Thoughts on the Abington Doubles?

[Chase]

So it's over.  I hope everyone had a good time.

Putting the missions together was sort of tricky in that I wanted to try and keep things simple, but also wanted to have SOME team element involved.  I felt like they were kind of dry, but I was alright with that.  How did they play?

This event allowed every FW model that can be played outside of an Apocalypse game.  Word is that no one voiced anything at all to the Abington staff one way or another.  What did you all think about making the stuff available?  I'm thinking it wasn't a big deal at all, right?


Comments? Questions? Thoughts?

[Grand Master Steve]

Chase I greatly enjoyed the tournament. While I did not play any forge world lists, i would have had no problem doing so. The missions were well balanced in my opinion and were clear and to the point on what was needed for objectives. My only critique is the objectives that needed scoring units from both players should have been made in bold. We found out half way through the second game there was no way to achieve it since we took to many causalities same for our opponents.

[Chase]

Chase I greatly enjoyed the tournament.

This makes me happy.


As far as the two teams needing a scoring unit to claim goes, I suppose that's a fair complaint. Instead of being in bold it was in caps, but it could have been more clear.  I actually considered asking Derek to announce it, but decided against it because at the time Derek had roughly a trillion things to do.

[the_trooper]

I think it added lots of variety but I am pretty sure the FW stuff tanked (as it probably should statistically).

I too had a bunch of fun in the tournament and if this format is done again I will totally do it again time permitting.

[Chase]

Awesome to hear.

[King of the Elves]

It was my first tournament, and even knew I earned myself a smoking boots dice set, I had a great time. Missions where fair, and the FW stuff worked great. I played against some forge world models, and I hardly noticed. I really like the FW rule and think it can/ should be used more often. The table arrangement worked great, and I really can't wait for the next one.

[King of the Elves]

Also! I played against some kids my age (15-17) that where "regulars" at Pandemonium, and they loved the store. They also said that the community was a lot more friendly, and they feel "that they don"t have to worry about their stuff getting stolen here". Go Battlegrounds!!

[PhoenixFire]

Pros:

* Great time as always, had 3 great games against fun opponents.

* I liked the missions, well thought out and needing 1 unit from each "half" of the army for certain things was interesting, it was also nice to see short edge deployment in a tournament!

*Interesting to see and be able to use some of the Forgeworld stuff out there even if it didn't do that well in certain games.

*At least a quarter of the people there i had never seen before so between new 40k players, Abington 40k players who don't make it down to Plainville, and probably drawing in guys from the local area as well it was cool to see some new armies and new faces.



Cons:

*Ran long but that's par for the course with doubles and 2 1/2hr games

*Tables were really close together in spots, maybe next time we can shuffle those display racks up front out of the way and give some more space to the guys

*NO SAM!


Overall another great tournament and i'm looking forward to the next one.

[andalucien]

It was a fun tourney.   

We played against an army that was mostly forgeworld round 1.  Hades Breaching Drill, Caestus assault ram, etc.  And the lists were Forgeworld armies:  Charcaradons and Death Corps of Krieg.

That was really fun.  I would love to play with ForgeWorld allowed more.

Rounds 2 and 3 we got destroyed by teams that really knew what they were doing a lot more than we did  (Bill Souza, Keith, Ragnar, etc etc).  Still fun games  

CON:
I also think that it went too long.   Left early, in fact... 

[Mannahnin]

Another very fun, well-run event.  The scenarios were nice and clear, and had a good element of coordination needed from team members.   I liked seeing "true" Hammer & Anvil deployment in a tournament.  It was cool to finally get to an event at the Abington location; I liked the space and appreciated that it seemed like a good 20 min or so closer for me to get to coming from NH (hard to say for sure, given the weather and that my friend Jamie was driving and has a lighter foot than I do, but it was significantly closer).  I had no objection to there being some Forgeworld stuff; my model for a great team event is the Adepticon Team Tourney, which I know you guys also like and take some cues from, and they've always allowed some FW.  I didn't wind up playing against any (actually I guess Matt Bennett was running a FW HQ, but didn't use any of its special rules against us except maybe a marker light drone?), so they really didn't impact my experience.  Other than just the cool value of seeing that Caestus Assault thing on tables nearby, or the Vulture.  Both of which looked pretty neat.

