Tournament The Nations Cup 2025

Here is the Rulespack : Link
 

Tournament Pack

Last Update 10/03/25

Hello and welcome to the Event Pack for The Nations Cup 2025! Last year was a phenomenal success, but this year, we aim to work on what we learned from feedback and make this one bigger, and better!

It is our aspiration to become the World’s premier international MESBG Team event and to use this platform to build ties amongst our international MESBG community. We boast a top-tier refereeing team, an exciting match-up system with a unique and refreshing tournament build in the world of international MESBG and exceptional communication with our international community that promotes inclusion and accountability. So, without further ado, we hope you will read on and look to get involved.

Meet the 2025 Team

This year, The Nations Cup is headed up by Michael Bradford, Will Champion, Matt King, and Ed Ball.

We wear many hats and work hard as a team in our precious free time to bring you a weekend of international SBG for you to talk about for the years to come. Will is your Head Referee on the weekend and will be making the difficult calls, Michael is your International Liaison and Rep wrangler, Ed & Matt form the backbone of the team sorting all the processes, admin and treasury; they’ll make sure there are a tonne of prizes available!

Location & Ticket Allocation

In 2025, we’re heading to the SBG Stronghold Nation of Poland! The venue itself is the Hotel Groman, in the south-west outskirts of Warsaw. This Venue has been scouted by our fantastic Polish reps for its experience in wargaming events, affordable rates and proximity to the Chopin airport, just a 15 minute Taxi!

Hotel Groman Aleja Krakowska 76, 05-090 Sękocin Stary, Poland Tickets will be released in two waves.

Wave 1:
On March 14th 2025, the primary wave of tickets will be released to any and all interested Nations, and the NC Team will actively work with as many independent Nations to secure their representation at the event. When we do so, we will take expressions of interest for additional teams from Nations and consider them for Wave 2.

After a brief period of securing Wave 1 tickets and confirming payment, we will look to release Wave 2 if there are spots remaining. The host nation of Poland gets first refusal for a second team, the rest will be allocated in due course.

Ticket Price And What It Includes

Tickets for the event this year will be €100 (or local currency equivalent) per person. As teams will be comprised of six people, a team ticket will therefore cost €600. Payment for tickets should be sent in a single payment from your Rep or Captain for ease of tracking. The ticket price covers entry to the event. This will allow us to cover our event and venue costs, whilst delivering on a diverse and promising prize pool/giveaways. We’ve listened to feedback from the community and not included accommodation in the price, so that attendees are free to sort out their own arrangements and hopefully make the event as affordable as they want.

However, we have worked extensively with the hotel and are looking to offer rooms at approximately 60 Euros per person per night; while this is already remarkably affordable, it’s also full board with breakfast, lunch, and dinner included! Rooms will be booked via the hotel directly and once a team ticket has been confirmed by us, we will give you a booking reference to get your rooms.

How To Get Involved

The Nations Cup is an invitational event. If you are interested in participating, please join our Facebook page and reach out to your country’s ambassador. If you note that your country does not have an ambassador, or you’ve not heard anything about the event preparations in your community, please reach out to the event team. In our preparation for this event, we have reached out to our immediate contacts within the international MESBG community to ask members to be ambassadors for their countries. Whilst the event team will communicate with the wider community via the Facebook page, the intended general lines of communication will be from the event team to ambassadors, ambassadors to their nation, and vice versa.

Our International ME:SBG Community Representation

Each participating nation is initially welcome to send one team of six players, with each team having a Team Captain amd Vice-Captain. We have engaged ambassadors from the following countries, and look forward to welcoming their involvement and increasing the representation of a greater range of nations in the years to come:

Australia - Austria - Belgium - Canada - Denmark - England - Finland - France - Germany - Greece - Hungary - Ireland - Italy - The Netherlands - New Zealand - Northern Ireland - Norway - Poland - Portugal - Scotland - Spain - Sweden - Switzerland - Wales - Ukraine - USA

If you would like to be put in touch with your nation’s ambassador, or if you’d like your country to be represented, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the event team via the Facebook page.

Team composition

Each team will consist of six players – three playing Good lists, and three playing Evil lists. Each team will have a nominated Captain, and a nominated Vice-Captain.

