Casual games are easy enough to arrange with friends, but how do you meet and play with people in the wider community? At the Studio, we have worked hard to create resources like the Gunslinger Organised Play Kit for Wild West Exodus. They are a great way for clubs and store communities to learn the game and challenge each other in friendly competitions.

With Leagues, players are encouraged to begin learning the game with a small starting force for their chosen faction which is usually based around the purchase of a single boxed set. Participants will then expand their collection over the course of several weeks and eventually play games with a significantly sized force featuring around a dozen units. We felt it was important that Leagues rewards both the player’s in-game victories as well as their skill with a brush. In fact, eager hobbyists can enter the League and score points just for assembling and painting their models!

Once players are familiar with the rules for the game, either through casual play or from a League, the next step could be to try a Tournament. There are all sorts of Tournaments available to players through Organised Play. For example in Wild West Exodus, the Gunslinger Posse Challenge uses models from any Posse set up to 600 points total, while the Gunslinger Most Wanted has players face off with larger 1200-point forces.

Organised Play events are usually designed to be easy for players of any skill level to participate in and track their results. You shouldn’t need complicated tables or charts to run or play in a Gunslinger event. All you need is enthusiasm and a bit of creativity.

The main purpose of Organised Play is to give communities an excuse to meet each other and play games. Of course, as an added incentive there are often fabulous prizes available for different awards. In Wild West Exodus’ Gunslinger Events, players have a shot at winning three Gunslinger awards: Murderous (Most Gunslinger Points), Prodigious (Best-Painted), and Largesse (Most Sporting). Often an Event Organiser will add additional prize categories and awards as they wish, such as for dressing as characters from the game, writing a fiction piece based on your force or even baking a themed cake! The aim should be to reward fair play and effort.

Here at the Studio, we have just recently updated the Gunslinger Event Kit based on community feedback. Of course, that is not the only game our Organised Play Team have been working on. There’s something rather exciting on the horizon after all…

Dystopian Wars will have its own Organised Play system when the game launches next year and you can be sure that Lost World Exodus will too (as well as rules for combining the two ‘Exodus’ games in Tournaments and Leagues. There’s even talk of an overarching Organised Play Kit to allow Event Organisers to run campaigns that feature all three games (with room for Armoured Clash and more besides). But that’s a little further off. Watch this space for more details.

Until next time.

Stuart