Axemaster this year will be run on the 19th-20th of September, 2009.

The venue is our usual haunt:

Hampton Community Center,
14 Willis St. Hampton, VIC

Timetable

Venue

Hampton Community Centre, 8 Willis St, Hampton, 3188
Catering is not provided by the club but there are a number of restaurants/take-away stores within walking distance including numerous bakeries, pizza restaurants, fish and chip stores and Safeway. There are also banks including a Westpac, an NAB and an ANZ for any money you may need to withdraw during the tournament. Hampton train and bus station is located right next to the community centre, so using public transport is an option.

Armies

Armies may be up to 2500 points. No 'back of the book' / unofficial White Dwarf army lists may be used. Dogs of War may be used, either as additions to another army or as a stand-alone force. Storm of Chaos may NOT be used (probably not a surprise by now). Special Characters may not be used ('named characters' and things like Karanak or the Changeling included, in the case of the newer army books). The most recent edition of the army book must be used.

Games

Players are given two and a half hours in which to complete their games, there is a break of at least 15 minutes between games to allow the Tournament Organizers (TOs) to enter scores and prepare for the next round.

The first round will be a random draw, if you are drawn with a regular gaming partner contact the TO who will try to match you up with another player. Games 2-6 will be run using a "Swiss Chess" system; you will never play the same opponent twice.

Before each game you should exchange names and army lists with your opponent. You should also make sure your opponent is aware of the special rules of your army, and any erratas / updates that you are using. Any such erratas etc must be approved by the TO.

Play the game in good spirit, and do not stall for time. Any person deemed stalling for time to avoid a loss or cement a win will be penalised heavily. Games must be finished on or before the two and a half hour deadline; warnings will be given for 30 minutes, 15 minutes and 5 minutes. If necessary, you may have to calculate victory conditions / victory points from the end of an earlier turn than the one prescribed to end the game, but you cannot run overtime. Please play briskly and remind your opponent if he is taking too long. This is to ensure that we can enter all results and determine the next round so that we do not fall behind schedule.

Rules Disputes

All rules disputes should be resolved in one of three ways. Either look in the appropriate rulebook, roll a D6 for it, or ask a TO. The TO will either show you the relevant passage in the appropriate rulebook, or ask you to roll a D6 for it. Just because you disagree on a rule does not mean your opponent is a bad sport. It is in the way he handles the dispute, and accepts if he is wrong, that you can see his sportsmanship. Many people have different interpretations or house rules that are not used at tournaments, and these will be resolved as stated above. The TO's word is final, and arguing after a decision has been made may incur penalties.

Scoring

Parts of the tournament will be run as peer based scoring - score sheets will be provided and must be filled out after each battle. Breakdown of scores will be 120 points for battle, 20 for painting, 30 for sportsmanship and 30 for army composition, out of a total of 200. You should ideally be getting full sports and painting marks.

Battle

Battle points will be scored for each game based on the Victory Points (VP) difference between the two players. All the normal bonuses for table quarters, captured standards, etc apply.

Painting

Armies that are completely painted will be awarded 20 bonus points at the start of the tournament. If the army has any unpainted models in it, it will receive 0 points. This is effectively a Yes or No question - there are no partial rewards. Models must be painted to a basic standard, displaying at least 3 different colours, and the bases must be painted.

After the first game of day two, players should set up their armies on the table they're on for judging in the Players' Choice painting competition. After the lunch break on day two, each player votes for their first, second and third favourite armies. Unlike the bonus points mentioned above, this vote has no bearing on the overall result of the tournament, but will be used to select the winner of the Best Army prize at the end of the tournament.

Models to be used in the tournament must visibly represent what they're meant to be (ie no proxies or stand-ins allowed). This doesn't mean you have to use the exact existing Citadel miniatures for a given character/unit, but opponents should not be confused as to what is what (i.e. having one unit of Silver Helm models being Silver Helms and another unit of the same Silver Helm models being Dragon Princes) and the models used for a unit must make sense (ie no units of Trollslayers represented by Ghoul models). If you have any queries about whether something would be acceptable, feel free to contact us.

Sportsmanship

At the end of each game, you will be required to complete a questionnaire about your opponent. The 5 questions are listed below, and each will be worth one point (so 5 Sportsmanship points are available per round and 30 total for the tournament). Questions will be answered with a simple YES or NO.

1) My opponent remained friendly throughout the game.
2) My opponent had a clear army list and made sure I understood what everything did.
3) My opponent and I sorted out rules questions amicably.
4) My opponent played fast enough, but did not rush me.
5) My opponent's movement, line of sight decisions and dice rolls were all clear and were not rushed, obscured or otherwise dodgy.

After the last game of the tournament, players will be asked to nominate 3 opponents for the Best Sportsman award (ranked in descending order). These marks will have no bearing on the overall winner; they are only used to select the winner of the Best Sportsman award.

Composition

Composition will be judged by the tournament organisers this year. This will be done using 'tear-based composition' - each army will be rated on the number of tears it will cause potential opponents to shed. The less tears an army gets, the higher its Composition score. This aims to take into account the differences in power level between certain races and army lists. The organisers reserve the right to require that any list be re-submitted if they feel that it falls off the scale completely.

Composition scoring can always be a bit of a touchy issue, but our advice is to take the list you want to take and not worry too much about the comp score it will get. Lists that get low comp scores should be able to make up the difference by having advantages in-game, and ones getting high scores will need to work harder for battle points.

Army lists must be submitted by the 4th of September to the email address at the end of this page. Please send army lists in either text or spreadsheet format; if you're using Army Builder, export your list to text or HTML rather than sending in a .ab file.

Scenarios

All games will use the standard WHFB scenario from the 7th Ed rulebook. (Note that this is a change from previous Axemasters.)

Prizes

The prizes for Axemaster are being kindly donated by Military Simulations (www.milsims.com.au) Prizes are offered for:

1^st Place Overall
2^nd Place Overall
3^rd Place Overall
Best Army (players' choice)
Best Sportsman (players' choice)

Registration

Entry is $30. Online registration is available via PayPal - use the 'Pay Now' link below. When filling out the form, please include the race/army you're entering with (Empire, High Elves, Daemons, etc) and the name of the person entering (if different to the name on the credit card) in the comments section. For alternative payment arrangements, contact Peter. The merchant email address on the Paypal payment pages will show up as the following - this is correct, so don't worry:

Army lists and payment are due by 4th September. Please send army lists to the email address below.

We may accept entries after this date, but entry will cost an additional $10.

Contact Organiser

Send us army lists or tournament-related questions at

or contact Peter on 0438 278 227.