Certainly sounds intriguing, though I suspect you will need to consider the logistics and the number of games to be played. Please don't take the following as a dampener, more of a reality check from personal experience organising the London events some years ago.

20+ players means a minimum of 10 tables, and this obviously increases significantly with further teams. Assuming that the 'organiser' actually has that number of tables, they take up quite a lot of space and require a lot of effort for terrain (unless they are used to hosting these sort of numbers).
Finding appropriate venues close to travel hubs with the appropriate facilities can take a *lot* of arranging and potentially adds significant expense.

The journey time to any venue is likely to mean that people will need to have two days travelling in addition to the actual tournament day(s). You are apparently intending to have four games, so the event really needs to take place over two days, making this a "four day event". This would also be preferable to allow time for players to meet each other socially. However this does add to the expense as it will require hotels etc.

Given the above, can I suggest that those about to volunteer their services as local 'organisers' have a quick check on what facilities they have available, and those preparing to travel to such an event be prepared to pay several hundreds of Euros / pounds / dollars to take part.

In short, this will be a very serious undertaking for all involved, and needs to be organised and accepted as such.

Regarding the proposed tournament setup, the way you presented things sounds as though the '1st' players of all teams play against each other, the '2nds' do likewise etc. Keeping players on each level playing each other may unintentionally unbalance the results. . . .

There is an old riddle set in Roman times where two people are racing their chariots against each other in three (or four) races. How should one person order his chariots to guarantee winning the most races??
Answer, he should put his best chariot against the opponent's 2nd best, his 2nd best against the opponent's 3rd best, and his worst chariot against the opponent's best.
The point is that if this occurs here, the team that achieves this kind of match up will be much more likely to win the entire tournament, as the "worst" player playing other team's "1st" players will probably lose all his games, while the "best" player is likely to win against other "2nd" level players etc.

I would strongly suggest that some form of 'Swiss' system would be more appropriate if at all possible - you are already talking about 4 rounds which should even out the differences between the different players and armies, especially if there are 20+ players involved.

The small numbers involved would mean it isn't really as logistically difficult as the 40k-FOW-WFB ETC.

_________________
www.epic-uk.co.uk
NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

I think it's doable with a good amount of thought and research given to logistics. For instance, if it needs to be over two days, finishing in the early afternoon will mean people can catch flights and get home at a reasonable hour without needing to stay an extra day. And sometimes what can kill things like this is transport from the "cheap" airports to the venue, so mitigating that is important.

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

I agree that this may not be a simple feat for some.
That's why I wrote that the spokesperson should be somebody with experience and the support of a club.
We will need twice as many tables as teams. Once the first storm has quieted, I expect a maximum of 6 teams, that will be a maximum of 12 tables.
Usual Epic tournaments seem to max about 8 tables. If you get the support of someone organizing Warhammer tournaments - which are usually much larger - you will have the venue and the tables covered. This leaves the terrain, which would have to be built or borrowed, but nobody said it would be easy And did I mention the spokesperson should be somebody willing to commit himself to this and preferably with the support of a club and experience in organizing tournaments ?

The setting of players will not be possible as I wrote in the text that the numbers of the nations and the players will be determined randomly. So you might know before hand that your player number 1 will be playing number 1 of nation 2 and number 3 of nation 4 and number 1 of nation 5, but you do not know before the tournament who those players are, not even who your number 1 player will be.

A Swiss system is not well suited, as it will break the equal number of games against all other nations, as well for the team as for each single player.
Also if you incorporate the nation thingy info the restriction for pairing the Swiss system will quickly not longer apply, because the restrictions will prevent the strict following of best playing best.

If we would opt for a European Single Champion I agree, we should use the Swiss system, but without restrictions, i.e. players of the same nation may kick each other out. But this should be fore mostly a team event, seeing players of different nations playing each other.

If you go with 4 games, you can do 3 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday. This will allow you to end the tournament before 15:00. Starting at 10:00 (it's Sunday after all), 3 or 4 hour game, will be 14:00. That leaves an hour for price giving and saying good bye. So people staying will have an afternoon for sight seeing and the others will have a very good chance to get home and still call it Sunday.

You can even get two games of 3k in on Sunday and finish before 17:00 - games from 9:00 to 12:00, 13:00 - 16:00.
Finishing at 17:00 let's you still get the late flight (not all destinations might have a late flight). People traveling by car can switch drivers, if they have to get back the same day or next morning.

