The road to the Throne of Skulls is over and in a few weeks a winner will be crowned. With over 100 events between all the Games Workshop systems it is safe to say that GW has successfully passed the torch from its own Grand Tournament system to the wargamers themselves. It was not without many bumps and bruises and the system is FAR from perfect. Looking back it wasn’t so obvious a new GW was forming– one more hands off than ever before.

Here is the good and bad that was the first The Tournament Circuit of the new Games Workshop

The Good

The Power to Players

By far the biggest best change was the growth of independent events. Before the circuit was defined by the Regionals Games Workshop put on across North America; now it would be defined by Indy events from Adepticon to Astronomi-con, putting the spot light on all types of events that would could have gotten lost in the focused of official GW events. Tournaments sprouted up overnight to fill the void left by GW, everyone tried to get their event on the circuit in the hopes of boosting attendance and prize support.

Anyone could be a Winner

No longer was the circuit the personal playground of those who could afford to travel or happen to live close enough to a GW regional. We had events from Nova Scotia to Arizona giving every general a chance at glory. No one person or list would dominate the circuit (like  Orks dominated with Nob Bikers in 2008).

Play whatever you Want

For the most part the circuit allowed players to convert or proxy any model to represent whatever they wanted. Gone was the time when GW forced you to only use GW models, this opened the floodgates for great looking armies using third-party parts and generally made battlefields look profoundly different from the ones found at a GW hosted event.

Getting Creative

Because of Games Workshop hands off approach TOs were able to create whatever type of event they wanted. We had team tournaments, escalation, 1500-2000 point games, one to three day events, and as long as you could get people to attend you could do pretty much whatever you wanted.

The Bad

Too Hands Off

While being completely hands off had it bonuses, it also had problems. Even with simple guidelines like point levels and no soft scores GW could have stopped a lot of headaches, taking potential poor decisions out of TOs hands. Without even the most minimal level of standards we had events that ended up with only 8 players to ridiculous convoluted methods of scoring.

Throne of Skulls

We all thought the idea of the circuit was to win and have the tickets we earned mean something. We expected a similar no comp simple system that the British had used for years, instead we got some seemly hackney Jervis monster that was intent on showcasing armies not generals at the Throne of Skulls. It was a feeble attempt to force parity and will end up having half of the winners skip the event and put a bad taste in the mouth of many hoping this was going to be great event.

Pricing

Without GW interference TOs were able to charge whatever they wanted leaving players with events that ranged from $20-$100 bucks: wild price fluctuations based on the notion that because if you were on the circuit people would automatically show up events. This lead to many low attended events with TOs forced to eat much of the costs associated with events. Many players felted gouged when an event didn’t turn out as advertised.

Cheating

With so many events there was bound to be cheating. The level at to which top tables had problems was jaw dropping. Many events had judges and systems that were not active enough to catch even the most basic of cheats leaving the Internet to pick up the pieces after the fact.

Prize Support

Many events had varying degrees of prize support due to GW financial or regional fluctuation. Some events would get great support while others seemed to get very little leaving many to wonder was GW playing favorites?

These were the major good and bad of the first year of Tournament Circuit, but going forward let us look at what we can expect…

It seemed GW had some plan after all when it came to setting guidelines for their events. The first year was an obvious experiment: by allowing anyone and their mother to hold event it gave GW the chance to see exactly who would sink or swim. This ended up leaving only the strongest events for year two of the circuit. It also allowed GW to see exactly what type of events people were running. So now GW has made some changes. No longer will Team events count and only the top finisher will get a ticket. Now we know what to expect as the Jervis ToS doesn’t look to be changing, but the biggest change is anyone can PAY to get into the event. This makes it more like a competitive Games-Day and less like the end all be all of 40k competition. As the Independent Tournament scene develops it becomes clear: being on the list is only good for minor publicity and the chance to pass out a free ticket for paid GW event and is by no means necessary for event success.

