"Ancients & Tournaments" Topic

When it comes to Ancients wargaming, do you consider yourself primarily a tournament gamer?

I don't, yet that is where most of my gaming has been for 18 months.

No, never played in an Ancients tournament although I've watched a few.

Yes

No, gave up on them as they were making me a (more) unpleasant person.

Pat

Nope.

No, I don't consider myself a tournament gamer at all.

I play DBA so yes, but not as a competitor if you know what I mean.

No, but I do play in Impetus tournaments.

I try and stay away from pretty much all other tournament gaming.

No. I don't play in tournaments.

No! Every time I play in a tournament I am swiftly reminded that I loathe tournament play. This happens no matter the period, rules, or opponent.

It is worth noting that I often enjoy gaming with the same period, rules, and opponent in non-tournament games.

I am very happy to see the tournament crowd in the hobby. They bring the buying power that brings lots of fun toys into production for me to buy.

No – never played an ancients tourney and never will.

No, but I did enjoy the online Commands & Colors: Ancients VASSAL tournaments when I had the time to participate in them.

Tournaments serve to get me to play more. Both at the tournament and to prepare for one. Having said this, I have not played in a tournament in several years now due to schedule and young kids.

When I was younger, I didn't mind the two day tournaments. Now I find I prefer one day tournaments with getting done by 10:00 PM or so. As such, if a tournament is spread over two days, it is very much less appealing to me. Of course, I have not made the finals in some time now due to not playing as much. So maybe 2 day tournaments are 1 day affairs for me after all :-)

If I am going to a decent sized convention event, I definitely want to get in different games other than what the tournament might be. Unfortunately, tournaments tend to overlap participation games I am interested in :-( I think only the East Coast cons allow me to play in a tournament and then have lots of choices in participation games. But I haven't been to one of those in over 10 years now. Too far away….

I am only a ancient gamer. I DO NOT LIKE touraments, because sometimes the ugly side of gaming comes out!! Mike Adams

No, although I have enjoyed the few local round=robin tourneys I've played in.

I guess, yes, but I rarely get to play as I am usually organizing them. So the majority of my games are not tournament, but done in the tournament style (even points, etc.).

Yes. I don't get to play very often, so the annual DBA tournament at our local convention is the focal point of my ancients gaming.

And DBA tournaments are pretty relaxed. I tried a DBM tournament years ago, and hated it. If was too cutthroat competitive.

Nope.

I play as an excuse to push around toy soldiers and swap stories with friends. I have zero interest in making this into a Serious Business/overly competitive activity.

The competitive nature of tournaments push people to revisit rules errata often, conflict can break out over different translation. As well as those who use über characters/units/armies for the sake of winning rather than fair sportsmanship.

For me, a good tournament rules moderator is a must or forget it!

Mike

Something to think about.

Define: "a good tournament rules moderator"

Almost all of my ancient gaming has been DBA, which is run as tournaments. I don't take them too seriously and enter just for fun, as do most of the other people who play in them. I played in a DBM tournament one time and had lots of fun. I think the group of people you play with in the tournament format makes all the difference. I wouldn't want to play in a tournament where some of the players are taking it too seriously. That would be a big turn off.

Not really, although I have played in a number of tournaments and enjoy them. If I were to pigeonhole myself, I'd say I'm more of a campaign-killer.

No.

I used to be an Ancients tournament player.
I haven't played in years, though.

As much as the Enlightened may lift their skirts in horror and shrink away in disgust from tournaments, they are 90% of te reason we have so much variety in Ancients ranges.
There would be the occasional Roman range, maybe some Gauls or Carthaginians. But, you would have to play against Hannibal with Early Imperial Roman Hollywood Romans. And Hannibal figures would look like… What WOULD they look like?
Gauls would look like those Victorian engravings with bearded wallahs lounging about with horned helmets and pert buttocks.

With the fixation in the Army Lists on Early Camillan Romans fightine North Po Valley Cimbri, it behooves a manufacturer to "get it right".

Without tournaments (and particularly Army Lists), I would wager that the following miniature ranges would NOT exist:
Mauryan Indians
Spanish
Berber
Hsiung-Nu
Seljuk Turk
Khitan Liao
Burmese
Aztec
ETC.

