Here are the Details for the Slaughter in Space in April. It's primarily a 40k 5 Game GT event but they have Fantasy Events for both days.

Venue:

Ontario Convention Center
2000 E. Convention Center Way
Ontario, California 91764
http://www.ontariocc.com/ontario/directions

Registration:

Slaughter in Space 2
40k GT: $65 ~ $60 if your club brings at least 5 people/SCGWL automatic
Fantasy Events: $20 per Team for Team Event, $10 for Warbands Tournament

Paypal add $3: pay@scgwl.com (Please note name and event your paying for in payment notes)

Pay by check to:
Michael Ulibarri
26326 Misty Glen
Lake Forrest, CA 92630

40K Indy GT:

Please send your army list to tiv@cox.net by APRIL 9

2,000pts.

2.5 Hours for each Game

Rules Packet: www.scgwl.com/downloads/SIS10.pdf

I'm going to try to get the painting checklist posted as well.

First two round pairings based on judge assessed comp (these scores have no further effect), rest on battle points.

Battle Points:
20 possible per round, 1-14 from degree of victory and 0-6 from bonus objectives.
Total possible Battle Points 100.

Sportsmanship:
6 points per round, from a very specifically outlined checklist.
Maximum of 30 points here.

Composition:
Same as Sportsmanship.

Painting:
One judge (Carol Tiveron) will use a 40 point checklist to score everyone. This is a slightly modified version of the one Matt Lewedowski created for the GW GTs. I'll try and get a copy of it up, but its the same one we have used for every slaughter.

Votes for Favorite Opponent and Favorite Army will be used for tie breaking purposes on their relavant awards. No extra points will be added from player votes. Our awards will be:

Overall- Best combined score of the possible 200 points.

Best General- Best Battle Points. Composition is first tie breaker, Sports is the second tie breaker.

Best Sportsman- Best Sports Points. Favorite Opponent votes are the first tie breaker. Composition Score is the second tie breaker.

Best Painted- Painting score points. Favorite Army votes are the first tie breaker. Paint Judges choice is the second tie breaker.

Best Army- Composition Score. Favorite Army Votes are the first tie breaker. Painting Score is the second tie breaker.

Richard Marquez Award- Lowest Battle Points coupled with high soft scores. The tournament head judge is the final arbiter with this award.

The two Indy Finals passes will be awarded to the Best Overall and the 1st place Best General.

Also, to get the bonus reroll, you need to pay by March 16th. Army lists are due by April 9th. Anyone turning in an army late will be scored a zero in composition for pairing purposes. This has no effect on your overall, but you will get paired with another random latecommer or someone who brought a hard as nails army for the first two rounds as a result.

Scenarios will be posted for both the 40k main GT and Fantasy side events once Scott and I have a chance to complete the playtesting on them. Should be very soon. I strongly anticipate a standard spred of 1-2 KP related missions and the rest objective based.

Slaughter style KP will be used for the annihilation style scenarios, which means 1 KP per 100 points round up (down if troops or dedicated transports for troops), to a minimum of 1 KP.

Fantasy Events:

Fantasy Rules Packet:
www.scgwl.com/downloads/SCGWLFTT.pdf

www.scgwl.com/downloads/SCGWLWBT.pdf

Saturday:
Team Tournament (1250 pts per player) No 1+ units required. TK may make the same character both Heirophant and general. Each team pays a $20 entry fee and objective based scenarios will be used. Normal score sheets will be used for this and I will have the packet posed for it some time this weekend.

Sunday:
Warbands (750 pts) No characters required; a unit chamption may be declared as your general. No minimum unit sizes, so you could have three man knight units and the like. It will simply be four fast paced kill em all games, with the standard score sheets in use.

Prize support will be given for both events.

Website:
http://scgwl.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=583

Does "Dakka Dakka" count as club, for discounted admission purposes?

Lol, I'll run that by Phazael Thursday but I'd say as long as 5 guys show up wearing your club shirt then it should But I don't speak for them on anything decision wise

I'll be flying in from eastern North Carolina to teach you hippies how to play 40k!

*edit* My wife objects to me calling anyone a hippie. Therefore, I'd like to rephrase..

I'll be flying in from North Carolina to teach you granola-munching, tree-hugging, hybrid-driving, free-thinking beach bums how to play 40k!

When will the missions be published?

NM just re-read you are working on them.

Since your PTing please don't include any broadside bash 4 seize missions silliness

Some DOW missions would be a nice balancing factor

Oh one more question: Are you guys using INAT FAQ?

I don't believe they plan to use the INAT FAQ. I talked to Scott yesterday and he said that he is waiting on a few more notes on the missions but that they should be up shortly. I'll see if I can find an email address for rules issues for you guys if there is anything pertaining to your army in particular (some Nid stuff comes to mind if it's not out before the GT).

*Edit* Phazael did say that there should be at least 1 DoW deployment.

Hulksmash wrote:I don't believe they plan to use the INAT FAQ. I talked to Scott yesterday and he said that he is waiting on a few more notes on the missions but that they should be up shortly. I'll see if I can find an email address for rules issues for you guys if there is anything pertaining to your army in particular (some Nid stuff comes to mind if it's not out before the GT).

I look forward to seeing the missions, the fact that you're helping playtest is promising.

INAT FAQ is not perfect but it's nice to have a consistent rule-set that everyone is aware of prior to showing up at the tourney.

I guess a Q&A is better than nothing but honestly not having a FAQ to point to is gonna cause problems because questions that one player will ask might not be addressed to another player.

It's not a deal breaker of course, just sayin.

To be honest I've never even played at a place that used the INAT FAQ and there hasn't been a single problem yet. I think having a TO that is decisive is a lot of the reason. The guys at GE Pasadena and GMI Games are very decisive about rules issues. And I've found that there are very few major issues that need judging before a GT. Glaring exception is of course things like the Mawloc and a couple of other tyrannid issues.

Oh and to be clear I'm not playtesting. Though once they are released I'm sure I'll get in more than a few games with them but they do have a decent group of guys that are pretty competitive testing them that won't be playing in the GT from what I understand. Wouldn't be fair if I was helping set them up and was gonna play in the GT. They have very clear definitions about that kind of thing

Hulksmash wrote:To be honest I've never even played at a place that used the INAT FAQ and there hasn't been a single problem yet. I think having a TO that is decisive is a lot of the reason. The guys at GE Pasadena and GMI Games are very decisive about rules issues. And I've found that there are very few major issues that need judging before a GT. Glaring exception is of course things like the Mawloc and a couple of other tyrannid issues.

When you play around LA then the 40k rules are all generally played the same.

The problems happen when you have people come in from other parts of the country and they have an unpleasant surprise when they are told that they can't play the way that they are use to playing.

I never had rules problems in LA, but then when I started to travel to events I started to have rules problems at events like Adepticon (and thus the need for a huge FAQ).

Let me restate that I've never had a problem anywhere on the West Coast (San Fran, Sacremento, Seattle, and Oregon). I understand that you can have an issue across the country but until the event is much larger I don't see it being an issue. They want it to grow to that point but I think they aren't expecting more than 100 people

I am definitely going to try and be there. My army should be all painted, but it might still be Alpha Legion. Thanks for starting the thread Hulk.

Played last year at the Slaughter and never had a problem with the rules. Of course I'm a total rules monkey myself.

Hulksmash wrote:Let me restate that I've never had a problem anywhere on the West Coast (San Fran, Sacremento, Seattle, and Oregon). I understand that you can have an issue across the country but until the event is much larger I don't see it being an issue. They want it to grow to that point but I think they aren't expecting more than 100 people

It's not just size, though. From what I can see, the high stakes of the Vegas tickets are driving more long-distance travel for the GTs, and the fact that we’re so early in the season means that they’re extra New and extra Shiny. I think a significant portion of the complaints would not have been nearly as serious or severe if it weren’t for those two tickets.

I think the stakes presently justify being extra-careful about this kind of stuff, and I strongly encourage you to either use INAT or come up with your own published FAQ to cover any and all questions attendees throw at you beforehand.

I'm not actually running the event. I'm not involved in the event in any way, shape, or form. I'm just trying to get the word out about the it and trying to get more people to attend an event that I had an absolute blast at last year. Yes it is run by the league I am a part of but it's being strictly run by people who are not going to be playing in it. I'm just trying to get the info out so that we can have an awesome turnout for an awesome event

Personally I don't like the INAT. I don't believe there are that many issues with the game but that is just my opinion.

As for complaints I haven't seen a single thing about rules calls or rules issues stated as a complaint. All I've seen in relation to complaints for the 3 Indy GT's that have happened so far is 1) Cheating at the top table (Seattle), 2) Strange Match-ups for the final round at the Broadside (40k side), 3) Comp scoring and lack of transparency at the SVDM.

If you army is build around a certain rule going a certain way then you should probably contact the guys running it and have them give you an answer on how it is going to be ruled. But I can't imagine a single instance outside of Mawlocs that would effect the entire way an army plays.

Another comp. tournament. How will the comp. score be calculated I wonder.

Would be fun to get back into the tourny scene again after so long. Ill try to make it myself.

And Im all for the Dakka club thing as well. Need to buy a shirt though.

*edit: Hulksmash says it better.

The initial scores, if they are like last year, are based on 2 judges scores of 1-6 that are averaged. That score is then used to randomly determine the match-ups for the first 2 rounds. It has zero effect on the tournament scoring itself.

As for the comp points that actually apply to the scores I'll see if I can get all the soft score checklists and get them posted up here. They are 6 questions on a very specific checklist for both Sports and Comp.

Zero effect besides match ups is fine by me for comp. Comp should never be part of overall scoring.

You were there last year Asu, did you see any issues with the checklists they used at the end of each game? This way there is a second opinion that isn't mine

Hulksmash wrote:I'm not actually running the event. I'm not involved in the event in any way, shape, or form. I'm just trying to get the word out about the it and trying to get more people to attend an event that I had an absolute blast at last year. Yes it is run by the league I am a part of but it's being strictly run by people who are not going to be playing in it. I'm just trying to get the info out so that we can have an awesome turnout for an awesome event

Thanks, HS, sorry to be confused. You’ve been an effective point person for this event on Dakka, so I did not remember that you’re not involved in an official capacity. It does sound great, and I’d like to attend; maybe next year.

Hulksmash wrote:Personally I don't like the INAT. I don't believe there are that many issues with the game but that is just my opinion.

Here’s the thing- in regular play, with people you know, there aren’t that many. It’s when you get big events, with attendees from different states and regions, that you see them come up a lot. Even at Adepticon I don’t need to refer to the INAT often, but for those few times I do, having a clear and comprehensive FAQ means I basically never have an argument.

Hulksmash wrote:As for complaints I haven't seen a single thing about rules calls or rules issues stated as a complaint. All I've seen in relation to complaints for the 3 Indy GT's that have happened so far is 1) Cheating at the top table (Seattle), 2) Strange Match-ups for the final round at the Broadside (40k side), 3) Comp scoring and lack of transparency at the SVDM.

I think that’s missing the forest for the trees. While each tournament may have had different issues come up, I think the raising of the stakes in these events creates a much higher likelihood of people reacting strongly to any problems or perceived problems, so anyone running a circuit event should be aware of that and exercise an even higher-than-usual level of caution and care.

Here are some things:

1. The player cheating in Seattle already had a big rep for bad behavior in the area. He'd been accused of stealing models, cheating, slow playing, and other things well before the tournament. Hell, he was accused of cheating at the event LAST YEAR because he displayed a different army then what he played in apperance judging because his plague marines were not painted by the event.

2. Broadside has had other issues regarding Comp in the past as well.

3. SVDM already was taking flak for the comp thing before the tournament. I don't think they made any changes to address it. The issue with the second place finisher with the exception of potential dice cheating all seem to be that he was trying to bend the rules his way to gain an advantage, something very subjective.

I LOVED playing at the Slaughter last year and will be back if I can move the closing date of my house.

I CAN"T WAIT FOR THIS EVENT!!!

Yeah, booooooyyy!

So much fun with my buddies from LA, SD and the Central Coast.

This will be a great tournament.

Looking forward to meeting some new Dakka peeps too, from the looks of the responses, which is always cool.

Reecius wrote:

Looking forward to meeting some new Dakka peeps too, from the looks of the responses, which is always cool.

That's right; I'm scourging the grimdark 41st millenium of hippies, 1 GT at a time.

Actually, I'm just jealous of you guys on the West Coast for having so many cool events; the mid-atlantic corridor on the east coast is a barren place to live for 40k events.

Scenarios should be up over the weekend. There will also be a packet you can download that will have all the checklists for painting and end of game sports/comp. If it's not in the packet I'll try to get it posted up here for any of you attending.

Oh and here's to hoping the Blood Angels codex is out the first weekend of April!

This may be a dumb question, but how many points are the armies for this event?

2k - its in the link.

Bah, Coachella is that same weekend.

Is it bad that I am more excited for drinks after?

2k - its in the link.

Man, am I totally blind or something? I don't see a link in the OP...

That's a VERY BAD Hulksmash.

http://scgwl.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=583

Your not blind, I missed putting it in there, my bad. It's edited now

::Ninja'd::


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Fantasy Packet Added. Still some kinks in the 40k Packet so hopefully we get it fully posted by the end of the weekend.

AffliKtion wrote:Bah, Coachella is that same weekend.

And my wifes birthday in which I promised to take her to said show. Bah... Bah indeed!

That's right; I'm scourging the grimdark 41st millenium of hippies, 1 GT at a time.

Actually, I'm just jealous of you guys on the West Coast for having so many cool events; the mid-atlantic corridor on the east coast is a barren place to live for 40k events.

It will be good to meet you! The guys over here are all cool and fun to game with. We have some rivalries, but that is half the fun!

Is it bad that I am more excited for drinks after?

Nope!

I strongly disagree with some of the rulings in the Inat, but it is much better to have all the rulings available to all the players before the event rather than some hodge podge system where some players email questions in and get rulings for their army before the tourney and others don't know the rulings in advance unless they happened to ask the same question.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
They should at least post all the questions asked and their ruling on the questions for everyone to see.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have played in the scgwl league and there were inconsistencies with how people played. They don't use the INAT or a home grown FAQ for that matter. They have a rules committee that you email or call for rules disputes. Not the best system in my opinion.

Were they game breaking differences? Not really, but they certainly had game impact.