So how did numbers exactly stack by army for the first season of the Circuit? Here is the final breakdown…

Imperial Guard-25
Space Marines- 25
Orks – 17
Chaos Space Marines-14
Eldar-13
Space Wolves – 11
Tyranids – 6
Dark Eldar – 5
Blood Angels – 2
Deamons- 2
Tau- 1
Grey Knights – 1
Witch Hunters – 0
Dark Angels – 0
Necrons – 0
Black Templars – 0

As you can see Imperial Guard dominated along with Space Marines each for different reasons. Imperial Guard dominated because competitive players saw them as the best army to play where as Space Marines won because they happened to be the most played. Going forward we expect to see this change a lot with as fast the meta changes. Already Grey Knights are on the rise and with the potential for Necrons to break Imperial Guard expect the numbers to change dramatic from this first year. Oh yeah and there is little thing called 6th edition coming out next year that might have something to say about all this.

For anyone wanting to know if there a event close to you I have a website dedicated just for that. Check out the Blood of Kittens Events website for details…

Tournament Calender

 

 

 

Here is the master list of all the winners from the Circuit up to the end of February.

 

The Conflict GT 10-Jan 1st Alexander Fennell Imperial Guard
The Conflict GT 10-Jan 2nd Chris Dubuque Space Marines
ConQuest Seattle Slaughter 10-Jan 1st Chase Linbo Chaos Space Marines
ConQuest Seattle Slaughter 10-Jan 2nd Zen Zheng Space Marines
Broadside Bash 10-Feb 1st Steve Sisk Space Marines
Broadside Bash 10-Feb 2nd Toby Walker Eldar
Broadside Bash 10-Feb 3rd David Fey Chaos Space Marines
GottaCon 10-Feb 1st Bryce Jensen Eldar
GottaCon 10-Feb 2nd Doug Lawrence Imperial Guard
St Valetines Massacre 10-Feb 1st Bradley Nichols Space Marines
St Valetines Massacre 10-Feb 2nd Dameon Green Chaos Space Marines
Adepticon 10-Mar 1st Eric Hobin Imperial Guard
Adepticon 10-Mar 2nd Jon Willingham Space Marines
Adepticon 10-Mar 1st Thomas Reidy Space Marines
Adepticon 10-Mar 2nd Jason Roy Chaos Space Marines
Adepticon 10-Mar 1st Nicolas Rose Imperial Guard
Adepticon 10-Mar 2nd Jonathon Wolf Chaos Space Marines
Adepticon 10-Mar Team Nate Stevens Orks
Adepticon 10-Mar Team Greg Evers Orks
Adepticon 10-Mar Team Bill Kocher Orks
Adepticon 10-Mar Team Cory Burns Orks
Warhammer Spectacular 10-Mar 1st Jason Hall Eldar
Warhammer Spectacular 10-Mar 2nd Anthony Dalla Lamma Space Marines
ConQuest Ragnorak 10-Apr 1st Tyler Carmichael Eldar
ConQuest Ragnorak 10-Apr 2nd Matt Estes Orks
Slaughter in Space 10-Apr 1st David Fay Chaos Space Marines
Slaughter in Space 10-Apr 2nd Justin Hilderbrandt Dark Eldar
Astronomi-con Toronto 10-May 1st Nathan Stevens Orks
Astronomi-con Toronto 10-May 2nd John Beck Eldar
The Alamo 10-May 1st John Brock Imperial Guard
The Alamo 10-May 2nd Thomas Reidy Space Marines
Bolter Beach 10-Jun 1st Marc Parker Orks
Bolter Beach 10-Jun 2nd Mike Walsh Space Marines
Patriot Games 10-Jun 1st Jeremy Yates Imperial Guard
Patriot Games 10-Jun 2nd Matt Harp Space Marines
Battle for Blobs Park 10-Jun 1st Justin Cook Imperial Guard
Battle for Blobs Park 10-Jun 2nd Al Edel Imperial Guard
Game Summit 10-Jun 1st Nick Challoner Orks
Game Summit 10-Jun 2nd Marc Page Imperial Guard
Astronomi-con Dallas 10-Jun 1st Clay Smith Orks
