With BrisCon fast approaching, I thought I'd do a quick article on the BrisVegas Open, the Age of Sigmar event at BrisCon.
Now, typically, I'm not able to attend two-day tournaments, as work and family usually fill my schedule long before a tournament can. But this year, I've set two weekends aside wholly and solely for rolling dice and getting rinsed. While I don't consider myself to be amongst the elite upper echelon of Australian gamers (my choice in army doesn't help...), I do want to play and fight to the best of my ability.
RCGT has become quite the iconic event, and draws a large contingent of interstate players. And so I definitely wanted to attend that one. This left me with one more two-dayer to lock in, and the BrisVegas Open is it! My goal this year was to punch as high as I could in the Aussie Matched Play rankings, and to do that with any hope of success, it's kind of mandatory to do well in at least one two-day event, as they are worth significantly more ranking points than one-day events. With RCGT still a long way off, this left me with the BrisVegas Open to focus on, so this article is going to cover the player pack, my army list for the event as well as what I want to achieve at the tournament.
So let's start with the players pack, the framework upon which every tournament is built. If you want to read along, or check it out for yourself, the pack can be found here...
http://www.briscon.com.au/tournaments.html
So, it's a 2000pt 5-game event, using scenarios from the GHB17. And while I won't bore you with all of the details that are readily available on the document, I do want to pick out a few things that set this players pack apart.
The first thing of note is that each player is required to bring six objective markers and three pieces of terrain. Now, when I first saw that six markers were required, I was surprised. Typically, if both players have three, that's enough for any and every scenario being played. But the more I thought about it, it makes sense to bring a full set, because I guarantee you there will be at least one person (I've been guilty of being this person in years gone by) who will straight up forget to even bring markers. So, I can fully understand that decision. Objective markers are easy enough to either make or find appropriate tokens for, so I don't think many players will have trouble with this.
The terrain element is something that has been introduced relatively recently in the Australian scene; CanCon implemented it at the beginning of the year, and BrisVegas Open is following suit. And the reasoning behind this is, as the scene grows and tournaments get larger, the demand for terrain on tables also grows. In the past, that demand has fallen to the TO, who will have to beg, borrow and buy enough terrain to sustain the event. This is a huge outlay and a pretty big weight on their shoulders. By asking players to provide three pieces each (so, six per table), it cuts down the workload immensely for the organisers, allowing them to actually organise the event. I'm not opposed to this at all. I think anything we, as players, can do to make it easier for TO's to run events is beneficial for all involved. It takes pressure off TO's, and means that we'll see more tournaments and events at a scale that has previously been unattainable. And terrain is very open ended. You can put as much or as little effort as you wish to create terrain for events. I know gentlemen who are planning to take the Arcane Ruins box ($41AUD) and split it in three to make small scatter pieces, while other gamers are investing in the Warscryer Citadel as just one of their pieces! Some gamers are also using the terrain requirement as a reason to lavish attention on their army display, creating scenery that matches and compliments their force, either as additional elements or as part of a display board. I don't think the terrain is too much of a barrier to entry, and I think it will push hobbyists to new levels of creativity.
There's the standard clarification rules, such as measuring base-to-base, and measuring from the centre of objectives, allowing a little size variation from player to player without impacting gameplay.
Then we have five secondary objectives. Each player picks one at the start of each game, and can only use each objective once in the tournament. And this is where I think players will be able to really scrape advantages and gain lots of momentum. Of the 165 Tournament Points available over the weekend, secondaries are worth 20. This means that every player is going to need to play hard for them. I think one of the toughest parts of the event (other than trying to beat your opponent, of course) is going to be matching those secondaries with your five opponents. If you can play your cards right, you can launch yourself up the leaderboard, but I can see myself making a mistake early on and finding the objectives in my last two games to be very difficult! I think that all five are pretty achievable, and I think every player should familiarise themselves with how to achieve each one, and how to try and prevent your opponent from claiming them on you.
For me, I feel like No Prisoners is my strongest, as I can usually chew through units pretty easily throughout the game (admittedly, while taking horrific losses myself), where I think Bloodlust is going to be tricky. As always, it depends on the opponent and scenario, but I feel therein lies the skill and strategic decisions.
The last little thing I wanted to touch on is the painting matrix. BrisVegas Open requires "3-colour minimum" when it comes to painting, as a base requirement for entry. Depending on what side of the fence you're on regarding this, it's either a good or a bad thing. My position on this has always been pretty public. I think that armies should be painted. Painting is a huge part of the hobby for me, and I personally love playing against other painted armies with my own fully painted army. That's just a side of the hobby that catches my interest and really impresses me! I love the idea of going to an event knowing that every army was going to be painted.
On the other side of the coin, one of my mates has never been an avid painter, and saw it as a huge barrier to entry. He's since embarked on a journey to learn to paint, and his army has come up really well, but I can fully understand people seeing it as a huge barrier.
What do you think about painting requirements? Do you love them, hate them, something in between?
Painting also has a lot of weight in Tournament Points, being worth 25 points if you can clean up on the painting matrix. So, there's a significant benefit to having a fully painted army.
All in all, I think the Player Pack is pretty well rounded. I think the requirements on the player is higher than we've seen in the past, but I also feel like its not unreasonable for us to shoulder some of the weight in running a tournament. The more we help, the more events there will be. Everyone wins.
What are standouts of the Players Pack for you?
I'll be taking my Clan Pestilens to BrisVegas Open as their first big outing after being completed. Despite having two other competitive armies in the works, these guys deserve an outing. So here's what I'm taking.
Allegiance: Skaven Pestilens
Verminlord Corruptor (Vexler's Shroud, Verminous Valour)
Plague Furnace (Liber Bubonicus)
Plague Priest
Plague Priest
Arch-Warlock (Allies)
40 Plague Monks (Battleline)
40 Plague Monks (Battleline)
20 Plague Monks (Battleline)
Plagueclaw Catapult
Plagueclaw Catapult
5 Gutter Runners (Allies)
Congregation of Filth (Warscroll Battalion)
It's pretty similar to what I've been using, but I've put some Runners in to give myself that little movement trick. I'm hoping that in a pool of fifty players, I can get some favourable matchups, and I'm hoping to catch a few people off guard with the rats, as they aren't really a common army that people have had experience fighting.
Then again, maybe there's a reason no one plays Pestilens...
To wrap up this little pre-event run down, I want to talk about what I'm hoping to achieve at the event. My first goal is to finish in the top half of the pool. While that sounds very straight forward, theres a very good reason for this! Currently in the Rankings, Thomas Holdsworth holds the Pestilens Icon, proclaiming him to be the highest ranked Pestilens player in all the land. He has recorded 43-44 points with them. If I finish in the top half, it means that I'll gain 50+ points on the Rankings, which will propel me into that Icon, where I can claim what shred of glory there is in Pestilens. Now, that said, Thomas has also not decided what army he is taking, so he could just as well bring Pestilens and extend his lead. We'll see... But I really, reeaally want that Icon!
I'd also love to get a Best Opponent vote. It's always something that I strive for, as I believe everyone should. And it's always an honour to get a vote.
I don't think I'm going to be in the mix at the top tables, or in that top level of painting for Best Painted, but I'm fully planning to do my very best.
What are your goals going into tournaments. If you're attending BrisVegas Open, what are your hopes for the event.
Thanks for reading,
Gabe
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