Looks like the missions are available over at the SCGWL site. Interesting mix, though I've got a few questions, which I also posted over there:

1) In Mission 3, what are the dimensions of the deployment zones? (Is this meant to be Dawn of War deployment?)
2) In Mission 3, I'm guessing each player places 2 objectives (based on available points).
3) In Mission 4, how can you place objectives before knowing deployment zones? (The triangles can go either way, depending on what the player with first choice decides, and the objectives must be deployed in the no-man's-land between the two zones.)
4) In Mission 4, how many objectives are placed?
5) In Mission 4, what are the rules for "Preliminary Bombardment"?

A few quick notes from the rule pack:

Day one will have 2 hour rounds for 2000 points, so my Eldar are out (when you shoot 60 shots of strength 6 goodness, it takes a while to do the hits, the wounds and then the wound allocation and then take the saves and that does not take into account doom and guide.) Also the foot Eldar takes a while to deploy. Horde orks and IG are going to have issues.

You need to bring 2 objective markers on 40mm bases.

No FAQ, so rule judging will be done at the event by the judges (Can Ahriman shoot 3 Bolts of Change at the same target?)

Player moved (or should I say manipulated?) terrain placement which I don’t like although they did try to still keep it in certain areas.


Mission #1
Do reserves enter from the long table edge, or your deployment zone? It is Dawn of War, is the first turn nightfight?

Mission #2
The army with the most kill points alive wins? So you want to have a ton of hard to kill KP? Mech Guard for the win! So if I play a low KP army I am screwed?

Mission #4
A lot of people will tie this one. Very, very hard to get the primary against a good player.

Mission #5
I like their kill points. KP=VP/100 with troops rounding down, everything else rounding up.

Manimal wrote:I strongly disagree with some of the rulings in the Inat, but it is much better to have all the rulings available to all the players before the event rather than some hodge podge system where some players email questions in and get rulings for their army before the tourney and others don't know the rulings in advance unless they happened to ask the same question.

At least I don't need to ask about Deffrollas anymore!!

Hopefully Mawlocs are addressed in the rules pack *goes to peek*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My own questions:

1. In your cover chart, craters are assigned a 5+ cover save. Page 21 of the rulebook explicitly assigns craters a 4+ cover save. IE, when my vehicles are exploded and leave a crater, the unit inside the new crater has a 4+ cover save. Is there any particular reason for rewriting this, or was it an oversight?

2. Will Mawlocs be allowed to deploy by placing their model on top of other models, or do they have to obey the deployment rule about staying 1" away before rolling the scatter die?

3. Does the Spirit Leech from the Doom of Malan'tai (which affects all units within 12") work against embarked units? And if it does, does the same ruling apply to exploding vehicles (which also affect all units within D6). IE, can you force leadership on embarked units with spirit leech, and can an exploding rhino hit the terminators in the land raider next to it?

4. In Scenario 1, new units that get within 3" of an objective roll a dice. On a 5+, the unit takes D6 hits. What is the strength and AP of those hits?


Final note: This is the second GT that isn't using nightfight. Yeah....on scenario 5, on turn5+ nightfight gets employed, but this is the FREAKING GRIMDARK, NOT THE FREAKING GRIMAFTERNOON OR GRIMMORNING. By turn5 in most games, there is little left on the board, and employing nightfight is pointless now.

Fights do happen at night. You are disadvantaging assault based armies by ignoring a rule that gets used in 1/3 of GW missions. Seriously, make one mission have nightfight properly, or make one game have continuous nightfight with the potential for ending, but this is like discouraging assault based armies.

I go looking through missions for the one mission where I am not disadvantaged by being an ork close combat fighter...and all you have is a game 5, turn5+ feeble attempt to appease?


*EDIT* I also can't go register for the SoCal Forums - registration seems to be broken. Hopefully someone will copy and paste this over for me?

First off let's remember this is a preliminary draft. It's why they put it up so early (over a month) so they could fix anything that comes up.

@ Janth

I sent an email yesterday asking those questions as well as a few more.

@Blackmoor

1) From what I can tell it's nightfight for turn one. But it could also be DoW with specified deployment zone. I'll send that in as well.

2) Brought that issue up in my email as well

4) Also brought up in my email yesterday

@Dash

They are using first turn night fight on the first mission Dash. The only issue is what deploys, not whether there is night fight first turn. So you have one mission that has nightfight for a turn. To much night fight actually majorly disadvantages non-imperial armies due to their lack of search lights. You'll find most imperials don't really mind it if they bring a decent number of vehicles. I'll add your other two concerns to the list I'm sending in for today

Oh and as for #4. I says later that it's d6 wounds. So you take normal armor saves but I did ask them to clear up the language to make it consistant.

I emailed all the concerns in to the guys doing the scenarios and running the tourney. I get the feeling they are going to take the initial feedback and then work on it. I'll keep this thread updated as new stuff comes to my attention

Dashofpepper wrote: I also can't go register for the SoCal Forums - registration seems to be broken. Hopefully someone will copy and paste this over for me?

I played in their league and was unable to register to the forums. They have it set up so they have to manually add you, and they have not historically been very good about doing that in a timely manner.

The group is under new management so hopefully they will be better at managing their forums.

Ah, I missed the Dawn of War for the first mission.

I hate that one too, just once someone should have a pitched battle deployment, first turn nightfight.

For posterity's sake, here's a suggestion for your game 5 when night is falling: Instead of having nightfight set in on turn5, how about a D6 every game turn to see if Nightfight sets in? Turn1: 6+, Turn2: 5+, Turn3: 4+, etc.

Also, I think that the game time limits are off.

2 hours is a challenge to complete a game of 1850, worse when you play any kind of horde or numbers army. At 2,000 points, hoping to get through a game of 40k in 2 hours with orks, tyranids, foot-guard....simply not reasonable.

Why not 2:30? Its not like there isn't time. Speaking of which, Saturday's games are slotted for 2 hours each, while Sunday's games are all 2:30. Make them *all* 2:30.

I don't like your d6 suggestion dash.

In an apocalypse game I am fine with random rules.

In a tournament I find random rules that have a large game impact to be undesirable.

A game that has night fight starting on turn 1 is very different than a game with night fight on turn 5.

I don't want a single d6 roll to have a large game impact.

It has to do with the venue hours on saturday. 2 of the games (1 and 3) are both 2 hour games. I suggested cutting lunch a little short and starting game 1 a little earlier to get us a little more time. 2k in 2 hours is doable but people need to be ready for it and bring the right armies. 90+ model armies will have issues with that format. As for the night fight pitched battle set-up that equals almost instant win for certain styles of list that will take nearly zero damage ::cough:: mech orks ::cough::

It's the preliminary packet. They'll clean it up. Be thankful we have this much time to get it cleaned up

Dash- The problem with night fight is that it highly favors assault armies, and it cripples shooting armies. It is the assault version of having heavy gravity in missions so armies can’t move at full speed.


But here is the real reason why night fight is bad…some armies have no answer for night fight, and to others (especially if they know that they are going to be using it ahead of time) don’t have much of a problem with it. For example, all of the new Imperial codexes all have searchlights on all of their vehicles, while other armies (Orks, Tyranids, and Eldar) have nothing that can help them see in the dark.

Hulksmash wrote:It has to do with the venue hours on saturday. 2 of the games (1 and 3) are both 2 hour games. I suggested cutting lunch a little short and starting game 1 a little earlier to get us a little more time. 2k in 2 hours is doable but people need to be ready for it and bring the right armies. 90+ model armies will have issues with that format. As for the night fight pitched battle set-up that equals almost instant win for certain styles of list that will take nearly zero damage ::cough:: mech orks ::cough::

It's the preliminary packet. They'll clean it up. Be thankful we have this much time to get it cleaned up

I AM thankful they got the missions up this early, and especially with the reminder on time constraints for the venue. If I bring an army with any significant infantry elements, I'll be putting together some deployment trays (plasticard + adhesive magnetic sheeting from Michaels + rare-earth magents in bases), to speed deployment/ouflanking/termigant-spawning/etc. Planning ahead can mitigate some of these concerns fairly well.

Holy smokes there are a lot of typos in that thing. They need an editor.

They're working on it

Dashofpepper wrote:

2 hours is a challenge to complete a game of 1850, worse when you play any kind of horde or numbers army. At 2,000 points, hoping to get through a game of 40k in 2 hours with orks, tyranids, foot-guard....simply not reasonable.

Why not 2:30? Its not like there isn't time. Speaking of which, Saturday's games are slotted for 2 hours each, while Sunday's games are all 2:30. Make them *all* 2:30.

I understand the logistics of time constraints in a tournament, but playing a 2000 point game in 2 hours is totally unrealistic. You can make arrangements to not take foot slogging armies in the hopes that will speed up the game, but if your opponent does you're basically at the mercy of slow play.







Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manimal wrote:I strongly disagree with some of the rulings in the Inat, but it is much better to have all the rulings available to all the players before the event rather than some hodge podge system where some players email questions in and get rulings for their army before the tourney and others don't know the rulings in advance unless they happened to ask the same question.

This. Q&A is a lot less efficient than a standing FAQ.

Kevin Nash wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:

2 hours is a challenge to complete a game of 1850, worse when you play any kind of horde or numbers army. At 2,000 points, hoping to get through a game of 40k in 2 hours with orks, tyranids, foot-guard....simply not reasonable.

Why not 2:30? Its not like there isn't time. Speaking of which, Saturday's games are slotted for 2 hours each, while Sunday's games are all 2:30. Make them *all* 2:30.

I understand the logistics of time constraints in a tournament, but playing a 2000 point game in 2 hours is totally unrealistic. You can make arrangements to not take foot slogging armies in the hopes that will speed up the game, but if your opponent does you're basically at the mercy of slow play.

That is why if you only have 2 hours, tournament organizers should lower the points. I understand why games stores do it. because it sells more models, but Indy GTs have nothing to gain by having a lot of points in a short amount of time.

Also if they are going with 2 games at 2 hours, and 3 games at 2.5 hours they should have games #3, 4, and 5 at 2.5 hours. If they are doing the first two pairings by comp they will already know the pairings for game #2, and we can just get to our tables early and begin playing since we do not have to wait for the scores to be calculated. This will also give us a break for lunch 30 minutes earlier.

They are going to be 2.5 hours each. They were using the hours from the previous venue. All 5 rounds will be 2.5 Hours. An Indy GT did run 2k in 2 hours last year and didn't seem to have a problem but luckily we won't have to worry about that . A more polished and perfected packet will be up by the end of the week.

Also a be all, end all FAQ is not going to be available. They will make a mini packet for major issues concerning the Tyrannid codex just in case the GW FAQ isn't up by then but there will be no comprehensive FAQ for any and all rules issues. It's just not practical for them to be able to do it in the amount of time required and they are against using the INAT FAQ which is something I actually agree with. So if there is a rule that will affect how your entire army plays that is questionable send it either to me or to the website and we'll see if we can get a ruling on a small packet. But I can't guarentee they will have the time for this either.

On a seperate note Terrain on each table will consist of 2 Buildings (decent size), 2 Hills, 2 Area Terrain, 1 Crater and some walls/fences. So it'll be a decent mix but the mix will be the same from table to table (something those of us who went to the bash can appreciate ) I'm really pushing for pre-set terrain as there is enough space between tables for people's trays and armies so it'll speed up each game. But we'll just have to see what decision they make

Hulksmash wrote:and they are against using the INAT FAQ which is something I actually agree with.

I find this position puzzling. If they don't want to put the effeort into making a faq why not use the INAT? It is not that I love the INAT but there are way too many rules issues that are unclear for it to be reasonable to expect two players who have never met to discuss all the ones that might come up before the game starts.

Once the game has started and a rules dispute happens, the judge makes a ruling and someone gets ruled against. If you are used to playing it differently than the judge, this can completely wreck your game plan.

Hulksmash wrote:So if there is a rule that will affect how your entire army plays that is questionable send it either to me or to the website and we'll see if we can get a ruling on a small packet.

Any ruling they make on any army effects how my army plays if I have to play against that army.

So should I send them every question I can think of that might come up against any army?

I was going to write an extremely long reply but I think I'll leave it at it's up to the TO on how to run the event and it's up to the TO on how they handle rules issues in their tournament. They aren't going to use the INAT. I'm merely passing along the info.

Just like any major event you have the choice in attending or not but it was a great event last year and this year is looking even better in a bigger and better venue. If not having a comprehensive FAQ about anything that could possibly come up is a deal breaker then them's the breaks. Personally I hope to see you there while I get in 5 games over a weekend

My post wasn't an ultimatum. I wasn't saying do things my way or I am not going to play you with my toy soilders.

I am already signed up.

My intent is to offer feedback about the choices they have made and present suggestions in a reasonable, logical manner.

Since I am unable to post to the scgwl forums to voice my feedback I am doing it in this thread with the hopes that they will read it or that you will pass it along.

I don't think that the INAT FAQ is necessarily better than no FAQ.

If you're read through it, there are quite a few pieces of it that dramatically alter rules, or completely negate rules and institute its own rules contrary to 40k - its a giant set of house rules that shouldn't be applied as a standard to GW events. There *are* things that need clarification, but changing a rule, or creating a rule and calling it a rules clarification when none was needed...

Well, I prefer not to play with the INAT FAQ.

I agree with all of your complaints about the INAT, however it is just as likely that a random judge will rule in a manner that negates or greatly alters the rules. After all the INAT is just a faq of how the judges at adepticon will rule.

I think it is better to know in advance what the unexpected rulings will be rather than be suprised during a tournament.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have no problem with an alternative FAQ.

I just don't like not having the rulings upfront.

I actually took your feedback in regards to the FAQ standing to the TO's today. The basic result was that they would make up front rulings on the Tyrannids that needed rulings and that the GW FAQ's should suffice for the rest. I know they appreciate the feedback and I pass along all the concerns I see here since they don't really read Dakka

We'll have to get a beer Saturday night Manimal, you won't be able to miss me or Dash

Sounds good to me.

Hulksmash wrote:
We'll have to get a beer Saturday night Manimal, you won't be able to miss me or Dash

Ahhhh.....we're going to be the KINGS OF THE DORKS! =)

Dashofpepper wrote:I don't think that the INAT FAQ is necessarily better than no FAQ.

Any FAQ is IMO better than no FAQ.

If something isn't covered in a FAQ it becomes "judges call".

I use INAT FAQ in my tourneys because I like as few "judges calls" as possible and I'm too lazy to create my own comprehensive FAQ and make sure everyone is familiar with it.

This however is not my tourney . So whatever the TO wants is how it's gonna be. Fine by me.

