Last weekend I was Judging at the UK FFG Nationals, run by Asmodee UK.
A weekend of National Championships for Fantasy Flight Games, plus side events and some surprises.
Thursday
An early morning coach journey for me, to get to the ICC on time. That's normally how I travel to these events, and I've been to Birmingham quite a few times in the past twelve months. No delays en route and I used the journey to catch up on the last few weeks of the White Book Podcast.
Set up day, and the first opportunity to catch up with people I've worked with before, and meet the new staff. On Asmodee's side of things, I had met everyone previously and I had also already met most of the Judges. Despite this event effectively being my 1 year anniversary of Judging with Asmodee UK, the more familiar faces are starting to feel like family.
Set up went smoothly, spoiler alert; it's physical work and consists of being told where to put stuff. Boards on tables, tablecloths, gaming mats and table numbers don't just put themselves into place. There was also discussion of who was doing what and when. All in all though, the relaxing calm before the storm.
Friday
My job Friday was simple; Scorekeeper for Imperial Assault. The event was small enough that it could be run on TOME, and there was going to be 5 rounds. The majority of games went to time, or near enough, giving me the rest of the round to relax and settle in. The only hiccup was the round where I was chatting to Rich (who was Marshalling the event) and Mike Budd about some stuff and distractedly forgot to print and hand put the match-slips. Easily fixed within a couple of minutes though.
I've gotta say, being involved in an event for a game you don't normally play is dangerous. A friend of mine has the Imperial Assault core set, and watching this tournament reminded me that the game is fun to play. One of the players had an Ahsoka Tano with Lightsabers lit up from within, which looked awesome. There was also quite a variety in the lists I saw.
X-Wing day one part one was also taking place, and had a small field. Seriously deadly though, containing the current World and European champions, the at-the-time current UK National champion as well as several other National champions and known X-Wing celebreties. With a score of 5-1 needed to qualify for Sunday, it was looking like a murderous day.
Saturday
I was Judging the event alongside some other staff, with Vince Marshalling as usual. It was a smooth day, rulings-wise, although there was some controversy I'll address later. Interestingly, the ship I answered the most rules questions about was the U-Wing.
It was a much larger field than Friday, and saw some repeat attendance. It also required a 5-1 record to make the Sunday. However, despite the size, it ran well which is a testament to Vince's experience.
Three of the Darkstar Marauders were able to attend, Troll, Newby and Nezumi. All three played well and had some close games. I think they would agree in saying the event made a fitting end to First Edition.
Saturday evening I managed to play some Keyforge. The game plays really smoothly, and is simple to understand. I can already see the potential for wanting to own a few decks to have a varied experience. Chains is an interesting way of balancing power level within the game. I'll talk more about it in a future post.
Sunday
The day of the Top Cut. As the day went on, Judging became a much more intimate affair. Less games going on meant more ability to watch the games in detail. By the quarter finals, I was able to find a good position to watch three of the games at once.
With the semi finals, I was able to focus on one of the games; Fishy versus Ashok. They claimed, post game, that it must have been boring to watch but it wasn't. They both completed a circuit of the board before Ashok used bombs to lock out his deployment zone, and actual combat was forced. The game ended a couple of turns later with what little combat that happened being decisive. Between watching the two looking for the optimal place to engage and their banter, the game was good to watch.
The final round was painful to watch. Tom Reed's red dice didn't want to roll hits/crits which resulted in Fishy's ships surving shots that they normally wouldn't. He still had to fly well and deserved his win.
After the cut came the packing away of all the stuff we had set up on Thursday. As you would expect, it's a much quicker process. Still, lots to do though. That evening, in the hotel, a group of us played a couple of games of Tortuga. It was a fantastic hidden identity game and worth playing if you get the chance. French versus English fighting over treasure, but no-one is sure who is on which side. If there is an odd number of players, then the odd player is Dutch. They win if the result of the game is a draw. Thanks a lot to Ross Graham for sharing this game with us.
Controversy
If you've made it this far through the blog post, you may be wondering about the controversy I mentioned earlier. Or, maybe you were at the event and witnessed it first hand or conversely read the multitude of posts about it on the Facebook groups.
A decision was made on the Friday to allow competitors who hadn't qualified for the Sunday X-Wing top cut to play again on the Saturday. This was decryed as grabbing extra money and allowing some people two attempts at qualifying. It caused a lot of fuss, bad feeling and anger.
I wasn't privy to the decision, nor the process that lead to it. Mike Budd put his hands up as the person responsible. This lead to him taking a lot of flakk, both in person and online. Kudos to the man for being able to not only agree it was a mistake, but make himself available to discuss people's grieveances.
My opinion -
The true error was communication. While many may think it's unfair, or unusual, to allow players to enter two qualifying events for the Sunday the true problem was lack of choice. Because nothing had been said before the event, the assumption was you could play Friday or Saturday but not both. This lead to people deciding to only come to the event for the Saturday or opting to play other game systems.
Had it been communicated to the players beforehand that they could attempt to qualify on both days, then people that would want two attempts could plan accordingly. And that was the problem, the players that hadn't played on the Friday only had 1 chance to make it, while those that failed on the Friday had a 2nd chance.
It's a lesson to be learned. I strongly suspect that such a mistake will not be made in future and the ability to play or not play in both qualifying days will be clearly communicated. Presumably when the tickets initially go on sale.
The player reaction was mixed;
Some players took it in their stride. They either weren't aware of what was going on, didn't care or kept their opinions to themselves.
Some players, that played on the Friday but didn't qualify, took advantage of the rule and played again on the Saturday. For some of them it proved to be the correct choice as they managed the 5-1 record on their second attempt.
Some players got angry or upset. I can, up to an extent, understand their frustration with what must have felt like an unfair decision. I can sympathise with them, especially if you really wanted to make the cut and have a decent run at being National champion. What I can't agree with is some of the vitriol I witnessed, especially on the Facebook groups. Passions run high, but getting angry at the decision doesn't help. Especially after it had been publicly acknowledged and apologised for. All that was going to do was keep the bad feeling going and allow it to put a cloud over the whole event.
A final group of players were exemplified by (but not solely made up of ) the Weekend Warlords. They decared that, because they found it unfair that not everyone would be able to take advantage of playing two days, that their players that failed to qualify on the Friday would not play again on the Saturday. They didn't fault anyone for playing both, as the rules allowed it, but their personal sense of honour and fairness wouldn't allow them to.
Whatever your stance on the issue at the time, we can all agree that it is highly unlikely that it will happen again. It is a shame that such controversy happened at the last First Edition X-Wing UK Nationals.
Finally
This is where I would normally do some shout-outs. However, I can't. There were far too many people who made the weekend fantastic, that I dare not list any for fear of forgetting someone. The X-Wing community, by and large, is amazing and I can't wait to see them transition to Second Edition.
Hopefully I'll get to more events between now and next years Nationals and see more of the wonderful people.