Astronomi-con Dallas 10-Jun 2nd Chris Allen Space Marines
ConQuest LA Invasion 10-Jun 1st Brad Townsend Space Marines
ConQuest LA Invasion 10-Jun 2nd Ryan Shepard Imperial Guard
The 14th Black Crusade 10-Jun 1st Michael Davy Tyranids
The 14th Black Crusade 10-Jun 2nd Thomas Walker Space Marines
Ard Boyz Chicago 10-Jul 1st Cole Markgraf Imperial Guard
Ard Boyz Chicago 10-Jul 2nd Alan Bajramovic
Ard Boyz LA 10-Jul 1st David Rolstad
Ard Boyz LA 10-Jul 2nd AJ Van Valkenburg
Ard Boyz Showcase 10-Jul 1st Clark Welch
Ard Boyz Showcase 10-Jul 2nd Ben Mohlie
Buckeye Battles 10-Jul 1st David Talbot Chaos Space Marines
Buckeye Battles 10-Jul 2nd Jason Garner Eldar
ConQuest BC Annihilation 10-Jul 1st Wesley Codgal Chaos Space Marines
ConQuest BC Annihilation 10-Jul 2nd Dave Walz Eldar
Astronomi-con Winnipeg 10-Jul 1st Brock Jansen Imperial Guard
Astronomi-con Winnipeg 10-Jul 2nd Dave Violago Eldar
The Big Show 10-Jul 1st Al Edel Imperial Guard
The Big Show 10-Jul 2nd Ragner Arneson Space Marines
The Big Show 10-Jul 3rd Steven McDaniel Tyranids
SpoCon 10-Jul 1st Bob Kelley Chaos Space Marines
SpoCon 10-Jul 2nd Jayson Besancon Space Marines
ICGT 10-Jul 1st Al Edel Imperial Guard
ICGT 10-Jul 2nd Vaden Ball Space Marines
War Games Con 10-Jul 1st Ben Mohlie Space Marines
War Games Con 10-Jul 2nd Paul Murphy Imperial Guard
GW Hobby Centers 10-Jul 1st Tim Fournier Imperial Guard
GW Hobby Centers 10-Jul 2nd Eric Jahn Space Marines
The NOVA Open 10-Aug 1st Daniel Matulich Imperial Guard
The NOVA Open 10-Aug 2nd Tony Kopach Space Marines
ConQuest Apocalypse 10-Aug 1st Nakoa Thompson Space Marines
ConQuest Apocalypse 10-Aug 2nd Mark McDonald Dark Eldar
Astronomi-con Vancouver 10-Aug 1st Nick Daniels Imperial Guard
Astronomi-con Vancouver 10-Aug 2nd Marshall Reeves Space Marines
SoCal Smackdown 10-Sep 1st Troy Criswell Orks
SoCal Smackdown 10-Sep 2nd Reece Robbins Space Marines
The Warmasters Challenge 10-Sep 1st Ricky Johnson Tyranids
The Warmasters Challenge 10-Sep 2nd Andrew Tripple Orks
Da Grand Waaagh 10-Oct 1st Walter Denlinger Orks
Da Grand Waaagh 10-Oct 2nd Casey McNamara Space Marines
Storm on the Coast 10-Oct 1st Jeff Sherwood Chaos Space Marines
Storm on the Coast 10-Oct 2nd Greg Paradis Tau
The Warmasters Finals 10-Oct 1st Ridvan Martinez Dark Eldar
The Warmasters Finals 10-Oct 2nd Ricky Johnson Tyranids
Slaughter on the Strip 10-Nov 1st George Mason Space Marines
Slaughter on the Strip 10-Nov 2nd John Hermann Tyranids
MechaniCon 10-Nov 1st Chris Dubuque Space Marines
MechaniCon 10-Nov 2nd Matt Cassidy Imperial Guard
Battle for Supremacy 10-Nov 1st Matthew Rodgers Space Marines
Battle for Supremacy 10-Nov 2nd Jason Sperka Space Marines
DaBoyz GT 10-Nov 1st Greg Sparks Eldar
DaBoyz GT 10-Nov 2nd Chris Pelletier Tyranids
The Conflict GT 11-Jan 1st Andrew Gonyo Imperial Guard
The Conflict GT 11-Jan 2nd Jorge Ruiz Space Marines
Ironman XVII 11-Jan 1st Erik Miller Space Marines
Ironman XVII 11-Jan 2nd Erik Kurimoto Imperial Guard
GameCon 11-Jan 1st James Turner Imperial Guard
GameCon 11-Jan 2nd Mekel Strahan Eldar
GottaCon 11-Feb 1st Samantha Foster Daemons of Chaos
GottaCon 11-Feb 2nd Doug Lamb Space Marines
Broadside Bash 11-Feb 1st Franklin Giampapa Chaos Space Marines
Broadside Bash 11-Feb 2nd Dave Fay Chaos Space Marines
Broadside Bash 11-Feb 3rd Charlie Nichols Space Marines