We extended the round times to 2.5 hours (our new venue is much more flexible) and cleaned up some of the issues with the scenarios. You can get the most current version of the rules packet at www.scgwl.com/downloads/SIS10.pdf and any future updates will be made to that link. As for FAQ usage, assuming no Nid FAQ by the time the tournament hits, here is how we are running things (tenatively) on the more hotly debated Nid items:

1) All reserve bonuses in the Nid book stack and Tyrants with Hive Commander do NOT have to be on the table to confer said bonus.
2) Doom does not affect embarked units and cover saves may be taken as normal.
3) Mawloc can be Deep Struck intentionally on enemy units, who get cover saves as is from indirect ordinance.
4) Tank Shocking Spore Pods grants a death or glory attack and then kills the pod.
5) Hive Tyrants join units of Tyrant Guard, but do not count as independant characters as such. Thus, said unit can claim cover saves like normal infantry and handles wound allocation like any other unit.

We also intend to allow the use of the new Blood Angel book, as it is largely publically available now and has very few rules ambiguities.

For those playing in the Fantasy Events:
Saturday is the Team Tournament: www.scgwl.com/downloads/SCGWLFTT.pdf
Sunday is the Warbands Tournament: www.scgwl.com/downloads/SCGWLWBT.pdf
Fees are $20 for the team tournament and $10 for the Warbands event, payable the day of.

The 40k GT can be payed via our Paypal (pay@scgwl.com) with a $3 handling fee or via check.

Army list submissions should be sent to Scott Tiveron (tiv@cox.net) along with any questions about the event.
Any questions concerning the Fantasy events, our Fantasy GT in August, or SCGWL in general can be sent to me at phazael.scgwl@gmail.com if you wish.

Hopefully this clears up most of the concerns people may have.
~Q

Much much clearer. Only thing is I assume the Orbital Bombardment does d6 wounds to the unit it hits instead of d. Otherwise they are much clearer and the auto-tie mission (#4) has been fixed.

Oooh....I'll have to go take a look.

2,600 mile trip is all scheduled! =)

Hulksmash wrote:Much much clearer. Only thing is I assume the Orbital Bombardment does d6 wounds to the unit it hits instead of d. Otherwise they are much clearer and the auto-tie mission (#4) has been fixed.

Yeah we will clean that up in the final revision, but it should be "d6 wounds".

Any word on when the painting checklist will be up? Thanks Phazael!

Soft-scores and 'wacky fun' missions. Why? lol your opponent gets to judge you on sports and comp. lol.

Olympia, We've already hashed that out numerous times. I'd appreciate it if you would stay out of the thread unless you plan to contribute to it in a helpful way.

Thank you

I do like that the killpoint mission discludes dedicated transports. Bwah ha ha.

Dashofpepper wrote:I do like that the killpoint mission discludes dedicated transports. Bwah ha ha.

Fascinating. Trukk mobz and nob battlewagons!

Actually, I'm bringing my DE. I can think of 9 vehicles that won't be giving up killpoints. =p

Dash,

If you look carefully I think you will see the "killpoint" mission you are thinking of is reverse kill points. So it is a disadvantage that d. transports don't count.

The only killpoint mission is slaughter style killpoints, where d. transports do count against you.

Dashofpepper wrote:I don't think that the INAT FAQ is necessarily better than no FAQ.

If you're read through it, there are quite a few pieces of it that dramatically alter rules, or completely negate rules and institute its own rules contrary to 40k - its a giant set of house rules that shouldn't be applied as a standard to GW events. There *are* things that need clarification, but changing a rule, or creating a rule and calling it a rules clarification when none was needed...

Well, I prefer not to play with the INAT FAQ.

First off, I want to state that no event should feel like it *has* to use the INAT FAQ...as you point out, it is just a set of 'house rules' for tournament judges (so what I write below is in no way a lobby to get the tournament to use the INAT).


With that out of the way, I take umbrage with your sentiment.

Does the INAT dramatically alter rules and/or institute its own set of rules from your perspective? I'm sure it does.

But I do not think there is a single ruling in the document that isn't an honest bone of contention amongst players. If you think there is a ruling in there that is a a change of rules that doesn't represent how at least a sizeable chunk of players choose to play 40K then point it out, I'll run a 'how do you play it' poll and if the results are incredibly lopsided (like 70-80%+ against the way we ruled) then I'll get that ruling reversed ASAP.

Yakface, let me...elaborate.

INAT is a good tool for a lot of TOs - my objection is two-fold: First, a lot of rule changes in INAT are labeled as clarifications, when they are absolutely not so.

Second (and this is completely biased), I disagree with several rulings, and the logic used to arrive at them (although I tended to not participate in those discussions) I had real problems with - enough that those watershed rulings made me feel like the document in its entirety probably suffers from serious flaws (although I have not read the entire thing through).

My personal problems with it:

1. INAT ruled that Deffrollas didn't work against vehicles. I *did* go round and round with folks on this one, until I felt like screaming obscenities. For something that to me was so clearly written in the rulebook as working to be ruled against tainted my opinion of the capabilities of those who wrote it. And it took GW writing an FAQ for something that....well, I still felt was clear.

2. DE Nightmare Dolls - INAT ruled that they don't work. Lol.

3. INAT ruled that the Doom of Malan'tai can affect units embarked in vehicles - certain things are sacred in 40k - units in vehicles being safe from harm until they disembark or get their transport blown out from under them being one of them.

I have others, but those are my big three objections - combined with things that I think are seriously mislabeled....and I *do* take grievance with that....its ok to create a house rule, or to make something up for ease of gameplay, or to change a rule....but put that junk in a section called "40k rules we didn't like so we changed or created our own" instead of "40k rules that weren't clear, so we've clarified."

Ahh....*runs to a corner now*



*EDIT* And I feel like you should run a poll on the Nightmare Doll. And also the Doom of Malan'tai. =p

Dashofpepper wrote:Yakface, let me...elaborate.

INAT is a good tool for a lot of TOs - my objection is two-fold: First, a lot of rule changes in INAT are labeled as clarifications, when they are absolutely not so.

Second (and this is completely biased), I disagree with several rulings, and the logic used to arrive at them (although I tended to not participate in those discussions) I had real problems with - enough that those watershed rulings made me feel like the document in its entirety probably suffers from serious flaws (although I have not read the entire thing through).

My personal problems with it:

1. INAT ruled that Deffrollas didn't work against vehicles. I *did* go round and round with folks on this one, until I felt like screaming obscenities. For something that to me was so clearly written in the rulebook as working to be ruled against tainted my opinion of the capabilities of those who wrote it. And it took GW writing an FAQ for something that....well, I still felt was clear.

2. DE Nightmare Dolls - INAT ruled that they don't work. Lol.

3. INAT ruled that the Doom of Malan'tai can affect units embarked in vehicles - certain things are sacred in 40k - units in vehicles being safe from harm until they disembark or get their transport blown out from under them being one of them.

So, your problem with it is just because they say "clarification" when they mean "change"? And you didn't take part in any of the constructive criticism feedback? So....why should yak run another poll for you that you won't participate in?

1. Deff Rollaz - GW finally gave it the official green light and then INAT changed to match GW, so what exactly are you upset about? If you think that Deff Rollaz was clear cut before, then well you probably don't understand what Yak is talking about in the first place.

2. Alot of people don't think Nightmare dolls work.

3. Alot of people are split on Doom of Malantai.

Please let's not turn this thread into a discussion on the INAT. It isn't being used in this tourney and that is the end of it. Please keep on subject.

Yep, back to talking about the hippies and beach bums in California.

I'm COMING FOR YOU ALL!

*looks around furtively*

Hulksmash wrote:Please let's not turn this thread into a discussion on the INAT. It isn't being used in this tourney and that is the end of it. Please keep on subject.

No problem and sorry about that.

Although, an argument on the INAT would keep the thread nice and high on the first page...

Very True Yak but it's a very tired subject

Those that like it or want to use it can and those don't won't. I don't see the main players changing their opinions anytime soon.

I plan on bringing an army that should score very high on comp, but to prove that comp does not work, I will get a bad comp score.

Checklist is there Blackmoor. You can gauge it from that. I know what I'm gauging my army at

Hulksmash wrote:Checklist is there Blackmoor. You can gauge it from that. I know what I'm gauging my army at

The first 2 matches are based on comp, so I want to see what the judges score me in comparison to the other armies that are there.

The check list means nothing because you are still being scored by your opponents, and your score will be random. I am building an army that should score a perfect 6 in each round, but I think I will score much lower. (See the checklist below)
You think a checklist is protection from somebody giving you a bad comp score?

The Checklist
#1) My opponent’s army was accurately represented or clearly explained in advance if not to WYSIWYG standards.
#2) My opponents list was not designed to abuse rule loopholes.
#3) My army was based on a theme and stayed within its fluff
#4) My opponent’s army made reasonable use of troop choices
#5) My opponent’s army did not unreasonably overwhelm the hand-to-hand or shooting phase.
#6) My opponent’s army was built for an enjoyable game, not win at all cost and sacrificed power for fun.

Now let’s break down the checklist:
#1) My opponent’s army was accurately represented or clearly explained in advance if not to WYSIWYG standards.
This one is pretty straitforward.

#2) My opponents list was not designed to abuse rule loopholes.
What is a loophole? What armies and units are based on a loophole? Can you give me an example of a rules loophole that is legal? Is the Nob Biker wound allocation a loophole? Vulcan affecting SoB? If someone is using a rules loophole it shouldn't it affect their sportsmanship score, and not their comp score?

#3) My army was based on a theme and stayed within its fluff
GW does not have any theme/fluff since 3rd edition. They have taken the stance of play what ever you want to. Look at the Chaos Codex and the Eldar codex there are no more themes in there. Also let’s talk about new gamers that have been playing for the last year or two, can they tell me what should be in an Iron Warriors army, or what should be in an Altioc army? Unless you have been playing since third edition, fluff and theme have gone far way. That is why every Space Marine army can take every Space Marine special character. Vulcan does not have to be in a Salamanders army, Khan does not have to be in a White Scars army.

#4) My opponent’s army made reasonable use of troop choices
What on earth does this mean? I thought this comp requirement went away in 5th edition. Now that only troops score, you have to take troops. If you want to have armies that are playing with a lot of troops, make sure you have missions with a lot of objectives. Also this falls into the area that some armies have great troops, and others have crappy troops and you are penalizing them for it.

#5) My opponent’s army did not unreasonably overwhelm the hand-to-hand or shooting phase.
This answers the age old question of what do Tyranids, Necrons, Orks and Tau have in common? Answer: They will be marked down in this comp category. Tau players, I want to see some hand-to-hand so you don’t go crazy in the shooting phase.

#6) My opponent’s army was built for an enjoyable game, not win at all cost and sacrificed power for fun.
I have no idea what that means, but if you win your game you should be marked down for it. This is really a judgment call and even though I toned down my army, I expect to not get this box checked.

So here is my army:
HQ
Demon Prince w/MoT, Wings, Winds of Chaos, Warptime

Elites
Dreadnought w/TL Auto Cannon, Heavy Flamer

4 Terminators w/MoT, Reaper Autocannon
1 Terminator Aspiring Champion w/2 Lightning Claws

Troops
8 Thousand Sons Marines
1 Aspiring Sorcerer w/Winds of Chaos
Rhino w/Combi-Flamer

8 Thousand Sons Marines
1 Aspiring Sorcerer w/Winds of Chaos
Rhino w/Combi-Flamer

9 Lesser Demons (Using Flamer Models)

Heavy Support
3 Obliterators
3 Obliterators
Land Raider

It is an army built around the Mark of Tzeentch (Formerly Thousand Sons). Notice that each troops squad has 9 models in it and for those few who remember 3rd edition, that was the secret number of Tzeentch.

No lash, Thousand Sons as troops, one HQ, some shooting, some assault and built around a theme.

I hope to score high in comp, but I don't have enough faith in the system. I would like to be proven wrong, but we will see.

Blackmoor wrote:#5) My opponent’s army did not unreasonably overwhelm the hand-to-hand or shooting phase.
This answers the age old question of what do Tyranids, Necrons, Orks and Tau have in common? Answer: They will be marked down in this comp category. Tau players, I want to see some hand-to-hand so you don’t go crazy in the shooting phase.

Please note that the front cover of the missions/rules pack shows Tau fighting Tyranids. Obviously, these low-comp scum were properly banished to play each other in round 1....

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll rate your comp high, Allan.

To be fair Blackmoor if that list get's hit on comp I'll cry for you myself. I fully intent to have my list post around 4-5 every game but that list should at worst give you a 5/6 and to be honest that is if someone finds you army boring to play which could happen.

I never said checklists keep people from chipmunking. Some people will chipmunk even if they have a great game just to give themselves a leg up. And unfortunately some people see comp/sports as a place to ding someone who just isn't fun to play against. I simply pointed out it's harder to do and it's easier to watch for based on a checklist.

Unfortunately we live in a tourney environment with comp/sports rules. There are very, very few tournies around that don't have these rules.

Blackmoor wrote:[The Checklist
#1) My opponent’s army was accurately represented or clearly explained in advance if not to WYSIWYG standards.
#2) My opponents list was not designed to abuse rule loopholes.
#3) My army was based on a theme and stayed within its fluff
#4) My opponent’s army made reasonable use of troop choices
#5) My opponent’s army did not unreasonably overwhelm the hand-to-hand or shooting phase.
#6) My opponent’s army was built for an enjoyable game, not win at all cost and sacrificed power for fun.

Never has a more ill-conceived set of tournament rules seen the light of day.

#2 What loopholes are they talking about? What nonsense is this? Would allocation of complex units? If so that is not a loophole it is an actual rule.

#4 What is considered 'reasonable' for troop choices? Obviously it's entirely up to your opponent; no doubt some will consider minimum choices to be unreasonable while others will think that is fine. Stern guard or Nobz as scoring troops choices--are they unreasonable or not? Answer--you are entirely at the mercy of your opponent.

#5 Horrible. In essence #5 demands that players bring mediocre armies. Punish anyone who specializes. BS2 orks you better not focus on hth! On the other hand, clearly two squads of lootas is too much shooting for orks! (The wording here is awful as well. What the "£%! does 'unreasonably overwhelm' mean? So it's fine to overwhelm as long as you don't do it unreasonably?)

#6 If you win better make it enjoyable for your opponent or else your list clearly scarificed power for fun!




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@blackmoor,
OMG!!! You have six oblits!!!"!$%! You win at all costs terrible person!"$!%!"

I never said checklists keep people from chipmunking. Some people will chipmunk even if they have a great game just to give themselves a leg up. And unfortunately some people see comp/sports as a place to ding someone who just isn't fun to play against. I simply pointed out it's harder to do and it's easier to watch for based on a checklist.

