1000 point Warhammer 40,000 event
Firstblood 2019. It was a long time coming but we finally hosted our first event for 2019. This was the fourth time we have hosted Firstblood. A 1000 point, hobby focused event designed to gently kick off the ObSec event scene for the year. The idea behind Firstblood is that it is a gateway event. A friendly, fast paced, relaxed day where soft scores are almost as valuable as wins or losses.
I want to digress slightly. I’m going to make an effort to change my language around events. In the past we have referred to them as tournaments. What I have noticed is that the word tournament has some negative connotations and associations for some people. I have in the past attempted to address some of these negative stereotypes that go with the idea of tournament players however the stigma still exists. So I’m just going to change my language. Hopefully by calling them events it gives a slightly more accurate picture of what we do.
Which brings me to my next point – pictures. I didn’t bring my camera. What sort of photographer manages to come out without her camera? Well to be honest the car was that tightly packed with event gear (terrain, boards, banners etc) there was barely room for me let alone my camera. I did offer to stay home to make more room in the car but my kind offer was rejected. Actually it was less of an offer to stay home and more of a ‘wake up – I’m not going. I quit’ which was heartily rejected. So I have to say a huge thank you to Mark Howarth who provided the photos for this post.
The venue
We are in a new venue for Firstblood 2019. We are in Manning Hall. It is a smaller venue than we are used to and so we capped it at 70 players. Mike and I chatted about it and we were pretty sure we could fit 35 tables in the room but I’ll be honest we weren’t 100%. I had tried to get a room plan from the council so I could plot it out to be sure but we couldn’t get one so we had a few contingency plans for if 35 tables and 70 people wouldn’t fit. Luckily it did!
There are 40 trestle tables available at Manning Hall and after looking at the room set up with 35 tables we think that 80 players would be the absolute max that we could fit in here.
The players
We sold out Firstblood 2019 in about 24 hours. It was mental. I think we could have easily sold another 50 tickets if we had had the space. We had a player drop out last night and so we were going to have an uneven number however a player turned up with an army just in case so that worked out well. Or it would have if we hadn’t had another player drop out due to ill health this morning. So now we were back to odd numbers. Thankfully we were able to secure a ringer pretty quickly and we were back to 70 players. We don’t have any female players here today so while there isn’t much in the way of gender diversity in players there is in the armies.
The armies
We had a fair spread of armies represented. These pie charts are thanks to Down Under Pairings
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The missions
The missions for today’s event were straight out of chapter approved. If you are interested you can find the mission in the players pack.
The missions were specifically and carefully chosen. We wanted an event where players had the opportunity to think about the armies they were taking and to work out how the players pack and the missions could inform army choice. It turns out that a number players didn’t read the players pack and so didn’t realise the implications that the missions would have. For example in a number of the missions it was possible (and happened a number of times) that a player could be tabled and could still win the game based on objectives.
The day as a whole
We can never go past an event without saying thank you. Steve was here before us this morning (thanks to a slight technical hitch) and by 6.45 there was an army here to help set up. The many hands makes light work saying is oh so true! While I got the tables set up (sort of) in the room Mike and Steve got all the boards and terrain up. Then the army kicked in and within minutes all the boards were sorted (what a debacle that was!) and the terrain was out and we were ready to go.
The biggest hurdle that we have had so far (and I’m typing this mid way through game 5) was sorting the boards. So each 6×4 board is cut into 3 panels. Each panel is stickered with one of our vinyl Battlescapes. 3 panels of battlescape make a board and there are 6 different styles. The last few times we have purchased new boards I have labelled the back of the board 1-1-1, 2-2-2 etc so some of the boards were numbered. So when we bring the boards up all the ones go together on a table etc. All the boards went into the back of the trailer in batches so all the 3 panels for 1 table were one on top of each other. Somehow, when they came out of the trailer they were not together. We have 35 tables in the room. That is 105 panels and about 20 of the sets (so 60 boards) are labelled. We then had to find all the boards that were labelled and match them and then sort the remaining 40 odd boards and divide them into the 6 different style of board and then sort them into the 3 panels that make up a table. FUN!
I think there were 6 of us sorting them at one point and it felt like it took forever but in reality it was probably all of about 10 minutes and if that is the worst problem we have it isn’t too bad.
The players and spectators
As always the players were great. There were a fair few new players and some returning players. One player who came along hasn’t been to an event since he was 11. I’ll be honest I don’t know how old he is but he is not 12 that’s for sure. It is always great when new players come along or when veteran players who haven’t played in an event for a long time come to one of our events. It takes great courage.
Again we had a large number of spectators in throughout the day.
There were couples who came along because he plays and he wanted to check it
out, couples who both play and so they both came to check it out and see
whether they may want to play in a future event, dads who brought their kids
along, families who came in, partners who came to show support, players who
couldn’t get a ticket but who came to have a look. At all times there was a
really upbeat, friendly vibe. There were times when I was absolutely flat tack
and so I didn’t get a chance to chat to the players or spectators so if you
came in and I didn’t say it ‘hi!’
The results
Well we are currently part way through the last game for the day as I type this so I know that Mitch Byrne has won the peer judged painting but otherwise the end result is an unknown to me at the moment.
Going into the last round there were potentially 6 players that could win. We don’t have a top table because we have 6 players going into this round undefeated. There are 2 players who are on identical overall scores, one has more battle points and the other had higher painting points so they are neck and neck. I actually love games like this. It’s always cool when you can watch a game and know that out of those two players whoever wins the match will win the event but I actually prefer games like this. If x player wins convincingly he will win but if y player wipes the table with z player and x player only gets a narrow win or a loss and …… then who knows who will win. It’s always good fun going through the different scenarios and working out who is in the running and what needs to happen for each of them to take out the win.
Obviously at the time that we publish this (tomorrow most likely) we will know the winner and we will have announced it publicly so by the time you read this you could already know.
Painting
I already said that I know that Mitch Byrne has won the peer judged painting award but I can’t not mention the painting. The standard of painting in the room today is amazing. There are some brilliant new armies, there are some amazing display boards. Overall the standard of painting has really come up a notch. Every army in the room (with the exception of the ringer army) meets our minimum painting requirements and many far exceed them. One of the things I noticed and mentioned on the live stream that we did mid way through the event was that some armies are painted really well but you can only tell if you actually stop and pick up the models. From three feet away they look like they are meeting the minimum standard. When you stop and look closely the detail and skill is brilliant. It is something to think about for the peer judged painting because it is the armies that stand out that win that award and some armies seem to be made to blend in rather than stand out.
This is not to take anything away from Mitch of course. Mitch’s army is beautifully painted and he has done an amazing job with it. I guess this is more of an observation added to previous observations. The armies that win the peer judged awards aren’t the ones that you have to look closely at to notice the detail. The armies that win peer judged are the ones that stand out from the other side of the room. They are the armies that people notice and cross the room to look closer at and WHEN you look closely at them the detail and work that has been put in stands out further.
The results
Thank you
Once again thank you to everyone who came early to help set up and a huge thank you to everyone who stayed behind to pack up. Thank you to everyone who popped in to check out the event. Of course the biggest thank you needs to go to the players. The events wouldn’t happen without you. We appreciate your enthusiasm, energy and excitement to events.
Firstblood 2019 Part II will be held in a month as an ITC event. You asked for it, we are doing it. We hope to see you there!
