Running my own events
Community is at the heart of any successful tabletop game, and one of the things I like best about Legion is the Legion community here in the UK.
I attended a couple of events in London back in 2022 and the start of 2023. The Legion London Series has built up over the last few years thanks to Elliot, Jon and Lyla and has really seen the game grow in popularity. They run great events across the capital and I have really enjoyed every one I have been to. If you want to find out more about the London Series, reach out to one of the trio and they can get you added to their Whats App group.
Unfortunately I don't get to attend anywhere near the number of events or play as many games as I would like due to work and family commitments. I play most of my games at a very small shop, Comics Games and Coffee in Chichester, West Sussex but am also lucky enough to have a garage where I can store all my Legion things and it has space for a table where I can host friends and family to play. I try to prioritise attending the larger UK events; MK:GT, LGT, UKGE etc.
It was back at the end of 2022, having attended Andy Terrell's first MK:GT that I started to think 'it would be great to build a larger community down on my part of the South Coast' - West Sussex and Hampshire. Our local Chichester group has about 4-6 regular players and it's great that Dom, Matt, George and myself have been able to help each other improve so much over the past few years. I reached out to another local store - A Fistful of Dice in Portsmouth, where I knew there was a few Legion players and could see from the store discord that there were more who had bought in but didn't play that much. I also knew there was a good crop of players further west towards Dorset.
One of the Portsmouth players (Aidan) started a local Legion discord and this gave me a good idea of the number of players we had locally. Since then, there have been more frequent games of Legion in the area with new players coming on board on a regular basis. A few of us discussed trying to get people together on a regular basis - but inevitably this was challenging due to everyone's commitments.
So, I thought, why don't I just run a tournament. This would allow people to plan a long way in advance and let people get to know each other a bit better. I started off by contacting A Fistful of Dice in Portsmouth and they were keen to help. So, I arranged our first 'Padawans in Portsmouth' event in April of 2023. We had 16 tickets available (as there are 8 tables in their war gaming basement) and they all sold within a week or two to local players. When planning the event I tried to stick with these key things:
It needs to be beginner friendly
Everyone needs to walk away with prizes
It should focus on local players
The tables need to be competitively designed and feel like Star Wars
This final point would be the most challenging. The store has lots of terrain, but very little of it shouts 'Star Wars' at you. So, I set about printing and making terrain and designing my own tables. My garage became by 'design studio', much to my wife's disdain!
I already owned some terrain, but in a couple of months I managed to put together 5 tables and was able to rely on 3 tables worth of terrain from the shop. Rather than giving the tables the usual labels of 1, 2, 3 etc. I decided to name each table based upon a planet or Star Wars theme. The 5 tables for this first event were as follows:
Bright Tree Village
Hosnian Prime's Outskirts
Tatoonie Enclave
Aldhani Hills
Scarred Scarif
If you want to look through any details of the tournament the Game Uplink page is here: https://legion.gameuplink.com/events/padawans-in-portsmouth/
The event went really well with everyone having a lot of fun. I decided not to play myself so I could get around the tables, talk to the players and ensure I had the time to make judge calls. Fortunately we avoided any dark troopers and blizzard force.
'Faction' | Number of players |
Empire | 3 |
Rebel | 3 |
CIS | 3 |
GAR | 6 |
Shadow Collective | 1 |
Despite the red saves making up over half the lists, it was the white saves who came out on top with CIS in 1st and 3rd and Rebels in 2nd. Alex Reed was the first Padawans in Portsmouth champion, winning with his Dooku & Asajj team up.
High from the success of the day, I immediately booked another date for our 2nd event, 'Padawans in Portsmouth, Episode II' Confident we could get more than 16 players involved, we agreed to have 11 tables, the most the shop could accommodate and means we are spread over 2 floors. This of course means more terrain...
So after a few months I managed to build up 9 of my own tables and used terrain from the store for the final 2. With my events aimed at new, experience, friendly and competitive players I want to make it accessible for everyone. One of the ways I do this is to provide a table guide for each table, which look like this. Players don't have to follow it, but it helps to get the game started quickly and ensures that there are less 'uhoh, we didn't discuss this' moments in the middle of the game.
Tickets went on sale for Episode II and all 22 sold within 26 hours! I was shocked, but pleased that people wanted to come back from the first one and new people wanted to come along.
The tables for Episode II were ready and the 22 players were ready to battle it out in August, over some new boards including; Ferrix, Jakku's Wastelands, a deserted Rebel outpost and a Corellian train depot as well as the same 5 tables for Episode I. Despite the success of CIS and Rebels in Episode I, it was the Empire which made up over 50% of the lists.
'Faction' | Number of players |
Empire | 10 |
Rebel | 3 |
CIS | 3 |
GAR | 4 |
Shadow Collective | 2 |
This time is was Lewis' Maul Shadow Collective list that took the day with 2 Empire lists coming in 2nd and 3rd. This time I did play as well as run the event as I wanted to practice with my Ewoks before MK:GT the following week. I managed to go 2:1, losing to Lewis, the winner. You can see all of the lists here: https://legion.gameuplink.com/events/padawans-in-portsmouth-episode-ii/?tab=Overview
It was great to meet some (now) older faces again as well as lots of new ones. A big shout out to Matthew, Nathan, Sol and Aidan from the Portsmouth crew for continuing to push things on and for getting new players into the game.
The next day I set the date for Episode III in November, which would be a Store Championships. I started the planning and decided to design 1 new table for the event which would be Hoth.
One of the great things about the selling the tickets myself is that I can put left over money (after venue hire) into the prize pool. I was determined to give Episode III a huge prize pool and including the Store Championships kit I managed to put a great haul together. Thanks to the TNM Podcast and CommScan for sponsoring an event in 2023. All 22 tickets sold within 24 hours to local people and we were ready to go. Here's a snapshot of 8 of the 11 tables.
Clones and Empire made up of 15 of the 22 lists and it was the clones who took 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Zak won his Worlds invite with his 10 activation Rex pure clone list, Alex came in 2nd with his Cody ISP (:O) list and George in 3rd with Yoda & Padme. https://legion.gameuplink.com/events/padawans-in-portsmouth-episode-iii-store-championship/?tab=Overview
That brings us to now...with a week to go until Episode IV and our first event of 2024, on January 13th. This time all 22 tickets sold in just 4 hours!!! Amazing and a huge thanks to all of the locals. For those coming next Saturday here's a preview of the current Padawans in Portsmouth Prize Pool and the latest addition to the worlds you will visit .... an Imperial AT-AT Construction Facility. We will also be visiting Naboo for the first time, but these tables will be revealed on the day of the event. 5 of the original boards have been upgraded and updated as well as I can continue to strive for better events for everyone.
Now, I'd love for Legion players from further afield to make it down to one of my events, but not at the expense of the locals (hence I give them 24 hours before I advertise elsewhere). Looking ahead to 2024 we have plans to continue making Padawans in Portsmouth bigger and better. With new terrain and boards, more events, bigger prize pools and hopefully 1 larger event (of at least 32 players) so that some of you who aren't local can make it down....I just need to find a suitable venue. We'd also love to stream some games online.
I'll be writing some more articles on our Padawans Series with a look at our local 'meta', tournament overviews and a deeper dive into how I design my tables.
Huge thanks to everyone who supports the events and I look forward to meeting more of you in the future. If you want to find out more about our events or have any queries you can find me on Facebook or Discord (@SebEzra).