Not when the checklist allows your opponent to mark you down for pretty much any reason they can come up with, hence the problem with subjective scoring. Feigning objectivity just gives TOs a way to feel warm and fuzzy about their completely ineffective system.

Seriously, just look at one of the criteria. Just one. "My opponent’s army made reasonable use of troop choices." Why does it matter if there's a little box next to that? How does that make it any more objective or any less difficult to abuse? Reasonable is quite literally anything the scorer wants it to be. A player might think that holding your Troops in reserve is unreasonable. Another player might think that putting your Eldar Guardians in harms way by trying to secure an objective unreasonable because the fluff says they're a dying race. Playing an aggressive army in Capture and Control? Maybe it's totally unreasonable to sit back on your objective.

This system, like any comp system, is a joke. It's their tournament and they can do what they want, but pretending like a checklist makes it somehow more fair, consistent, or reliable is just asking to be laughed at.

First off, we have used this checklist for both of our game system GTs for over three years now. Most people get 4-5 on them, which is what we both want and expect. Soft scores are always a sore subject for people, but the psychological aspect of their presence, however minor, keeps certain levels of assclownery in check. Admittedly, 40k is more of a wide open game and needs it less than Fantasy, but being the douche who runs something that looks nothing like an army but is instead just an excercise in min-maxing needs to have a consequence. The fluff bunnies paid the same price as the power gamers and they deserve a small say in the overall, even if it is less than half of what battle points say.

Remember, also, that the two invites are going to Overall and Best General. The Best General slot is decided soley on battle points, with softs as tie breakers only. So if you want to earn a golden ticket by playing full frontal male nudity face beater, go for it.

The checklist, item by item:
#1- This is totally under the players personal control and everyone who is not proxying ridiculously should get this one by default.
#2- There is a difference between using the wound allocation rules and taking useless upgrades to create unstoppable super units. There are a lot of other unsporting situations that are perfectly legal in the rules that this point is meant to address.
#3- This is basically, "does this look like an army or a collection of the most powerful pokemons of the codex tossed together?" and most people should easily claim this point.
#4- Reasonable core means taking enough basic troops to have a descent shot at claiming objectives. If you are the cock-wallet who shows up with two six man fire warriors on foot as your only troop choices with the intent to simply play games into a tie, then this point is aimed at your behavior. In 5th edition, most competant list builders will never lose a point here.
#5- Is playing an army with 20 Missile Launchers with Razorspam or Fatecrusher really fun? I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who said "yes" to that, so this point addresses those people.
#6- This is the hard one to get, for people who really balance their lists and keep things reasonable. Simply stated, this is for the Flufff Bunnies.

So, really, if you are a total powergamer, you should still grab at LEAST 3 points, more often 4-5. Meanwhile, only the fluff bunnies will be netting 6 on this. Past tournaments have shown most people score like this in our format. This helps us a lot, since it gives us some point spreads so we are not doing the tie breakers on things like post round 2 pairings and awards. This is crucial for an unbiased and transparent system. We also have (and will continue) investigated suspicious scores that look like chipmunking, to prevent the system from being used in a retaliatory manner. Its not perfect, but its the best possible comprimise.

@Blackmoore-
Realistically, if you run the same sort of army that you did at Tides of War (ie Foot Eldratar with some war walkers) I think you will fare well in the judge comp for pairings. The judges for that will be Scott Tiveron, Toby Walker, and myself. Our general criteria when rating an army is a) how enjoyable is it going to be to play against this army and b) how powerful is this army. I cannot speak for the other judges, but I know I would put your army at a 4-4.5 on our 0-5 scale. Its point denial eldar, which can be frustrating to play, but its does not have any kind of punch to it, outside of Eldratar, and is not really spamming units. Brad Townsend (hulk) would probably get a 2 from me, because unless you have an army specifically designed against his, its going to be a fast game of him rolling dice and you putting models away. Touradj's 24 Bloodcrusher army would get a 1 from me, because that army is really zero fun to play against and takes stupid amounts of firepower to even have a chance against. I expect Scott and Toby to have differing opinions from mine, which is the point and why our scores do nothing outside of pair people for the first two rounds.

The idea behind this is to give the casual people who paid the same to get in at least two reasonable games. It is also meant to make sure that Douche Bagious Ender of Hobbies does not get a couple easy ducks in the early rounds, essentially establishing an easy battle point lead through luck of the draw on pairings. Again, its not a perfect system, but it has been pretty good at leveling the field for everyone and drastically reducing the impact of lucky draws on the swiss system.

The Bash messed up the concept with two things. First, it is my understanding that they went an extra round with it. Second, they were using overall scores to pair people the second day, instead of pure battle points. We have been running this system for 3 years and it has gone pretty well for us and seen a descent spread of army types at the top, so I feel confident in saying it works as it stands.

Finally, I just want to stress that while we do have comp parings for two rounds and have soft scores, that we are ultimately a battle point tournament. It has been my feeling that battle points should be the main decider of tournaments and that they should be hard to get. The soft scores are their just to keep people from taking things too far, nothing more.


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PS- Blackmoore
That chaos army would easily rate a 5 in my book. The only heinous thing in the list at all is the pair of oblit units (who are less than optimal when not backed with lash anyhow).

That said, actual army comp scoring is going to be done at the hotel (Double Tree) the night prior to the event, so while I can tell people what I would likely score something if they ask, I can hardly speak for the other two judges.

Hope that helps.

but being the douche who runs something that looks nothing like an army but is instead just an excercise in min-maxing needs to have a consequence.

Why, exactly? Define what someone needs to bring in order to "look like" an army. Again, it's your tournament so do whatever you want, but why do you find it necessary to force people to play a certain way? Your language suggests that it's almost a moral issue and not just personal preference.

Finally, I just want to stress that while we do have comp parings for two rounds and have soft scores, that we are ultimately a battle point tournament. It has been my feeling that battle points should be the main decider of tournaments and that they should be hard to get. The soft scores are their just to keep people from taking things too far, nothing more.

I'd be more inclined to believe you if soft scores didn't make up 50% of your entire "tournament." How do you reconcile this supposed attitude with the way you actually designed your event? You're trying to convince us that 2+2=5.

Danny is my new hero for using quotation marks around "tournament"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, why be cryptic about what you consider to be a 'loop hole'? Why not just say nob bikers (and whatever else) will be penalized?

Danny Internets wrote:

but being the douche who runs something that looks nothing like an army but is instead just an excercise in min-maxing needs to have a consequence.

Why, exactly? Define what someone needs to bring in order to "look like" an army. Again, it's your tournament so do whatever you want, but why do you find it necessary to force people to play a certain way? Your language suggests that it's almost a moral issue and not just personal preference.

Finally, I just want to stress that while we do have comp parings for two rounds and have soft scores, that we are ultimately a battle point tournament. It has been my feeling that battle points should be the main decider of tournaments and that they should be hard to get. The soft scores are their just to keep people from taking things too far, nothing more.

I'd be more inclined to believe you if soft scores didn't make up 50% of your entire "tournament." How do you reconcile this supposed attitude with the way you actually designed your event? You're trying to convince us that 2+2=5.

I reconcile it based on the results. On all but one of our events, the guy who won overall would have won Best General anyhow, if overall had not been the more prestegious award. Our point system is thus: Battle is 100 (half the score), Sports 30 (15%), Comp 30 (15%), and Painting 40 (20%). The painting is done on a checklist with little to no subjective choices on it (Matt Lewedowski's GW checklist) and we don't dock people for hiring sweat shop labor to do their army, just DQ them from best painted. If you are not a dick, you will get 30-36 points in sportsmanship. If you did not build your army to rapeface hardboyz standards, you will get the same from Comp. Nothing but Battle Points matter for netting Best General and a golden ticket. I fail to see how it could be balanced better or be more transparent, without either giving Combat Calculus guys free reign or making the fluff bunnies run away with it. The hardest armies WILL play each other at some point. Battle Points decide more than anything else.

I guess if you went to the tournament with some highly frustrating build (double Thunderwolf Cav, Fatecrusher, ect) and acted like a total dick the entire time you were faceraping people, your soft scores might prevent you from netting anything. If on the other hand you bring a hard, but fair, list and treat your opponents with respect, soft scores will mean absolutely nothing in the sceme of things. Are you honestly going to tell me that if two guys have equal battle points that the nice guy who won it with well painted no lash chaos army is not more deserving of the win than a guy who acts like Andy Dick while running unpainted double thunder wolf cavalry? I think you would have a hard time convincing anyone that soft scores should have no impact and, right now, they amount to about half of what the battle points do and are far easier to get. Just don't be TFG. Is that too much to ask?

And all your gnashing of teeth aside, I know the system works because it HAS worked in the past. Its not perfect, but nothing is and we are not running this GT for a living. People have been pleased in the past, outside of the one or two grumpy old men that really should never play in GTs ever. If you want no holds barred dick play with dick armies, then go for the Hard Boyz. Its never going to be that way at a paid Indy GT because, quite frankly, the fluff bunnies are the guys who pay for the hall and they need to feel like they are there for some reason beyond getting curb stomped by Johnny Netlist five games in a row. Soft Scores do not solve the problem, but a small amount of carefully crafted checklists does curtail the really out of hand crap, especially if you are equally dilligent about investigating obvious lowballing (which we have done).

If you feel you have a better system, by all means put it up for discussion and I will be all ears. For right now, this has worked well for us and kept our participants happy, so as long as everyone is happy, its what we will continue with.

I reconcile it based on the results. On all but one of our events, the guy who won overall would have won Best General anyhow, if overall had not been the more prestegious award.

Well, I did a little Googling and from what I gather there have only been 4 SoCal Slaughters, starting in 2007. Having only 66% of your "battle point tournaments" won by people who actually had the most battle points doesn't exactly support what you're saying. If anything, it should suggest to you that your "tournament" isn't really based on battle points at all, but is just another hobby event. Which is fine. Just don't pretend it's something else.

As for the painting checklist, can you provide an example? I'm looking at the checklist used in the 2008 Grand Tournament season and it is rife with subjectivity. I'd be curious to see what this list with "no subjective choices" looks like.

I fail to see how it could be balanced better or be more transparent, without either giving Combat Calculus guys free reign or making the fluff bunnies run away with it.

Well, the very fact that you think there needs to be a balance of soft and hard scores in an event billed as a tournament is the very crux of the problem. It is a transparent system, I'll give you that. Unfortunately it's also a completely subjective system, so transparency matters very little. Regarding comp, you might as well say "your opponent can give you whatever score they want, and for whatever reason." That, too, would be transparent.

I guess if you went to the tournament with some highly frustrating build (double Thunderwolf Cav, Fatecrusher, ect)

Frustrating for whom, exactly? These are exactly the kinds of armies I want to face at a tournament. A tournament is a competitive event and I attend because I want to participate in competitive gaming. It seems somewhat bizarre that you call it a tournament, but then tailor it very specifically to attendees who don't like playing in tournaments.

Are you honestly going to tell me that if two guys have equal battle points that the nice guy who won it with well painted no lash chaos army is not more deserving of the win than a guy who acts like Andy Dick while running unpainted double thunder wolf cavalry?

In a tournament, he is no more deserving (unless he cheated). In a hobby competition, he is more deserving. Why bill it as the former when you're hosting the latter? I could understand if it was simply a perpetuation of the misnomer that GW started, but you honestly seem to be under the impression that battle points are the focus of your event, which they are not. They barely constitute half of what determines the event's results.

Just don't be TFG. Is that too much to ask?

The problem is, you're asking for much, much more than that. How exactly does straying from the fluff or being "unreasonable" with Troops make someone TFG? Maybe TFG doesn't mean what you think it means.

And all your gnashing of teeth aside, I know the system works because it HAS worked in the past.

Define "works." Just because an event happens doesn't necessarily mean it was a success. Perhaps it would be more of a success if you were open to changing the format. How would you ever know if you simply stick with "hey, what we have already works"?

Phazael I am 100 percent with you. My advice is to ignore Danny. You will never convince him and every time you reply it just gives him another opportunity to complain about your scoring system. Personally I hate to see threads such as these thrashed by people who have absolutely no intention of playing in the event. If you do a little research you will find they have not won any major events either.

G

I don't think ignoring Danny is what to do.

It is important to hear from the non comp camp (of which I am a member).

@Danny

I think that since they have a best general award that seems to get excellent prize support, there is a place at this tourny for even the most extreme tourny player.

If you don't like subjective scores, ignore them and play for best general.

The people playing for best overall should make getting this award even easier since thier lists will be softer.

I dont see much value in three to four pages of arguments about whether or not comp has a place in tournaments would be better served in a thread solely dedicated to that topic.

G

GBF, it's relevant to this tournament, particularly because the tournament organize is here claiming that this is a "battle points tournament" when it clearly is not. If you feel this is inappropriate then perhaps you should take off the hall monitor sash and write to a moderator.

I think that since they have a best general award that seems to get excellent prize support, there is a place at this tourny for even the most extreme tourny player.

If you don't like subjective scores, ignore them and play for best general.

I would like to give credit to them for giving away a golden ticket to Vegas to the person who wins Best General. As a tournament player though, this is of little interest to me because I have no interest in flying out to California to play in a hobby event so that I might get invited to fly out to Las Vegas to play in more of the same. The reason I'm chiming in on this thread is because the TO doesn't seem to be aware of the serious flaws in his soft scoring system, or at least refuses to acknowledge. Discussions can only help change the US tournament system for the better, in my opinion.

Danny it is just your opinion his system is flawed. If you have been following Dakka lately you'll see that comp seems to be very popular over on the west coast.

G

Popular among TO's, yes. I've attended many tournaments with comp in the past but I've never seen one where people were polled as to whether or not they like comp. People will go to just about any event now that GW is no longer in the business of running Grand Tournaments.

Judging by the poll here (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/282431.page), it would seem that people who favor comp represent a fairly small minority, would it not? Only 51 of 248 people voted for a system including comp scores. That's only 20%. How do you reconcile these results with comp being so "popular"?

@ GBF (or whatever your NOTM is) - Popularity does not mean that the system is not flawed. From an objective competitive stand point, the current versions of comp scoring used in tournaments is flawed. You may not accept the premise that subjective soft scores, scored by the competitors, have a high potential for corruption. If you do not, then that is your opinion.

On a different note, I do look forward to SiS2 and look forward to having fun, while still suffering from poor comp scoring

@ AB

Have you seen the comp scoring I am using for my GT?