Basically it will be possible, if people want to do it. If just the thought of going abroad exhausts you, this might not be for you.

And suddenly it was not so easy any longer to get a 4 player team for a nation with a population of 80 million

An alternative venue in the UK could be Birmingham at the end of May and join it in with Expo. Hotel (expensive) on site, gaming show on at the same time & Birmingham International Airport also on site. Plenty of gaming space

_________________
_________________
www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

Would it be possible to organise this in conjunction with an already established wargaming convention?

I know that in Australia everyone travels to Cannbera(sp?) to go to the tourney there and there is an EPIC tournament along with other game system tournaments. The benefit to this is it has much more international draw, as players are enticed by the idea of being able to immerse themselves in other gaming events outside of the tournament. Things like Cancon, Gencon and so on often have pretty big tournaments going on in them.

ETC tournaments(the thing this idea seems most similar to) is not just for one game system, but a group of game systems such as warhammer, 40k, flames of war all running together to reduce costs and increase the drawing power for both team members and non team members.

I don't know if this is the way you want to go, but it might help you a lot as it would mean that the main organiser simply needs to co-ordinate with an overall events manager. You are more likely able to benefit from discounts that a larger organisation can get. You are more likely able to get people to commit to coming as these events have a big ticket that people prepare for well in advance (a benefit when you want to be sure players will turn up).

The down side is that unless you co-ordinate with the ETC ruling council, or whatever they are, you're very likely going to end up stuck oscillating between one or two european countries that run events like this.

_________________
Check out my youtube channel for Tutorials, Battle reports and other stuff in both 6mm and 28mm

www.youtube.com/user/ManticMoments

I'd certainly be up for playing

I've done the whole ETC thing on the warhammer front, and other than some people taking it waaay too seriously, the team element is good fun at least.

That's actually a great idea, as everything is together - airport, train station, venue, gaming show. You're right, the negative is that the hotel's rooms are not cheap, but I believe there is an Ibis nearby too at the airport.

The only downside is that Epic UK would likely have to bow out of having its own usual tournament at the expo.

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

I also like the team element that brumbaer is proposing, I've no doubt a good system can be devised to arrange matches.

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

*cough* is there a US version in the works Stephan?!!!!!! *cough*

Umm, perhaps it would be helpful to try to identify the potential / putative teams?

So far these might be:-
- Nordic
- German
- Austrian
- Hungarian
- French
- UK

However it is worth noting that so far, only UK players have indicated a desire to take part on these forums. How can we gain the active support and participation of these other groups guys?

I've stated that i'm willing to host it and i'm swedish!

_________________
https://epic40ksweden.wordpress.com/

"You have a right to be offended" - Steve Hughes
"Your feelings are hurting my thoughts" - Aron Flam

As the initiator, I thought it obvious, that we would take part.
We (Siemens Wargames Club) will field such an event this year, provided there will be enough participants.
The question is wether it will be put onto a wider base, which is the idea behind this thread.

mordoten from Sweden already wrote, that he is willing to take part and will be able to field a team of 4 as well as hosting the tourney.

mspaetauf from Austria said, he thinks he and his group of players will take part. I assume he will make a definite statement after he has spoken the things through with his club mates.

As soon as I know what direction this goes (Berlin only or European traveling) I will contact the French group(s). I should know one or two of the players from my Warmaster days. Also there is the possibility to contact them via T3.

Some Hungarians are active on this board, so it will be possible to contact them and invite them to this thread. Also mspaetauf has some connections to Hungarian players - which might be the same players though.

From the UK up to now only a lot of noise and worry, but no clear commitment. I would have thought that would be the simplest group to recruit, as there is a tournament scene alive and kicking. And I would have thought that one of the many wargaming clubs would say that it is no problem to host an event with 8 to 16 tables and that it would be no problem to create or otherwise organize enough terrain for those tables within the next year - as I expect the first tourney to be in Germany.

Groups from other countries will probably only be contacted by chance or personal contacts.

Once the Austrians or the UK commit themselves, I will contact the French.
I will contact the Hungarians on this forum that I know off, asap.

PS
I'm no native English speaker and my cultural background is different. So if my words sound impolite, please forgive me - this is not intentional - it is just the language barrier.