G’day Goonhammer readers! I had always wondered what it would be like to run a wargaming event. From outside, it looks like some kind of magically organised chaos, and that’s if anyone turns up! When it looked like my area needed one more event to round out the year, I decided to step in and organise a one-day event at a local hobby shop. Here is a summary of how it went and what my thoughts are on events going forward.
When Needs Must… Run a Tournament
The Kings of War scene in Melbourne, Australia, has been fortunate to have dedicated players running events for almost a decade, dating back to the Sundering era. While some of us in the area have considered running our own events, it’s always been easier to rely on these stalwarts of the community to take the lead.
But when one of these players decided to take a break from event organising, the calendar looked rather empty. It was September, and the next major event wouldn’t be until late January—the national tournament, Clash of Kings Australia, in Canberra. The community needed something to bridge the gap and give people a chance to practice before the big event, so I decided to finally organise an event.
Planning an Event
The one-day tournament was set for early December. With over two months of lead time, I began planning the event, which boiled down to a few key elements:
- Venue
- Number of points per army
- Number of round
- Scenarios for each round
- Special rules or units for the event
- Prizes for the event
The most important element of any event is the venue. Melbourne doesn’t have a wealth of gaming stores with enough space for large events. Luckily, our regular venue, Games Portal in Ringwood, has the capacity for 10 tables and offers a reasonable pricing structure. Considering an event simply cannot exist without a good venue, I was very lucky to secure a spot [1].
Because I wanted to give people a chance to practice their army lists that they might take to Clash of Kings Australia, the first two issues were effectively solved. 2300 points would be the army size, and in the business hours of 10 AM to 6 PM one typically expects to play 3 rounds.
The choice of scenarios was not so straightforward; a number of new scenarios had dropped in the latest update, Clash of Kings 2025 [2]. These new scenarios included the progressive scoring scenarios and initially I liked the idea of using these. What threw a spanner in the works was that the Tournament Companion on the Mantic Companion web app didn’t have these scenarios included [3]. Considering the ease with which tournaments can be held using the web app, I was already set on it, so progressive scoring scenarios were out and I went for a classic selection of Control, Push and Salt the Earth.
I also wanted to introduce some special rules or units, but had to reign in my enthusiasm to avoid overwhelming the players, especially newer ones. Initially, I thought about implementing a “Naughty and Nice” system with bonuses depending on how players performed, but it quickly became too complex. In the end I settled on themed tokens for each player that would either let them be Naughty (reroll a failed nerve test when trying to take out their opponent’s units) or Nice (reroll a failed nerve test when trying to take out one of their own units) once per game. Not exactly the most imaginative enhancement to the game, but the tokens (printed out by 3D printing extraordinaire Geoff Holland) started to build up the holiday theme of the event.
The Kings of War Community
The generosity and camaraderie of the Kings of War community is legendary, and I saw this firsthand when I announced the Kingsmas Bash in December. Support came from all directions.
- Graphic designer Mathew Sellick hit me up the very next day to get a promotional poster put together and even made the Facebook event.
- Already mentioned were the fun Naughty and Nice tokens printed by Geoff Holland, who freely gave me a massive bag of them that I will be sure to use in the 2025 holiday period as well.
- Local community stalwart Stephen Tuck, who printed off an excellent diorama fight scene between Krampus and Santa, which I elected to award to the best looking army on display that day.
- Australian online store Pathfinder Games sent over two sets of Command Dice and a voucher for $50 AUD, prizes for everyone!
- Games Portal provided their space for $20 per person, all of which goes to store credit so everyone can get something [4].
With all this support, the event was shaping up nicely. All that was left was to advertise it weekly on social media and get the sign-ups rolling in. I advertised once a week during the two months leading up to the event – either pictures of some of the goodies being prepared, or just straight up advertisement. I knew I needed to be frequently on the socials to get the attention of the player base.
The Day of Kingsmas Bash
The Saturday in early December finally came around, and it was beautiful weather in Melbourne, perfect conditions for 13 people to stay inside and play tabletop games for 7 hours straight. Events held in December are notoriously hard to get players to commit, so I was pleasantly surprised that I got to 13.