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Danny Internets wrote:
Judging by the poll here (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/282431.page), it would seem that people who favor comp represent a fairly small minority, would it not? Only 51 of 248 people voted for a system including comp scores. That's only 20%. How do you reconcile these results with comp being so "popular"?

Danny I doubt the validity of those results.

G

Your not discussing it though Danny. Your just attacking the format. They've actually been very good about accepting criticism for their rules packet from the community. I also give props to being willing to come on here and discuss his view (one of several in charge of the tournament).

I feel bad for TO's honestly because it's a no win situation on the internet. The same 2 guys are going to attack any tournament that has comp on Dakka.

There are plenty of comp/no comp threads. I'd ask that you please take that discussion there. From this point forward I'm going to be reporting any thread derailments based on comp.

I'm not a fan of soft scores myself but bashing on people that are helping promote our hobby will just make people not want to try.

And as for Danny. You run a no soft score event and I'll fly, drive, or take a train to get to it. But until you do attacking others who are putting up the money, time, and effort is bad form.

Danny I doubt the validity of those results.

On what grounds? Please elaborate.

And as for Danny. You run a no soft score event and I'll fly, drive, or take a train to get to it. But until you do attacking others who are putting up the money, time, and effort is bad form.

Sorry to break it to you, but just because you don't like what I'm saying doesn't mean I'm not discussing it. Criticism and discussion are not mutually exclusive.

As for the old "if you don't like it go start your own X!" argument...really? You're better than that. I'm as much a part of this community as anyone else who plays Warhammer and the dominance of hobby events in lieu of tournaments is having serious detrimental effects on the competitive aspect of the game. Despite the problems and complaints that comp scores always generate just about all of the indy GT's include it. Unfortunately the fallacy that soft scores are necessary and that comp scores are "popular" has become ingrained in those who control the tournament scene in the US. My hope is that pointing out why their scoring systems are bad will eventually be taken to heart and become an impetus for change.

The issue with the comp system is that it isn't based on the power of the list, but rather if they are playing 'right'.

I don't have a problem so much with comp being a balancing act based on the relative power of the lists. I do have a problem with the general idea that you're a bad person if you don't play 'our' way. The TO had a holier-than-thou attitude when explaining the comp system which is a divisive force in the hobby and creates arguments.

My problem is the comp system that they are using is just a bit outdated. It seems like it is from the 4th edition of the game.

Minimum troops where taken care of by having them be the only scoring units. I played a guy once who had 5 land raiders, and had only 2 squads of 5 men which was easy to kill so the best he couple hope for was a tie.

Also with kill point missions, you no longer have to worry about mini-maxed squads. Small squads are at a disadvantage in 5th edition.

So a lot of comp issues are taken care of by the scenarios picked. Hulksmash did so well at the Broadside Bash because they refused to have any dawn of war missions so that let him set up his 18 missile launcher long fangs in the best position every game.

Take theme for example, Mech Guard is one of the best builds out there and should score low in comp, but it does not because it is themed well.

It really seems like the comp list is based on playing 'right' rather than the power level of the army.

When the TO has a problem with a list that can only really draw in objective missions, there is a problem.

Phazael wrote:The fluff bunnies paid the same price as the power gamers and they deserve a small say in the overall, even if it is less than half of what battle points say.

I thought I would make a note - it seems like your sportsmanship scores are actually player scored comp scoring, which is confusing to me. In the tournaments I've attended, sportsmanship is scored on your opponent, their knowledge of the game and ruleset, and how they interacted with you.

Your checklist is based around the opponent's army, its composition, and how your opponent used it during the game. Nothing wrong with sportsmanship scoring I suppose, but this the checklist isn't really sportsmanship. Then again, I could be missing something huge here and that might actually *be* the composition checklist or something.

Second; have you tried a tournament without that checklist? I've been to several major events with sportsmanship scoring and several major events without it (the largest being the SVDM GT last month) and things went smoothly without anyone having the douchebaggery that you're trying to avoid.

I will say this: A douchebag is a douchebag, and the presence of a sportsmanship score doesn't change their behavior. The other 95%+ of players have no problems...and it seems like at least 50%-75% of people in a tournament max out their sportsmanship score, so how is giving out a prize for best sportsman any fair? Perhaps an all-encompassing "favorite player" where everyone in the tournament casts a vote for one person in the tournament that has their favorite combination of army, theme, personality....fluffiness if you will. Call it the Fluffy award if you like.

Hrm....thought I'd share.

It's the comp checklist Dash that people posted up . The sports checklist is another 6 questions that deal with the actual game and opponent not their army.

Ultimately, given how subjective it really is, even with the checklist, I just choose to ignore it and build what I feel is a good, balanced, take-all-comers, list. Some people will find it "compy" and others won't. It truly is in the hands of my opponent and their experience to decide if what I a bringing is "compy" or not. I don't like it, but I don't like a lot of things... I mostly don't like that Codex: CSM has really poor Fast Attack options

I thought comp was being judged beforehand, was used for pairings, and nothing else?

So what does it matter?

Dashofpepper wrote:I thought comp was being judged beforehand, was used for pairings, and nothing else?

So what does it matter?

It's not just for pairing. It's also player rated as well for each match using the checklist Blackmoor mentioned. It's also 15% of your overall score.

At Broadside Bash I gave every single one of my opponents maximum comp scores and sportsmanship regardless of what they were playing or how they acted. The TO actually had the audacity to get mad at me for doing that. I found that absurd.

Kevin Nash wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:I thought comp was being judged beforehand, was used for pairings, and nothing else?

So what does it matter?

It's not just for pairing. It's also player rated as well for each match using the checklist Blackmoor mentioned. It's also 15% of your overall score.

At Broadside Bash I gave every single one of my opponents maximum comp scores and sportsmanship regardless of what they were playing or how they acted. The TO actually had the audacity to get mad at me for doing that. I found that absurd.

Ouch. When I used to play 'hobbyist' tournaments I actually had a TO threaten to penalize me because I was giving all my opponents full comp and sports. It's a very strange mindset. But as for the socal slaughter, surely, Dash, you were aware of the scoring before you booked your transcontinental flight?

Non-player judged comp is being used for pairing only. The 12 point soft score checklist is being used at the end of each game. Technically 6 questions are sports and 6 are comp related. Last year this whole checklist was just considered "sportsmanship". Making it a 20/30/50 spread for painting/sports/battle points.

Reality is that most people will get 11/12 or 12/12 every game making soft scores not worth nearly as much. In fact last year there were exactly 2 people who didn't score minimum 11/12 every game.

Basically build what you want. Battlepoints really will be the determining factor.

olympia wrote: But as for the socal slaughter, surely, Dash, you were aware of the scoring before you booked your transcontinental flight?

No, but it wouldn't make any difference in my choice to attend. My wife has been bugging me for a vacation, California is suitably far away to meet that requirement, Hulksmash' wife has volunteered to befriend my wife and go to Disneyland (something my wife has always wanted to do, despite having Disney World in Florida where she is from) while Hulksmash and I got to the GT, so its a win/win on multiple fronts.

I agree with Blackmoor, that the checklist being used for comp in this case really is too subjective. The questions are extremely open to interpretation, and I can see how they will be interpreted a wide variety of ways by different players. Even if the judges are all on the same page, I can certainly see how the player won’t be, leading to mismatches of score like Blackmoor experienced at the Broadside Bash. OTOH I don’t otherwise object to what else I see of this event. Most of it sounds perfectly reasonable, if a bit higher-weighted toward soft scores than I might usually prefer.

Danny’s problem is that since he adopts the exact same strident tone regarding every soft score in every context and example, he may run into a “boy who cried wolf” phenomenon where people disregard his comments even if he is offering useful criticism on a given occasion.

Kevin Nash wrote: At Broadside Bash I gave every single one of my opponents maximum comp scores and sportsmanship regardless of what they were playing or how they acted. The TO actually had the audacity to get mad at me for doing that. I found that absurd.

If the organizers clearly explain (particularly on the score sheets) the scoring criteria, and you don’t follow them, that’s a breach of the social contract with them to follow the rules of the tournament. I could certainly understand why an organizer could be annoyed. OTOH if the scoring system is ambiguous and you are following it to the best of your ability, that’s really the organizer’s error.

Sometimes it’s a mix. Like Sportsmanship scoring systems which mark the highest scores as “This was the most fun game I ever played.” If it’s just a really fun game, but not the “best ever”, then the player is violating the rules by checking that top box. OTOH, I think it’s a mistake to even put that box on the chart, as it creates a situation where players are caught in the dilemma between exaggerating, and almost never giving anyone a top Sports score.



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Hulksmash wrote:Reality is that most people will get 11/12 or 12/12 every game making soft scores not worth nearly as much. In fact last year there were exactly 2 people who didn't score minimum 11/12 every game.

Basically build what you want. Battlepoints really will be the determining factor.

This concept is an important one that folks always need to bear in mind when evaluating scoring systems. The total points available in a given category, and what percentage of the potential maximum score that represents, is almost meaningless. It’s the possible (and actual, in practice) spread of points within each category that determines its real importance.

OTOH, I do think that organizers are well-served to re-assess their scoring systems in view of the actual numbers received in the events they run. Hulksmash, if the actual spread of scores you see in practice is so small, is there really a lot of value in having such a large range of possible scores? Would it simplify things and make the scoring more meaningful if the organizers narrowed the range?

Mannahnin wrote:I agree with Blackmoor, that the checklist being used for comp in this case really is too subjective. The questions are extremely open to interpretation, and I can see how they will be interpreted a wide variety of ways by different players. Even if the judges are all on the same page, I can certainly see how the player won’t be, leading to mismatches of score like Blackmoor experienced at the Broadside Bash. OTOH I don’t otherwise object to what else I see of this event. Most of it sounds perfectly reasonable, if a bit higher-weighted toward soft scores than I might usually prefer.

Player-judged comp isn't being used for matchups; it's just part of the overall score. Judge-scored comp is ONLY being used for matchups (in rounds 1 & 2); it's not part of the overall score.

As someone who is attending, I wouldn't mind tighter language on the comp checklists. Failing that, maybe print off the explanation Phazael provided in this thread, and stick it to the rules packet, so everyone is on the same page. (I, like Blackmoor, wouldn't read "#5) My opponent’s army did not unreasonably overwhelm the hand-to-hand or shooting phase." as being equivalent to "#5- Is playing an army with 20 Missile Launchers with Razorspam or Fatecrusher really fun? I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who said "yes" to that, so this point addresses those people." I don't know how an IG, Tau, or Tyranid player is supposed to get this point, as written - their whole codex design is generally built around one phase or the other.)

This concept is an important one that folks always need to bear in mind when evaluating scoring systems. The total points available in a given category, and what percentage of the potential maximum score that represents, is almost meaningless. It’s the possible (and actual, in practice) spread of points within each category that determines its real importance.

OTOH, I do think that organizers are well-served to re-assess their scoring systems in view of the actual numbers received in the events they run. Hulksmash, if the actual spread of scores you see in practice is so small, is there really a lot of value in having such a large range of possible scores? Would it simplify things and make the scoring more meaningful if you narrowed the range?

(Remember, Hulksmash isn't involved in running the event.)
Good point on evaluation of scoring systems. Everyone is harping on the "50% of total from soft scores," without considering that the actual difference in those scores should fall within 10-20% (meaning soft scores will affect overall by no more than 5-10%). Battle points, meanwhile, will vary across nearly the entire possible range (I don't expect someone to score exactly 0 points over 5 games, but it may come close).

I think the large range of possible scores is fine; I think the last couple points are too easy to get. If you want to weight a distribution curve, everyone should be getting something like 7 or 8/12. That way, only the truly problem players fall below 5, and only the exceptional ones rise above 10; both of those data points are valuable to the TOs. But getting that distribution is almost impossible, because of the expectation problem you noted - people don't want to "dock" the other guy for playing a very nice game, but not the "best game ever." So long as the perception of "points not achieved == points lost" persists, we're better off with a "vote for favorite opponent" option which grants a few bonus points.

Janthkin wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:I agree with Blackmoor, that the checklist being used for comp in this case really is too subjective. The questions are extremely open to interpretation, and I can see how they will be interpreted a wide variety of ways by different players. Even if the judges are all on the same page, I can certainly see how the player won’t be, leading to mismatches of score like Blackmoor experienced at the Broadside Bash. OTOH I don’t otherwise object to what else I see of this event. Most of it sounds perfectly reasonable, if a bit higher-weighted toward soft scores than I might usually prefer.

Player-judged comp isn't being used for matchups; it's just part of the overall score. Judge-scored comp is ONLY being used for matchups (in rounds 1 & 2); it's not part of the overall score.

I know, and Blackmoor previously pointed out that this actually may exacerbate the issue in some cases. If the organizers are all on the same page, and pair armies based on their understanding of the comp scoring system, that’s cool, and may work out very well for pairings. But if a high-comped player doesn’t understand their criteria and sees the army he is facing as low-comp, Blackmoor may receive a lower opponent-scored comp rating in consequence.

BTW, thanks for reminding me about HS; I meant the editorial “you”, but he’s already corrected me once, and my phrasing could be clearer. I’ll edit my post.

If the organizers clearly explain (particularly on the score sheets) the scoring criteria, and you don’t follow them, that’s a breach of the social contract with them to follow the rules of the tournament.

I don't recall going over a rule book or contract or signing any kind of documentation prior to playing aside from my credit card receipt for the last comp tourney I played in.

I understand it's against the spirit of the soft score system to basically max out everyone's scores but if you are going to allow player voting then you have to accept any of the stupid results that come out of that. You can't allow people to vote in a subjective system and then tell them they are voting incorrectly. I could just as easily tank everybody's scores as well if I wanted and they can complain all they want but they have no leg to stand on regarding disproving the accuracy of my scores.

Basically the onus is on them to prove that my scores are somehow skewed. Since their system is not objective at all they cannot do this.

If you don't like soft scores being made into a mockery then don't allow player voting, or at the very least don't have it impact tournament invites to Vegas.

Kevin Nash wrote:

If the organizers clearly explain (particularly on the score sheets) the scoring criteria, and you don’t follow them, that’s a breach of the social contract with them to follow the rules of the tournament.

I don't recall going over a rule book or contract or signing any kind of documentation prior to playing aside from my credit card receipt for the last comp tourney I played in.

I understand it's against the spirit of the soft score system to basically max out everyone's scores but if you are going to allow player voting then you have to accept any of the stupid results that come out of that. You can't allow people to vote in a subjective system and then tell them they are voting incorrectly. I could just as easily tank everybody's scores as well if I wanted and they can complain all they want but they have no leg to stand on regarding disproving the accuracy of my scores.

