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All good points we will address. Definitely the champion thing. We really want the future events to run easier and still have the same unique feel.

I can see that! it wasreal interesting fo sho

@ben

we gonna play at wargames con?

2011 40k American Team Champions – Wrecking BOLS
Best General (Individual, Best Overall Score) – Chris Courtney – 170 Pts out of a Possible 180!
Best Sportsmanship (Team) – Wrecking Crew East
Best Army (Paint & Theme) – Joe Johnson, Salamanders
New Dice Award (Individual, Lowest Overall Score) – Mike Wooten

Final 40k ATC Team Standings
Wrecking BOLS – 605 points
Original X-Men – 590 points
Da Boyz – 515 points (3rd place by 849 VP’s)
Wrecking Crew East – 515 points
C.A.G.E. - 485 points
Borderlands Gaming - 480 points
Chicago Kamikazes - 465 points
Blade N Bolters - 445 points
East Coast Assassins - 440 points
Chatta Winning! - 405 points
The Flash Gitz - 380 points
Team Voltron - 355 points
Red Shirt Ensigns - 335 points
The Cursed Founding - 275 points

Spacecurves wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Sounds really awesome. I got a last-minute invite to come down and be a filler, but couldn't make it. Ben (the captain of the US ETC team) also got a last-minute invite to fill a spot and I know he flew down from Boston to attend; we played a practice game Thursday night. I really hope to be able to bring the team down next year.

I can't wait for more details, and hopefully some full batreps and tourney reports!

Ragnar, that practice game helped a lot, I played two lash chaos armies at the tournament! One of them had 3 dreadnoughts 3 defilers and 2 lash princes. Boy oh boy was it interesting to take that on with Dark Eldar!

I will try and be less forgetful next time, that was not a fun way to lose. It was a great game though, and you were a great opponent, I hope to play you again soon!

Next Level wrote:I can see that! it wasreal interesting fo sho

@ben

we gonna play at wargames con?

Damn right we will! I have to defend my title after all.

Ken. Pretty sure I'm doing Bols/Wargames Con w/e. They still have a 2v2 Team event?

Sad I missed the ATC. Next year I'll be @ both Adepticon and ATC to work w/ my WC Teams!!!

It was a great time but it wasn't the same without you Mike, as well as Hod, Shane and Steve. I'd mention Dave but I don't think I'll ever see him again. Maybe in another life.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I'd prefer there be no Champions in the future.

One thing I noticed is that the objectives could easily get cluttered up and I ended up playing a few games on effectively 4x4 or even 3x4 boards. Maybe no Seize Ground objective within 18 of each other? Just an idea for thought.

Don't count me out just yet Brian

Next year will probably be out (saving for a wedding) but I plan to return to the national scene.

Shinkaze wrote:
It was a great time but it wasn't the same without you Mike, as well as Hod, Shane and Steve. I'd mention Dave but I don't think I'll ever see him again. Maybe in another life.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I'd prefer there be no Champions in the future.

One thing I noticed is that the objectives could easily get cluttered up and I ended up playing a few games on effectively 4x4 or even 3x4 boards. Maybe no Seize Ground objective within 18 of each other? Just an idea for thought.

Yeah not a fan of the champion mechanic but great tourney overall. Need work on terrain but I mentioned that while I was there. More LOS blocking would be good. The 18 inch may help but I felt it was more because you could claim multiple objectives with one unit. This caused people to clump them together so you could have 2 seize and a capture objective in a pretty small area of the board. I think maybe not allowing people to take more than 1 objective or contest more than 1 with a single unit would actually help solve that issue.

i had no problems with the scenarios....just terrain as you said

Next Level wrote:

Tommy?
met me at wargames con for a rematch

I'll have to see if I can make that! I think I let you shoot me with 4 Bloodstrike Missiles from a GK Stormraven. Not that it would've changed the outcome since, by then, you had it in the bag.

Next Level wrote:i had no problems with the scenarios....just terrain as you said

yes scenarios were fine I just was addressing the marks being so close I felt was because one unit could hold more or contest more than one object which caused people to bring them in and shorten the boards at times.

Congrats to Wrecking BOLS on the win.

The event was a blast. It was awesome to see and play in a lot of competitive games. The team aspect of this event is definitely makes for a very enjoyable weekend. All of my games were challenging and fun to play.

Overall, a big thumbs up to Shane and Mel.

We really do want and need your input so we can make a better event year after year and it is much appreciated, so let us know what we can do better.

