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Tournament Guide

Flames Of War

Flames Of War Tournaments

Tournaments are a great way for gamers to get together and share their hobby. Not only do gamers get to try their generalship against a wide range of other gamers, they also get to admire well-presented armies, swap ideas, and generally have fun.

One of the fun aspects of miniature gaming is pitting yourself against the best generals and seeing how well you can do. To keep things fun for all of the participants and emphasise all aspects of the hobby equally, we have found the following format to be helpful. You may find it useful as a template for running your own tournament.

Tournament Structure

A tournament normally has five games over two days,but longer or shorter tournaments are possible. Gamers play three 1500 point games on the first day, but only two games on the second to allow gamers to travel home that evening. Keeping the games to 1500 points means that they will usually be completed in one to two hours, making three games possible each day. Allow two and a half hours for each game (as some games will always go on longer) with a half-hour break between for the players to rest and refresh themselves. 

Organising Your Tournament

The Flames Of War Tournament program is the easiest way of running your tournament. It handles everything from registration to prize giving and prints out all of the forms and reports you will need. The program can be downloaded for free from the links below.

Zip file with Tournanment program with Run Time and PDF instructions...

Zip file with Tournanment program for those with Mircosoft Access, includes PDF instructions...

Tournament PDF Instructions alone...

New Version of Tournament Software

We have been steadily developing the Tournament software since it was first released and now have version 1.06 ready for you to use.

You have provided plenty of feedback that we have incorporated into the subsequent versions.

This latest version has the following features:
•    You have three choices of scoring for Generalship: Victory Points only, Wins only, or Victory Points + Wins.
•    You can use either Wins or Victory Points to group players for the draw.
•    The Historical Army scoring has been completely revamped.
•    You can award either the top three places overall, or just a single overall winner.
•    You can elect to show or hide the sporting score in the round-by-round scores printed after each round.
•    The results slips are separate for each player, so their sporting scores can remain anonymous.
•    You can enter the game to be played each round and its start time and this information along with the finish time is printed on the draw to remind players when they check their draw for the next round.

Scoring Choices

Depending on your preference you can rank generals on their Wins, their Victory Points, or the sum of both. If you choose the Wins only or Victory Points only options, any times are broken with reference to the best performance on both measures combined.

Draw Choices

The draw uses the Swiss Chess method where players are grouped into blocks, then assigned to play another player in the same block that they have not yet played. You can now choose to use either Victory Points total or number of wins as the block.

Within each block the program attempts to avoid players on the same side or from the same club playing each other, but will make these match ups if necessary to get a draw from that block.

Using wins to group players for the draw will generally provide more Axis-against-Allies match ups than using Victory Points.

Historical Army Scoring

We have totally revamped the way we award points for the best army score. There are now four equal parts to the score. This new system is targeted to encourage players to make sure that their forces and documentation are complete to make things easy for the organiser and other players, as well as encouraging a high standard of appearance.

Tournament organisers might want to award a Best Painted Army award separate from the overall tournament scores.

Force List

You are awarded up to five points when you submit your force list as follows:

• Name: A player gets this point if their force list has the player’s name on it. It’s amazing how many players omit this essential piece of information!
• On Time: A player gets this point if they submitted a legal force list on time. This makes the organiser’s job so much easier.
• Formation and Battle Identified: A player gets these two points by identifying division, brigade, or other formation it represents and the battle that it fought at. This does not need to be detailed. Simply stating that this force is from the 3rd Armoured -Division during Operation Cobra in July 1944 is enough to get these two points.
• Platoons Identified: A player gets this point as a bonus if they provide more detail about the identity of their force, for example by identifying the company that they are fielding and the source of the supporting platoons, e.g. the Tank Company is George Company, 32nd Armoured Regiment, and the Armored Rifle Platoon is 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, 36th Armored Infantry Battalion, etc.

This encourages players to submit a complete force list on time.

Presentation

You are awarded up to five points during the dress parade when the judge inspects your forces as follows:

Uniformly Painted: A player gets this point for having their force painted in a uniform style to a uniform standard. It doesn’t matter whether they are works of art or simply workman-like. What is important is that they look like they belong together.
• Strong Visual Theme: A player gets this point for going a step further with their force and giving them a strong visual theme. This could be something as simple as having them all camouflaged and based in the same style and all bearing the same style of markings. On the other hand, talented players could go to town on this.
• Markings on Vehicles: A player gets this point if all of their vehicles bear appropriate markings. This is about attractively presented models, not rivet-counting. It doesn’t matter if the markings are not perfectly historical, as long as they are generally appropriate.
• Platoon Commanders Identifiable: A player gets this point if all of their platoon command teams are identifiable. This will not generally be a problem for infantry and gun platoons. Tank and transport platoons should have the platoon commander’s vehicle readily identifiable either through markings or through the way they are modelled (e.g. having different commanders for instance). Don’t forget that weapons and supporting platoons like anti-aircraft tanks and self-propelled guns need identifiable commanders too!
• Background: A player gets this bonus point for having an interesting historical background for their force. This allows other players to appreciate the historical role of the force.

This encourages players to bring forces that look good and are easy for their opponent to identify.

Painting

During the Dress Parade the judge will score each force from 1 to 5 based on the standard and uniformity of painting and modelling displayed.
1 - Unpainted army.
2 - Poorly painted or just undercoated.
3 - Good basic painting, faces, hands, boots and guns!
4 - Well-painted force with added details, accurate colours and scenic basing!
5 - Every model is a masterpiece.

This encourages players to bring well-painted forces beyond that needed to simply play the game.

Popular Vote

In addition to the umpire’s assessment, players will score points from the votes of other players during the Dress Parade.

Awarding Top Placings

You can choose to have one or three overall placings before awarding the best general, army, and sporting player awards.


Last Updated On Friday, May 28, 2010 by Wayne at Battlefront