Despite the title of the post, I did not perform badly at the semi-finals of 'Ard Boyz this year. No, in fact I was not even able to play this weekend. My region has quite the active 40k community with 10-12 gaming groups within a 2-hour drive. Add in another hour or two and you can see that the Tennessee Valley has an amazing group of active players.
The problem I'm having here is that GW only gave two venues even remotely close to the area a semi-final location. The one I was planning to attend was only able to hold 24 people, and since I found out I was eligible with less than a week to go, the spots were already filled. That means 8 preliminary groups within 3 hours of the store could be supported there. I can almost guarantee you there were more, forcing people to drive ludicrously long distances or be left out.
When I discovered I was unable to attend the event (which I would already be driving about 2-hours one way to attend), I took some time to debate visiting the other venue. With a 4-hour drive one way, that would put me on the road for far too long to also be playing in any sort of event. I also felt that paying for hotel accommodations for this event would not have been worthwhile, so in the end I opted for the next-best thing: going out to the movies.
I am a bit upset with the situation, but not terribly. I mean, I didn't earn the spot to begin with, so why should I have a problem missing out? But my problem doesn't come from the inconvenience I received. It's the fact that even the people who earned these positions would not all be able to play, even if they all traveled 4 hours (one way) to get to them. It is very poor form to host a tournament environment with an invitational and then not have enough space for all those invitations. Someone at GW needs to take a look at this situation and have a solution for next year.
In fact, addressing this issue could be part of a greater tournament organization overhaul. The interwebs have been chattering away the last few months with a want for a more competitive environment. I would love to see an organized play system set up to make everyone happy. A league set aside for fluff bunnies with tons of painting and sportsmanship stuff about and a series of tournaments where the only thing that truly matters is how well you play (and winning all your games is more important than tabling two opponents and losing to a third). Sure, painted armies should be a must, but it shouldn't affect your score. Also, being a prick should get you knocked out of the event. And for crying out loud, USE THE STANDARD MISSIONS!
I feel better now. no more ranting for me, I just really needed to speak that out a bit. I need to go finish off painting my third land raider for next week's event. I finished up the highlighting and basic metalics last night. Tonight I need to get all the rivets and then wash the beastie to bring out some more depth. I do like the look of black and silver running (driving) across the table :)
That sucks. GW is improving, but they are far from ideal.
ReplyDeleteI can totally understand the feeling.
ReplyDeleteThere were I think 4 or 5 stores in northern Alberta & BC plus a few others in central/southern BC. This would equate to something like at least 15+ semi-finalists in western Canada.
But the closest location for the semi's is in Washington state which is like at least 8 hours drive from the closest prelim venue (for me it would have been something like 14+ and for the Albertans something like 2 days)
There was one store within about 1-4 hours drive from several of the prelim venues but despite constant bugging by the TO to his GW rep, no go in having their store added to the list. What sucks is that they had the capacity to host about 20 tables and enough decent terrain to do it!
Oh well, I'm hoping the TO will be able to get his store as a semi-final location for next year's 'Ard Boyz.
How about the folks that won multiple slots? Some folks playes 2 rounds of the prelims allowing 4th and 5th finishers to go. Doesn't pass the smell test.
ReplyDelete