West Coast U.S. Master's Warhammer Fantasy Qualifying Players

The West Coast Qualfier for the U.S. Masters Warhammer Fantasy Championship is over, and the West Coast has assembled a team of drunk and belligerent man-children to represent the West Coast Warhammer Fantasy scene.

If you are unclear on what the Warhammer Masters is, or have not heard of it before, I encourage you to visit wargamersusa.com which is the main forum hub for Warhammer Fantasy players in the United States. But in short, the Masters is a region and qualification-based tournament bringing together the best 50 (or is it 80 this year) Warhammer players from around the country. Each region (of which there will be eight for the 2015-2016 season) can send ten players based on whatever qualification system the region dictates.

For example, on the West Coast, the top finisher at the three largest tournaments on the West Coast (the West Coast GT, S.A.W.S., and Quake City Rumble) get an automatic invite. The remaining 7 players are determined by a separate three-round qualification tournament using the upcoming Master’s tournament pack and rules. In order to qualify for the tournament, a player must have achieved a top ten placing in a West Coast tournament with at least 40 players, or top 15 for those tournaments of at least 100 players. As the number of tournaments on the West Coast was rather limited this last year, there were only a few additional tournaments that fed into the qualifier including the Broadside Bash, Infernal Zoo, and Black Sheep Brawl.

This year saw thirty different players qualify to play for the seven open Master’s slots, but only sixteen managed to make their way Oakland, CA last weekend to vie for their chance at a spot. (I know that sixteen people competing for seven open spots doesn’t seem like much, but you have to remember that to even get to this tournament these players had to place extremely high in some of the toughest tournament rooms in the nation. And, more importantly, most of these guys qualified at several of the tournaments pulling multiple top ten spots which reduced the total number of players that could have qualified for the tournament!).

After the dust settled (which will be discussed in a separate upcoming post), the following players qualified to go to Masters:

• Don Gillean
• Dave Inman
• Michael Hengl
• Justin Rusk (me)
• Joseph Urban
• Ed Phillips
• Fred Whitney
• Quentin “Q” Bohn
• Josh Stuart
• Jeremy Campbell

I just want to give a big shout out to all who made it, and can’t wait to see how this group does against the rest of the nation. Especially since four of these guys (myself included) won Best Overall at the Bragging Rights team ETC-style tournament this past June. Game on!