I had prepared for the odd number of players by bringing along my Goblin army, and so had to play in Round 1. Thankfully, the moment tables were assigned to players, everyone got to it and needed very little attention for the entire round. While my own game against Andrew Goodman went atrociously, everyone seemed to be having a good time.
Was I actually running an event successfully? I could scarcely believe it.
The day’s schedule was a little tight, but it seemed everyone finished their first round reasonably quickly. People snuck off to grab a quick lunch and then we returned for the most exciting part (for me); the handing out of the first prize!
The prize in question was the $50 voucher for Pathfinder Gaming, which I had hidden in one of 16 Christmas cards. Every player got to pick one Christmas card and open it up for a chance to win. I managed to write a Kings of War-themed Christmas greeting in each of them, which got a laugh. Next time I might get them professionally done, but for now I was pleased I could make so many greetings (all of which have vacated my brain by time of writing, sorry!).
The next two rounds were far easier to manage, as I no longer needed to play. I thought I would find the experience dull or have some feeling of missing out, but instead I thoroughly enjoyed wandering the tables! Seeing people’s incredible armies battling it out and people just having fun was enough to make me enjoy the whole event despite not really playing.
One wild card for this event was the introduction of Command Dice. These are a brand new mechanic to Kings of War and no one was sure how it would go in an event. Would people need more time? Would there be fights? How many dice will I be removing from faces? Thankfully no incidents came to pass. To make sure that everyone was on the same level, I made a cheat sheet of command dice – how to generate them and use them. I also printed out Steve Hildrew’s fantastic sheet of Command Orders from all the factions, just in case they didn’t print out on people’s army lists. Look out for a Roundtable chat in February about how we think the whole Command Dice thing is going in the meta of Kings of War.
Attracting New Players
The truth about getting new players to the scene is that the scene needs to be… well, seen! This means regular gaming days in stores, or failing that, at least regular events to attend. This event attracted a brand new player and a player that hadn’t been around since 2nd edition Kings of War.
The new player had a whole Kings of War army prepared just for this event – an incredible selection of 3D printed Elves on vibrant green basing [5], with Drakons represented by the very colourful Australian lorikeet – albeit Drakon-sized! In addition, every single model was magnetized to the multibase. A Spearmen unit could become Seaguard or Gladestalkers just by swapping out the required models. It was truly a surprise to see! The judge of the “Best Painted Army” was my wife, who was helping out the whole day [6], and she just loved the lorikeets and colour palette of the new player’s army so much that for her it was a clear winner. The new player might not have won all his games, but by all accounts they thoroughly enjoyed the event.
The returning player was sporting Basileans, and despite being out of the loop for half a decade, he had made a special command dice sheet. His army wasn’t particularly optimised and he was unfamiliar with a few changes, but by the end of the day he was still smiling and enjoying himself. He even won some Command Dice!
Most exciting was the passing interest of the passing Games Portal patrons. As I wasn’t involved in any particular game, I could actively introduce Kings of War and I had some people asking all kinds of questions. Perhaps this will lead to more players, or even just that more people know this game exists, either way, it left me immensely pleased with the event I had just run.
Let’s Do That Again!
Now that the first event is done, I don’t feel nearly so intimidated to try my hand at more. In fact, I wouldn’t mind doing regular events (every two months or so), each one with a bit of a twist. I already have volunteers willing to run them on the day, so I can even play in some. The future looks fun, and I highly recommend people try running events themselves and just find out how satisfying it is. Just make sure to market it as much as you can, we’re all busy folks and people just forget. Never feel you’re bothering people, because the social media algorithms are bothering them a whole lot more.
—
- Very lucky indeed! Many games stores rely heavily on trading card games. Trying to secure a store for a 20 person event versus a 40-60 person card gaming event is hard.
- Why Clash of Kings (the update) bears the same name as the tournaments held around the world, as well as a major mobile video game is infuriating for search engine optimization. Maybe in the next edition we can call the yearly updates something else and save the title “Clash of Kings” for the events? Rant over.
- As of writing, these scenarios still are not on the Tournament Companion, let me use them!
- Games Portal has done this for every event for the last 3 years! Apparently this is a standard approach when holding card gaming events, and they don’t know why wargaming stores don’t do it.
- This player did not know Sylvan Elves existed and everyone kept confusing his army for Sylvan Elves. I daresay next event he may be trying them out!
- In between cross-stitches at least.
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