1850pt Tournament: I want your feedback

[Chase]

The feedback here is awesome, guys.  Thanks.

There's a couple of particularly good points here that I plan to take into account going forward.


Doubles is coming up in November.  I will try to get that hashed out ASAP for you all.  The format / scoring there will obviously be a little different.  I would expect to see solid scenarios for the Invitational for sure.

Keep the feedback coming.  If you've got anything to say at all I'd prefer hearing it vs. not.

[Sir_Prometheus]

It was a good tournament, so please don't take my following complaints as whining--I'm not unhappy, I just see room for improvement. 

Generally speaking I wasn't fond of using the old adepticon missions as it made it fundamentally 5th ed-ish.  Of course, there just haven't been that many 6th ed big tournaments yet so maybe you're just stuck -- but for instance, kill probably were more prominent than they should have been.  "Marked for Termination" seems a little dated as both "first blood" and "kill the warlord" take up some of those roles.

I'd like to see mysterious objectives instituted in at least one mission, as well as Big Guns and the Scouring, too.


Also -- and this is my big objection -- can we put a full stop on counting on board buildings as impassable terrain?  I never liked it even in 5th but these things have rules, now.  An on board building counts as it's bought equivalent -2 AV.  So a Bastion would be AV 12.

Moreover, if you're going to insist on counting buildings as impassable, something I am very much against, you just can't have the fortress of redemption on the board.  It's just WAY too big a chunk of impassable. 

However you do it, it's important that boards be roughly radially symmetric -- including ruins, forests, impassable, dilapidated buildings, whatever. 

[Seth]

ya i don't like the idea of first blood.

[keithb]

I think linebreaker, slay the warlord, and first blood, work better as part of a VP sliding scale.  Not seperate bonus points. 

the idea of "You went first, so... points!" Is rather lame.

[andalucien]

So this is minor but I have a question for Bill and Keith.  Why reduce it to a 0-20 score rather than just using the actual VP differential?  Using the actual raw victory point differential would have 2 advantages over the 0-20 system:

* It would be less likely to produce a tie
* It requires LESS math.  Either way, you first need to calculate the victory point differential.  Then, if and only if you're using a 0-20 system, you also need to either do some division, or look up the result on some kind of a chart.  (Dividing to get 0-20 when you are in a 2000 pt tourney is pretty easy, but in an 1850 tourney, you would really need a calculator)

[Grimwulfe]

Actually bro the 0-20 scale is just that its a scale that is dfined in the packet.  There wouldnt be any math involved just fining what bracket your total is in.

[andalucien]

Oops grimwulfe you're too fast for me.  I edited my original post when I remembered that there was a chart.  Anyway, seems to me like using the chart just adds an additional step, and also makes it much more likely to have a tie.

[keithb]

Well, two reasons.

1) VP scale is part of the BP total and not all of it, in which case it has to be able to scale properly with other objectives.  IE, controlling the objective is worth 12 points.  I also won the game by 1754 points.

2) When the main prize is "best overall" which considers painting and sportsmanship as well as battle, it is mainly done to give the appropriate weight to battle points.

For templecon, I need it for both 1 and 2.  But when it is just battle, raw numbers would also work.

[Benjamin]

First Blood is stupid and I hate it.

I also hate how 6th changed the meaning of Victory Points. Do we use a new term for the amount of points is in an army, or do we ignore the new definition? For the 1250, I invented the term "composition points" (identical to 5th's victory points) to (sort of) avoid confusion.

I am so in favor of the community inventing scenarios, especially this community. How awesome would it be to have some homegrown, community-tested scenarios in the Invitational? The process worked wonderfully for the 500 Points of Victory tournament.

I like sliding scale VPs and their chances to reduce the likelihood of a tie. I agree with the idea that we just have to make sure the points awarded are in line with the points from missions.

[Sir_Prometheus]

I get the instinctive dislike of First Blood (along with: "why didn't they just count all vehicles, etc as moving first turn?"). However, it's actually a good nerfing of MSU armies; a razorspam army will very likely giv up First Blood to the enemy.  It's also a balance to the advantages of going second:  1) You get to score last turn.  2) You want your flyers and other reserve elements to get the jump on their Flyers and other reserve elements.

Regardless of whether it's a good idea or not, it's part of 6th ed so I want to use it.  I'm from the "use all of 6th ed" until proven otherwise camp.  I'm sure there'll be bitz we want to change but I feel we can't really make that decision until we've run 6th ed properly...double force org, first blood, everything, even including having the players set up terrain. 

[Benjamin]

I'm from the "use all of 6th ed" until proven otherwise camp.

I'm from the "Don't Use Shit Until You're Sure It Won't Screw Over A Tournament Player, Because GW Writes Poop Rules And Uses Whatever Floaters They Skim Off The Top" camp.

Too strong? 

[andalucien]

I'm not crazy about the "lots of impassable buildings" policy either.  I was playing Daemons.  My table for game 3 was basically a big open field with a couple bare hills, and then about 10 impassable buildings.  Literally there was nowhere to safely deep strike in.   

[Benjamin]

Literally there was nowhere to safely deep strike in.

I've expressed the same thing before, too much impassable terrain can literally kill Daemons. Five pieces of impassable terrain are definitely too many, especially if they're spread out for symmetry.

[PhoenixFire]

I understand some players running into problems with the couple tables that have large amounts of impassable terrain, but BG only has so many pieces of terrain between the two stores and  there are going to be... "less awesome tables" but a lot of it is just random good/bad luck anyway....

 An all impassible terrian building is going to be bad for deep striking, but great to hide things behind.
 An open forest table is going to be great for deep striking but bad for hiding tanks.
 A cityscape is great for putting troops in buildings and bad for lines of sight

You get the idea, getting stuck with a good luck or bad luck table is just like getting stuck with a opponent that is weak against your list and a guaranteed win for you or the worst possible army counter to you and a guaranteed loss for you

Luck and random is part of the game.. much like tiny plastic dice determine the outcome of epic battles.

Also buildings used as terrain need to continue to NOT being buildings, dilapidated or otherwise. Gives too much advantage to someone who goes first and picks his side. If you want a fortification then pay for it on your army list.

Bennet might have a point though with not using fortress of redemption as terrain though, it IS a huge beastly piece of impassible terrain

[Chase]

even including having the players set up terrain.

If there's one thing I can say for sure about any of this stuff, it's that we will never allow player's to set up their own terrain at an event that is open to the public.