Basically the onus is on them to prove that my scores are somehow skewed. Since their system is not objective at all they cannot do this.

If you don't like soft scores being made into a mockery then don't allow player voting, or at the very least don't have it impact tournament invites to Vegas.

Nothing in writing prevents you from throwing all of your games either, or paying your opponent to do the same for you. And yet, I don't see people arguing that it's their right to do so, and I imagine even the most hard-core supporter of tournament play wouldn't endorse such behavior.

That's the essence of a social contract - everyone is agreeing to be governed by the same set of rules. If you are intentionally violating those rules, you are damaging the system. In the real world, failure to abide by the underlying social contract can result in penalties (e.g., break a criminal law, suffer the appropriate sanction, even though you never signed anything stating that you would abide by the criminal laws of your jurisdiction). In the gaming world, it ought to be the same; players who intentionally misuse the soft scores (in either direction) get booted from the tournament. How is "intentionally misuse" determined? TO's discretion; this isn't a democracy.

Sorry Kevin, I assumed too much that you’d know what I meant by social contract. I mean that when you agree to play in a tournament, you agree to play by the rules. No? If the rules include sportsmanship scoring by the players, the player’s obligation is to follow the instructions to the best of their ability.

If a player disregards the tournament's scoring instructions (like say, putting himself down for bonus battle points he did not earn), he is violating the rules of the event, undermining the validity of the scoring, and breaking the implicit social agreement between himself, the organizers, and the other players, to all play honestly by the same rules, which the organizer has established.

If the criteria are genuinely so badly-explained or ambiguous that your honest effort to use them results in a surprising / unpleasant result for the organizer, that’s clearly a problem with his system / explanations. If, on the other hand, you don’t invest the honest effort to abide by the rules, that’s your responsibility.

I know that some folks use giving all max scores as effectively a “protest vote”, but I disagree that it’s a reasonable or appropriate response. It’s disrespectful to the organizer, and effectively challenges him to throw you out of the event for breaking the rules. The more ethical course of action is just not to participate, or to follow the rules as best you can and then give reasoned, thoughtful criticism.

Mannahnin wrote:I know, and Blackmoor previously pointed out that this actually may exacerbate the issue in some cases. If the organizers are all on the same page, and pair armies based on their understanding of the comp scoring system, that’s cool, and may work out very well for pairings. But if a high-comped player doesn’t understand their criteria and sees the army he is facing as low-comp, Blackmoor may receive a lower opponent-scored comp rating in consequence.

This all falls on the judges' heads. If they can recognize the stealth lists, then things like the Blackmoor Bash don't occur. If they miss them, than a hammer list ends up paired against softer opponents. (That said, Blackmoor lost his first matchup against a "soft" list.)

Janthkin wrote:Good point on evaluation of scoring systems. Everyone is harping on the "50% of total from soft scores," without considering that the actual difference in those scores should fall within 10-20% (meaning soft scores will affect overall by no more than 5-10%).

I usually see those types of soft scores as 'Exclusionary' soft scores. It's intended to keep someone unpopular (ie plays differently) from winning anything so they don't bother even showing up, but not to matter for the 'in' crowd...

I don’t think that’s the intent at all, but I can understand how it could feel like that, and hurt people’s feelings as a result.

@Skythe

I can see you point in a broad brush style as far as soft scores Skythe. I personally despise soft scores. I'm pretty friendly regardless of what's happening and am normally there just to roll dice. However at this event since one of the tickets to Vegas (arguably the reason to play in these events) is going to the highest battle point player I can't see how it applies. If your goal is to smash face with a nasty list and get to Vegas this event allows you to do it w/out being the best painted/sport/comp player. If you goal is to be the ultimate hobbyist and go to Vegas you can.

Personally I think that by being the first Indy GT to give out a ticket to Vegas based purely on battle points is ballsy. They decided to cater to the purely competitive tourney gamer. Which says a lot for the type of event they want to run. They aren't excluding anyone and are in fact encouraging a slightly more cutthroat environment. The ultimate prize (i.e. the vegas ticket) is up for grabs on purely battle results.

Now I'm sure some people will still bill this tourney as uncompetitive but this is still the first tournament in the US this year to award the best general on the same level as the best hobbyist. And as far as I know only GBF's tournament is planning on doing the same thing. An idea I threw out there in his original thread based on how the Slaughter crew was doing theirs.

I normally don't agree with skyth's assertion that these types of comp scores are exclusionary, this checklist would be the closest to doing so that I've seen.

Not to say that it is intentional, but 5 of the 6 check boxes are vague enough as to be interpreted completely differently by two different players, and very easily interpreted advantageously by any player. If the true expectation is for everyone to get a 11 or 12 on total comp and sportsmanship, the entire thing should just be a sportsmanship [-1, 0, 1]? checklist, with perhaps worse penalties for getting 3+ -1's. Otherwise this is either chipmunk central or hand out 6's because you don't care.

#1) My opponent’s army was accurately represented or clearly explained in advance if not to WYSIWYG standards.
- Fine, reasonably straightforward

#2) My opponents list was not designed to abuse rule loopholes.
- What is a rules loophole? A rule you don't like, or an entire army you don't like!

#3) My army was based on a theme and stayed within its fluff
- What is theme and fluff? I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT!

#4) My opponent’s army made reasonable use of troop choices
- What is reasonable? Exactly how many I have, of the quality that I have! Only two sucky troops choices in a codex full of sucky troops in a game that requires you to have troops to win?! You should be penalized further! 6 good troops?! How dare you try to win objectives!

#5) My opponent’s army did not unreasonably overwhelm the hand-to-hand or shooting phase.
- I play marines, they are nice and balanced. You don't, -1

#6) My opponent’s army was built for an enjoyable game, not win at all cost and sacrificed power for fun.
- I didn't really enjoy being tabled by you on turn 3 with my absolutely terrible army and decisions. -1. Or, I didn't really enjoy tabling you on turn 3, -1. Or, last i checked, taking terrible units doesn't actually make the game fun.

Maybe I'm just bitter because this checklist and the slaughter style killpoints are keeping me from bringing a barely-competitive tau farsight army and forcing me to try to finish painting chaos in the next week+. But I really think this checklist could use a lot of tightening.

@Lambadomy

11/12 was just the results of last year. I agree that the list could use some tightening or even a total removal but it's still their gig. I was merely using the 11/12 example to show people that it is still BP's that are determining the winners of the event.

That said your Farsight army would still be buildable. There is a single mission that uses slaughter-style KP's. It will actually help you to since so many of the KP's will be tied up in that squad it will force people to shoot at it even more since if they don't they are effectively denied around 1/3 of the possible KP's.

**edited based on comment below**

For reference, the system was designed to universally apply to both our fantasy and 40k events, hence some of the somewhat vague language. In practice, most people generally got 10-12 points from softs per game, which is really what we wanted and expected. It spreads things out a little and keeps certain decisions out of the judges hands, as it pertains to rankings.

As for the Judge comp, its really simple. The three comp judges (none of whom are participating) sit down and go over all of the lists. Each judge rates the list on a 0-5 scale, which is then totalled. The first two rounds are paired so that people play something that comped as near to them as possible. The judge scores are then tossed and never used for anything else. After round two, all pairings are done by total Battle Points.

For the most part, we have been pretty good about getting things right, though it has not been perfect. Stealth cheese does get addressed, but the most important criteria we have in rating something is how fun and interractive it is to play. If the army is designed to frustrate, it is going to run a little lower even if it is otherwise weak, for example. Again it is not a perfect system, but it gives the fluff bunnies a couple reasonable games on the weekend and it keeps the power armies from getting a free pass in the first round.

As for votes, we use those strictly to break ties, to prevent team voting, where a group will all vote only for their pals to pump their scores relative to everyone else. It does not stop it completely, but it does mitigate the abuse.

For the record, we only investigate soft scoring when it appears that obvious lowballing took place. If I recall, its happened twice in the five GTs we have had and both times at the Fantasy events. I guess we could revisit the option of clarifying the language on some of the checklists, to better accomadate the 40k crowd.

Another thing people are ignoring is that the Comp and Sports scores are there so that we can give Best Sportsmanship trophies, which I personally feel to be very important. Skyth's point about them being exclusionary is valid to a degree, but it will never hamper someone from taking Best General (along with one of our finals invites), which we treat as the second most important award.

So, I guess what I am trying to say here is, yes we have soft scores, but our emphasis is in fact on Battle Points. Every other indi GT is awarding their invites purely on overalls. And Battle Points have traditionally had the most direct impact on overall scores in our events. And finally, you need the fluffbunnies as much as the power gamers to sell the event out.

I didn't see anything in the rules packet about requiring fully painted armies, is there a requirement? Most the army I'm thinking about bringing is fully painted but I have a couple units not quite finished yet (they got put on the back-burner for the units I needed at Adepticon...).

Ozymandias wrote:I didn't see anything in the rules packet about requiring fully painted armies, is there a requirement? Most the army I'm thinking about bringing is fully painted but I have a couple units not quite finished yet (they got put on the back-burner for the units I needed at Adepticon...).

You've got a solid 3 weeks after Adepticon to get it done! Man up! In the absence of the paint scoring sheet, it's hard to know how much a not-completely-painted army will hurt you.

(Actually, I only recently noticed that I'll need another 150 pts for the Slaughter In Space; fortunately, it shouldn't be hard spending those.)

Stupid house and wedding are sucking up my available funds so no Slaughter for me this time.

Besides, my Salamanders need to be repainted and my dark Eldar really don't travel well.

It'll be a fun event though I'm sure!

Yeah, I wouldn't expect it to happen much - just like most people aren't bad sports, most people aren't chipmunking either. That is typically a large part of the no-comp/no-sports crowds argument, that people act nice enough regardless. Part of acting nice is not chipmunking.

I find myself giving my opponents max comp/sports scores in almost every game I play, almost compulsively. Not because I am lazy or because I'm trying to break the system, but because even if it wasn't the best game ever I feel like a jerk stealing points from someone. Based on the 10-12 scores everyone is getting, and from my experience at other events, etc I think this feeling combined with "I don't care, here's your 10" gives most people high scores, regardless of what the checklist is actually going for.

I think that only using battle points for giving out your invites is an good compromise, it will be interesting to see how it works out.

Anyway, I understand what you're going for and in theory have no problem with it. I just feel a couple of the checklist items are too vague or don't really apply in 40k anymore, like the fluff one - if you started 40k in 4ed you'd probably fail fluff with most armies against people playing since 2nd or 3rd who care about such things.

Janthkin wrote:

Ozymandias wrote:I didn't see anything in the rules packet about requiring fully painted armies, is there a requirement? Most the army I'm thinking about bringing is fully painted but I have a couple units not quite finished yet (they got put on the back-burner for the units I needed at Adepticon...).

You've got a solid 3 weeks after Adepticon to get it done! Man up! In the absence of the paint scoring sheet, it's hard to know how much a not-completely-painted army will hurt you.

(Actually, I only recently noticed that I'll need another 150 pts for the Slaughter In Space; fortunately, it shouldn't be hard spending those.)

I'm sure my wife will love me coming back from being gone for several days of gaming and being busy every night again to paint up an army for another tournament that will take me away for a weekend...

But seriously I will do my best to have a fully painted, 3-color force, but I'm a terribly slow painter and have a feeling I'll be a little burned out after Adepticon.

@hulksmash:

You're right, for some reason I thought two missions used the slaughter style killpoints, but it is only one. Maybe it's time to dust off Farsight and get some practice games in (mostly practice moving a 20+ model JSJ unit, ugh)

and yeah, I have no problem with the intention and I understand it's their gig.

Ozymandias wrote:

Janthkin wrote:You've got a solid 3 weeks after Adepticon to get it done! Man up! In the absence of the paint scoring sheet, it's hard to know how much a not-completely-painted army will hurt you.

(Actually, I only recently noticed that I'll need another 150 pts for the Slaughter In Space; fortunately, it shouldn't be hard spending those.)

I'm sure my wife will love me coming back from being gone for several days of gaming and being busy every night again to paint up an army for another tournament that will take me away for a weekend...

But seriously I will do my best to have a fully painted, 3-color force, but I'm a terribly slow painter and have a feeling I'll be a little burned out after Adepticon.

And this is why I'll only be painting 1 more model before SiS (and why I'm using the same army for both). My wife points are pretty much gone already, just from the neglect over the past few weeks.

Hey SCGWL folks - how about you swap the Slaughter & the Slaughter in Space next year? Pretty please? It'd be a lot easier to handle both, if they were more widely separated in time.

Mannahnin wrote:Sorry Kevin, I assumed too much that you’d know what I meant by social contract. I mean that when you agree to play in a tournament, you agree to play by the rules. No? If the rules include sportsmanship scoring by the players, the player’s obligation is to follow the instructions to the best of their ability.

Not filling out the card would be not playing by the rules.

If a player disregards the tournament's scoring instructions (like say, putting himself down for bonus battle points he did not earn), he is violating the rules of the event, undermining the validity of the scoring, and breaking the implicit social agreement between himself, the organizers, and the other players, to all play honestly by the same rules, which the organizer has established.

Agreed. This is completely different than maxing out a subjective scoring system. One is cheating. One is maxing out a subjective scoring system.

If the criteria are genuinely so badly-explained or ambiguous that your honest effort to use them results in a surprising / unpleasant result for the organizer, that’s clearly a problem with his system / explanations. If, on the other hand, you don’t invest the honest effort to abide by the rules, that’s your responsibility.

Sure. I challenge them to prove that I didn't make an honest effort. They can't.

I know that some folks use giving all max scores as effectively a “protest vote”, but I disagree that it’s a reasonable or appropriate response. It’s disrespectful to the organizer, and effectively challenges him to throw you out of the event for breaking the rules. The more ethical course of action is just not to participate, or to follow the rules as best you can and then give reasoned, thoughtful criticism.

Making their system look stupid in person is far more effective than braying to deaf ears on a message board.

Kevin Nash wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Sorry Kevin, I assumed too much that you’d know what I meant by social contract. I mean that when you agree to play in a tournament, you agree to play by the rules. No? If the rules include sportsmanship scoring by the players, the player’s obligation is to follow the instructions to the best of their ability.

Not filling out the card would be not playing by the rules.

More precisely, not filling out the card as instructed by the organizers is not following the rules.

