First Tournament at 1250 Points: Chaos Dwarfs, Orcs, Noise, Sweat and a Lot of Fun
We had one of those hobby days that leaves you completely drained and immediately ready to sign up for the next one.
This weekend a few of us went to a Warhammer: The Old World event played at 1250 points with Grand Melee restrictions. It was a proper tournament day in a school building on Trocka 4, with all the things that come with it: packed tables, loud rooms, weird smells, pressure, great opponents, and that specific post-event feeling where your brain is fried but your enthusiasm is somehow even higher.
Pegi was cheering from the sidelines and announced he’d drop by after 13:00 to have a look around. As it turned out, moral support was very welcome.
Michał’s first tournament with Chaos Dwarfs
For Michał, this was the first tournament outing, and honestly, we think 27th place out of 39 players with two losses and a draw is a very solid start.
The first game was rough right away: a 16:4 loss against Chaos. The key moment came early, when his wizard on Lammasu got deleted in the first charge after a duel with a lord throwing out D6 attacks with Multiple Wounds (D3). In Michał’s own summary: there was basically no chance.
And then there was the photo that, according to Michał, “you can smell”. Looking at it, yeah, we get it.
The second round went much better. Michał had a 35-point lead, which translated into a 10:10 draw. That feels very Old World: every point matters, and even a small edge can be the difference between a loss, draw, or win depending on the scenario pack.
The last game was against Bretonnia, and one name kept coming back in the reports: the Green Knight. Michał’s verdict was direct and emotional, which is usually the sign of a model doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
Despite losing 13:7, there were still proper highlights: the Duke died, the Pegasi died, but the Green Knight apparently removed 12 Ironsworn by himself, which is the kind of sentence that stays with you for a while.
Best of all, Michał came away from the event wanting more. That’s probably the most important result of the day. He even mentioned that 1250 points feels like a great target for the armies he’s currently building, even if Chaos Dwarfs might not be the only thing he brings next time.
Staś took Orcs & Goblins into the wild
Staś had a very different emotional arc: three losses, but also three games he described as very fun. He played against Empire, Beastmen, and Bretonnia, and one of the most interesting takeaways was not about results at all, but about what random tournament pairings give you.
Playing against new people means seeing how others think, how they move, how they evaluate risk, and how they interpret the rules in practice. We really like that point, because it’s one of the best things about events: even when you lose, you often come back better.
At the same time, tournament conditions were… intense. Loud, crowded, stuffy, and mentally exhausting. Staś compared it to how he imagines feeling after a chess tournament, which feels weirdly accurate even if none of us are exactly seasoned chess grinders.
There were also some absolutely classic dice moments. A BSB fleeing from a charge and needing basically nothing on 2D6 to survive — and still getting caught. A wyvern charging demigryphs and even the Swiftstride roll coming up as a miserable 1. We all know those games where the story writes itself, just not in your favour.
Still, there were bright spots. In the last game, Staś felt he did a decent job blocking the centre with fanatics and controlling objectives, but lacked the killing power to finish units off.
His post-event conclusions were very concrete too: better management of the Black Orcs, because in two games they didn’t even get to grips with the enemy, and more respect for highly mobile units that can bait a wyvern out of position and make it effectively irrelevant.
That kind of self-review is one of our favourite parts of the hobby. You suffer, you complain, you laugh, and then ten minutes later you’re already list-tweaking.
1250 points might be a genuinely brilliant format
One of the strongest conclusions from the day was that 1250 points feels really, really good in The Old World.
With the Grand Melee limitation of max unit size at 25% of your army, so 312 points, the format seems to hit a sweet spot:
- it fits into one box,
- turns move relatively quickly,
- characters are strong but not untouchable,
- rank bonuses and Unit Strength over 10 start to matter,
- and games still feel like proper Warhammer, not just a skirmish pretending to be a battle.
Honestly, that sounds excellent for events, club days, and for getting growing armies onto the table before they hit full-size game levels.
It was also a league event
A fun surprise from the end of the day: this turned out to be a league event, which some of us had completely missed during the tournament itself.
Here’s the ranking page that got shared afterwards:
And since results always spark discussion, we also got a look at the top 5 from the event:
The important bit: we want to do it again
That’s probably the simplest summary. One of us was overwhelmed by the noise and crowd. One of us got smashed by Chaos, clawed back a draw, then got haunted by the Green Knight. Both still came away saying some version of: that was great, let’s do more of this.
There was also a very relatable bit of post-event banter, including a meme that immediately earned its place in the archive:
And while the tournament crew were recovering, Ender spent the day painting and making visible progress on a few models — the eternal parallel hobby track to gaming weekends.
So yes: first tournament emotions achieved, lessons learned, grudges established against specific units, and enthusiasm level somehow increased rather than reduced.
Which, really, is exactly what we want from this hobby.