GBHL MASTERS - Free Warhammer World Event for Top Players and Hobbyists

Every year the Great British Hobbit League hosts a FREE invitational event at Warhammer World in Nottingham for a select few top Hobbyists and Gamers in the GBHL... Could you be one of them?!

GBHL Masters Events before 2024 only included the best performing players in the league... Not any more!

In 2025's Masters Event, the Top 16 players in the league teamed up with the eight Most Sporting players and those eight who'd won the most Best Painted awards to create a "Masters and Commanders" Doubles event, alongside a one day knockout tournament for the Masters.

The winners of the Doubles Event were Messrs Stephen Denbigh and Chris Murfitt who teamed up - despite living hundreds of miles apart - to reign supreme. Clearly their video promo so distracted their opponents that they could take advantage on the tabletop... But after the Doubles event, the 'Commanders' went on to take each other on in their own tournament, to see if any wisdom from the top tables rubbed off on them. In the end, one of the Sporting players - Elliot Cload - took top spot (despite being partnered with Jamie Wiggans on day 1, therefore unlikely to have picked up any gaming tips...). He was followed by Matt Hudson (who'd been partnered with James Goble on Day 1) and by Nathan Talbot (whose partnership with Ash Woolger had taken fifth in the Doubles event).

Meanwhile in the Masters itself, Stephen Denbigh took a very respoectable Bronze Medal, with League Co-Ordinator Dewi Evans taking Silver, and Last Year's Best Newcomer, Miles Sage, taking the top spot!

This year things are going to be a little bit different.

Although the 'Top 16 players' (more on the specifics of that in a second), Eight Most Sporting Players and Eight Best Painters will be invited, they won't be teaming up in a Doubles event this year. We'll still be having a Two-Day event at Warhammer World, FREE OF CHARGE, but this time, that's going to be two MEGA two-day tournaments run alongside one anothe on the weekend of May 16 and May 17.

The exact format and rulespack will be decided by the new Management Committee of the League (more on that in a second) but the current committee can guarantee the following for players:

There will be 2 simultaneous 2-day events at Warhammer World on May 16th - 17th!

The GBHL Gaming Masters:

• Top Ten League Players, 5 Regional Winners and the Best Newcomer to receive invites (the wins will cascade down in the same category if that person already has an invite)

• A competitive tournament. No knock-out format to be used

• Points TBC but will be 700+

• A GBHL90 for league points

The GBHL Hobby Masters:

• Top 8 Most Sporting Players & Top 8 Best Painted Players

• Points TBC

• A GBHL80 event including “soft scores” valuing Painting, Sporting and Gaming prowess

So, who is currently eligible for an invite to this awesome event?

The GBHL Gaming Masters:

Eligibility	Name
First	David Farmer
Second	Jakub Krochmal
Third	Stephen Denbigh
Fourth	Connor Morris
Fifth	Alastair King
Sixth	Thomas Seccombe
Seventh	John Partridge
Eighth	Sam Gratton
Ninth	Richard Spencer
Tenth	Tom McConnel
Southwest Leader	David Clubley
Southeast Leader	Kyle Bate
Central Leader	Matthew Light
Northern England Leader	Adam Bird
Scotland/NI/ROI Leader	Finlay Staniforth
Best Newcomer	Rob Keen

The GBHL Hobby Masters:

Painting Masters	Sporting Masters
Alex Bourdas	Zahir Khares
Sean Clarke	Corey Christon
Johnathan Mack (also eligible via his sporting position!)	David Clubley (Yes, he's eligible for Gaming and Hobby, so has a decision to make!)
Dan Thorpe	Olly Jackson
Adam Bissell	Ashley Woolger
Rob Howard	Elliot Cload
James Lammin	Mark O'Brien
Adam Plaskitt	Ian Wainwright

Clearly, there's time for this to change, with a few events still left to go before the end of the league...

In particular, there's a huge number of people who could easily leapfrog themselves into eligibility in the painting competition. Particularly Richard Croydon, Adam Plaskitt and Mark Kittle, who are currently 9th to 11th in the Painting League despite also having three painting awards to their names (along with Adam, Rob, James, and Adam).

The same is true with the Most Sporting table, Ian Wainwright, Jim Smith, Haydn Cartwright, Jack Buckler, Ruairi Campbell, Mark Newham, Jordan Marsh, Rory Savage, Josh Fortune and Paul Deeks would immediately be elligible if they win another Most Sporting award before the end of the year.

In the gaming league it's similarly up in the air. A strong showing at the GBHL Finale (which counts for all regional leagues) from Finlay Staniforth, Iain McGregor or David Reid could amend either the top ten in the league or the regional League Winner (or both!). Similarly the Northern League looks very close, with Natalie Pearson just a few GBHL Points off Regional Leader Adam Bird. With the Finale happening in Newcastle, could home turf make either of them fight even harder for the win? Equally the Central League still has one more GBHL100 (tickets still available for 'He Eats it by the Block') and the100pt scoring Finale remaining, could we see the resurgence of League dominating names like Mr Ed Ball (who's been absent from competition for a lot of the year), or will "upstarts" like Connor Morris continue to dominate? And don't rule out Thomas Wagg, Niall Corrigan or Jasmine Tetley putting in a blinder of a performance to take over the top regional spot.

Similarly, in the South East and South West, a number of the regional leaders are already in the GBHL Top Ten, so eligibility based on regional performance could come down to those in third or fourth place in those regions.

For instance, in the South West it's David Clubley's second place in the Region which sees him promoted to the Masters, but with him eligible for the Sportsmanship masters and potentially within reach of a top ten position, could Arash Hussein do enough in coming events to be bumped from 5th in the region to the Masters? (David Farmer, Rob keen and Sam Gratton are all currently with Masters invites for a variety of other reasons!). In the South East it's Kyle Bates' third spot in the region securing him a Masters spot... but could that change with players like Bert Leach, Miles Sage and Richard Spencer all heading to Newcastle for the finale...

Only a few weeks to go, and with rumours of the Finale potenitally gaining some room for extra players, who knows what could happen...