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Cult of Games XLBS: Are Tournaments Actually GREAT For Wargames?
October 5, 2025 by crew
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Happy Sunday Backstagers, CoGs and OTTers!
happy Sunday, how’s the future over there?
Those Chronotopia humans look like they could work for other mediaeval games too
they really can’t when you see them properly I’ll post some pictures when I find my phone and charge it
Make 7 hills Justin – then give them to Lloyd as the base for Rome
So … Justin builds the hills for Lloyd to build his Rome on?
That way none of that will ever get done 😉
I think none of that’s getting done just fine without any further input from anyone 😁
Hurrah Happy Sunday
Love the golden buttons this week, especially the filthy tyranid kit bash stuff. As a fan of the old pencil and ink artwork they really hit the spot. Tournament play in games has never been something ive been into. I’m all about fun thematic play. I understand that part of the hobby, but if it makes a game dry and all about bean counting and learning explots in a ruleset it can kill the experience for me. If a game avoids list building and point systems its a plus for me.
Very impressive butt butt dings today
Hart and Soul sounds like the latest Sunday evening amateur detective series
Like the 70s duo Paunch and Balls
Justin. This is How you make hills with expanding foam. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pm3_9pXRrig&pp=ygUTdGVycmFpbiB0dXRvciBoaWxscw%3D%3D
That wasn’t the video I was looking for. I’ll try and find it.
So I couldn’t find it. Basically you dig a hole the shape of an upside down hill. Spray in the foam. Immediately put an mdf base larger than the diameter of the hole and weigh it down with bricks. You will get dirt sticking to the outside, but that’s just texture. Air bubbles can be filled by applying a layer of filler.
Alternatively put on a high vis vest, find some dry potholes and some traffic barriers.
Happy Sunday!
00:00 TERROR FEST!
01:25 Lieeeeeeeeees!
02:15 No! Terrible tools!
03:15 you lot are slacking more than me? Impossibru!
03:35 Quar. Quar never changes!
04:00 There is a video from Mel The Terrain tutor on how to do foam hills. @dignity
07:50 Foam party!
08:45 Weird skellibobs. The feet are already attached!
09:20 Chronopia – long time no see
11:50 Arabian orks? Do they have coffee?
13:35 playing and painting @avernos
14:35 Oh no. German. My achilleas heel!
16:40 Selling stuff that is not theirs? Thiefes!
18:40 Svilel Chair!
24:00 American Tail made you cry? oO
30:40 COHAN!
33:00 “Biblically correct” XD
35:00 Drop the house beat!
40:00 Punch!
1:07:00 Pay to win? XD
Tournaments. Way back with Star Wars: Pocketmodels and Star Wars: X-Wing I had a lot of fun when I attended tournaments. (Except that one time where some bloke was all whiny about the tables not being the correct size and his mathematical min maxing wouldn’t work) Star Wars: Legions tournaments where also much fun and I never went for the jugular vein. I probably never could have even if I wanted because my lists are always fluffy. Tournaments are fun and can help spread the word. Competative tournaments on the other hand should always carry a warning. All in all: more gaming is more better!
Sidenote: why can’t we read what’s on that shirt of the guy that has Gerrys head? Is it AI that made that picture?!
Happy Sunday Backstagers, CoGs and you Otters!….Justin your gulping your water to fast man, thats why your coughing…SIP MAN, SIP!!…..
Pretty sure Loyd did dome expanding foam hills a long time ago. It was for a personal project as I recall.
Happy Sunday!
where is that link for troll bridge!
ASK AND THOU SHALL RECEIVE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7v_TdLviUE
Yay XLBSers happy Orktober
I’ve still got the GW tree’s to do from years back🙆🤷🤦
DOOOGTANIAN I’M SPACE
The guy on the right in the ST unit is he the chancellor in their romulous film ???
No flying monkeys ?!?🤔
Lloyd over to you ?
Making the game unbalanced makes it more realistic gaming
Just fire the cannon ?
Great show guy’s 👍
I have that Peter Pan miniatures set! Pretty nice. I got them for playing ‘Pulp Alley’.
Yes @brennon the original Peter Pan novel was NOT written for children! I wrote my Peter Pan scenarios for ‘Pulp Alley’ based on the original book. Viscous and bloody is quite possible. I’m still finishing all the different terrain for the book’s version of ‘Neverland’.
In my area the vast majority of KOW players are competitive players. I presume it is because the rules are so well suited for competitive play. In fact, that is the problem I have, being a more narrative type of player. So in order to play KOW, I have to adjust to the competitive scene – and that means following the rules as written.
