Flames of War 2017 Masters Preview

When the days get shorter and the leaves with their reddish hues fall from the sky, we all know it’s time for the annual FoW Masters Tournament. Each year the top 18 players in North America get an invite to play against those who have excelled during the 2017 tournament season which went from September 2016 to October 2017. The 2017 Masters will take place once again at Games and Stuff in Glenn Burnie Maryland and will feature six tough rounds over two days, the 17-18th of November. When the dust settles after round six, the 2017 champion will be crowned and the 2018 tournament season will begin in earnest.


I have been to a few of the previous master’s events, however I felt this year’s tournament would be even more interesting with the advent of V4 of the game. When the tournament season started everyone was playing V3 and the first big V4 Event wasn’t until the Mid-War Masters at Historicon in July. So, the players at this year’s event had to deal with the change of the rules more than halfway through the season.

Despite the change of rules, the invitees to this year’s event features a lot of the same faces as years past:

Joe Lewis
Chris Fretts
David Vigor
Chris Jackson
Ron Wismer
Chris Novak
James Best Jr.
Tony Davis
Brian Sullivan
Will Yankausky
Keith Gilmour
Andrew Hopson
James Best
James Copland
Ed Sales
Tim McClelland
Rob Duchesne
Bryan Koches

This year, all 6 of the games will take place in the Early War period with each list being set at 1625 points. I will assume that the lack of lists in the Mid-War period made it very hard to use for the event. Plus, who doesn’t love early war?

As he has done in previous years, Battlefront’s event coordinator - David Griffin - and has some curveballs for the players who attend . The 2017 event will be a “reversal tournament” where players will play with their opponent’s army for half of the 6 games. Having played in events like this before, I can attest that this format really challenges your skills as a player.

Dave also plans to keep everyone up to date via Battlefront’s Facebook page and full rules of the tournament can be found here.

The event is open to the public so please stop by to watch or root your favorite FoW player on! I am planning to attend the event and maybe interview some of the participants, so I hope to see you there!

WWPDMitch@gmail.com
Twitter: @MitchWWPD

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A Visit to the 2015 North American Masters Tournament

By Mitch Reed with photographs by Sean Sarah

As the skies get darker earlier and the air becomes chilly another year of Flames of War tournament play ends with the North American Masters event.

The 2015 installment of what is billed as the tournament between of the best players on the continent was held at Games and Stuff, a gaming shop just south of Baltimore on 14-15 November.

The annual affair pits the players who have won a nationals level event or have played well during the year and have made it to the top of the North American rankings.  I had the opportunity to visit with the players and organizers during the first day of competition and left with a better understanding on what the Masters Tournament is all about.

The Organizer
The first person I spoke with is Dave Griffin who works for Battlefront and runs all of the events Battlefront runs during the year along with the master’s tournament.  Dave is running his third Masters event this year and tries to add some wrinkles to the game in order to create a more challenging environment for the competitors.

This year he limited lists to those that are contained in the 8 hardcover late war books; Dave explained how those lists which represent the early part of the late war period are “classical lists” and, as a whole, are very well balanced for players to pick from. This year Dave had each player develop a 1400 point base list and then create three 250-point task forces from the same list.

Before each game, a die was rolled and results could range from selecting one of the three task forces to add to that game, to having the player or the opponent chose to the final result in which none of the task forces are used.  Dave also limited the amount of times a player could use a particular task force during the course of the tournament, so if one of your task forces are used twice, they are no longer eligible for use in a later game.

To me this is an interesting twist that, while it does change things up, can also be manipulated when your opponent picks a task force.  With most of the players coming from two distinct regions (more on this later) you could have a buddy pick an already used task force that would cause your list issues in order to make it ineligible for a later game when you may have to play that opponent.

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