Battle for Stones River 2012: Thoughts from the Tournament Organizer.

            So the 2012 BFSR has come and gone, what a day it was though.  I feel like it was quite a successful tournament.  We had 67 players total, a new venue, some new terrain and some new tables.  I have quite a few pictures to post but I wanted to give you guys my take on the tournament. 
            To start with, I want to thank everyone involved in the tournament from prepping terrain/tables to setup/cleanup.  My fellow Istvaanians; Danny, Josh, Phillip, Keith, Patrick and Shannon thanks for all the help!  Thanks goes out to Chris from Grand Adventures for all of his support.  Thanks to Matt for providing everyone lunch.  Also, thanks to Todd for helping with odds and ends.  Finally, a giant thanks to all the players for making the day great!  I think we had a great bunch of players and some awesome looking armies.



             On to the new venue, the Lane Agri-Center.  I was thoroughly ecstatic with our new location.  It turned out to have more room than we originally calculated which gave us the opportunity to spread the tables out.  The past four years have been a tight squeeze between tables and the feedback I got was that everyone really appreciated the extra room.  The space was perfect for what we needed, it allowed us to split the 6 table rows into two.  This gave us a huge walkway down the middle of the room.  I think next year we will keep a similar layout but still be able to add a few more tables.  Usually after the tournament my feet are killing me, but I think that thin layer of carpet actually provided some cushion.  Overall a very nice and clean facility, looking forward to next year.

2/3rds setup Friday Night



New Desert Tables















            We added new desert tables to our existing terrain this year so we could increase the size from 50 players last year to 70 this year.  The desert terrain turned out really well.  I think it gave plenty of cover and looked outstanding.  We also added terrain to our snow and brown tables in response to comments last year about a lack of LOS blocking terrain.  I didn’t hear any comments about not having enough terrain this year.  Danny and Josh gave up a lot of time and energy to help produce all this new terrain, so if you talk to them say thanks!  We also built a new style of light weight table this year.  They worked really well and stood up to the rigors of the day very well.  Hopefully we can replace the old worn out plywood tables over the next year with some of the new style ones. 
            The scenarios we chose seemed to workout pretty well.  We didn’t have too many questions or problems come up.  The overall points spread was pretty good too.  I was amazed to see Brian Crew score 80 out of 80 Battle Points on the day.  First time in BFSR history of a perfect day, as a matter of fact.  
 
            Well the conquerors for the day were Brian Crew (Overall Champion), Matt Rogers (2nd Place Overall) and David “Tarzan” Jensen (3rd Place Overall).  Best General went to Matt Rogers, Best Painted went to Grant Wyatt and Best Sportsman went to Chris Enfinger.  Are usual style of Civil War replicas for trophies was carried on again this year.  We brought in the big gun for Overall Champion, a replica Enfield Musket.  We also brought in a replica CSA Officer’s Sword, a replica Cavalry Sword and a replica 1853 Army Pistol.  People really seem to love the trophies and it is something different than just giving out product as a prize.  Being on the Games Workshop GT Circuit this year also provided our Overall Champion a ticket to the Throne of Skulls Tournament in Memphis and $150 gift voucher from GW.  Also 2nd Overall gets $100 GW gift voucher and 3rd got a $50 gift voucher.  We stuck to our policy of only giving out one trophy per person this year but didn’t factor in the GW prizes, so we ran into the situation where Best General was also 2nd Overall.  With Chris from Grand Adventures providing Battle Forces for the Best Painted/Sportsman/General we actually gave away that and $100 from GW to the same person.  This is something we didn’t take into account and will have to look into for next year.  Congratulations to all of our winners!


Best Painted

Best Sportsmanship

Overall Champion

Best General


Chris from Grand Adventures and that's me on the cooler.

Grant Wyatt, Best Painted +Catachan Jungle Fighters+

Chris Enfinger, Best Sportsman.  Voted favorite opponent by all four of his opponents!


Matt Rogers, Best General

David "Tarzan" Jensen, 3rd Place Overall

Quite excited!