I like the champion component but I think it should be hidden. Basically you run it the way you ran it but the champions get revealed after all the sets. Then they pair up and whoever they are paired up with before being revealed play each other. Adds to the mystery and it means the team that does not win the roll off has a chance to shake things up. I love the terrain heehh.

Spacecurves wrote:

Next Level wrote:I can see that! it wasreal interesting fo sho

@ben

we gonna play at wargames con?

Damn right we will! I have to defend my title after all.

Ah your Ben, its good to put a name to a handle on the forums. I am probably one of the few guys around here who uses part of their name on their handles.

Dude, lots of people will be gunning to de-throne last year's champ. Happy hunting.

Fishboy wrote:I like the champion component but I think it should be hidden. Basically you run it the way you ran it but the champions get revealed after all the sets. Then they pair up and whoever they are paired up with before being revealed play each other. Adds to the mystery and it means the team that does not win the roll off has a chance to shake things up.

The champion was hidden until the fourth pairing was finalized.

I would like to begin by thanking Shane and his wonderful staff for putting together a great event. Our team from Chicago had a blast! All of our games were competitive. I won't forget the game I had against Joe Johnson, I laughed that entire game! I didn't care if I lost (I won on the tie breaker.), he was awsome! All of the teams we played were great! Overall meeting great players from around the country is what made this a great experience, and we can't wait unitl next year. Yes, of course the venue needs to be upgraded, but other than that I would recommend everyone interested in playing in this type of format would make plans for next year!
I hope to see some of you up here for Adepticon, if not maybe at Wargames Con. I love Austin! Until then, I hope everyone made it safe back home and I wish you all the very best!

Fishboy wrote:

SlaveToDorkness wrote:Looking forward to seeing them at the Maul, FB!

Nashville would practically guarantee a showing of the Slave!

I had a previous engagement this year so missed out. Luckily Nashcon is this weekend! (not that it compares of course)

Not sure if I will make it to the Maul this year. It is tough with money and schedules so it is still up in the air. This means you may actually have a chance to win best painted

See, that's why I want you there, to see that face you make when you lose.

I've been thinking that losing the roll for pairing is even more of a disadvantage than you would think.

Loser pushes forward a list for winner to match.

The winner pushes forward a list for loser to match. So far pretty even but the loser has a slight disadvantage.

Loser pushes second list. Now the winner gets to pair against that and he can easily see that of the 2 lists remaining one is probably much more likely to be champion. At the very least the winner can make sure the match up can't be bad for him by choosing his list that performs best against the remaining two lists that he hasn't seen paired yet. While people may not have realized this at the time I'm sure they will figure it out by next year.

So it seems to me that the loser gets to choose about 1 out of 4 of the pairings. If there was no champions it would be 2 out of 5. That would be 25% to 40%. Still bad to lose roll for pairing but not nearly as bad.

What if the loser got some benefit in game like +5 points for the round. Just an idea.


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Darkness wrote:Don't count me out just yet Brian

Next year will probably be out (saving for a wedding) but I plan to return to the national scene.

Just one event Dave is all we ask and this is the one. Lets see if WC can win without the help of those BoLS masterminds.

THE SIEGE wrote:We really do want and need your input so we can make a better event year after year and it is much appreciated, so let us know what we can do better.

I really liked the event and had a blast. However, here are the things that I would like to see improved:

1. A better venue. The AC didn't work and even if it had I doubt the room would have been comfortable. Also, the consession stand was closed on Sunday.
2. Allow time on Saturday for dinner. When we were let out on Saturday, we couldn't find an open restuarant. Maybe there were places open, but we couldn't find any. Perhaps handing out regional food and bar information could help.
3. I really liked how early we were finished on Sunday. That was great.
4. More terrain was needed.

Food for thought.

Also, Congratulations Wrecking Bols.

-Mike Mutscheller
Team X-men

puma713 wrote:

Next Level wrote:

Tommy?
met me at wargames con for a rematch

I'll have to see if I can make that! I think I let you shoot me with 4 Bloodstrike Missiles from a GK Stormraven. Not that it would've changed the outcome since, by then, you had it in the bag.

ur right i totally fotgot haha

i actually laughed cuz if i remember correctly its the only time the storm raven didnt blow soething up.It wasagainst the back armor of a smoked rhino and urrolled cover saves like a boss.

The positive:

I thought the tournament was run really well, and the format was fun. I can tell a lot of thought went into streamliing the gaming process as much as possible. The ability to walk 20 yards over to the food vendor and get drinks or snacks or even a meal, within the gaming hall, was great. I went and got a drink several times mid-game and do not think I was away from a table for more than 1-2 minutes.