FAQ And Errata

This event will follow the latest FAQs and Errata that have been published by the game’s designers, with the February FAQ, it’s looking likely that there will not be any additional updates from GW. We are still awaiting a release date for the third sourcebook, the legacy profiles, and of course, the matched play guide. ANY of these documents will be in effect if published prior to the list submission deadline date of Monday 2nd June. With regards to the Matched Play Guide; should a new one be released, we will use the updated/additional scenarios in a random order, but the scoring mechanics described in this rulespack will remain as is.

Army Lists

Each team will submit 6x 750 point army lists – three Good, and three Evil.

When submitting lists, be aware of the following restrictions:

• There can be no duplicated named Characters – an exception being that Good Saruman and Evil Saruman are separate characters for the purpose of this restriction and both can be taken by the same team, as are Gandalf the Grey, and Gandalf the White.
• There can be no duplicated Army Lists used, for example, 2x Fangorns
• There is a four model minimum for each list. Whilst there is currently no maximum, please be aware that anyone bringing a larger list will be expected to play it efficiently, and any concerns about slow-play will be treated seriously by the refereeing team. Slow-play in general will not be tolerated and could even generate  penalties.
• Lists must adhere to the rules and profiles laid out in the current edition’s publications and future publications prior to June 2nd 2025

Armies to be submitted by the Team Captain via the MESBGArmyTracker App which will be sent out to captains in due course. The Army lists submitted do NOT need to be attached to a specific player until the event begins. Once you play with a list, it is yousr for the tournament and no further changes can be made.

List Submission – Deadline & Format

Every team must submit all six lists by 23:59 GMT on Monday 2nd June 2025. Any queries regarding lists, FAQs, rulings etc should be sent via email to the following address. Facebook messages to any of the team will NOT count as official rulings; the reason for email is so all answers can be colated and published as a live document for all to see and
reference.

EMAIL ADDRESS - m.e.nationscup@outlook.com

We aim for lists to be published 2 weeks prior to the event, in addition to the first-round pairings.

Substitute Players

In the unfortunate event that a player should have to withdraw from the competition after the submission date, a substitute player may be nominated; however, they must use one of the submitted lists as explained above. If assistance is needed to procure a substitute, please don’t hesitate to engage with the event team as a mercenary could always be drafted.

Painting And Modelling Stipulations

Our stance on this is evolving, and we do not wish for model availability to be a factor in list selection for a world class event. That being said, If we do not support our system, it will cease to exist.

All models must be fully painted and What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) with war gear being accurate where possible; incorrect models may be removed as casualties. Official GW models are to be used where possible. 3rd party models and proxies are allowed, but all of these (especially any non-GW models) must be approved for use to ensure correct scaling and recognisability.

Board Size

All games will be played on a 4’ x 4’ board. A feature of the tournament that we intend to build towards is that each table in use will not just be different from others, but actively diverse. This is a deliberate endeavour by the Event Team to provide an extra level of consideration within the Team Draft. So, for example, the six boards a team may be playing on in a Round could include one with lots of woodland, one with water features, two with city and ruins terrain, one with rocky and difficult terrain, and one that is more open plains. Whilst this is our intention, we are constrained to the resources we have available and/or that can be provided by the local community of

the host country each year – it is hoped that as we build on this event year-on-year, we’ll be better equipped to provide this experience.

Language

The event will utilise the English edition of the rules, and it is expected that the language used at and around the tables will be English.

The Draw And Pairing System

The First Round team match-ups will be random, with subsequent Rounds determined by Swiss-style pairing based on the Tournaments Standings (e.g. 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4 etc.). However, there will be no repeat pairings until the last Round. Should there be Teams from the same country, they will be eligible to play each other.

Scenarios

The scenarios will be taken from the core rule book, playing each one in a random order determined on the day. Please see above regarding the expected release of the Matched Play Guide.

Team Draft

The Team Draft is outlined below and is similar to the 2024 games with one key change. After reading feedback from last year, and wanting to spice up the drafts, there is no longer a requirement for RED V BLUE, and any alignments may meet for battle.

