*So fucking cold this weekend, feck you Irish weather! Wait what? I have to leave the house in this shit? Feck .... *
Ah for fecks sake lads what's with all this waking up early for registration and then registration not being ready yet?! Starting 30 minutes late also needs to be looked into as that's an extra 30 minutes I could have spent asleep.
The pre-submission date, for the love of god post it in the actual threads/advertisements you do not at the bottom of the rulespack on a separate page.
I have heard of this magical device known as a projector that puts your computer screen and displays it on a large type of screen thing and guess what all the lecture rooms are fitted with them guys! It's there, use it don't spend 10 minutes writing up the match ups/tables numbers (and then actually having to change them a few times) when you can easily project it when it's ready.
Ah come on once again no tea/coffee for the con goers/war gamers it's cheap and effective and there should be €50 (at like the absolute bloody max) in the budget for it.
I hate sounding like a broken record..... no wait I do actually love it so here it comes again:
DEDICATED SCORE MONKEY PLEASE, then you have the freedom to have your two judges roaming around sorting everything else which is needed at an event that has 30+ people.
Odd number of players does happen so plan for it with a bye buster list as this throws all the damn nonsense of "what do we give this guy in points so as to not to feck with the overall tournament".
When you penalize people for painting scores you either coat everyone with the same brush (pardon the pun) or you let them all away with it, Flying bases need to be painted/based you say? Then ALL FLYING BASES need to be painted based this includes your lovely land speeders etc.
Food food food food food, there was previous deals at previous Dominicon events with pizza's etc but none this year or nobody mentioned it to the war gamers? O'Briens being the pretty much overpriced thing it is was not sufficient (however thank you to the girl that showed up to do it, eeep this should be in the below part)
*Packs up my shit and saves it for the North*
Very very few complaints on this one so I'd like to start with the scores and a very big thanks to Paddy and Barnard for a smoothly run, efficient and fun tournament.
Opponents 5/5
Venue 5/5
Food 2/5
Rules Pack 5/5
Terrain/Tables 4½/5
Organization 4½/5
Prizes 5/5
Value for Money 5/5
Overall 17/20
So that's a total score of 53/60, well done but a few things that could be looked at.
So lets go over these scores, opponents for the weekend were great, Gerry with his Necrons was a fantastically fun game where I got lucky with a turn 6 and a phase out and one point where we were arguing for each other on a rules query. Joseph with his guard (:hate:) was an unfortunate match up for myself but that's the way it goes still a good game with bitching from myself probably more than usual and finally Derek with your guard where although it ended 6:1 kill points to me he beat me in victory points.
I was genuinely surprised by the turnout to Dominion .... I mean Dominicon of Steel, with 34 people showing up to play (then 3 not being able to due to no show/no army available, poor Dan) leaving 31 players for a 1 day tournament was to put it frankly impressive and again hats off to Paddy and everyone who showed up.
Thank you to anyone who dug deep and pulled out all the terrain, while 2 tables could have done with a bit more terrain/less huts and hills overall it was well set up, fair and plenty of it. Loads of room around each table so no butting of heads over space although one Space Wolf player did have to spend some time after sending his entire army hurtling to the ground (ouch).
The lack of Tea and coffee while probably out of the war gamers organisers hands should still be something every event should look into, it's a great touch (man how many times have I said this) and cheap.
Price, wow seriously I can't argue with the price here, €12 for the one day is well worth it especially with the turnout that showed up.
As said above you had a projector on hand and it should have been used, for more than just the final scores, why leave it idle?
* Might want to stop reading for a second as the next part could be construed as self promotion of the Warheads (which I am a member) *
I got to have a gander at Barnard using his FAQ (which needs a guide written on how to use easily) and his scoring program and I have to say once again I am very impressed. As he admits there are still some bugs that need to be worked out on both but for something he has built from scratch (minus the FAQ's etc) it's getting top marks from me and I would recommend people that think the same to get in contact with Barnard (Trget) on our forums http://www.onthestep.net .
* Okay I'm done you can start reading again *
The prizes were perfect for the event, while I've seen more prizes at other cons I add these to the value for money appreciation and overall organization so the only thing I can say is throw in a few more spot prizes, nothing huge a dice or a lamented sheet award would do.
A big thank you to everyone who came to this as I loved every minute of it and have to say the quality of the Irish Tournament scene is outstanding but has room for improvement like everything does! Thanks again to Barnard, Paddy, everyone I played, my club mates and everyone who listened to my drivel and read this post.