on the final table

Dice were rolled, and even a few cries of "Hip Hip - You Suck!" from some of the Manticon veterans were to be heard, but there were no major issues, and as usual for Kings of War, almost no rule questions. The majority of times people asked me to make a ruling during the day were usually due to very close decisions on line-of-sight - where I pulled out my handy dandy straight line laser from Broken Egg Games to easily resolve the situation.

Round 2 started right on time

So much for Jon getting to play new people, as Dave Baker faces off against him

Eric Riess watches Grace Patterson carefully move her unit over the scenario sheet

Dave Franks watches his dice intently as Kim Reiss presses the attack

Kara Brown watches Derrick Byrd shake his dice

Jason Herald checks his list while Andrew Summers prepares to roll to destroy his unit

Stephen Mallone faces Pathfinder Jesse Cornewll

Tom Ziegler and Amy Stamper take a quick breath between attacks

Bob Boggs measures his movement while Felix Castro counts his dice, unconcerned about the devastating charge the elves are attempting to execute in his herd

Cyle Pool pushes his goblins forward against Donny Harvilles Ogres through the heat of the lava board

Roger Connor seems to be scratching his head as Jordan Reiss makes his move

Pathfinder Lee Wygant measures his movement against Arden Bartlett

After round two, we had a long break so people could get dinner, and several of them visited the exhibit hall as well. Of course that meant it was time for me do do the paint judging - the scoresheet I use can be found here if you want to see what I look for when judging painting.

Dave Bakers Ogres

Jon Carter's Undead - with no zombie legions suprisingly

Grace Patterson's Elves (yes, there are some in there under the trees, I think

Eric Reiss's Forces of the Abyss - these need to play on the Lava Table!

David Frank's Herd army

Kim Reiss' Dwarfs

Derrick Byrd's Dwarfs

Kara Brown brought her Basileans back out

Andrew Summer's Brotherhood

Jason Herald's Herd (who unfortunately are not quite finished)

Jesse Cornwell's Goblins - famously feared throughout West Virginia

Stephen Malone's Twilight Kin - not finished but making progress over their previous appearance at the Gem City Massacre last year

Tom Ziegler's Nightstalkers

Amy Stamper's Dwarfs

Bob Bogg's Elves

Felix Castro's Herd

Donny Harville's Ogres

Cyle Pool's Goblins

Jordan Reiss' Orcs

Roger Connor's Undead (strange to see him playing AGAINST orcs instead of with them)

Arden Bartlett's Herd (on a cupcake holder)

Lee Wygant's Undead

So after a nice break, we got back down to the business of crushing our enemies and hearing the lamentations of their spouses as round three got under way.

Cyle had to play against his club-mate, Stephen

Dave fought against Eric

Jason battled Dave for some hot herd on herd action

Felix and Derrick square off

Jesse is oddly contemplative as Jordan checks his dice

Lee rolls against Donny

Kara fights Arden

Grace battles Tom

Bob watches as Kim picks up her unit

Amy faces club-mate Jon

Roger stretches in a tie against Andrew

The final round was a tough, tight battle for first place. As I watched the scores come in, I couldn't help but silently speculate on who would take the lead - if this table got that result then X could take the lead . . . - yeah not a good idea for my sanity.

Round 4 is on!

Derrick carefully measures his move while Dave watches

Donny watches as Andrew moves his unit in

Stephen rolls his dice against Jordan

Cyle makes gang signs while Roger is concentrating on the game

Jon is relieved to playing Eric, who is NOT a club-mate

Bob and Grace had a great game

Jesse and Tom watch the dice roll

Kara and Jason battle it out

Felix moves his models against Arden

Kim looks a little concerned as Lee explains his strategy

Amy watches Dave carefully

And like that, it was finally over.

The whole motley crew!

The final results:

Wooden Spoon - Bob Boggs
Counter Charger - Kim Reiss
Best Sportsman - Dave Frank
Best Appearance - Jon Carter
Best General - Roger Connor
Overall Champion - Andrew Summers

Dave Frank - Best Sportsman

Best Appearance - Jon Carter

Best General - Roger Connor

Overall Champion - Andrew Summers

Full standings are, of course, on warscore.

New this year was the "How You Use It!" tournament on Friday night - a 1000 pt battle where the players changed tables each round, but the armies DID NOT. Each player battled with (and against) four different armies. It was a lot of fun.

Round 1 getting started

Skip Bourque with Abyssals faces off against Carsten Forester playing Basileans

Eric Perotti plays Elves against Jesse Cornwell playing Night Stalkers

Jon Emory playing Romans against Amy Stamper with Barbarians (Celts) on the Kings of War Historical table

Lee Forester with Kingdoms of Men against Kara Brown with Undead

Felix Castro playing Orcs against Scott Mellon with Ogres

Dave Frank with Nature playing Tim Beard with Goblins

Round two kicked off without much trouble

Felix uses Abyssals to take on Amy with Basileans

Jon with Elves takes on Lee with Night Stalkers while Lee's son watches

Jesse takes on Kara in a Romans v Celts Historical battle

Carsten v Tim is a battle of Kingdoms of Men v Undead

Dave with Ogres plays Skip with Orcs

Eric and Dwarfs v Scott and Abyssal Dwarfs for a battle on the edge of the abyss

We took a dinner break, but there was no paint judging (since all the armies were provided and painted by the Ohio War Kings (which means by me))..

Eric played Basileans against Jon with Abyssals

Scott wields Romans against Skip with Celts

Amy uses Kingdoms of Men against Dave using Undead

Jesse faces off against Tim in a battle of Ogres v Orcs

Felix checks the scenario for while playing Nature against Kara with Goblins

Father and son battle as Lee with Dwarfs takes on Carsten with Abyssal Dwarfs

Unfortunately, it appears I forgot to get pictures of the games in the final round, but here are the pairings:

Kara (Abyssals) v Tim (Abyssals)
Carsten (Elves) v Dave (Night Stalkers)
Felix (Kingdoms of Men) v Jesse (Undead)
Eric (Ogres) v Lee (Orcs)
Amy (Goblins) v Scott (Nature)
Jon (Dwarfs) v Skip (Abyssal Dwarfs)

Since we had no painting, this was a straight up battle scores:

All the usual suspects

Third Place - Felix Castro

Second Place - Jesse Cornwall

First Place - Kara Brown

However Kings of War was not the only tournament going on. We also had Dreadball again at Origins, Andrew Wodzianski (a pathfinder from the Washington DC area, who won the tournament last year) ran a Dreadball tournament with the theme "Zero to Hero" - where players had to pick on of the 'weaker teams' - though they could use their 20 MC to purchase a specific MVP per team if they so chose. The teams were