Organizing and Judging Tournaments

The LGS (local game store) hold 2 annual 40k tournaments every year, one in the winter (Nuclear Winter) and one in the summer (Tournament of Fire). The winter one on MLK weekend is the biggest one and draws the most people. The summer one is usually on a weekend around Independence day so attendance varies as many people go on vacation around then.

A couple years after I started playing the judge for the summer tournament ended up not being able to do it, and attendance was very small that year, so most decided not to come. I stepped up and said that I would put together something for the few who did: A couple scenarios using abnormal units etc, just for fun. It was soon after that the tournaments stopped being “Rouge Trader Tournaments” so anyone could be the judge so I started to run some of the summer tournaments. However, we still get prize support from them as it’s still a Games Workshop sponsored tournament.

A few months after I started playing Magic I noticed that we never had real tournaments. So I setup a couple unofficial ones, with the store’s permission, just sponsored by them. After a few of those I was asked to be the judge for the official Wizards sponsored tournaments held 3 times every three months. I agreed to that and like running them as a judge can play in them as well. In Games Workshop tournaments you cannot.

Sanctioned tournaments are honestly a hassle to run as there are all kinds of rules that have to be followed and arguments often break out over who is interpreting the rules correctly. I prefer unsanctioned where you can make up your own rules. But anytime money has been paid with prizes on the line people are going to do everything they can to win and get upset if rules are thought to be violated. 40k tournaments can be a pain as they have the most arguments but that’s where I can fall back on years of experience and memorization of the rules to settle disputes.

Magic has more intricate rules that I am not completely familiar with as I’ve only been playing for less than 2 years. That and new cards and rules come out every couple months that change how the games run so it can be a big headache. There I call upon the more experienced players to help with rule disputes I am unsure of.

A few years back the store decided the 2 annual tournaments would be open to all games so there would be tournaments for 4 or 5 different game systems running on the same day. This never really bothered me before as I wasn’t playing Magic competitively yet and it wasn’t an official Magic tournament so either someone else ran it or it was just played causally while I played in the 40k tournaments if I wasn’t running them. While I do well in the summer tournament, and usually end up placing, the winter tournament is another story. Every year I end up with horrible luck and get the hardest opponent army for me to beat at each scenario and table setting. My dice don’t seem to like it either and end up rolling badly. This can be attested to by many people who have come to the tournaments over the years. Last Nuclear Winter was my last attempt to do well and the luck curse stuck again so I decided I wasn’t going to play in any more. So I agreed to run the Magic tournament at this year’s Nuclear Winter.

The 40k side of Nuclear Winter has been run by the same person, Lacy, for as long as I can remember and the Tournament of Fire switches back and forth between me and Chaos Minion. This year Lacy got ready to start preparing to organize it, but realized he was going to have to work. So Chaos Minion agreed to run it, since I had run the previous summer tournament, and posted all the rules…then 4 weeks before it was to start found out he will have to work too. So I will be running both the 40k and the Magic tournaments at the same time (and pulling all my hair out while I go coo-coo for coco puffs).

Honestly though I’m ok with running both. This current Magic set has been out since October so everyone should be used to the rules for it and I’m not expecting anything more that a couple rules questions there. It’s also going to be a free tournament with a good prize that I picked up in a trade for almost nothing so it should just be a fun day for the Magic players.

40k is the one that will cause more stress as I know at least one person, who is a known cheater, will be there. And it’s a bunch of newer players who may not know the rules as well. Entry fee is $20 and with a possible 16 players, plus whatever prize money GW gives us, that means several hundred dollars of prizes are on the line. Tensions will be high and arguments will be many. I’ll be counting on the guys from Segmentum North to help keep an eye on things and alert me to problems.

What is stressing me out at the moment however is: I don't have prizes. The tournament placers will get gift certificates for GW products, as always, but I should have actual, physical prizes for the Painting and Best Theme competitions, along with the Judges Choice award and Participation prizes. But the store owners (holders of the purse-strings) will not allow me to purchase anything as they think GW will be sending some extra stuff that we can use. But we don’t actually know what, if anything, they will be sending. I argued and said that I don’t think they will be sending enough stuff for every prize. I have been told that I have to wait until it arrives before I am allowed to get anything else so they can see what they got. That will probably come the week of (forgot to mention: the tournament is next weekend) which will be far too late for me to order anything (which needs to be done NOW). The store owners are out of their minds if they think GW is going to send ALL the prizes. They may send a few extra things, but not the 16 small prizes and 3 large ones I need. I could have bought them out of pocket but I have been told by the store that they may decide not to reimburse me (and I know they have not reimbursed tournament organizers in the past). It’s so very frustrating because the money for the prizes comes out of the entry fees that are supposed to be for prizes…its not even going to cost them anything.

Gone are my dreams of cool 40k posters and scenery sets like I wanted to do. So I apologize ahead of time if all you get is a dinky paintbrush or whatever I can find lying around the store (and convince the crazy owners to part with).