Triumph! - End of Year Tournament in Switzerland

There is a small wargaming community in Switzerland, each player with his favoured rulesets, periods and scales. What links us all is playing Triumph! with 15mm armies. To strengthen this link once again, we met in the old infirmary of my home town for a four round open for all armies Triumph! tournament.

the old infirmary in Solothurn, Switzerland

We had nine participants, two of them playing their first wargame tournament. To assist the newcomers and in general to give quick advice whenever questions would arise, my dear wargaming buddy Korbi and I played as a team, taking the roles of player and guide/umpire by turn.

• four games
• 75 minutes per game
• each player scores the number of points equal to the enemy stands eliminated
• if the game ends within the 75 min. timeframe, the winner gets extra 15 points

This is the list of the participants and their armies:

• Andreas, Carolingian Frankish 639 - 888 AD
• Ariane, Later French Ordnance, 1481 - 1494 AD
• Fränä, Early Imperial Roman, 25 BC - 197 AD
• Javier, Later Italian Condotta, 1363 - 1495 AD
• Jiri, Bohemian Slav, 830 - 1105 AD
• Korbi and Maerk, Early Egyptian, 3000 - 1541 BC
• Menic, Ancient British, 55 BC - 75 AD
• Philipp, Gepid, 250 - 566 AD

The first tournament round was played in historical matchups if possible, for the pairings of the followind rounds I used warscore, a free java program based on the swiss chess (not cheese!) system. To my surprise we had three historical matchups in the first round, even though the participants had had complete freedom in the choice of their armies. There was only the one restriction to use army lists without allied contingents.

Now lets look at the players and their armies in action:

the first round of the tournament has just started

Ancient British Chariots clashing with Early Imperial Romans

a medieval battle between Later Italian Condotta and Later French Ordnance

the Egyptian General surrounded (and subsequently eliminated) by French Crossbowmen in the 2nd round 

the players all seem very focused

Carolingians (left) attacking Later Italian Condotta

the Ancient British (right) are overlapped by the vast numbers of the Early Egyptian Army

very nicely painted armies

Later French Ordnance (left) facing the Bohemian Slav line

the Early Egyptians massed against the Carolingian Frankish onslaught

trying to clarify a rules question?

Prizes! an unpainted Early Achaemenid Triumph! Army and a Trophy for the winner.
Trophies for the runner-up and the best placed newbie (front)

the scoreboard at the end of the day

And here come the winners!

1. Philipp, Gepid, 143 Pts.
2. Jiri, Bohemian Slav, 101 Pts.
3. Andreas, Carolingian Frankish, 88 Pts.

Best newcomer: Javier, Later Italian Condotta, 85 Pts.