First tourney

So, I ran my first Warmachine/Hordes tourney on Saturday - a 25 pt, deathclock, mangled metal event. Although turnout was a little light (5 players total), it seemed like everyone had a good time, and I'm already putting together some ideas and trying to schedule my next couple of events.

I'll be posting pics of it later, but a quick text recap is that we had Legion, Skorne, Mercs (pMagnus), Retribution and Cryx, so no duplicates. Cryx won in the end, although if another round had been played, it could have gone to Mercs. (No worries - some of the players had to split, so the final results were copacetic, and everyone, as I said, seemed happy at the end of the day.)

I learned a few things - first, I need to work on some of my prepping and organization, to reduce some of the time lost between rounds. It wasn't a huge deal, since none of the games actually went full time, but it could have been, and I need to prepare for it.

Second, I need to cut more zone markers, and make a bunch of objective markers and flags. I wound up duplicating some scenario types (though not scenarios), just because I was not as prepared as I should have been. It goes without saying that more of my terrain should be finished and painted, of course. Already, I have finished a few more hills since Saturday, and a few more will be finished by tomorrow night.

Third, while I could use the tourney software, I ran into a couple "Huh?" moments, simply because I was not as familiar with it as I should have been.

But - and this is a big but - everyone had fun, and it all worked. I just see some room for improvement, that's all. I already have an idea that I want to try for the next one, which (unfortunately) means that I have to not only finish the terrain that I currently have, but just about double it. It will make for a couple of big boxes, but I probably won't be bringing anything for someone to borrow unless they ask for it ahead of time. I'll still bring loaners for weekly games, but I think a tourney is going to (generally) mean that everyone has to provide their own figs. (That said, if a novice is willing to come to a tourney and get curb-stomped, albeit in a nice way, and learn the game the hard way. . . I'll loan them an army, if they really want.)