Today we have a guest article from the long absent, but now returned, Brindley Smith! Brindley reached out as he had an idea for an article talking about event attendance, and growing the community. Naturally, I jumped at the chance for some of his observations! Enjoy!
Hey all, it’s been a while! Now that I’m working my way back into the hobby and competitive scene after a 2+ year absence, I wanted to channel my ADHD into an article that folks may find interesting, or even better to help grow the gaming scene! I, like many others, largely fell out of the hobby scene for minigames through the pandemic (the last article I wrote was in April 2020!!). I have also noticed how the cost of living has impacted peoples’ abilities to participate in an expensive hobby like mini-wargaming. Consequently, many gaming communities have taken a significant hit in terms of size and activity if not disappeared entirely.
Many out there, including myself, really want to see our favorite game flourish and have as many people who play Kings of War as possible try GTs, where they can see the best aspects of Kings of War. In my opinion, it is not the clean rules, not the approachable company, and not even using our favorite minis, but the amazing community itself that is the best aspect of Kings. In no other competitive game I’ve played have I ever had some of my best experiences in sportsmanship at the top tables of 30+ player GTs.
Group photo from the Kipper’s event in Nanaimo, BC this year. The PNW may be a relatively small region but we have a fantastic group of players!
While this article is focused on 2-day tournaments, it may be helpful to prospective new TOs and even communities that do not frequently use soft scores.
Getting people out to events
I’ve always enjoyed organizing social events, and that translated to Kings of War in the form of local tournaments and 2-day GTs. I sometimes had difficulty in the past with getting as many players as possible to attend events, often due to budget or time issues.
Some of the ways to help more casual players attend, as well as those on a budget, is to try and reduce the base cost of events. Venues can be expensive and result in ticket prices being bumped up a good deal, so it can often end up being the community that brings event costs down, by having locals host visitors from out of town, or by organizing carpools to save on gas.
My wife and I were helped a great deal during our time in Montreal by staying with friends at each GT we attended, which cut down on the cost. Holding GTs on holidays can make them more difficult to attend, so the location and date are something to also consider if you want to make your tournaments more accessible.
The other avenue for TOs to entice players to attend is by doing the best they can to increase the potential value of awards available, whether that be through prizes or trophies. Sponsorships are out there if you know where to look, with Mantic and local game stores being no exception! Having a big prize table can be exciting, but in my opinion, I believe most prizes should go to a raffle. This provides everyone a chance to win just by attending the event!
For smaller communities or areas where budgets are tight, a great way to help everyone remember the event is goodie bags or attendance rewards. Mike Adkins for example went above and beyond for his online GT during the pandemic when he shipped every player a swag bag!!
When you walk into an event and see a packed prize table it’s hard not to get excited! If you can, I suggest posting some of the prizes to your local KoW groups ahead of time.
I personally love to compete for unique trophies that stand out or remind me of the experience of a given event. This is again where the Northeast region deserves a shout-out for blowing us away with the effort they put into their awards. Whether it be custom swords, engraved metalwork awards, or the insane creations from the Orctown folks (see below), I think nothing is more exciting to compete for.
Shown here is an array of prizes from the Crossroads 4-player team tournament
Other factors make events exciting as well, such as custom scenarios or miniatures, great venues, costume contests, and thematic tables to play on. The effort that goes into organizing events is often recognized, and being able to deliver these great experiences goes a long way toward encouraging players to go out of their way to attend the next event. (These things also build hype for an event, which helps convince players to attend – editor)
Importance of a Clear and Player-Friendly Scoring Rubric
Depending on your local community, the value of winning best overall is often seen as the main accomplishment in our hobby, rather than strictly winning best general at the exclusion of all else. I believe prioritizing overall scores benefits the gaming community because it not only rewards players for good conduct and friendly games but results in gorgeous armies as the overall painting levels in the community improve. Finding the right balance between soft scores (paint/sportsmanship) and battle scores is a difficult task. I would argue that the way this scoring is handled plays a massive role in how welcoming a tournament can be to newcomers or casual players, as well as how rewarding it can be to place high in the rankings.
Paint scoring is tricky to evaluate in a way that makes as many people as possible feel rewarded for their work. At its core, you want to encourage players to improve their painting ability, and this can often be accomplished through the use of a painting rubric. Typically in the form of a checklist, a rubric can award points for things such as: highlighting, basing, detail work, freehand, conversions, or overall army theme. It goes without saying that judging paint scores for every army in an event takes time, and requires a solid grasp of the mechanics that go behind professional painting methods (which I certainly lack)! A rubric’s faults lie in its inability to separate a truly gorgeous army from one that simply aims to tick off as many boxes as possible. This is where judge-awarded points come in, in which an army can be judged on either general painting ability and technique, or in how it stands vs the rest of the room as a whole. A combination of these should allow a good spread of painting scores in an event. Providing feedback for players who request it can be very helpful so that they can know what to work on to improve.
For ideas on how to improve your painting techniques, check out this recent article https://dash28.org/2023/08/28/better-tabletop-standard-a-paint-judges-advice-on-making-your-army-look-better/.
Sportsmanship scoring can be tough to score as well, though for different reasons. While you can have a rubric checklist for sports scores, such as: having printed copies of your list, being a respectful opponent, or enjoying your game; these points can often result in everyone having identical scores.
The additional points for sports scores at a base level often simply come from votes ranking your 1-3 favorite opponents at the end of an event. This, however, can result in a popularity contest effect, where the jolly boisterous players with great personalities may easily stand out as “favorite opponents” relative to someone who may be quieter or have a “resting sad/mad face”.
Something that is also often overlooked for these votes is how players with high attrition (ie. tabling opponents), or armies that are frustrating to play against will find earning votes more difficult. It can be frustrating for players to do poorly in sports votes in each event they attend despite potentially utilizing very clean play, or being respectful and patient opponents. To combat this, some of the TOs in the Pacific Northwest region have created a scoring rubric where sports votes are not strictly for favorite opponent, but instead a vote for the best demonstrations of clean play, friendly play, or best teaching/learning experience.
An example of two great opponents who demonstrate clean play, a good learning experience, and are good sports. Both are having fun here I promise! (That is Rossi’s “I really made a soup sandwich of this” face- Editor)
Takeaways and Conclusion
Overall, I believe that the best balance of battle/paint/sports scores (in %) is 60/20/20 or 50/25/25. Ideally, the spread for soft scores in a 5 game event (or the range from the best to worst scores) should work out to ~20 points. In the extremes, an example of this impact is how a player who went 5/0/0 with an unfinished army should not automatically take best overall vs an opponent who went 4/0/1, but brought a well-painted army and showed exemplary sportsmanship.
An example of a modified PNW region rubric I put together, based on feedback from my local community and from my experience playing in the PNW and Northeast regions, is below . As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, my hope is that TOs may find this rubric helpful as a guideline for how they may score their events and that this form of scoring may result in a more welcoming and rewarding competitive environment for the player base as a whole. If we can encourage more people to come out and give them a more rewarding experience, I’m hopeful that we can grow the community and make a lot of friends along the way!
