Brawltimore 2015-2016 Season

Warmachine as a gaming hobby has been interesting for me over these past many years. Initially, we all started out playing it because it was an interesting new game system that seemed like it'd be a welcome change of pace from the games we were playing at the time (40K and Fantasy.)

Years later, the game has grown in ways I could never have imagined. One thing that still surprises me (in terms of how widely successful it was) is how much Warmachine has proven to be a strong, interesting competitive wargame. We're at the point where there are numerous huge tournaments happening across the U.S every year, the availability of internet communication is showing similar growth and competition in many other countries, and there are even multiple multi-national events every year (with the World Team Championship being the premier example for the past few years.)

If you would have told me 6 or so years ago that I'd be looking forward to what amounts to the Warmachine Olympics every year, I probably would have laughed. Now, I'm not even sure that'll be the biggest yearly Warmachine event in the next few years. The community continues to grow in amazing ways.

Join me after the break for some more musings, and what is apparently an early New Year's Resolution.



I say all that because the competitive aspect of Warmachine - the "true" competitive aspect of playing in organized events and tournaments - is something I have precious little experience with. I've been to maybe five or so tournaments in all of my time playing Warmachine, and none of them have been bigger than a local store event.

I'm not lamenting - if I wanted to go to a big Con and play, all I ever technically had to do was buy a ticket and go - but it is always something I've been interested in at least trying for awhile. Especially since the game has grown, at least in my opinion, past a game that is particularly inviting to play on more casual occasions. It's very, very difficult to separate the competitive aspects from Warmachine, and rather than try to shoehorn it into a role it may not serve anymore, I think it may be time for me to seek out avenues to explore that way of the playing the game.

I've had that thought for awhile now, but I haven't really acted on it. Part of that comes from my own inertia/nerves/lack of commitment to the idea, but another aspect is that I haven't felt like my local area is particularly inviting to the idea. Even if I was super jazzed about playing in more competitive events, I'm not really able to travel a lot to do so; stuff needs to be in-state to be feasible, and preferably in the upper half.

So I was very excited to hear a Press Ganger friend of mine mention that he wanted to put forth a tournament circuit idea that could unify the Maryland player base and hopefully spur more players into action. That tournament circuit - named "Brawltimore", which I'm not convinced isn't the city's actual name - is starting up at the beginning of next year. And I think this just may be the last of my excuses vanishing.

There will be two events every month that count towards the circuit, so odds are high that (barring scheduling conflicts) I can make it to at least one event a month. I'm not overly concerned with placing in the individual events or making it to the eventual Invitational Event (which I'm excited to see play out); I'm most focused on just getting out there and playing.

So my tentative commitment is this: I will play in one event a month for all of 2015. Unless something bananas happens (such as I rage quit the faction like so many players do when they play it competitively) I'll be playing Khador for all of those events, and right now I'm looking at pairing Irusk2 and Sorscha2.

The ideal pairing would probably be Butcher3/Sorscha2 (or something like that,) but I'm concerned right now that I'm not really comfortable playing either of those 'casters (I feel like I'm tripping over my feet with both of them.) Irusk2's list I at least feel more practiced with, and he comes with a built-in cheat that helps to alleviate the issues I sometimes run into with managing units. I'm keeping Butcher3 in my back pocket though; he has tools that are very useful in some match ups I'm worried about, and plus he's pretty fun to play.

We'll see how it goes! I may burn out, life circumstances may change my availability (though my wife has already given me the green light, which I appreciate tremendously,) and I may just flat out end up sucking at playing tournament games, but I at least want to give it a shot. I'll be sharing more thoughts about my lists, match ups, possible changes, etc, as I go along, and I'll be posting up general event results after each one (whenever I can get them written up.)

I heavily encourage anyone else in the Maryland area that can to get involved. This event could do a lot to bring our gaming scene together, which is actually fairly strong but kind of spread out. Here is the link to the event listing on the PP forums:

Introducing Brawltimore!

If you're in the area, hopefully I'll see you across the table sometime in 2015!