Announcing: Brawler Bash 2019

Good morning gamers!

It is my privilege to announce a new TMAT tournament: Brawler Bash 2019! This tournament, set to take place on Saturday, January 19, 2019 at Patrick Henry College, is a Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game tournament. The tournament will consist of 3 matches, all using variants on the To the Death scenario. This makes learning the rules simple (as the objectives are mostly the same for all three matches), and the ultimate objective for the tournament is simple: bash the other army!

Below is the information regarding how to register for the tournament and what to expect.



I.   Tournament Schedule

The tournament will consist of three (3) matches. The schedule is below:

     9:30 AM: Check-In and Army List Verification (see Part IV below)

     10:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Round 1: Celebrity Crush

     12:00 PM: Lunch Break

     12:30 - 2:30 PM: Round 2: Living Wild

     2:45 - 4:45 PM: Round 3: King of the Hill

Each round will run for 120 minutes, or until one force reaches 25% of its starting force (as noted in the rules for the scenario). If there is less than two minutes remaining on the clock, players must both agree to start a new round. If one or more players do not agree to start the round, the game ends and scores are calculated.

The intervening time between rounds should be used for setting up the board, deployment, declaring the makeup and warbands of your army (including mentioning wargear choices if they are not ready visible or apparent on the model), and casual conversation as desired.

II.   Army Lists and Restrictions

Players shall create armies using the alliance rules from the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game (Historical, Convenient, or Impossible alliances are allowed), to a maximum of 700 points.

Armies shall be submitted to the tournament director via email (counterplanfan@gmail.com) no later than 11:59:59 PM on January 17, 2019 (so as long as the timestamp on the email says, "January 17" you're fine). Players are free to post their lists as a comment on the blog (as is our custom at TMAT), but are not required to post their lists.

The tournament director will confirm the army list submission no later than 12:00:00 PM on January 18, 2019. Your confirmation will come in the form of an email detailing both your army list (to confirm accuracy) as well as the army lists of the other declared participants so far in the tournament. So for those who submit their army lists first, they will have more time to think through how to prepare for the other armies in the tournament.

We will be using the rules as written in the Middle Earth SBG Core Rulebook, Army Books tied to the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game with two exceptions. First, inasmuch as there is an the official errata released by GamesWorkshop, the errata stands. Second, there will be scaled levels of victory for each match, as noted below:

• Draw: A tied Victory Point score (e.g., 0-0, 2-2, etc.)
• Minor Victory/Loss: One army has more Victory Points than the other, but not double or more than double the number of Victory Points of the other force (e.g., 5-4, 3-2, etc.)
• Major Victory/Loss: One army has double or more than double the Victory Points than the other (e.g., 6-3, 3-1, etc.)
• Total Victory/Loss: One army has 10+ Victory Points, and the other army has 0 Victory Points

Players will receive the following Battle Points to their final score for the tournament based on their performance in each round:

• Total Loss: 1 Battle Point
• Major Loss: 2 Battle Points
• Minor Loss: 3 Battle Points
• Draw: 4 Battle Points
• Minor Victory: 5 Battle Points
• Major Victory: 6 Battle Points
• Total Victory: 7 Battle Points

So the minimum Battle Points a player could score if they fight all of their matches is 3 Battle Points and the highest score they can receive is 21 Battle Points. A player who does not fight his assigned match forfeits the round and scores 0 Battle Points, while his opponent attains a Total Victory. A round is forfeited if the player does not arrive within 5 minutes of the starting time, abandons the tournament early, or does not appear for check-in during the proper check-in time (see Part IV below).

Players may use models from the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game created by GamesWorkshop, or proxy models from other distributors (or conversions of other models made by GamesWorkshop). If proxy models are used, they should be clearly delineated from other units in the army. Wargear purchased for the model does not need to be present on the physical model, but should be declared both on the army list submitted to the tournament director (see Part IV below) and to the opponent at the start of the match.

If players have questions, please contact Centaur at counterplanfan@gmail.com.

III.   Tournament Matches: To the Death Variants

All three matches of the tournament will be played using the scenario rules for To the Death as noted in the Middle Earth SBG rulebook on Page 140:

• If you break the enemy army, gain 3 Victory Point. If you break the enemy army and are not broken, gain 5 Victory Points.
• If you wound the enemy army leader, gain 1 Victory Point. If you kill the enemy army leader, gain 3 Victory Points.
• Armies with at least 1 banner remaining at the end of the match gain 1 Victory Point. If an army has a banner remaining at the end of the match and the opponent does not have a banner at the end of the match, gain 2 Victory Points instead.
• If you bring the enemy force to 25%, gain 2 Victory Points.