There MIGHT be Samurai figures, and possibly Normans and Vikings. But, we would need specialized rules to cover that era.
Maybe the Perrys would come out with huge ranges of Hannibal's wars, to the consternation of those who need 1815 Prussians.

Trust me on this.

Not a tourney player. That said, I plan to participate in a local convention's WAB mini-"tourney." Not an actual tournament, but a round-robin elimainations sort of scenario. The issue right now is to use either the new AoA lists or old supplements. Not everyone has (or plans to buy) the new AoA, so…

Not a tournament player.

John, I can't help but be a bit doubtful of the assertion that Tournaments drive the production of "non-mainstream" army ranges.

Personally – and I realize that this is anecdotal – I have built and painted many off-beat armies, and I don't play tournaments. I just don't believe that folks would only want to play an off-beat army because it might do well in a tournament.

ScottS wrote:
Personally – and I realize that this is anecdotal – I have built and painted many off-beat armies, and I don't play tournaments. I just don't believe that folks would only want to play an off-beat army because it might do well in a tournament.

This is true, but without tournaments to drive the manufactures, would the miniatures be there for you?

That was John's point I believe.

I gravitate toward the off-beat armies and I have taken them to tournaments on several occasions. Sometimes, they do very, very well, but other times (MOST other times) they don't. And I'm ok with that. Really.

But that's only sometimes. If I go into a tournament, I typically want to win more than I do with a plain-Jane Friday night pickup game and will take whatever I think is the sleekest and most lethal tool for the job. Sometimes that's an off-beat army and sometimes it's one of the boring yet deadly armies that every other player has.

I'm an ancients gamer first, but I've played in competitions. Most of my gaming is at the local club.

John the O F M is right on the money.

Cheers,
JohnG

No. As with other genres, I prefer campaign/scenario driven skirmish games for ancients.

I've run many DBA themed Tournaments (Samurai Night Fever, I Was a Teenage Visigoth, Adventus Saxonum, I could go on) and I had fun. Indeed many of my players would say the same.

They're been whine-free for the most part. I usually have an award (not as nice as the others of course…) for the whiniest, rules lawyer as well. I've only awarded it once.

Do I prefer tourneys? Not as such. But I have met and introduced far more cool people to a fun game through tournament gaming than I have had to suffer fools.

I feel sorry for those who have had nothing but negative experiences.

-tv

No.

I did a tournament once about 15 years ago. I still wake up at nights in a cold sweat yelling the horror, the horror. Next time I will drive nails into my head instead.

No

I play for fun as well.

DM

Yeah…because that is the best way for me to get to play lots of DBA games. DBA is my favorite game, but the new DBA 3.0 might be the end of the line for me. I think I will stick with 2.2 while it lasts here in the States. I have found DBA tournaments to be enjoyable and pleasant, for the most part. I tried a FOW tournament and found it to take up far too much time and since each game lasted about 2.5 hours, when the experience wasn't enjoyable it was far more painful than DBA could ever be.

No, but there aren't many other local opportunities for DBA (or small-army ancients) gaming in 15mm.

I'm primarily an ancients gamer, but have been playing more tournaments. We have one coming up 14 Jan.

Haven't been around enough to get into too many since I've gotten back into gaming. I have enjoyed the tourneys I have played in.

I've only played in one tournament, which as Field of Glory at Cold Wars (2009 I think). One of the best reasons I can think of to enter a tournament, besides meeting new people, is the chance to play against different styles of players and learn new techniques to the game. In short, to get better at playing.

I don't play to beat my opponent – that's not what I'm talking about – but, I do enjoy getting better at the game and providing my opponent a real challenge, just like I want from my opponent. There is a time for beer & pretzel games, and there is a time for serious thought and strategy.

It's rare that I get into a game where the atmosphere is friendly and the strategy is serious. But that was exactly my experience in the one tournament I played.

I played just over 50 ancients tournament games last year (maybe a third of my year's wargaming but the majority of the ancients content)…

Split between FoG, DBA and Armati (in that order)

The only real difference with Tournament games is that they tend to be generic rather than specific historical scenarios, are more explicitly played to the clock (and have a very specific 'Victory objective' to be achieved within that period). Occasionally you get to play against new people.

But I wouldn't describe myself as primarily a tournament player (a generic game of that sort is certainly less satisfying than a well crafted historical scenario).

Phil
soawargamesteam.blogspot.com