This weekend saw a first for Games Workshop – live streaming of their Warlords Tournament at Warhammer World!
The Warlords Tournament
The tournament was the first “full” matched play tournament and saw players playing all six of the matched play battleplans with a 2000 point army across two days.
I’ll be honest and admit that I’ve never watched live gaming before, something about the idea of watching a load of people in a school hall playing a game just didn’t excite me, so I was slightly dubious when I put the Twitch Stream onto the TV at home. I am however a convert and the best way to describe the experience was a bit like watching a game of snooker on the TV. You had an overhead view of the top table and Rufio and Eddie commentating (both part of the Warhammer TV team). When the various breaks happened you’d get an assortment of mini-interviews with the people playing at the event and odd snippets where Duncan would answer various painting related question. One nice touch was interviews with people who had a particularly nicely painted army and asking them how they’d done specific bits.
Overall I can’t fault it. The commentary was light-hearted and informative, explaining various rules, tactics and what they would do in the same situation. One thing I felt was positive was that both Rufio and Eddie would happily admit when they didn’t see a potential manoeuvre and complement valid moves and actions rather than do the “John Virgo” commentary of criticising decisions that weren’t the best.
Of special note, as the Warlords Tournament progressed, each mission had it’s own little introductory video which were brilliant! Much more self-explanatory than reading them in the rulebook and I’m hoping we get to see them on YouTube in the near future.
Were there things that could have been done better? Yes – however that shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody, this was new territory for Games Workshop, but what a fantastic start!
One thing that this has done though is to also build up a lot of keen for Age of Sigmar and I’m fully expecting to see more livestream events, both the same as The Warlords Tournament and possibly Q&A type sessions with people like Duncan.
Finally, if you missed watching the event, have a look on the WarhammerTV Twitch profile to see the coverage