This review is brought to you by Reece Robbins. You can find more about the Broadside bash by visiting http://www.broadsidebash.com/
I just got back from the broadside bash and am recovering from a pretty brutal hangover, which tells you that that I had a really good time! 48 40K and 24 Fantasy (I believe) players made the trip to LA for the event.
I have quite a few criticisms about the event and so want to say this loud and clear from the beginning: I had a great time and will be going back next year.
Pros:
The venue was the Sheraton Gateway right next to LAX which makes traveling to and from the event super easy.
Great people. All of my games were against fun people and every game was a good time. Everyone there was cool and it was great to see so many tournament friends and make some new ones.
The event was very well organized apart from the paint judging taking longer than it should have which is a very minor quibble. On the whole, the event ran smoothly and on schedule.
The event was very fun. We were allowed to drink alcohol while playing which always makes things fun. There was food there and not far away a Subway which provided cheap eats.
Cons:
The hotel was really pricey for a room, over $200 a night, which made staying there cost-prohibitive for a lot of guys. Also, you have to pay to park, which was an additional $11 a day, which was annoying.
The room we had was WAY too small for the number of players. There was no room at all for everyone’s stuff and everyone was butt to butt with the guy behind them while playing. There was almost no room to put armies down and such. Next year they said they are getting a bigger room, which needs to happen.
My biggest complaint was the scenarios and the tournament structure itself. The tournament bills itself as a hobby event first, which it is. It really is not a tournament in the truest sense of the word, as winning and losing games counted for very few of the overall points. The way it was scored was 50 battle points, but you got 6 points for a loss. That means the difference between a massacre and a loss was only 4 points. This also meant that everyone would get at least 30 battle points up to 50, which only leaves a spread of 20 points.
Painting and appearance was 37 points…almost double what you could get for playing. If you were not a very, very good painter, you had NO CHANCE of winning this tournament. None. This is neither fair nor fun, in my opinion.
Sportsmanship accounted for 5 points. This was player scored and covered what you thought about their army as well as how the game went.
Early list submission was 2 points (which is the same as a minor win in a game).
A favorite opponent award was 5 points.
And, the notorious “hardcore” award which was 3 points awarded by the judges to armies they felt were “fluffy.” It was almost totally subjective and seemingly inconsistent for some armies. The problem with this was that before the tournament started, players that had armies that the judges liked essentially started with a win. Some armies that were very powerful got the points while some that were seemingly fluffy did not. For example, the winning army, Nurgle Chaos with 6 Oblits got the points, but a Space Wolf army with Ragnar and Blood Claws did not.
So, when all was said and done, what you actually got for PLAYING the game was only 19% of the actual points.
So, what happened was players with losing records were ranking above players with winning records. The player that won overall went 4-1, the player that got 2nd went 4-0-1, 3rd overall was 5-0 with max battle points. A Daemon player who went 5-0 with all but 1 battle point, ended up in the bottom third because his army (which is beautifully painted) had 2 unpainted models. I went 3-2 and was in the top 10 because my paint score came in high and I got nice guy votes from my opponents.
I came into the tournament with no chance of winning it as I did not have a display board, and had to switch armies at the last minute because I couldn’t get the army I intended to play painted in time. I also did not receive the hardcore points, which meant that I was down 8 points before the tournament started, which is the same as winning two games! All of those things but hardcore I could have controlled but still, having a system where you can lose before the event begins is not a good one, in my opinion.
The missions were also not to my taste for a tournament environment. They would be good fun in a casual setting, but for a tournament they were very imbalanced. My first game I played a Battle Wagon Ork list and the mission was to sit a scoring unit on objectives that were mid board. Each objective gave a point for each game turn they were held. My opponent went first and drove onto each objective turn one. My shooty army had to run towards Orks to stop him from massacring me first turn (3 points was a massacre). You can guess how that went down. My poor boys have deff rolla tracks on their asses still!
Other examples were needing to hold 6 objectives to get max points, winning the game as soon as you eliminated half of your opponent’s KPs (which meant games were ending turn 2 and 3 in some cases), etc. Also, there were some arbitrary changes to the rules and deployments that were not necessary. For example, scoring an objective with 6” but contesting within 3”. Complex deployments that were smaller than a quarter of the board for no reason. No Dawn of War deployment and only one night fight mission. These changes were confusing and served no purpose. Better to just stick with book standards as people know how these work and they are fine.
Also, pairings were totally random for the entire event. The best players never played each other unless by pure chance. You just moved to your right to play your next opponent every game. That made it really easy to play the game as you didn’t have to move stuff, but it meant that no one really fought their way to the top, it was just random. The last game could have been someone with max battle points or none.
In my opinion, the system was overly complex with arbitrary changes that didn’t need to occur. The system was more of a hobby competition with games thrown in just for fun. Winning and losing counted for less than what people thought about your modeling and painting skills and how cool you were. It was not really a tournament as I see it.
But, that said, again, I had a great time. All of these things were stated well in advance and everyone knew what to expect. I drank my face off as I had no chance of winning before I even got there! Also, a smoking hot girl dressed as Wonder Woman was making the rounds promoting and while staring at her I damn near lost a game! If you read this Wonder Woman, call me!
The Broadside Bash is an event where you come to have fun with your buddies and don’t really worry about the rest as it is so convoluted and subjective that you don’t have much control over the outcome. If you are looking for an actual competitive tournament, this probably isn’t for you. If you are looking to drink some beers and play some games, then give it a shot and you will be happy you did.
You can find my full battle reports on DakkaDakka
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/348755.page
The winning lists looked sorta like this…
Nurgle Chaos with 2 princes, a GD, 4×7 PMs in Rhinos and 6 Oblits.
Nurgle Chaos took second (Dave_Fey) with a prince, lord on bike with daemon weapon, 4×7 PMs in Rhinos, 2 defilers and a las cannon Pred
Best General was a Wolf army that had bikes, pods, all kinds of stuff, don’t remember it all off hand.