I got the chance to ask a few questions of the TO for TOW at BAO. I promise that’s the most acronyms you will see in a single sentence.
The Tournament Organizer for The Old World event at the Bay Area Open this year is Dylan Mosley. I was able to ask him some questions about his background and decision making process for BAO’s comp rules, which I will reproduce below. For those who have not seen it, here is the player packet. Dylan has taken a light touch to comp for the BAO, something that you might call a “hybrid approach.” It’s not quite anything goes, but it’s less restrictive than GW’s suggested parameters for competitive play. Armies will be 2,000 points, may take up to 6 of any core choice and 3 of any non-core unit, unless a lower limit is set in the official documents (i.e. you can’t take more than is normally allowed, only less). All Ravening Hordes, Forces of Fantasy, Arcane Journal and Legends lists are allowed.
Here is my conversation with Dylan:
HH: First, can you tell me just a very little bit about your history with the hobby, tournaments and being a TO?
Dylan: I actually picked up my first Warhammer army book in the late 1990s when I was on a hunt for comic books and was lured in by the amazing art of the 5th edition Lizardmen army book. I had no idea at the time there was a game attached to it. I didn’t start playing Warhammer until 2001, I picked up 40k first (3rd edition Space Wolves) and very soon followed with Warhammer Fantasy Battles and fell in love with both games where a good portion of my day dreaming time even now is spent on crafting army lists and remembering games from long ago. My local store held tournaments and events for both game systems and I was a regular in both as soon as I had a large enough army to participate. Later on I was attending a tournament in Clovis California and met Reece and Frankie and soon started attending their events and eventually I helped them judge 40k in the first few years of LVO. I then started TO-ing the Horus Heresy and Knight Joust at the LVO for a few years but had to step down due to time commitments. I was also traveling around to many major GTs with a group called the Wrong Way Kids led by Paul Murphy playing 40k at Warzone Atlanta and the ATC, etc. When The Old World was announced I think I was on the phone within two minutes of the announcement asking Reece about getting an Old World event going!
HH: Do you have a notion of what mix of players to expect at BAO? Do you expect a lot of brand new players, as opposed to people who played previous editions of WFB?
Dylan: I think there will be a 3/4 mix of Old Guard players to new players, I can’t wait to find out if I’m correct in that and I’ll be polling my players with this question.
HH: As a TO, what kind of considerations go into the points limit and list restrictions for a tournament?
Dylan: So thinking of points it seems GW has balanced the game at 2000 points so we’re going to start there and see if we need to tweek that for future events. I know when WFB was still hosting tournaments the average points was 2500. With such a long hiatus and the Old World being a new game I found it better to er on the side of caution with points as at an event we do have a limit on time we can have for the games and I wanted as many of them to be able to come to a natural conclusion for the players.
HH: Can you tell me a bit about the points and unit limitations you are considering for this tournament? What factors are you weighing in these decisions?
Dylan: So GW made an event packet where they have unit limitations to help stop the already infamous 9 Gyrocopter list, some of these particularly on the core option seems a bit harsh for some armies so I am using a modified version of GWs comp. As with the points, time will tell if things need more or less comp. Some other events are using a 1999+1 point comp to make further limitations on things. I didn’t think this was a good system to use as the game is still so new and all that does is create more boogeyman list not less.
HH: Assuming you are going to TO in the future, are you expecting your comp format to alter much in the future? Could something crop up at this tournament that might influence comp at future events?
Dylan: I hope my format grows and evolves over time with the game and the community so that way we can continue to deliver an awesome event to people. I will be looking at the list and the actual games to see what or if anything needs to be changed and will work with other TOs and my players in a collaborative effort to make the best events we can. Maybe I’ll even be able to pick the brains of the staff over at Specialist Games who made The Old World and get their thoughts on things. As a tabletop gamer and Roleplaying gamer I always expect the players/party to think of something or some list that I couldn’t think of [and] just be like wow that’s amazing or broken or OP, and I will definitely be taking it all down in my notebook for future events.
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