My Return to FOW Tournament Play

I recently returned to playing in tournaments of one of the first miniatures games I got into,, and I now have a new appreciation for the game. I wanted to share this rejuvenation with you.

Why did I leave the tournament scenes? It wasn’t that I walked away from the game, I still played FOW socially, ran tournaments for both FOW and Team Yankee (TY). As many of you know I still covered the game here on NDNG.  I just walked away from competitive play for a while. My hiatus came about because I saw some things I didn’t like about the tournament scene.

A month or so ago, when the D-Days books first came out, I wanted to bring a friend who hadn’t played FOW into the scene, and a tournament at a new Local Game Store (LGS) seemed like a perfect opportunity. But, would the tourney scene be a positive experience for a new to FOW player? Or, would the hardened, competitive attitudes of some of the players prove to give him a negative experience?

November is the month here in the USA, where the best of our players head to Minneapolis (this year) for the Masters tournament. All participants invited to that event receive a green shirt with the FOW Masters Competition logo.

I wondered if a few of the gamers I observed in the last two years played the game with the goal of gaining a green master’s shirt was their only motivation.

Sometimes a great game community ends up with a toxic tournament culture. Dominating the competition becomes the one and only goal in those uber-competitive cultures. There were times I could see that developing among some of the new FOW tournament players.

That wasn’t where FOW players went in years past. And the few times some players went down that dark road, there were more than enough tourney players looking to grow the hobby and the game, they kept the toxic players under control, or urged such players to find other games.

Another factor that took me out of competitive play was that the tournament scene was shrinking. While the 2018-2019 season had a bump in players, up to 471 from 447 the year before, participation in the US Tournament scene was nowhere near the 785 number a few years ago. Since roughly the same number of events take place each year, around 90, less players are playing more often.

Many, many great players with green shirts are among the nicest ambassadors of the game. However, the shrinking number of tournament players seemed to have allowed the overly-competitive side to gain prominence over the “play-for-fun while trying to win” side.

Since I had a friend looking to get into FOW, I decided to dive back into the competitive scene, and learn what the current temperature of the player base in the US was. At least in my part of the country.

The tournament in question was at a new store in the Northern Virginia (NoVa) area, in Leesburg VA. The owner Dane is just that type of guy you just want to support. Dane wanted to hold a D-Day event the day after the new German D-Day release.

Even though the new D-Day book was out, I made up my force the British Churchill list from Fortress Europe.  Who doesn’t love Churchill tanks?  That list gave me the chance to run a bunch of them.

The friend who I brought into the hobby ended up playing the list I wanted to play from the new German D-Day book. Perhaps that was a catalyst in getting back into the game – I wanted to support his newfound love of the hobby.

It has always been my contention that veteran players need to be ambassadors of the game and should seek out new gamers to grow the game and the hobby. We should work with the new players – not as baby seals to club and raise our profile in a tourney. Instead, even in a tourney setting, try to get them to a point where they become a solid gamer who understands the why behind the list-building and the strategy on the tabletop.

Many of the top players in the FOW tourney scene, especially in years past, made an effort to bring in 2-3 new gamers a year to become regulars in tournaments. They work to build up the skills and strategy of the new players and go out of their way to help “Baby Seals” grow into strong tourney players. I strongly encourage this type of attitude. Otherwise, you are not giving back to the game that you love and have dedicated so much time to.

The event at Creative Pursuits had 12 players, which for this area is a lot of players in a FOW tourney. I played well and I got to play against some of my favorite people such as Kurt Reese, “Pastor” Pete Zerphy and our own NDNG Ed Sales. I played well, and by my third game, I realized how much fun I had been missing out on by avoiding the tourney scene.

I also realized all my work in reviewing the game and playing “friendly” matches really slowed the game down for me. Just being able to play under the time limits of a tourney, and not worry about breaking down the meta for an NDNG article was a pleasant change. Fortunately, I was back in a tourney groove in no time.

Many players feel that V4 is drastically different than V3, I have never felt that way and many of the same techniques from V3 worked fine for me in V4.

I have to admit that this first tournament back for this new season was a positive experience. When Dane held the follow-on event a month later, I was eager to attend and try out some of those new German D-Day.

My co-worker must have enjoyed the first tournament. By the time of the second tourney, his new US force was table ready.

At this second event, I faced off against some of the guys I played in my first few years in the game like Bob Evans and Jim Best Sr. I also played someone who I have seen play in many of our events but never played against, Nicholas Reid.

I thought back to when Nicholas was a brand-new player and still had a lot to learn. Compared to that time, I am impressed by his knowledge of the rules and how he made nothing but great decisions and helped make our game fun despite my 3-6 loss.

Based on my experience at these two events I really want to play in more. The only issue will be time. I play so many great games now, that juggling all of them, and their organized play events will be difficult.

For the group of gamers who have left the game; I am sure you miss it. I recommend playing again. With a good local crew of gamers, you’ll probably find the fun we used to see in the tournament scene. If so, the experience should motivate you into returning to active play.

The second point is for the new players, give a tournament scene a shot. Tourney play can help you to become a better player, and learn list-building and how it relates to strategy on the table.

My last point came from discussions with Battlefront’s Chad McElhiney about how can we, as the veteran players, work to grow the game and get back to the days where we had almost 800 players a year in the US tournament scenes. I feel that this is crucial to re-grow the tournament scene to where it once was and expand the reach and appeal of Flames of War.