Each match will add additional ways to score points (and to keep our players from getting bored):

• Match 1: Celebrity Crush: Crush the celebrity to get extra Victory Points (intentionally-misleading-title-to-get-your-attention for the win)! 
• At the center of the board will be a token representing Nicholas Cage: if your army reduces Nicholas Cage to 0 Wounds, gain 2 Victory Points. 
• When Nicholas Cage is defeated, flip the token to reveal Justin Bieber: if your army reduces Justin Bieber to 0 wounds, gain 1 Victory Point. The army that defeated Nicholas Cage may not attack Justin Bieber or harm him in any way. 
• The celebrity moves at the start of the turn before armies move (but after Heroic actions are declared and resolved, the Set Ablaze special rule, etc.), may not charge, and is moved by the player who does not have priority. 
• The celebrity may not move in a way that could cause him injury (including jumping rivers, running across lava, falling off a cliff, running from the paparazzi, tripping on a red carpet, etc.), but otherwise moves normally. 
• The celebrity is considered to have a control zone.

Nicholas Cage has the following profile:

M  F/S  S  D  A  W  C  M/W/F
6"  3/-   3  5   1    2   6   0/3/1

Nicholas Cage also gains +1 Defense against ranged attacks (thanks to the glisten of sunlight on his forehead), and is considered to have a knife.

Justin Bieber has the following profile:

M  F/S  S  D  A  W  C  M/W/F
5"  2/-   3  3   1    1   2   0/0/0

Justin Bieber is considered to be armed with Pathetic Emotion (counts as unarmed), and has no special rules or special abilities save that he will not strike wounds if he wins a duel roll (because he is lame), though he may still sing to you - something like, "If I could just die in your arms / I wouldn't mind" or something.

• Match 2: Living Wild: Similar to the Where the Wild Things Are scenario that has been present in past TMAT tournaments, this match will have 3 wild lairs across the map: 1 cave troll lair at the center of the map, and 2 Fell Warg lairs near two of the corners (placed opposite each other). 
• Cave troll lairs possess one cave troll with a hand-and-a-half hammer. 
• Fell warg lairs possess 2 fell wargs. 
• If one of your units reduces the cave troll to 0 wounds, gain 2 Victory Points. 
• If one of your units reduces a fell warg to 0 wounds, gain 1 Victory Point for each fell warg you slay in this way. 
• Unlike the Where the Wild Things Are scenario, lairs do not spawn additional creatures.

And for our final match, a bit of good ol' fashioned push:

• Match 3: King of the Hill: It's time to test your mettle and staying power by seeing if you are king of the hill!
• Add 1 hill to the center of the map. The hill is steep and soggy from a recent rain (the actual terrain pieces are not steep to make it easier to put models on it, but in your mind's eye imagine a steep and soggy hill), counting as difficult terrain. Since the hills are not as steep as they actually are, models are not considered to have line of sight to models that are obscured from at least the knee down by the hill (to simulate the steeper nature of the hill).
• Models that lose melee combat while on the hill are treated as stepping down stairs, and must make a Footing roll on the chart to see what happens to them as they back away.
• The army with a model on the very top of the hill (which will be clearly marked) at the end of the game gains 2 Victory Points. The army with more models in base contact with that model at the end of the game gains 1 Victory Point.
• Only one model may occupy the top of the hill (One king! No more!). If a model only partially occupies the space (either from choice or due to lacking sufficient movement remaining) it moves adjacent to the space and may move into it next turn if it is unoccupied. If a model has a base larger than the marker it may still occupy the space.

Of course, it is not necessary for a player to go after the special scoring rules (an all-cavalry army may not find it in their best interest to take the hill on King of the Hill, as they lose their extra attack and extensive movement, for example), but if you are looking for ways to add more Victory Points to your score, these should provide entertaining ways to do it.

IV.   Registration, Arrival, and Check-In

Players should arrive no later than 9:30 AM at Patrick Henry College for check-in. The tournament will take place in Red Hill Classroom 3, located in the basement of Red Hill. Parking can be found in the Founders Hall lower lot, or behind the Barbara Hodel Student Center.

Players will need to verify their army lists with the tournament director at check-in no later than 9:50 AM. To verify your army list, you must present your army to the tournament director during the registration and verification period, noting the following things:

• The Army Leader for your army, as this scores points for the scenarios
• The warbands of your force, with units tied to their respective warband and warband leader
• The total number of units in your army
• The break point (how many casualties must be inflicted against your force to bring you below 50%) of your army
• The end point (how many casualties must be inflicted against your force to bring you to or below 25% of your force) of your army
• Any banners in the army, as all scenarios grant Victory Points for having a banner on the board at the end of the match. A unit that has a special rule allowing them to be "treated as a banner" does not count as a banner for the purposes of scoring.

Armies that are not verified within the timeframe set by the tournament director will only be allowed to compete in the tournament at the discretion of the tournament director.

V.   Final Notes

As tournament director, I welcome any questions you may have about the rules, requirements, or elements of the tournament. If you have questions, please send them our way! We look forward to hearing from you.

Watching the stars,

Centaur