Kevin Nash wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:If a player disregards the tournament's scoring instructions (like say, putting himself down for bonus battle points he did not earn), he is violating the rules of the even....

Agreed. This is completely different than maxing out a subjective scoring system. One is cheating. One is maxing out a subjective scoring system.

How is it different at all? Just because something is subjective doesn’t mean it’s impossible to evaluate. If the text next to 10 on Sports is “this was the most fun game I ever played”, you can certainly make an honest evaluation of whether it was or not. Most of the time that’s an easy “no”. I completely agree that if the categories are unclear, no one can fault you for scoring imprecisely. But often times they use specific examples which make it pretty easy to do.

Kevin Nash wrote:

Mannahnin wrote: If the criteria are genuinely so badly-explained or ambiguous that your honest effort to use them results in a surprising / unpleasant result for the organizer, that’s clearly a problem with his system / explanations. If, on the other hand, you don’t invest the honest effort to abide by the rules, that’s your responsibility.

Sure. I challenge them to prove that I didn't make an honest effort. They can't.

Do you make them prove you didn’t use weighted dice, or expect them to be on the lookout to make sure you don’t sneak extra models onto the table which aren’t on your army list? Your responsibility is to be honest. The fact that you dislike the scoring system isn’t a good excuse to break the rules, or treat the organizers with contempt.

Kevin Nash wrote:

Mannahnin wrote: The more ethical course of action is just not to participate, or to follow the rules as best you can and then give reasoned, thoughtful criticism.

Making their system look stupid in person is far more effective than braying to deaf ears on a message board.

No, I mean TALK to them like one respectful adult to another, and give them detailed, written feedback. It’s usually easiest to do via email after the event. Expressing your disagreement by attempting to make their system “look stupid” is passive-aggressive, petty, and kind of cowardly, IMO.

Painting is not mandatory, though we do prefer painted armies. Having a low painting score will hurt you on the Overall and Best Painted, but not on Best General or Sportsmanship awards.

Ok, thanks. I don't think I need to worry too much about Best Painted or Best Overall (or Best General for that matter...).

I was just speaking generally about the high percentage of soft score points. Having the best general award unaffected by soft scores mitigates this to an extent. There are events that combine battle and comp to determine best general. Those are definitely exclusionary.

I will say that having a checklist is better than a 1-10 scale to make things less exclusionary.

So, I guess what I am trying to say here is, yes we have soft scores, but our emphasis is in fact on Battle Points. Every other indi GT is awarding their invites purely on overalls. And Battle Points have traditionally had the most direct impact on overall scores in our events. And finally, you need the fluffbunnies as much as the power gamers to sell the event out.

Actually, you're not the only tournament awarding a ticket to the Best General winner. Both Bolter Reach and The NOVA Open are both doing this as well.

As for your final comment, why do you assume all gamers are either "fluffbunnies" or "power gamers"? This is a bizarre mischaracterization of the Warhammer community. Not everyone interested in painting or theme is a "fluffbunny" and not everyone who enjoys competitive play is a "power gamer." And do you have any evidence to support the assertion that you need to run a hobby event the way you do in order to sell the event out? We have tournaments in this area with more than 40 sign-ups every other month (and that's just from one of the stores!) that have a complete separation of the painting and tournament parts of the event. Hell, I couldn't even play in the last one because it filled up a month in advance and it was competing with the SVDM (held on the same weekend). No sportsmanship or comp scoring is needed to ensure things stay civil and fun because the tournament organizers are on top of things (as they should be). Perhaps if you stopped trying so hard to force people to bring "fun" armies you'd realize that spots will still be filled and that people are capable of having fun all by themselves.

To be fair Danny the Slaughter was the first tournament to announce that they were going to be giving one ticket away to the Best General. Bolter Beach originally balked at the idea when I mentioned it in their thread and then decided to do it after another organizer of the event mentioned it to GBF. And I'm glad the NOVA Open is following in this direction.

As for the final comment I think your oversimplifying it. He's not saying everyone is one or the other. But to truly sell an event you need space for even the extremes of the hobby.

When your renting out a large convention center and fronting a lot of money you want to try and get it back as best you can. Your asking people to gamble with a good amount of their money. There is a huge difference between a $10 entry fee and $65. Dedicating 2 days isn't always possible either. Personally I think that there is a smaller pool available locally that would be up for a GT than an RTT.

I don't know for sure who was the 1st person to suggest giving one ticket to Vegas for the best general award. Hulksmash if you said you mentioned it I won't try to discredit your statement but honestly the first person I remember suggesting it is my partner Yuri Devilbiss for Bolter Beach. It's not a big deal to me and I'm not going to Wade through several pages of the BB thread to find out. I do think Yuri deserves credit for the idea though as I don't remember seeing this mentioned prior in any other GT announcement threads. We decided to go this route after experiencing the vocal outcry against using comp and it seemed to staunch the blood. You still have to run an excellent event at the end of the day and to me that makes our main goal at BB keeping the BS factor down to the zero level. I think we can acheive that goal and I appreciate everyone who provided their honest opinion. You can't do these things in a vacuum, or you are just looking for some trouble.

G

Mannahnin wrote:

Kevin Nash wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Sorry Kevin, I assumed too much that you’d know what I meant by social contract. I mean that when you agree to play in a tournament, you agree to play by the rules. No? If the rules include sportsmanship scoring by the players, the player’s obligation is to follow the instructions to the best of their ability.

Not filling out the card would be not playing by the rules.

More precisely, not filling out the card as instructed by the organizers is not following the rules.

Kevin Nash wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:If a player disregards the tournament's scoring instructions (like say, putting himself down for bonus battle points he did not earn), he is violating the rules of the even....

Agreed. This is completely different than maxing out a subjective scoring system. One is cheating. One is maxing out a subjective scoring system.

How is it different at all? Just because something is subjective doesn’t mean it’s impossible to evaluate. If the text next to 10 on Sports is “this was the most fun game I ever played”, you can certainly make an honest evaluation of whether it was or not. Most of the time that’s an easy “no”. I completely agree that if the categories are unclear, no one can fault you for scoring imprecisely. But often times they use specific examples which make it pretty easy to do.

Kevin Nash wrote:

Mannahnin wrote: If the criteria are genuinely so badly-explained or ambiguous that your honest effort to use them results in a surprising / unpleasant result for the organizer, that’s clearly a problem with his system / explanations. If, on the other hand, you don’t invest the honest effort to abide by the rules, that’s your responsibility.

Sure. I challenge them to prove that I didn't make an honest effort. They can't.

Do you make them prove you didn’t use weighted dice, or expect them to be on the lookout to make sure you don’t sneak extra models onto the table which aren’t on your army list? Your responsibility is to be honest. The fact that you dislike the scoring system isn’t a good excuse to break the rules, or treat the organizers with contempt.

Kevin Nash wrote:

Mannahnin wrote: The more ethical course of action is just not to participate, or to follow the rules as best you can and then give reasoned, thoughtful criticism.

Making their system look stupid in person is far more effective than braying to deaf ears on a message board.

No, I mean TALK to them like one respectful adult to another, and give them detailed, written feedback. It’s usually easiest to do via email after the event. Expressing your disagreement by attempting to make their system “look stupid” is passive-aggressive, petty, and kind of cowardly, IMO.

Subjective usually means it is impossible to evaluate in critical and quantitative manner. If the organizer is asking for a number that defines my experience with another player, where the terms of evaluation are "best ever", "really good", etc then it becomes a reflexive call, based on your own experiences, not on the actual sportsmanship of the opponent or composition of the opponents army. In reality, I am a very positive person and every experience is of ultimate value and worth, every experience is the "best", and therefore becomes impossible to quantify my play experience on such terms. Better checklists have been created, but all have ultimately introduced subjective criteria. If this is a qualitative scoring system then 5 games, without a control, does not provide enough data to gather the appropriate amount of information to yield a valid result. Kevin Nash's experience, if anything, only exemplifies one of the many issues related to this scoring methodology. He did not break any social contract, since none was implicitly or explicitly give. He graded their sportsmanship and theme scores to the best of his ability, which is poor, but complete.

The worst people are the ones that pretend they are not "bad" and will game the system to advantage without leading on that they are gaming it. Allowing opponents to score only enables these sorts of people to have more impact on the scene than they would without. The true manipulator of the system is the one that gives you the greatest game of your life and then docs you on YOUR sportsmanship score. The greatest con-men are the ones that leave you thinking you had a great experience. Sportsmanship scoring benefits the truly malevolent much more than it scares them away and only gives the benevolent the illusion of a fair environment. (Sorry if this became a bit philosophical, but its important to understand in my opinion)

I know much of this is off topic, but it is important in any tournament discussion to bring up potential areas of corruption such that the environment can improve. This is an area of interest to me, since it is one of my plans, which I am working towards, to host tournaments of this scale. At this moment, my feelings would be to have a tournament without sportsmanship or composition scores. I might add a "Favorite Player" concept, but that would not be contributed towards the overall winner. There would be a painting competition, but again no contribute towards the game winner pool, and would have a detailed objective checklist for scoring.

Black Blow Fly wrote:I don't know for sure who was the 1st person to suggest giving one ticket to Vegas for the best general award. Hulksmash if you said you mentioned it I won't try to discredit your statement but honestly the first person I remember suggesting it is my partner Yuri Devilbiss for Bolter Beach. It's not a big deal to me and I'm not going to Wade through several pages of the BB thread to find out. I do think Yuri deserves credit for the idea though as I don't remember seeing this mentioned prior in any other GT announcement threads. We decided to go this route after experiencing the vocal outcry against using comp and it seemed to staunch the blood. You still have to run an excellent event at the end of the day and to me that makes our main goal at BB keeping the BS factor down to the zero level. I think we can acheive that goal and I appreciate everyone who provided their honest opinion. You can't do these things in a vacuum, or you are just looking for some trouble.

G

A conversation in a thread we had 4 days before you announced that you were giving a ticket away for best general. The post above mine states you think it's a bad idea to give a ticket to anyone except the top 2 overall. The actual conversation starts at the top of the page between us.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/280263.page#1351972

And here is where I posted their rules for their event that went up before your introduction of the event.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/279207.page#1358743

A backhanded "I don't believe you" is a still an "I don't believe you".

Though I agree that listening to the community is important for growing your event. I'm sure there will be a plethora of posts after the Slaughter in this thread too. And not all of them will be positive (though last year they were ). But either way it'll be a learning experience for the TO's who can adjust things for next year.

But to truly sell an event you need space for even the extremes of the hobby.

When your renting out a large convention center and fronting a lot of money you want to try and get it back as best you can. Your asking people to gamble with a good amount of their money. There is a huge difference between a $10 entry fee and $65. Dedicating 2 days isn't always possible either. Personally I think that there is a smaller pool available locally that would be up for a GT than an RTT.

I understand and even greatly appreciate the effort and degree of financial risk that tournament organizers put into these events. That being said, one can respect all aspects of the hobby without lumping them together in order to find some overall champion. By combining these totally separate parts the emphasis of the event shifts away from the tournament part and over to the other competitions (painting, sportsmanship, and theme). At that point it is inaccurate to call the event a tournament.

As others have suggested, the best way to pay respect to all forms of playing is to keep scoring for each category separate and not to have an overall winner at all. That way the event caters equally to all styles of play.

@ Hulksmash

So okay I waded through all the posts. You did indeed state on 02/23/10 that the socal event will award one golden ticket to the best general (ties broken on soft score) while I announced this for BB two days later. I also did not see anywhere specifically where I said the two best overall should both be awarded the pair of golden tickets. Feel free to quote me if I missed it. Anyways I was not aware of your 02/23 post but yeah you stated it first so kudos there. Yuri was the first person to approach me with this idea though and that's why i credited him here. Basically it's cool to know some people were thinking the same thing within a relatively short time frame of each other. Again my kudos.

G

I'll bite

Sorry for not being specific in my links. One linked to your Tournament discussion that you set up as a separate discussion to keep the comp talk out of your thread. But here it is:

2/21

Black Blow Fly wrote:If people are competing for a golden ticket to Vegas it's the responsibility of the TOs to fairly determine who are the top two players which boils down to best overall and 2nd best overall. It's also important to recognize there is the vocal minority that posts a lot on forums and blogs while there is also the silent majority. Dakka may at anytime have up to around 20,000 viewers but only a couple thousand at most are registered.

G

2/21

Black Blow Fly wrote:Hulksmash I think it's best to give the second ticket to the player with the second best overall score. As a TO that seems the most fair to me and maybe more importantly not controversial.

So far I have not seen much of a homogeneous consensus in regards to scoring other than most people appear to agree that the majority of the points should be drawn from battlepoints. I have also seen a good number of people say the rules for comp should be very clear. All in all I think this is a good discussion and hope that more people will join in with us here.

G

Don't get me wrong. I'm stoked you guys decided on this direction. I think it's better for the 40k circuit as a whole and it's something I think GW should mandate.

And Back on Topic:

@Danny

I agree that separating out the different aspects of the hobby would be a better thing. It's just not possible with the circuit that GW has. Even the UK GT has people in the final round who weren't the best generals of their event but qualified based on the hobby as a whole (mostly painting I believe).

* oops *

how could I have missed that??



Seriuosly though going back a second time I now see what I said appeared before your post which my browser opens when I clicked on your first link to the tournament discussion thread, only now after going back and scrolling up instead of down did I find the quoted entries. I certainly did post them and I apologize for my apparent state of muddling confusion.

G

I agree that separating out the different aspects of the hobby would be a better thing. It's just not possible with the circuit that GW has. Even the UK GT has people in the final round who weren't the best generals of their event but qualified based on the hobby as a whole (mostly painting I believe).

Why isn't it possible? We run events like this here all of the time and they are very popular. I didn't say that this separation was necessary to make sure the best generals of the event win, just that it is the best way to provide equal respect to all styles of play.

It isn't practical because people are all over the spectrum on the competitive vs fluff bunny issue. Further, sportsmanship is an entirely seperate issue and until some TO has the balls to toss someone for being a total ass, soft scores are the only thing keeping certain people in check. Therefore, any system employed has to do its best to accomadate both the extremely partisan competitive people (such as you Danny), the super fluff nazi softy people, and everything in between. You also have to make sure people are as civil to one another as possible or you end up with situations like that assclown eldar player up at the Conquest GT in Seattle. Again, I don't claim we are perfect, but at least every general style of play has some type of award achievable by that player, with only relavent scores applying to their respective catagory.

I don't know what you want out of a GT (I don't think you know yourself), but no one is going to run Hard Boyz 2.0, especially with all the horror stories comming out of the free to play GW version.