1. Both Teams roll off.
2. Both Teams then simultaneously choose one of their army lists (face down) to put up first as a Defender.
3. The winner of the roll off selects a table for their Defender to play on. The loser of the roll off then selects a table for their Defender to play on (this must be a different table).
4. Both Teams reveal their Defenders.
5. Both Teams then simultaneously put forward two of their army lists (face down) as attackers on the table of the opposition's first Defender.
6. Both Teams reveal their Attackers.
7. Both Teams simultaneously select the opposition army list (from the choice of the two Attacker lists) that they want their Defender to face.
8. The remaining Attacker list now becomes the next Defender for each Team.
9. The winner of the roll off selects one of the remaining tables for their next Defender to play on. The loser of the roll off then selects one of the remaining tables for their Defender to play on (this must be a different table).
10. Both Teams then simultaneously put forward two of their remaining army lists (face down) as attackers on the table of the opposition's second Defender.
11. Both Teams reveal their Attackers.
12. Both Teams simultaneously select the opposition army list (from the choice of the two Attacker lists) that they want their second Defender to face.
13. The remaining Attacker list now becomes the final Defender for each Team.
14. The winner of the roll off selects one of the remaining tables for their last Defender to play on. The loser of the roll off then places their last Defender on the final table (this must be a different table).
15. Each Team's remaining list becomes the final Attacker and is placed against the respective opposition final Defender.

Round And Game Duration

Each round will have an allotted game time of two hours and 15 minutes, plus 15 minutes before the round for deployment, and 20 minutes before the round for the Team Draft to be undertaken. There is an expectation that players and teams will complete these stages within the timeframes specified. Players and teams not adhering to the time allowances may be subject to penalties.
In rounds with scenarios that have a Deployment phase, players will have the first 15 minutes of the game allocated to Deployment. As soon as the players have completed Deployment, the game will begin. In rounds with scenarios that do not have a deployment phase, players will simply start their games once the round timer starts. If players have not completed Deployment within the allocated time, this should be raised with the refereeing team and penalties may be applied.

End Of Game

When the round timer expires, players should finish the turn that they are on, and then determine the outcome. If you cannot complete the final turn of the game within 15 minutes of the round timer expiring, the refereeing team may call ‘dice down’ and adjudicate on the result of the game.

Conceding

Conceding is not something we expect to occur, and is something we  wish to avoid due to the negative impact it has. Should a player concede a game, their opponent will automatically receive a 20-0 VPs win, along with any pertinent accolades that could be achieved in the game. Additionally, the conceding player will receive -1 Game Points. Penalties may be waived in exceptional circumstances, but this is at thediscretion of the refereeing team and ultimately the event team.

Scoring

Each individual Game will record VPs and VP Difference as normal, with the overall outcome generating a Game Points (GP) score. A Major Win/Loss per individual Game is defined as being by 8 VPs or more.

• Major Win = 5 GPs
• Minor Win = 4GPs
• Draw = 2 GPs
• Minor Loss = 1 GP
• Major Loss = 0 GPs
• Concession = -1 GPs

When a Round culminates, each Team will calculate the sum of their Game Points from the 6 games they’ve just played. The maximum possible amount of Game Points that can be scored each Round is 30. A Team gets a Win result if they either win four or more games in a Round, or if they score 16 GPs or higher in the Round, and as such, the opposing Team will receive a Loss. Any other result will be a Draw. Teams are granted Team Points (TP) based on whether they won, lost or drew the round.

• Win = 2 TPs
• Draw = 1 TP
• Loss = 0 TPs

The Tournament Standings will be based on Team Points, with the tie breakers then being GPs scored; VP difference; VPs scored, respectively.

The First Round team match-ups will be random, with subsequent Rounds determined by Swiss-style pairing based on the Tournaments Standings (e.g. 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4 etc.). However, there will be no repeat pairings until the last Round. Should there be Teams from the same country, they will be eligible to play each other. Matchups of individual players from each teams are determined by the draft system as described previously.

All of the above will be inputted and controlled by the MESBGTracker app making for speedy submisson, easy list access, and possibly even a virtual drat, stay tuned....

Prizes And Awards

It is the event team’s intention to wholeheartedly invest in prize support and offer an exceptional array of prizes, along with a diverse range of opportunities for attendees to walk away with an award/s, in addition to any event giveaways we plan to offer. Our goal is that there is potentially something that can be won by anyone and everyone. Below are a list of awards we intend to offer – this is a living section of the pack that will be updated as and when we have a better idea of funds available and contributions from sponsors etc.

