The Australasian Team Challenge is Australia's first major attempt (that I know of) at creating a Continentals Warhammer 40,000 Tournament for Australia. It has been discussed for many months over on wargamerau with a passing amount of interest. Basically it is a team event for Australian States on a state vs state basis with New Zealand being classed as a state all of its own. I know that Fester or SneakyDan (sorry guys, we all know I don't sleep well and the exact name blurred in a haze of well blurriness) was invited to the Queensland Team for his Tau but because Australia is a big place the cost to get to another event down our way interstate is quite large to do again so soon after another interstate venture. Additionally, NeilPhillips from our glorious Chat Bawks will be heading down from Victoria for his team so best of luck mate. Anyways, Dennis Fung (aka Loriness and Tournament organiser for the upcoming Event Horizon Non-Comp Tpourney here in Sydney, as well as current High Lord of Terra [currently recognised as the highest achievement for a 40k tourney player in the year]) has been kind enough to give me a run down of the event so as everyone who views the blog here and doesn't frequent wargamerau is made aware of the event.
The Australasian Team Challenge:
Link here:
The Knight Champion (best general) and 2nd place in Event Horizon will be offered a place in the NSW team, assuming they are from NSW and not already in the team.
ATC Dates / timing
Sat 10, Sun 11 September 2011
Teams:
We are looking at teams of 8. If enough regions can only get 6 players involved, we will look into dropping the team count.
Army lists:
Will consist of a single standard force organisation chart. Lists are to be 1750 points. No more. Submission of lists will be due 3 weeks before the event and published publicly 2 weeks before the event.
There will be no composition score like the usual tournaments in Australia. As such, players are allowed to field whatever lists they would like, so long as it’s legal and within the points limit.
No two players in a team may use the same codex.
Painting:
All armies present are required to be fully painted. No exceptions. This means bases painted and a three colour minimum in an appropriate scheme. All models must also be wysiwyg.
Rounds:
There will be 5 rounds.
Captains Dice off.
The losing captain picks two of their own lists.
The winning captain picks one of their lists to face off against either ot the two lists chosen.
The process is alternated between teams until all members are paired off."
Note, captains are allowed to confer with their team when making the selections.
There will be 20 minutes allocated for this portion of each round. Games will last 2 1/2 hours.
Games:
Each game will be a mission straight from the rulebook.
Players will receive 15 points for winning, 10 points for a draw and 5 points for a loss.
Bonus / Penalty points will be awarded for a difference in Victory Points between players. Only one modifier can be applied, so use the one of greatest value that applies.
The bonus goes to the player with the most victory points and the penalty to the player with the least.
+5/-5 - difference of over 1500
+4/-4 – difference of up to 1250
+3/-3 difference of up to 1000
+2/-2 – difference of up to 700
+1/-1 – difference of up to 400
+/- 0 – difference of up to 175
This give each player a potential score of 0 to 20.
After each team has finished its games, the totals are added up.
If a team scores 51+ points, it gets 2 event points
If a team scores 31 – 50 points, it gets 1 event point
If a team scores 30 or fewer points, it will get 0 event points.
After the end of the 5 rounds, the team on the most event points wins. In the event of tied points, count back will be based on the player points scored each round.
Sportsmanship:
All players will be expected to conduct themselves in a polite and civil manner. Should players behave in a manner that is deemed unsuitable, they will be issued with a yellow card and a penalty which will be up to the judge’s discretion from 0 to 20 points.
If a player receives multiple yellow cards in one round, they will forfeit the round as below.
If the incident is particularly bad, the player in question will forfeit their match for a 20 – 0 result in favour of their opponent and will be required to leave the venue for the remainder of the round.
Should a player be required to leave the venue twice over the weekend, they will forfeit all their remaining games and asked not to return to the event in the following year.
Judges:
The event will need quite a few people who are willing to volunteer their time to help act as officials / judges. Judges will be compensated for travel / food costs as much as possible within the event’s budget.
Prizes / awards:
The top three placing teams will receive a medallion relative to the position they achieve (i.e. gold medallions for the team that places first, silver for second and bronze for last).
Current plans are to award each participant with a commemorative certificate of participation.
A medallion / trophy will be awarded to the team with the best painted armies at the event.
There will be a perpetual trophy, to be held by the organising committee, which will have the winning team’s name placed on it after the event.
There will be no prizes of monetary value awarded.
So that's it in a nutshell. I was gonna take a for lulz army to Event Horizon because I am lazy when painting, but am seriously considering knuckling down and painting up a proper non-comp army for the event now, but regardless, I believe this is a step in the right direction for the Australian Tournament scene, and not because it is a non-comp event - there's plenty of competitiveness within the comp events in Australia which by the by aren't comped like the rest of the worlds' comp - but because it brings together some of the top players within the Australian tournament scene more reliably then High Lords does. Or at least, that is the hope.
In closing, I know that Kirby doesn't care either way for the ATC because he looks on the ETC and see's people who have attended supposedly being the best players out there and see's the ATC as adopting the same sort of reputation. But I agree with him here because you are looking at a small selection of players per state (remember a whole bunch of European countries fit into Queensland alone for population dynamics and scattering of players) an there are a great many players who simply won't qualify each year. It doesn't mean the best players got through and it doesn't mean that those who didn't or who didn't want to/couldn't attend the event are any less skilled at the game of Warhammer 40,000. What it does give us is a small selection of the better players each year duking it out in a no holds bar event which involves all of the tournament scenes within this country of ours. It looks to be a great event and to produce some very solid and interesting armies and games.
All the best everyone.
- Auretious Taak.
