I talked about it a bit in my review of The Guardian Cup 8 and one of the things that I did have issues with was that the instructions for setting up the tournament were a bit weak in my mind. So I have taken it upon myself to give back to something that helped me out by constructing this article about how to go about setting up Warscore for an ITC event.
1. Download the program – the first thing to do is to download Warscore from Warscore.net. This can be found in the Links dropdown menu on the main site. Select download and go to the download page. Make sure you have Java installed (you should already) and just click the download link.
2. Run Warscore – Locate where you downloaded it and run the program. What you see is very basic and looks like this.
3. Enter Configuration Mode – This is where you will do everything to setup your tournament.
4. Name and Set – Name your tournament and set the number of rounds.
5. Primary Tab Configuration – In configuration mode you will see the Primary tab and your Round tabs. This is where you will setup the tracking for your tournament. Warscore works a lot like an Excel spreadsheet. Lets get it setup for an ITC event and prepare it for submission as well.
a. Click the empty cell on the bottom of the Primary tab in the Attribute column and enter in “lastname”. In the Heading column enter in “Last Name”. You will use the Name cell for first names and the Last Name cell for separate last names as the ITC scoring sheet requires first and last names for data entry. If you have more than one person with the same first name, I’d just add the last initial when you enter in someone to the tournament under “Name”. Like Aaron A and Aaron D, for example so you have a unique identifier. Then when you transfer it to the ITC spreadsheet for entry, you can change those cells. If you don’t do this and just enter in the full name under the Name you will need to go back into a spreadsheet and enter it all in by hand. Alternatively you could put their full name in the Name column and then add in a First Name and Last Name row as well. The Name cell is something you cannot delete as it is an integral part of Warscore setup, so just find a way to work around it that works for you.
b. Next enter “club” under the Attribute column and “Club” under Heading. This will allow you to track teams at your event and to disallow matches by teams in the first round or so if you want.
c. Now enter “primaryfaction” in the Attribute column and “Primary Faction” under the Heading. This will allow you to track Best of Factions for any awards you do with that and also to submit the info to the ITC.
d. Next enter in “battle” in the Attribute column and “Battle” in the Heading column. You don’t need to enter this in verbatim, but use whatever name you want to track their scores. Now enter in “round-sum” in the Type column. This needs to be verbatim as this is the command to tally up each rounds points so you can know whom the winner is.
e. Set winner conditions by clicking the “Place” drop down menu at the bottom of the screen and choosing what will determine the winner of the event. Just select Battle.
6. Round Tab Configuration – In each round tab enter in the following information.
a. In each Round tab, you need to enter in a place to score each rounds battle score. Since we named it Battle in the primary tab we will use that word for each rounds scoring. It needs to be based on that word so Warscore can add it up for you. In each Round tab add the word and associated round. So for Round tab one add “battle-1” in the Attribue column and “Battle 1” in the Heading Column. Do this for each Round tab. So “battle-2” in Round 2 tab, “battle-3” in Round 3 tab, and so on.
b. Set winner conditions by clicking the “Place” drop down menu at the bottom of the screen and choosing what will determine the winner of the event. Just select Battle.
7. You are set! – This is all you pretty much need to do to score you ITC event as the ITC scores primarily on battle points.
8. Other Considerations – Here are some other things to consider.
a. Add Sports and Paint. You can add these to each round and have opponents score it or just to the final round tab. This would be entered in the same way as you did the Battle entry from above. You can even have Warscore find an overall winner with these points by using the “sum” command in the Type column. Just add in “sum battle sports paint” in the Type column (If that is the Attributes you added for each round or in the final round tab for a set score) and it will add those up for you as well.
b. Enter in names in advance and add a “Checked In” Attribute. I would add something like this for the Primary screen and for the first round each day after the first of your event. Most events have a list of attendees already so enter in the names ahead of time and have them check in with you. This will allow you to verify their Primary Faction, Club, Name spelling, etc which will make checking in much faster. Adding and Dropping players is very easy and can be done from the Tournament tab at the top.
Running Your Event
Now that you have you event setup, let’s talk about running it. Once you have all your names, clubs/teams, and faction entered it is time to start. You will do this for each round and is pretty straightforward. This area was my favorite part of Warscore. Select Round 1, click Tournament, and select Match from the dropdown menu.
This screen is where the magic happens. You will notice that the Disallow Rematches box is checked. Keep it so! This will keep people from being matched twice and pair accordingly. Under Primary Criteria, select what you want to match players by (battle) and disallow players being matched by (Club/Team). I wouldn’t disallow matches by team for very much, probably only the first round so travelling players at least don’t have to play their buddies for the first game. After that it is up to you. I wouldn’t disallow club matches after the first round as I feel it will compromise the integrity of your event by giving clubs too much of an advantage.
You can also randomize table and set a certain match up to start the table process. A lot of programs will set the top layers at table 1 and so on, which can be quite boring and actually give them an advantage by learning the quirks of the table in my opinion. I love the randomize tables feature as it moves top players around and mixes things up.
Another nice feature is that the Attributes you used for each piece of information allows you to sort by it in each screen. This will make it easy to see who won and who won for each faction.
Conclusion
Setting up your Warscore tournament takes a little time, but the headache you save during the event is great. You also don’t have to just do this for 40k, this setup will work for just about any tabletop miniatures tournament. Give it a try for your next tournament and see if you agree! If you need any more help, hit me up on the Frontline Forums!