• Overall Tournament Team Position Podium – determined by ranking
• Best Painted Army Podium – determined by painting judges
• Best Painted Miniature – determined by painting judges
• Favourite Team Podium – determined by total post-game ratings from opposition teams (see below for process)
• Weekend Warriors – determined by the event team based on Best Team Spirit and contribution to the event. Best Individual podiums based off scores.

What Attendees Will Need

Attendees are expected to bring:

• Their complete army & two copies of their army list (printed)
• Dice
• Measuring implements, Pen & Paper
• The ME:SBG Rules Manual and all supplements and published materials that are relevant to their army

Favourite Team Scoring

At the end of each game, attendees will be asked to score their opponent out of 5 to provide a most sporting rating. This score must be based on how the attendee feels their opponent interacted generally, and how much they played in the spirit of the game etc. – ideally it should not be coloured by any factors outside of the very game that has just been played, nor by the result.

Attendees are expected to utilise the following system when scoring:

• 5 = This is one of the very best games you’ve had the privilege toenjoy in the hobby e.g. you would actively tell people about how fabulous your opponent was and your general great experience with them. (Please do not use this rating lightly.
• 4 = This game was notably decent, and above the normal standard you expect e.g. you might mention it to others about highlights from interactions with your opponent.
• 3 = This game was fine e.g. you had a game that was carried out withstandard conduct and no real issues. You may even have had limited interaction or simply not have overly gelled with each other etc, and as such may not have had the most pleasant game, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
• 2 = This game wasn’t conducted in the most pleasant spirit e.g. you’d prefer not to have these sort of games and interactions, but understand they occur in competitive gaming, and ny potential issues were resolved/not too damaging. You had a difficult experience but it wasn’t terrible.
• 1 = This game was dreadful e.g. you would actively complain about this individual, and/or there may have been issues with cheating or any other unacceptable behaviour. (N.B. If any players are rated with a 1 by their opponent, the refereeing team will follow this up to investigate the matter. Please do not use this rating lightly – it is likely you will be asked for further comment.)

Attendees will submit these scores when submitting game results at the end of a Round, and they’ll keep a record of the match-ups and most-sporting scores.

Rules Queries & Refereeing

The refereeing team’s decision is final, with overarching decision-making ultimately held by the event team. In all elements of the event and this pack etc., both the event team and the refereeing team reserve the discretion to make any judgements and decisions they feel necessary, all the while upholding impartiality, and the good spirit of the game/this community as is intended to be in effect. The refereeing team will do their best to answer questions to the best of their knowledge, and in a timely manner. Should this take a lengthy amount of time, a discretionary added time may be provided. A ruling from a referee should be received graciously, whether it is agreed with or not. Should you contest a ruling, the Head Referee will be asked to address the issue – their ruling will be final.

Any concerns of slow-play or cheating should be raised as soon as possible to your Captain or Vice Captain, and then from them to the refereeing team at the earliest opportunity to allow the for investigation. Players found to be slow-playing, or cheating will face sanctions including but not limited to a VP penalty, a game result of a Loss in that Round, a Team Round Loss, or disqualification from the event. This is at the discretion of the refereeing team, and ultimately the event team. Players are expected to treat each other and the referees with respect; any player falling short may face the above sanctions. Should a situation arise where two players cannot resolve their game due to argument or disagreement, the referees reserve the right to abandon the game and both players will receive 0 points. With the round time being deemed ample, the refereeing team are of the opinion that there is plenty of time for all games to be resolved. When the round timer hits 0, you have 15 minutes to finish the turn you are on. If the additional 15 minutes pass, and the round hasn’t yet finished, Dice Down may be called and both players may be given a time flag. This represents a game where timing has been an issue and we will monitor both players for the remainder of the event. If a player picks up an additional flag, they may be upgraded to a yellow.

Should this happen a third time, that player may be upgraded to a red card and will face discretionary sanctions as outlined above.

The only players that should approach referees for cheating or slow-play (and other such complaints) or that should approach the referees desk at any point are a team’s Captain or Vice Captain. This isn’t because we don’t want to hear from you, but rather it is in the spirit of efficiency as we hope to have somewhere in the region of 120 players. This will help us stay on track and process information swiftly. Regarding interaction at the gaming tables, only Captains and Vice-Captains can discuss how the games are going from a Win/Loss/Draw perspective. No player can offer tactical advice during a game that isn’t their own. Players can speak with their Captain or Vice-Captain at any point to raise concerns such as timing or cheating.