The negatives:

I did not like the champion part of the picks. I would suggest either a straight match up system with no champion, or go completely blind, with the captains randomly pairing teams. But this is just a personal preference, and some people may have liked it.

Terrain was an issue. 3/4 of the tables had what I consider light terrain, and the other 1/4 only slightly more. There was almost no meaningful LOS blocking terrain anywhere; and the few tables that did have some (with a few exceptions) typically had it packed into the backs of the table corners. If you had a shooting army, or a fast army that could move on from the table edge, you had a distinct advantage. I know that owning enough terrain to sufficiently cover 30-40 tables is costly, both in terms of buying the terrain and in storing it. My suggestion here would be to have a contest within a contest, and let teams that choose to, to bring enough terrain to cover one (or more) 5-tables section. And then let participants vote on their favorite set of tables. There are enough gaming groups within a two hour drive in every direction that this would probably be feasible for a lot of teams (although the flyers probably wouldn't be able to do it).

Overall though, aside from my intermittent poor game play, and the heat, I had a good time.

I too had a blast, playing 6 strong opponents.

As far as improvements for the next one:

1) for the love of God A/C, but I knew this couldn't be fixed. An above poster was right that even if it was working that room is oddly shaped (like a gymnasium) and probably wouldn't have been that cool anyway. Maybe a location change?

2) I loved the scoring, but the missions kind of got repetitive after 6 rounds. Maybe throw in some additional objectives like headhunter, etc.

3) I think the number of players plus a champion is a bad idea. Let me break this down:

If you won the roll, you got first pick, put up a list, got a second pick, and the other two are decided. If you lost the roll, you put up a list, got a pick, put up a list, and the other two or decided.

Winning this roll was tantamount to having all the right match ups, and giving you all the power. The losing team only got to pick one match up out of 5. That's huge. If you want to do the champion addition the teams need to be an even number, 4 or 6.

Now, another fix that I brought up to my group is what if you bring an extra list, but keep the 5 players. Drop the champion mechanic, and bring 6 armies to your 5 man team event. This provides a deeper strategy level, because now your opponent is trying to guess which army you will leave out over which player you will leave out. Team 1 will get first choice, then team 2, then team 1, then team 2, then team 1 gets the last, but it's not a guarantee. There is only one player left, but he could conceivably bring either army to the table. This would require that your team be familiar with a 6th army, enough to play it, and have a few players who are really good at it when their normal army doesn't match up well to the opponent's. But it adds a level of strategy that is much higher than the champion system.

Thanks for the event Shane!

@Tony-That was a great game and a lot of fun. It was a well deserved tie and I was just glad I got to kill off all those Thunderwolves hehe.

SlaveToDorkness wrote:

Fishboy wrote:

SlaveToDorkness wrote:Looking forward to seeing them at the Maul, FB!

Nashville would practically guarantee a showing of the Slave!

I had a previous engagement this year so missed out. Luckily Nashcon is this weekend! (not that it compares of course)

Not sure if I will make it to the Maul this year. It is tough with money and schedules so it is still up in the air. This means you may actually have a chance to win best painted

See, that's why I want you there, to see that face you make when you lose.

Ahhh.....thats what the bridesmaids always say.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:

Fishboy wrote:I like the champion component but I think it should be hidden. Basically you run it the way you ran it but the champions get revealed after all the sets. Then they pair up and whoever they are paired up with before being revealed play each other. Adds to the mystery and it means the team that does not win the roll off has a chance to shake things up.

The champion was hidden until the fourth pairing was finalized.

Yeah but what I am saying is you can commit the champion to a pairing but then he has to go to the other champion after all the other pairings are set. Basicially as it sits whoever wins the rolloff gets to pick 3 out of 4 matchups. They get the 1st and 3rd and the 4th is whoever is left. If you lose the rolloff you only get to pick one match up. Having the champion as a fake can really change the matchups around.

To simplify: Both teams choose their champs secretly then roll to see who gets first match up. Then the second team goes. This is all similar to what we did. However the champion can be put into a match up at any point but once the champs are exposed they go play each other and the matchups they had play each other.

Here is a suggestion I thought of but haven't really parsed it that much.

Both captains lay down their 5 armies lists, and they are numerically ordered 1-5. Teams roll to see who gets to pick first. The loser of the roll chooses one of their team's armies. They then roll a d6, and get to fight the corresponding army with whatever they roll from their opponents 5 armies. If they roll a 1, then they fight the first list, a 2, the second, etc. If they roll higher than the remaining number of opponent armies, then they can choose which of the remaing armies their army fights.

