Flames of War 2023 Masters Preview
By Tom Gall
If you like to play Flames of War you’re probably aware of what are the two modes of play, casual and competitive play. There is a fairly healthy tournament scene for Flames in the US, it’s been coming back since COVID.
Competitive play isn’t for everyone but it does make for a fun day of getting in a few games, pitting your skills against other players, and as a result learning how to play better. Often people at tournaments talk about how to play better, make better lists, unit recommendations, painting suggestions, and so on.
This weekend (November 18th and November 19th) at Sinclair Games (176 W Carmel Dr, Carmel, IN 46032) will be the Flames of War Masters tournament. It culminates the year of competitive play for Flames of War tracked by Battlerankings.net. It’s a by-invite-only tournament of the top players in the US.
For tournament organizers that turn in their results, players receive a certain amount of points based on their performance, the size of the tournament they played in as well as if it was a sanctioned Battlefront National event or not. While you might think the more tournaments you play the better your ranking will be, that’s not exactly the case, rather your top 4 tournament results are used to determine your ranking on the list. The “season” is a year-long ending on September 30th.
The Masters tournament is made up of 18 players. Some are the ones that placed first in a Battlefront US Nationals tournament like AdeptiCon, the remainder are then chosen based on how they did for the season. Not everyone is able to attend so for those that pass on the invite the next person down the list is contacted until the field is set.
This year the tournament is 100 points LW with special list-building and game rules. It’s 6 rounds, the first played as a daytime game, then a dusk game, two-night games, a dawn game, followed last by a day game. The night rules are a bit different, cards that allow for a night attack or rules to keep certain forces in their deployment zone until the sun comes up are suspended.
Players are to come up with 4 lists, tho some only did one list this year. Any formation(s) you pick must be the same across all 4 lists, support can change. Command cards that modify the core formation must be the same across all lists. One of the points of the Masters tournament is to challenge a player’s list building. What would you do? How would you optimize each of your 4 lists when only support can vary? Remember you need to balance for reserves, you want your core formation to be strong but not so large that you have no latitude for your support options. Plenty to consider which is entirely the point.
When you get to the table, after talking over terrain, etc, you choose your stance (no limitations) and the list you’ll use, and reveal at the same time as your opponent and away you go!
The lists that people will play have been shared with the players, I’ll share those after the tournament, along with pictures and analysis. Stay tuned!
