Growing The Hobby - A Little Bit At A Time

Growing The Hobby - A Little Bit at a Time With Adam Brooker “Conan, What is best in life!? – To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!!”. Conan was very wise and very big, so it may be best not to argue here!But to some players I think their perception of tournament play is that it is a no holds barred, win at all costs, cut throat arena of death. Now while it can happen, when “you’re playing for sheep stations” as we say in Australia, that the game can be like that, mostly tournaments are fairly fun and chilled out events where get to meet a lot of fellow plastic crack addicts. I also think small one day events are a great way to grow the hobby in your local area.

Last weekend we had the first Flames Of War event ever in my friendly local gaming store, Good Games Maitland. The store regularly has events for other systems but never Flames of War and the store owner Jacob was very keen to get a Flames of War following in the store. We have a few regular Flames Of War players and some other occasional players, I have been playing there for two years now, and trying to grow the hobby. With the release of V4 we have had 2 new players locally in Maitland and some other older veterans have come back to the hobby.

I recently ran the V4 and Team Yankee National event this year at CANCON (Australia’s biggest war gaming event), it was my first attempt at running an event and being a TO and what can I say, go hard or go home!! It was fairly exhausting, but fun, and certainly a lot of lessons were learnt, for example - DO NOT play and try to run two events at once!! We also had some new players there who had a blast and learnt a lot, and they told me in some cases events like these are the only chance they get to play against other factions, and in some cases at all.

So when I got back home I immediately had plans to run a small local event for a few reasons: because we had never had one in Maitland before, also to try and grow some enthusiasm for the hobby, and most importantly to allow the new players to learn, have fun, and get exposed to other nations and styles of play.

One thing I remember from my first tournament, apart from all the horrible horrible losses (and one draw! YES!), was how much fun it was and how much I learnt about the game. I learnt about rules I had been playing wrong, I learnt about different ways to play and not lose, and I played games against very good opponents with factions that no one used in my local area. A well run and fun event can do great things for the hobby, and get the local players keen to roll some dice every gaming night! I will say I took a lot of lessons from Ken Snell in how to run a great event in Australia, so thanks Ken!

I decided to start small, and run a one day - three game event, and with V4 Mid War being the most updated rule set currently, I also thought this would make a good transition for the local players, as we go to the new V4 Late War later in the year. This would allow us to have a Mid War event now while it was still the current period and set up to have a Late War one day event to celebrate the release of V4 Late War in June.

So with the help of Aetherworks, the Australian Flames of War distributor, I got some excellent trophies sorted and with some left over 2018 Nationals Objectives from Battlefront, we had a small raffle that allowed some of the local players some cool swag that they could not normally get.

The day went well, despite a few last minute drop outs that meant I had to play, so there was no byes, but on the plus side I could once again field my might Hungarians in battle!! It was a great day, we all had fun and some lessons were hard learnt, eg. do not play Rearguard unless it’s the last game of the day, unless you really like a non-result, and Panzers work much better when they actually hit things. My guns must not have been sighted properly the first game, they gave me dud ammo too! I seriously could not hit the broad side of a barn in the first game and when I did could not roll a firepower test to save me!

At the end of the day we had some very close results for the Placings, and amazingly there was a 3 way tie that I could not break, so we decided to split the prize pool. I’d like to thank all the players for coming, some from many hours away, and show off some very nicely painted forces. Also everyone played in the spirit of the game, and played like gentlemen, we even had a nice pub meal and a cold beverage at lunch. I am very much looking forward to running another one of these for both V4 Late War and Team Yankee later in the year, and so is the local group.

But most of all I want you to know it is not too difficult to run these small one day events in your local area, and if you contact Battlefront I’m sure they will be happy to try to help you in getting these small events started. These type of events grow enthusiasm for the Hobby, attract new players with nice tables and well painted forces, meet new players and learn, but most importantly it allows your local players use their figures that they have spent so much time and money on. These small events can also grow into larger events, and show that tournament play is not win at all costs and crushing your enemies. Placings were – Stuart Stoker, Sean Myles and Adam Brooker Thanks to Aetherworks and Battlefront for their support. Also thanks to Jacob at Good Games Maitland in hosting us there! ~Adam