Matt Rogers, 2nd Place Overall

Brian Crew, Overall Champion
          Shannon was nice enough to take our results and create some cool statistics for us.  I hope you guys enjoy them.  Thanks Shannon!
Army Type* # % Running Total
Space Wolves 13 20% 20%




Grey Knights 8 12% 32%
Space Marines 8 12% 44%
Blood Angels 7 11% 55%
Imperial Guard 5 8% 62%
Necrons 5 8% 70%
Tyranids 4 6% 76%
Dark Eldar 3 5% 80%
Eldar 3 5% 85%
Orks 3 5% 89%
Black Templars 2 3% 92%
Chaos Space Marines 2 3% 95%
Tau 1 2% 97%
Chaos Deamons 1 2% 98%
Unknown 1 2% 100%
Total 66 98%
*One Tau player removed after leaving early 





 
Army Averages and Top Player Scores
Army Type* Overall BP Earned Overall Avg Standard Dev Top Player's Score
Grey Knights 347 43 12 68
Blood Angels 258 37 24 80
Imperial Guard 183 37 9 46
Necrons 162 32 20 60
Eldar 93 31 12 40
Space Wolves 396 30 19 66
Black Templars 60 30 7 37
Space Marines 224 28 11 43
Dark Eldar 84 28 5 35
Chaos Deamons 28 28 0 28
Tyranids 103 26 7 37
Chaos Space Marines 43 22 19 40
Orks 55 18 4 23
Tau 14 14 0 14
*Unknown removed




 
Average Army Performance By Round
Army Type* Round 1 BP Average Round 2 BP Average Round 3 BP Average Round 4 BP Average
Grey Knights 9 14 8 13
Blood Angels 8 13 9 7
Imperial Guard 6 16 4 10
Necrons 9 5 8 10
Eldar 0 12 15 4
Space Wolves 7 7 9 7
Black Templars 2 6 9 15
Space Marines 8 2 11 7
Dark Eldar 5 0 13 10
Chaos Deamons 0 14 3 11
Tyranids 10 4 2 10
Chaos Space Marines 0 0 12 10
Orks 3 10 2 3
Tau 0 0 11 3

 
Best Player Score By Round

Army Type* Round 1  Round 2  Round 3  Round 4 
Grey Knights 20 20 20 20
Blood Angels 20 20 20 20
Imperial Guard 20 20 17 20
Necrons 20 20 20 20
Eldar 0 20 20 11
Space Wolves 20 20 20 20
Black Templars 3 11 17 20
Space Marines 20 6 20 20
Dark Eldar 9 0 20 20
Chaos Deamons 0 14 3 11
Tyranids 20 11 3 20
Chaos Space Marines 0 0 20 20
Orks 6 20 3 9
Tau 0 0 11 3

 
Paint Score Average By Army
Army Type* Average Painting Standard Dev
Grey Knights 22 9
Blood Angels 26 9
Imperial Guard 24 9
Necrons 26 7
Eldar 20 7
Space Wolves 23 8
Black Templars 20 10
Space Marines 26 7
Dark Eldar 21 15
Chaos Deamons 31 0
Tyranids 17 8
Chaos Space Marines 28 3
Orks 23 6
Tau 37 0

 
Army Type* Overall Army Sportsmanship Average
Grey Knights 27
Blood Angels 29
Imperial Guard 31
Necrons 24
Eldar 29
Space Wolves 28
Black Templars 30
Space Marines 26
Dark Eldar 26
Chaos Deamons 40
Tyranids 26
Chaos Space Marines 29
Orks 33
Tau 32


So we will take a little time off and then get back to work on planning for next year so if you have some good ideas you think could make our tournament better, please send us a note.  I hope to see everyone back next year along with a few new faces.  Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures.


Tarzan and Randy

Justin's LED Wreck Markers!

Alan rolling dice...































Brian Crew's Blood Angels

Brian's Death Company Dread




Cody Mitchell's Carcharodon Marines













Josh Alexander's Blood Angels






Keith Hoffman's Night Lords

















Chris Bryant's Space Wolves


Grant Wyatt's Catachan Jungle Fighters, Winner of Best Painted!




Shannon Dickens' Tau






Tarzan Jensen's Necrons





Phillip French's Nurgle Marines











Chris Enfinger's Nurgle Marines













Black Library's Mike Lee!

Jeff Guillotte"s Black Templars



 That's all for now.  If you have any photos I would love to post them up.  Let me know and send them our way.  I will try to get captions in the photos soon so you know whose army is whose and who everyone is.  Thanks again!