Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Player Pack and Protector Talk

The player packet is up! Take a look by clicking on the link in the header or here if you're too committed to this article to scroll back up. The packet will detail how scenarios are scored and how awards will be given in the tournament. It also gives a schedule of events and answers the most frequently asked questions about the tournament in general. Please give it a look and if you have any questions, feel free to ask them!

One of the details that I also want to highlight is one of the additions to this year's event. That entry is the Protector of the Masses!
No, your model doesn't have to be a lizardman
Here is the entry for the Protector taken straight from the player packet:
Protector of the Masses:
As an additional portion of this year's tournament, we will be adding a required special character for each army. This model represents the leader of your refugees as they struggle to find their place in this new world. As such this character is an inspiration to all those around him, either through fear, admiration, or just a desperate need to have hope in something.

The model for this character must be an infantry model and must fit on a 20 or 25 mm base and has the following stats:

Sp - Me - Ra - De - A - Ne
6 - 3+ - n/a - 5+ - 4 - 11/13
Individual, Inspiring, Stealthy, Ensnare, CS (1), Weakness (2)
The Protector also has a Unit Strength of 1, just like a troop.
The Protector is valued at 150 points for attrition and scenario purposes if routed.

Refugees of the Olde Worlde was founded as a part of the community that switched over to Kings of War with the death of 8th edition and the "Olde Worlde" we left behind. As such, the Protectors of the Masses are those whose leadership has been imperative with helping us, the gamers, to transition from one world to another. Now you get to include those people on your tabletop for a tournament!

This is a fun opportunity to pull out a cool model that you've always wanted to use, but never had a reason to. Paint it up and bring it with you to function as your Protector. There will be bonus objectives revolving around this character throughout the weekend.

There are no restrictions on what your model is for your Protector, except that it must fit on a 20-25 mm base. It does not have to be the same race as the rest of your army, nor does it need to share the same color scheme (though that's probably a good idea for appearance scores). All that matters is that it is an infantry model that can fit on a 20-25mm base. That's it!

Lastly, I just want to stress that the timeline is quickly approaching the deadline for early registration, we're a little under 2 months away from that closing and only 3 months from the event itself! If you plan on coming, please hurry and pay your registration!

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Pretty Little Trophies, All In A Row

What would any tournament be without its trophies? Every championship must have some way of recognizing its champions and Refugees is no different. Last year we began the tradition of awarding trophies instead of prize support for players and we are proud to continue that process once again.

This year I have personally put together and painted the trophies for Best General and Best Paint and thought I would share what you might be striving for in your efforts to prepare for the tournament.

First off we have the Best Paint Trophy. The original sculpt is from MOM Miniaturas, with a slight modification from me where I cut off the warhammer and replaced it with a brush I sculpted from green stuff:


I won't lie, it's a bit intimidating painting up the trophy for Best Paint as it's sure to be the more criticized of all the trophies, but I think most of our artists would enjoy what has been prepared here.

In order to win Best Paint, players will compete with the appearance of their army in several categories. We will be following the same rubric as last year, as this seemed to work best.

Each player will fill out their own paint score sheet during the first day of the tournament and will
answer a series of questions worth a certain amount of points. Then, after the player has filled
this out, a paint judge will assign their army a certain amount of additional points based off of
their own personal discretion. Usually this will extend to how cool the theme of the army is,
technical execution (i.e. Object Source Lighting or Non-Metallic Metals, things of that nature).
All of this will be written down to tabulate the overall paint score for that player.

Therefore the player is largely responsible for their own score and can give themselves up to
25 points with the paint judge being responsible for another 15 to calculate your overall paint
score (1-40 points). The player score is broken down as follows:

1. Is the whole army painted to a 3 color minimum? (1-5 points)
2. Does the army have a consistent basing scheme? (1-3 points)
3. Does the army have a consistent paint scheme? (1-3 points)
4. Are the models consistently shaded and highlighted? If so, explain how: (1-3 points)
5. Are there noticeable conversions on any of your units? Please explain any
conversions: (1-5 points)
6. Does the army have a matching display board? A name placard? Is the display dynamic
and themed? (1 point for each question for a total of 3 points possible)
7. Does the army theme extend beyond painting to include modeling, basing, and unit selection?
If so please explain how these goals were met: (1-3 points)

The paint judge then has 15 additional points he can award to any army, but that generally focus
around things like:

Advanced techniques utilized: 1-5 points
Storytelling in display (does your army look like it has a story behind it? Or is it a generic
goblin/ogre/dwarf army?) 1-5 points
Overall appearance (does your army look cohesive, dynamic, or is it cool to be seen on
the tabletop?) 1-4 points

Judge's choice (Only one army can receive this in the entire tournament) 1 point


Next up we have the Best General Award. It's a bigger trophy, as befits the ego and accomplishment of the one who will be taking it home:
The player who has the highest battle score at the end of the tournament will take this trophy home with them. The only exception is that the 1st and 2nd Best Overall cannot be the Best General (don't be greedy with the trophies, geez!) and so if you take 1st or 2nd Best Overall, you cannot win Best General as well, and will instead go to the player with the highest Battle Score who did not take either of those other 2 awards.

That should do us for this time. Let me know what you think of these trophies in the comments below and I look forward to seeing you in October and rolling some dice with you!