An update about Mantic tournaments and events

As you may have seen recently it’s been a difficult time for events. Numerous big shows have been cancelled, including Salute, Adepticon and most recently GenCon, alongside events like our own Open Day (obviously that’s the most distressing).

It’s also been tough for tournaments too. With social distancing guidelines still in place, it’s pretty much impossible to get down to your local club or store to play a game - unless you use a pool cue to push models around.

Although we have seen some fantastic tournaments taking place online – like the massive Call to Arms tournament for Kings of War. This is being held over Universal Battle and there are more than 140 players taking part (the biggest KoW tournament ever). Guess that's what happens when you've got no minis to paint ;-)

So, today we wanted to give you an update about some upcoming Mantic tournaments and what we’re planning to do. There’s a lot of uncertainty about what’s going to happen with public gatherings and events, but our main concern is the safety of our players and any Mantic staff. At the moment it looks like social distancing will be here to stay for a while and that just makes tournaments very hard to manage and plan for.

This means we’ve come to the extremely difficult decision to cancel all scheduled future tournaments organised by Mantic. This was a really, really tough decision but we can’t take any risks with your health and wellbeing. We also wanted to announce this sooner rather than later in case you need to cancel travel or hotel arrangements for any tournaments you were planning to attend.

On the flip side, we’ll make sure the tournament scene returns stronger than ever, once social distancing measures have been eased. If there’s an opportunity to arrange tournaments later in the year at HQ, then we’ll definitely look at doing that. Please see below for details on all the upcoming tournaments and what your options are:

VANGUARD: SPEARHEAD III – JUNE 20TH

The curse of Rob never being able to play at a Spearhead event continues. Spearhead is being cancelled but will return as the Vanguard UK National later in the year (if possible) or early next year. We know that Vanguard tournaments sell out very quickly, so if you want to keep your Spearhead ticket, we'll carry that over to the new event. However, you can also get a full refund or store credit, if you would prefer - we'll contact attendees with their options.

KINGS OF WAR: CLASH OF KINGS DOUBLES – JULY 4^TH

Doubles is a tournament that would certainly be impossible to organise with social distancing. The Doubles will return next year and we’ll look at partnering with a third party to make it part of an external event, potentially. We’ll be contacting all attendees to offer them a full refund or store credit.

DREADBALL: STAR REALM CUP – JULY 11^TH

Another tournament that we were really looking forward to and it had a great buzz. This was shaping up to be one of the biggest DreadBall tournaments in the UK. However, all is not lost on this one. Ciaran Morris’ excellent DreadBall module for Vassal is a fantastic substitute for playing the real thing. So, the current plan will see the Star Realm Cup become the Virtual Star Realm Cup.

Instead of taking place over a single day, it’ll be spread over a couple of weeks and people all around the globe can take part. We’ll have more details soon but, in the meantime, you can learn how to play using Vassal here. We’ll be contacting all attendees of the original event to offer them a full refund or store credit.

KINGS OF WAR: CLASH OF KINGS OCTOBER 10^TH/11^TH

This was the really big one (and the most difficult decision to make). October seems such a long way off and we really hope that the tournament scene is returning to normal by then. However, there are simply no guarantees and we would hate to leave it too late for people to get refunds on travel arrangements - particularly those people travelling from abroad.

This means we’ve taken the very, very difficult decision to cancel Clash of Kings this year. We’ve spoken to Firestorm Games in Cardiff and they’ve said we can postpone the event until next year, which is what we’re going to do. Clash of Kings 2021 will still be held at Firestorm Games and we're currently looking at dates around October. We'll update everyone as soon as possible about the revised date.

For Clash of Kings players, you’ve got a few options about your ticket. You can simply carry it over to the new event next year, get a full refund or store credit. We’ll be in touch about your options.

Ronnie also wanted me to mention that with almost 18 months until Clash of Kings 2021, there's absolutely no excuse for anyone not to have a Mantic army. You could even use your store credit towards it :p

We really hope this news doesn’t come as too much of a disappointment, but we just didn’t want to take any risks with your health. Of course, if social distancing measures are lifted, then we’ll look at organising some smaller events at HQ to fill the gap. We love gaming with you all, so the sooner we can get back to the tabletop and roll some dice, the better!

Quick note about refunds – please be patient while we contact everyone and please don’t contact customer services. We’ll be going through the attendees as quickly as possible but there’s a load of boring logistical stuff we need to sort out on the website first. We’re hoping that by the end of next week, we’ll have emailed everyone with their options.