BFNZEWGT Tournament Report with Rob Shirley On the weekend of 27 - 28 April 2013, the Hamilton (NZ) Immortals hosted a tournament named the Bloody Fantastic New Zealand Early-war Tournament or BFNZEWGT for short.  We ended up with a total of twenty eight participants, and were rapt in the numbers as they consisted of just eight travellers and twenty local players. Of the locals, five of them were relative newcomers to Flames Of War; with only a handful of games under their belt and for some it was their very first dance.

Though the tournament stuck to the traditional 1500 points played on 6’ x 4’ tables over two and a half hour round. There were a number of things we did differently to make this event a unique experience for the players, these included:

Mission Selection The missions were a combination of the newest i.e. version three, and most modified from version two missions. A combination of Hold The Line, Cauldron, Dust Up, Surrounded, Counterattack and Pincer were played; providing a total of three Defensive battles, two Mobile battles and one Fair Fight. The Army Lists These were all electronically sent out before the event and given to the entrants upon arrival on the Saturday morning; they received a printed copy of them, plus the histories.

Two people entered armies that gave them the right to replace Dust Up with Death from Above, and another two entered armies that gave them the option of playing raiding missions in rounds two and five. Scoring There is no aggregation of scores across the five categories (except for the Young Guns and Dunkirk that were awarded on the same basis). Victory Points, Sports, Painting, Terrain and History are all equally rewarded with prize support. There is no aggregation or weighting of scores; low dice roll wins ties for prizes.

The prize support was amazing. Each entrant received a Battlefront blister of their choice; a Mark One supplied $10 discount voucher and a 15% off deal. Vagabonds (Hamilton) supplied prizes for the place getters; the first place getters in each category received a Battlefront in a Box Roads box set (in addition to the Vagabonds contributions), second place getters each received a similar Battlefield in a Box Roads box set and third place getters received a Battlefield in a Box Ponds box set.  In addition, all seventeen award winners received an individualised trophy acknowledging their efforts.

Nine people were in the running for the Terrain awards. Between them they provided twenty one tables that were themed on particular Early-war battles.  Starting with the Battle of Wizna in North-east Poland on 7 September 1939 and ending with being on the escarpment above Gambut, Libya on 22 November 1941. The tables are laid out in the chronological order with tables one through five dedicated to Poland, the Low Countries and France the next seven, then Greece with two tables, North Africa with four tables, Crete two tables and finally Lebanon with one table.

Results Terrain: Alastair Mundell (11), Steve Chambers (7), Kevin King (4). Painting: Daniel Maguire (8), Kevin King (4), Mike Haycock and Nick Booth (2). Sportsmenship: Philip Porter (30+3), Marlin Fisher (30+3), Nick Booth (30+2). History: Steve Chambers(18), Alistair Mundell (17), Rob Shirley (17). Dunkirk: Casey Hills (13). Young Guns (Under 18 years): Dominic Wilshier (23), Cameron King (14). Generalship: Isaac Henderson (31), Mike Haycock(27) and Paul Mounsey (27).

The Axis/Allies split was 18 to 10. Mainly due to the large number of brand new, or comparatively inexperienced players who had been lent complete armies.

Despite being a lot of work, and I thoroughly enjoyed organising the event. The most likely date for BFNZEWGT in 2014 is 26 - 27 April; it is the middle weekend of the School holidays. ~ Rob.