The new ally rule, which I am not for or against really, has made me change my army composition. What I am a bit sceptic about is why they removed the wavering rule in Nerve tests – I always thought it was a fantastic system which has been a staple of the game from the beginning. But I will reserve judgement until I actually play a few games. I am quite excited actually.
well we don’t know what it’s going to be replaced with yet. Shooting no longer routs it can only waver, and we still have to see how fearless units are treated. I’ll wait until the rules are out but you should also consider throwing peanuts at the heads of your opponents
Great show as always guys.
@brennon the models I used for my Colosseum and also Circus Maximus were 3D prints of files by Iain Lovecraft. They are the same models as those done as physical models by Sally 4th, but the ones by them are in 28 mm Scale.
I used to play in tournaments, but don’t anymore. I think for me, on a personal note, they have many Pros and Cons. They were great motivators to get stuff finished, but I started to feel that more often than not, the fact that the games were by their nature more competitive, they became less fun. What I mean by that is it was often the case that to score the most points in a game, it required that you absolutely crush your opponent. I just don’t find that fun. I like my games to go down to the wire, where things are so close they could really go either way. I am not suggesting all tournaments reward completely obliterating the opponent to score well, and the addition of more scenario-based games has helped, but there was certainly a time when that was the case.
In addition to that, I now have my fingers in so many pies that I doubt I would be a fitting opponent in most cases, as I just do not have the time to invest too much into becoming competitive these days.
Some excellent golden button winners with some very inspiring work. Thanks for sharing it.
I’ve only played in Dreadball tournaments and with the exception of one player taking it a little too seriously it’s been a hoot.
In between having a laugh I was picking up a lot of good experience in how to play, which I took back to my regular league.
It’s been a positive experience, though I’d hesitate to go to a tournament for a game that took itself more seriously.
As I often parrot on here, a paraphrase of someone’s sig on the Privateer Press forum: the objective is to win but the purpose is to have fun.
One of the other cool things about Sally Forth as well as the miniatures is it does the Buck Surdu Combat Patrol game which also has some free PDFs including some Star Wars content.
Two stories.
1) I used to be the test bed for some friends who went to 40k tourneys. I agreed to help them with this and would switch out my list each time to see what would occur. did it for a few years and was good friends with them. What it meant though was that when they were all like ‘you should come with us and play, you’d had fun’ i replied with a solid no. I had not enjoyed being battered to smithereens for months on end each time and basically did not want to go and subject myself to that again. i was more more interested in the narrative play or just mucking about and honestly at that time could not afford to keep up with the next new hot shit. i had bills to pay, they didn’t even pay rent or buy food etc so could spunk cash.
2) Later in life I played in as many imperial assault tourneys as i possibly could. i min/maxed, i practiced a lot, i bought everything and i had some good successes, winning the odd one and doing well in the euros too. i played with 100% painted stuff the best of my ability (check out the project system) and i went around encouraging everyone else to paint their stuff. we ended up with an group of regulars from all over the country who would travel hours just to play 3 (or maybe 6 if you did well) games and kick each others toys in. every one of those players was there for the same reason, love of star wars, love of dungeon crawlers, love of min max and love of playing the game. they also all happened to be absolutely reasonable at the table and often we’d all stay to the end to see our friends get their toys kicked in. some of the group started a podcast, others started painting, others openly shared the mad new combo they found and then when they visited USA they told everyone how the yanks played the game wrong (differently) so when the two group met all the normal ‘meta’ rules went out the window. We all had lots of fun and got one well, we played, drank and were merry. It was my golden age of gaming and i miss it. RIP 2012 – 2016.
bonus story
3) i went to a local bolt action tourney, i gave it a go because BA was new, i liked WW2 and i had enjoyed playing it of an evening with friends. the tourney was well run, the tables looked excellent but can i tell you anything detailed about it? no! why? because i played my first game and arguably won, but because i made the mistake of not totally eliminating units so they didnt count as dead meaning i scored zero points for them. rookie error. but the !@£$%^&^% i was playing against didnt do the honourable thing of telling me that when we had a conversation about it and i said ‘cool so ive basically stopped your attack here and killed everyone but that one guy so theyre no longer a threat, i guess i’ll take the points ive killed there and now deal with this other big issue i have’. he went, ‘yeah sure’ knowing that that ill-informed decision meant i likely would give him the win. i have never played in a BA tourney since.
bonus bonus story
4) the same thing happened in a local tourney of steamforge’s football game. got persuaded to buy in and painted a team, played a game or two, went to the local tourney to make numbers up at request of the person who persuaded me to buy in. my innocence was abused. never played a game since and was quietly happy when the company fucked the community. ‘serves you right’ (because of one person)
experiences matter, but being a guide, or critical friend is key. I lost tonnes in Imperial Assault but i always had fun playing with my opponents because everyone abided by the rule of don’t be a cockwomble.