This is repeated sequentially for all five match ups, with it obviouosly getting easier to beat the roll with each successive match up. (A 6, then a 5+, then a 4+, etc.). Like I said, I haven't really thought this out that much, and do not know if it would be a good idea or not.

Fishboy wrote:

To simplify: Both teams choose their champs secretly then roll to see who gets first match up. Then the second team goes. This is all similar to what we did. However the champion can be put into a match up at any point but once the champs are exposed they go play each other and the matchups they had play each other.

Or maybe, the Champion can be revealed at any time at the beginning of one of the pairings, and that forces the other team to present their Champion at that point in the pairing. Of course, the winner would probably always present their Champion first to force the loser to reveal his, so I'm not sure that that helps at all.

I had a great time at the event it was a lot of fun and a whole new experience for me. This was my second tournament that I have left the Chicago Land area for. The first was Ard Boy Semi finals in Ann Arbor Michigan, which I ended up taking first place and my fellow team mate Mitch Tucker came in third we had a awesome time since we both qualified for finals.

This ATC event was nothing like I had ever done before and I can truly say that I was not prepared for the format at all. I was under the assumption that we could ensure great match ups around the board and I honestly did not know what the meta-game was going to be. I never expected lash price lists they are not that big any more around Chicago, so I really never got in a good practice game against it with my foot orks. (Not that it would really matter). The truth is that the Chicago Kamikazies all just wrote up our lists independently base on what we had painted at the time. I think next year we will have to meet as a group and go through all the elements we will see and make sure we have them covered. When a opponents list comes up and not one of the 5 players on our team want to play it there is something wrong.

I learned a lot and I will be ready to help my my teammates get into the right mind set and get prepared before the event.

Here is some of my feed back-

1) The venue was not appropriate I know everyone said it but it was not just the heat...I felt like there was no real good places to go eat and the fact that we could not bring outside beverages was rough. A tournament is not a tournament when DA Boys don't have bottles of liquor on the table.

2) I think the first day needs to start earlier so that places are not closed after and we have somewhere to go to dinner and get some rest for the second day. I know I would have like things to kick off at 8:30 sharp and keep the schedule moving along at a correct pace. Also the 30min parings should be a max timeline if you get done just start it up this moves things along a lot faster.

3) I think something needs to change with the pairings. The Chicago Kamikazes only won one of the 6 captains rolls. I think we need to replace the captain! But I felt that we were at a serious disadvantage with losing this roll when in reality I think the roll should just provide the team that wins with a smaller edge. Choosing only one match as opposed to 3 is a rough deal. The champs are already chosen but when that final list gets nominated and you look at the two remaining lists its usually easy to know which is the champ so the last pick gets to pick both game 3 and game 4....and he also choose game 1. thats a big advantage. I like the post on here that suggests you have a extra list and you don't know which army will be left out.

4) I would like to see this event go from the 5 man team to maybe 6 or more even more depending on how many people you think teams can commit too, it is so much fun that I don't think many teams would have a huge issue with it. I would just like to see more players from some of the other codex's you don't see at tourneys usually.

5) Ultimately, I think the future of this event could be a deciding factor in what gaming group represents Team USA in the European team tournament. Just a thought that is.

Thank you for running a great event and looking forward to it next year at a new location.

Alan Bajramovic

http://chicagokamikazes.blogspot.com/

Actually there are tons of places nearby, but all of them are sit downs and we never had time between rounds to go there. I do suggest next year that someone (which if it is in Chattanooga, will be me!) puts together a list of nearby places with directions to get there. That would help tremendously!

I talked with Chris and Shane about maybe linking up a laptop to a LCD tv on the judge's table to let everyone know new round pairings and to display time remaining. I think that would help speed things along nicely.

I would like to see a format closer to the Nova standard with rotating deployment and main objectives.

All good points...

I personally liked the standardized mission and weighting each component of the basic missions equally in each mission.

To me it takes away the randomness of "the mission was bad for me" and puts it squarely on the players to know how to win the mission.

Plus it really wrings out your army building skills to build a force that can out Kill Point, out Command and Control, and out Seize Ground any comers - all at the same time.

I agree on the champion mechanic. With 5 players it did provide an advantage to the winner. It was kind of fun to do - and the guess the opponents champ was interesting (we were hardly EVER right in our team). But at the end if you lose it you are rolling bad matchups in 3 to 5 of your games.