Today’s article is a Beginner Series entry that will cover some tips for how to manage yourself, your gameplay, and your expectations at your first competitive event. Some players never end up entering a tournament for any game they play, and that’s absolutely fine, but for many people tournament play can be one of the more exciting and fulfilling aspects of the hobby in both Warhammer Underworlds and other games. If you have played a few games and gotten the feel for how it all works, you’re likely ready to dip your toe into the competitive scene. Even if you don’t think you’ll win many (or any) matches, tournaments are still a good experience to have! You’ll learn a lot about the game, forge relationships with others in attendance, improve your level of play, and just might have fun in the process. Who knows, you might even head home with some new hardware to boot! Lets look at the things you can do to prepare yourself, and what you might come across. This article will focus more on how to behave and what to know rather than how to win. If you’re interested in improving competitively and winning more, check out my Contender Series or product reviews over at Path to Glory or What the Hex.

If you’re a planning to run a local tournament and are wondering where to start as a Tournament Organizer or Event Runner, check out my article “How to Run a Local Tournament“

If you’re entering a larger and/or multi-day event such as a Grand Clash, check out What to Expect at your First Grand Clash

Managing Yourself

There’s one thing you can control for certain in advance of an event, and that’s yourself. I want to touch on this first, rather than the competitive components of the event because making sure you’re at your best is going to make the event more enjoyable for yourself, your opponents, and the group at large. Many card games, board games, and miniatures games suffer from negative stereotypes about appearance, hygiene, and behavior. Making sure you show up as your best self can help the event feel more welcoming to those who attend and make it more appealing to those who might come through the location for another reason, which helps maintain and grow the game in the long run. So practice cleanliness -shower before you go, wear a clean shirt, brush your teeth, all that jazz.

Practice a general attitude of positivity – you’re here to play games and have fun. Sure you want to win, but don’t let your desire to win ruin the fun for anyone else and drive them away from the game for good. Derek Traquair, world-class Underworlds player, put it best;

“We should see one another like sled dogs – all fighting to be the lead dog, but also knowing we’re pulling the same sled and going in the same direction”

Take care of yourself – get a good night’s sleep beforehand, eat breakfast, and stay nourished throughout the event. Bring snacks and a water bottle, especially if the event will be longer than 4 hours. Take potty breaks. Don’t overdo the caffeine.

Finally, the best way to manage yourself and enhance your experience is to practice courtesy. Offer to let your opponent cut your deck at the start of the game. Don’t touch anybody else’s models, but rather point the hex for them to move their own models when driving back or playing some ploy. Read your card’s text aloud so there’s clarity about how this effect works or what scoring condition you met (and be comfortable asking to read opponents’ cards as well, but do so politely),. Announce your intent before you roll some dice. Don’t touch your opponent’s dice and use your own tokens for your own models – it’s very easy to accidentally take home someone else’s dice or tokens.

Managing your Play

As stated above, we won’t cover the competitive play angle in incredible detail, but you still want to play your best and give yourself the chance to win. You can look at the Contender Series for more in-depth discussion, but in short you will want to pick a deck you think works, get lots of games in, then try not to change the deck too much at the last minute. At a certain point you’re just making equivalent tradeoffs, and it’s better to have multiple reps with a deck than the potential slight advantage of a different card that you’re less experienced with. Play against matchups you expect to face (based on what’s popular in your area, ‘powerful’ at the time, etc) so that when you encounter those you’ll have a better chance at overcoming them – often referred to as ‘knowing the meta’.

Many tournaments will have a “Players’ Pack” or some kind of pamphlet or rules posted prior to the event. Read the pack ahead of time so you know if there’s anything ‘different’ this time around. It’s possible you’ll need a printed deck list, maybe even multiple copies. Maybe you’ll need to register on some sort of game tracker or app such as Best Coast Parings. Maybe your minis need to be painted. Maybe your decks need to be in opaque sleeves, and maybe those sleeves need to have different colors to differentiate Objectives from Power cards. These things are usually good to do in any case, but you don’t want to find yourself in an uncomfortable position when you show up without something required. When in doubt, reach out to the tournament organizer! TO’s are good people who want things to go well and are usually more than happy to talk things over with you and help a new player get rolling.

Be sure you’re aware of FAQs and erratas which can be found here, at the very least for your own warband and universal cards you’re bringing. It’s a bummer for you to find out you’re ‘cheating’, and it’s a bummer for your opponent to feel like you’re not playing fair, even if it wasn’t intentional. In a similar vein, try not to game things for your advantage too much. If you make a mistake, forget to play a card, target the ‘wrong’ fighter with an attack, no take-backsies. If the game state has changed or a die has been rolled you can’t go back and change your mind in a competitive event for the most part. In casual play I do this all the time and offer for my opponents to do so as well, but in an event you just accept the mistake and move on. Should you ask for this and your opponent is kind enough to let you, that’s great, but it shouldn’t be the expectation. Make sure you extend the same courtesy back to them if they make a mistake later on.

The final step to managing your own play is ensuring that you’re playing fast enough to finish games. I’d rather lose due to a bad decision than be the guy who thought for such a long time that we didn’t get to finish the game before the round timer ends. Knowing your deck and your warband, as well as having practiced with it beforehand, will help you make decisions faster and let you know your cards better so you spend less time reading and more time rolling dice. Try your best to be aware of how much time is left and how far along you are in the game or match, and speed things up if you are falling behind.

Managing your Expectations

The first and foremost thing to remember is that winning isn’t everything. If your event has 8 players, only one of the is going to win, and the other 7 won’t. That might look like 1 in 8 odds, but for a newer player at their first tournament it’s probably lower, and that’s OK! I didn’t win an event until I had been playing for five years. I still kept playing though, because tournaments are rewarding for a dozen other reasons beyond prizes. It’s a game, we’re here to have fun – if you’re not having fun then something is going wrong. I actually like to say when running an event that the Best Sportsman/Favorite Opponent is the real winner of the event, and I don’t just say that as a consolation. Strive to enjoy yourself and help your opponent do the same, even though you’re both playing to win.

Hopefully if your self-management has been good and your expectations are appropriately set, you won’t “tilt” or get overly emotional and upset during a game that goes poorly. If you find yourself heating up and becoming irritable, it’s OK to take a step back and ask your opponent for a minute to stand up and cool off, take a drink, reset yourself. Tilting happens to most everybody, and is a natural result of bad luck or poor decisions affecting your result and not having your expectations met. The trouble is it’s no fun to tilt, it, harms your experience and the quality of your play, but also lowers your opponents’ enjoyment.

Finally, the key to enjoying the event is being willing to view the experience as a community/network building opportunity. You might play with your small group of friends in your usual spot, but now you have the chance to play people from the next town over or from a different store. Talk to strangers. Underworlds has the best community I’ve ever played in, and you all came to the event because the game does something for you. At the end of the day you’re all here to play this wonderful game and have a good time with one another, and maybe win a couple matches along the way.

Wrap

I hope this has been helpful to anyone who has yet to join a local tournament, and a refresher to anyone who hasn’t been to one in a while. I want to reiterate that tournament play is a lot of fun and can be rewarding for many reasons beyond the winners’ trophy, so don’t be afraid to give it a try! Now get out there and spend some glory!