As far as any constructive criticisms go, the late start/running long are always a bit less than ideal, especially for folks coming from a long distance away.  If I want to do any doubles events in the future, I expect I'll tell the wife not to expect me back until after 11, or after midnight if I want to go out for a beer with folks afterward.  And of course I'd always be happier if events required full painting or at least WYSIWYG; I do recall seeing a few Valkyries without three double lascannons pretending to be Vendettas, for example.   But other than that, I don't see a lot of room for improvement. Great job, guys!

Also, thanks to our opponents for three fun games and being good sports- Bill, Keith, Matt, Will, Tiago & Matt.  Cheers, guys!

[keithb]

I agree about running late, though it was the first event in the new store, and abington seems to run less large 40k events than plainville does, plus it is doubles.  So I guess it can be forgiven.

I had a great time, though I will say, the last scenario had one major problem with it.  Whoever won the roll to place objectives was at a significant advantage considering the Hammer and Anvil deployment.

[Mannahnin]

That's a good point, Keith.  I think arguably* one of the biggest flaws in core 6th ed 40k is having objective placement after table sides have been determined, especially when there are an odd number of objectives.   Combining Hammer & Anvil deployment with a scenario which mandated an odd number of objectives I think did set up a lot of games which were unbalanced from the first roll.  Making the side who won the choice of table edge automatically also place the first objective amplified the issue even further. 

(*The only counter argument I've thought of to this is that it encourages people to build more mobile/aggressive, to be able to get at objectives on the opponent's side of the table, which could be seen as a bit of a counterbalance to how 6th ed is generally more shooty as a whole.)

[Achillius]

Sean and I had a fun day. It is very nice to see this sort of thing in Abington and we are looking forward to more events like this here in the future. We had three very interesting and exciting games with some very fun opponents.

I'd appreciate planning an earlier start, 9am seems appropriate with an early Lunch rather than 11 am with a late one; I think that could have us all done by 7:30 ish, that'll help avoid oh god its late syndrome.

Rules Packets were good and clear. We'll be using them at home for messing around.

I'd love to hear that forgeworld is going to be allowed in future events, it's probably nothing compared to the nastiness people built from straight up 40k Codexes.


List formats, some are more complete and understandable than others. Now we all recognize that Army builder is not for everyone (after all it is not free). But having rules and abilities listed in consice format for people to ask about is a good thing. Could we have a BG format for lists, and enforce brining them to the tournament?
This would allow a stardardization in the way people share lists and prevent any misunderstandings.


As always a HUGE thankyou to the BG team for a great day.

Cheers,
Alan & Sean

[andalucien]

Actually, now that keith brought it up I agree about the last mission.  If I had been playing for anything other than fun in the last game I might have cared about that more.

The table I was on was particularly ill-suited to this mission.   There was a giant Fortress of Redemption (completely blocking line of sight for anything but a flyer) stretching most of the way across the board, width-wise, about 24" from one of the short edges.   There was about an 8" gap between either end of the fortress and the long board edges.   So, my opponents won the roll to pick table halves, picked the end with the Fortress on it, and put 3 objectives as close as legal to their short table edge.    In certain combinations of armies that could pretty much have won them the game right there.   In the case of our game, it certainly wasn't the biggest reason we lost... but it could have been in a different situation...

[Benjamin]

(*The only counter argument I've thought of to this is that it encourages people to build more mobile/aggressive, to be able to get at objectives on the opponent's side of the table, which could be seen as a bit of a counterbalance to how 6th ed is generally more shooty as a whole.)

That's the basic philosophy I have while designing missions these days. Plus, I feel it makes the game more dynamic, more energetic.

(No, I did not design the Doubles missions for this event.)