Phazael wrote:soft scores are the only thing keeping certain people in check

This is a "False Dilemma". People are trying to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist. I repeat, this only creates the "illusion" of safety.

Further, sportsmanship is an entirely seperate issue and until some TO has the balls to toss someone for being a total ass, soft scores are the only thing keeping certain people in check. Therefore, any system employed has to do its best to accomadate both the extremely partisan competitive people (such as you Danny), the super fluff nazi softy people, and everything in between. You also have to make sure people are as civil to one another as possible or you end up with situations like that assclown eldar player up at the Conquest GT in Seattle. Again, I don't claim we are perfect, but at least every general style of play has some type of award achievable by that player, with only relavent scores applying to their respective catagory.

This may come as a shock, but it is your job as a tournament organizer to have those balls and toss people out for behaving badly. Take from Mikhaila's example: he booted someone from an 'Ard Boyz round hosted at his store. Our local events (which are the same size as some of the indy GT's) prove that you don't need soft scores to keep "certain people in check." Competent TO's ensure that soft scores are unnecessary for people to have a good time.

I don't know what you want out of a GT (I don't think you know yourself), but no one is going to run Hard Boyz 2.0, especially with all the horror stories comming out of the free to play GW version.

Am I speaking Chinese or something? I made it perfectly clear what I want out of a tournament: separate but equal respect paid to every style of play. Painting scores, comp scores, sportsmanship scores, battle points scores--they're all welcome. Just don't have an overall winner, because as soon as you place one award above the rest you've catapulted one particular style of play (the well-rounded hobbyist, in this case) to a position above all others. This shifts the entire focus of the event and it is no longer accurate to refer to your event as a tournament.

Danny I would like to hear your opinion how should golden tickets be awarded. Should it go to which category? Also how should ties be decided for battle points?

G

Black Blow Fly wrote:Danny I would like to hear your opinion how should golden tickets be awarded. Should it go to which category? Also how should ties be decided for battle points?

G

I'd venture an answer here:

The two golden tickets should be to the two highest scoring players of course. We're talking about a tournament here; a competitive event where people go to fight each others' armies - a golden ticket to a bigger competition should go to the top two competition winners.

Sportsmanship, painting, favorite player - those are secondary categories.

Perhaps painting could have its own two golden tickets - and the two winners are allowed to attend a golden daemon competition. I don't think qualifying as "not a jerk" really needs any special advancement.

-----------------------
In terms of tie-breakers - if a tournament scores battlepoints on a 20-30 point scale with bonus points and difficult enough objectives that actually accomplishing the whole thing (I look at Adepticon scenarios) is exquisitely difficult...there shouldn't be ties. And you can log victory points if need be just in case.

Agreed 100% with Dash.

If you call it a tournament then award the tickets to the people who win the tournament, not the people who win the hobby competition.

As for ties, the guy who ran our club's last tournament had a good solution for this without having to rely on soft scores. He totaled up the battle points of the tied players' opponents and gave the win to the person who had a higher total. The reasoning was that the person with the higher total likely faced better opponents and thus displayed more skill to earn his score. Is it a perfect metric for scoring? Certainly not, but it works well as a simple tie-breaker.

Danny Internets wrote:As for ties, the guy who ran our club's last tournament had a good solution for this without having to rely on soft scores. He totaled up the battle points of the tied players' opponents and gave the win to the person who had a higher total. The reasoning was that the person with the higher total likely faced better opponents and thus displayed more skill to earn his score. Is it a perfect metric for scoring? Certainly not, but it works well as a simple tie-breaker.

I love this. This is a fantastic idea. I want to have its babies.

Iron_Chaos_Brute wrote:

Danny Internets wrote:As for ties, the guy who ran our club's last tournament had a good solution for this without having to rely on soft scores. He totaled up the battle points of the tied players' opponents and gave the win to the person who had a higher total. The reasoning was that the person with the higher total likely faced better opponents and thus displayed more skill to earn his score. Is it a perfect metric for scoring? Certainly not, but it works well as a simple tie-breaker.

I love this. This is a fantastic idea. I want to have its babies.

Strength of schedule tiebreakers and it's variants are routinely used in chess and magic: the gathering tournaments.

I also use it in my RTT's as the second tiebreaker (behind head to head).

I had a bad experience with strength of opponent scheduling the only time I've seen it used. It was at an RTT last year, and at the end of the third round, I was 3-0, and there was a second player 3-0. He won based on strength of schedule....and I can't remember the exact details, but I was bitter for not winning because the other guy was absolutely not my equal on the battlefield. I got paired up against him during the first round of the next RTT (same lists) and tabled him (I was running mech orks and he was running nob bikers)

@dash, what would you prefer instead as a tiebreaker? Rather than VPs of opponenets perhaps just compare total VPs earned by the players in the tie?

This poor thread has gotten derailed, hasn't it? However, I will say that I just want to say that I like Danny Internets. He wants to play the same kind of tourneys that I do.

I despise RTTs, which means that I will never play in any kind of tourney that incorporates soft scoring. I just want my little plastic girls to kick the crap out of your little plastic dudes and I think if I do that 3 times and win, I should win the tourney.

The reason I don't like soft scores is because I don't like subjective scores. I think my pink orks are painted awesome. I think they're art; and so like with any art, if you don't like mine, you can go jump in a lake. It may not be Van Gogh, but maybe it's Andy Warhol or Jackon Pollack. Does everyone like them all? Maybe not. Is one better than the other?? Opinion. I don't like scores based on someone else's opinion. I don't wash my models because I don't want anything detracting from the brightness. I like my pastelly colors. Do I think they're better than some Golden Demon winner? Heck yeah, because it's the style I like. It's my opinion. I'm not entering a painting competition because I know I would be scored lower than someone who washes and junk. That's fine, that's not what I'm interested in.

I also don't like someone having control over my sportsmanship. Newsflash! Not everyone likes everyone else and who says they have to? There have been people I have played with that I just don't get along with. Our personalities clash. Did I like playing that person? Um no. That stuff happens in life. Do I like the fact that it's possible that they would be downgrading my score because we didn't communicate well or whatever? Well, that's why I don't play in these kinds of tourneys.

You should be rewarded for the fact that you're a superior tactician and you know how to play the list you wrote. Winning your games and then losing overall is an insult. It's happened to Dash a few times and so has turned me off to tourneys as they are ruled now.

I could go on and on about more things (like comp) however I'll cut my ramble short. I will say that a true general will be able to win no matter the pairing. Comp is lame.

--Dodiez (aka Mrs. Dash)

The problem with strength of schedule tiebreakers is twofold: First, more often than not, the two players should have played each other already, rendering it pointless unless they tied. Second, it puts things back into the luck of the draw catagory.

And, seriously, overalls have existed since the first GTs. The only tournament to run entirely on BP is Hard Boyz, and its plagued with rampant assclownery and unpainted (and occasionally illegally converted) armies. This is not something any club wants its name associated with, sorry. I am not a fan of soft scores, either, but they do force certain social cripples to behave themselves, when used in propper moderate levels. In practice, two guys running tough lists who behave are going to render the comp scores a wash. Its there for people who can't behave themselves and feel like their $65 entitles them to treat other people like crap. If you can't accept this Danny, then have fun at the Hard Boyz and lurking at YesTheButtHurts, because the reality of who buys tickets in SoCal differs greatly from the vocal few on the Interwebs.

Phazael wrote:The problem with strength of schedule tiebreakers is twofold: First, more often than not, the two players should have played each other already, rendering it pointless unless they tied. Second, it puts things back into the luck of the draw catagory.

In a 3 game tourney, it'd be used more thana 5. However, luck of the draw category also includes determining by comp (Who is lucky enough to know the specifics of how it's being scored) or sports (Who ran into opponents that score better than average) or anything else. (Even VP's can be lucky...If you had an extremely good matchup for your army and got a lot of VP's, you score higher than if you had a harder fight and had to work harder for a smaller win?)

Dashofpepper wrote:I had a bad experience with strength of opponent scheduling the only time I've seen it used. It was at an RTT last year, and at the end of the third round, I was 3-0, and there was a second player 3-0. He won based on strength of schedule....and I can't remember the exact details, but I was bitter for not winning because the other guy was absolutely not my equal on the battlefield. I got paired up against him during the first round of the next RTT (same lists) and tabled him (I was running mech orks and he was running nob bikers)

Hmm... Bitter? -1 for Sportsmanship HAHAHA!

Dashofpepper wrote:I had a bad experience with strength of opponent scheduling the only time I've seen it used. It was at an RTT last year, and at the end of the third round, I was 3-0, and there was a second player 3-0. He won based on strength of schedule....and I can't remember the exact details, but I was bitter for not winning because the other guy was absolutely not my equal on the battlefield. I got paired up against him during the first round of the next RTT (same lists) and tabled him (I was running mech orks and he was running nob bikers)

If you don't actually play the other player this kind of stuff is going to happen either way. Luck can get involved regardless of what kind of tiebreaker you are using. Battle point scoring systems actually do the exact opposite; You are actually rewarded for playing bad players which yield blowout wins as opposed to good players who force ties or minor victory's.

Battle point scoring instead of w/l/d scoring has a lesser chance to result in a tie between two players, but it opens up a host of other inequalities such as rewarding reckless play, or playing glass hammer armies. VP tiebreakers can do the same thing. Certain armies excel in that kind of scoring format while other armies are needlessly punished. I actually wrote an extensive article about this on my blog.

Long story short, in a 3rd round tournament with swiss pairings there is a good chance you're going to have to go to tiebreakers. I think strength of schedule is more fair than VP's since it treats every army equally, where VP's strongly favor certain armies or styles of play.

Ties do happen. The 5ed rulebook tells us to use VPs for tie breakers so I think that can work for bp missions.

G

The only tournament to run entirely on BP is Hard Boyz, and its plagued with rampant assclownery and unpainted (and occasionally illegally converted) armies.

I've been playing in 'Ard Boyz for years now and I've never come across this so-called "rampant assclownery." In fact, the only time I've had even a mildly unpleasant game was in a tournament that had sportsmanship scoring. Furthermore, 'Ard Boyz requires all models to be WYSIWYG, so if "illegally converted" armies are participating it is because the tournament organizers aren't enforcing the rules.

I am not a fan of soft scores, either, but they do force certain social cripples to behave themselves, when used in propper moderate levels.

This is the THIRD time I'm asking you now: what evidence do you have to support this argument? You keep repeating different variations of this mantra but that doesn't make it true. Clearly, you have very strong negative opinions about tournament players in general and a whole network of assumptions stemming from this prejudice. Other organizers are able to run fun, well-received events with 40+ players without relying on the crutch that is soft scores, so it's clearly possible to do so. If you perceive players' attitudes to be such a problem perhaps you need to step it up and run your tournaments better.

If you can't accept this Danny, then have fun at the Hard Boyz and lurking at YesTheButtHurts, because the reality of who buys tickets in SoCal differs greatly from the vocal few on the Interwebs.

What steps have you taken to assess this so-called reality of who buys tickets? Did you administer a survey? Systematically interview participants? I'm curious, again, as to what evidence you have for making these claims. How exactly do you know that those who buy tickets wouldn't be interested in the kind of event I've described? I understand that you have a tendency to ignore difficult questions, but I think they are of great value to this discussion.

Bad things happen at 'Ard Boyz because you have TOs running the event who aren't well-equipped to run a 40k event.

But having recently been to the SVDM, Mike announced at the beginning that despite there not being a sportsmanship score, he expected everyone to act like an adult (which is why he didn't have a sportsmanship score). You know what? There weren't any problems, and no one complained after the event about sportsmanship.

Exclude 'Ard Boyz; its a remotely organized, decentrally run event being supervised by random LGS owners.

Can you point to any Indy event that DIDN'T have sportsmanship scoring, and ass-clownery was rife? Probably not. And if you *can* show me a tournament with sportsmanship problems, then I can probably show you a TO who didn't do their job.

I wouldn't even call it a crutch - it is simply a weapon to be abused by players, and does not have the ability to be more. In the heat of the moment, when two competitive people are hashing out a game, and someone is losing (which competitive players never like), emotions ramp up, and I honestly don't believe a fair sportsmanship score is likely. In fact, I think I've only met one person who can table me (and he trounces me regularly and is responsible for basically all/most the losses in my signature)

Socal team:

Friend and I are playtesting missions, and a couple glaring weaknesses have arisen:

1. In the Slaughter style reverse killpoints where what you have left alive at the end is your killpoints towards victory, there's a glaring opportunity for abuse: Since dedicated transports don't count towards killpoints, then there's no reason that people can't reserve their entire army and leave all the transports on the table (Mechanized IG and razorback spam get clear advantages here) and have 9-15 units on the table that don't count towards game purposes wrecking havoc on the enemy army. There's HUGE broken-ness here.

2. The 4 objective mission where you have two and the opponent has two is also something of an auto-win for mechanized list. You place objectives before deployment, and since you don't know where you will be on the table, you kind of have to place them in the middle. IG with Emperor's Tarot have an advantage here - or any mechanized list that goes first - they can be out on the objective during the scout move, or even during the first turn, then disembarked and automatically killing the objective. Infiltrators get the same thing. There's SERIOUS hosing in progress for armies without infiltrators (My Orks and DE don't have any), and the armies that can modify who goes first or put infantry models out on the table during a scout move (IG for both, DE for the former) are at a huge advantage.

I think both of those missions are significantly broken and need reworking.

For mission three, if you were to require the infantry models to be holding the objective for a full game turn, that at least gives opponents a chance to react. Or have to hold it for two game turns.

But something is seriously wrong with these two.


*EDIT* I've booked my transcontinental flight, my hotel, have plans in motion, my wife is going to Disneyland while I'm out there.....but if the missions go into play as is, I think I'm going to regret the trip. You've got four missions seriously broken, and slewed towards mechanized IG. They don't need more help.

Mission 2 isn't Slaughter Style KP's. Though deploying only transports is a concern that should be taken into consideration.

The 4 objective mission is already being reworked so that it's clearly stated that the objectives are placed after deployment.

And so far all I can see is 2 missions that need a little work Dash. What were the other 2 ?

::Edit::

On further thought I don't even see if the guard player starts all in reserve with his troop units and only puts out transports and other FOC slots as being that big a deal. It actually means I don't have to worry about vets w/melta's and plasma's eating units from the safety of their transports and it allows me to focus just on their other scorable units. Makes rushing a mech gun line easier since they won't have the extra shots from inside to eat those landraiders and battlewagons. Yes they can keep a few more units safe but so can most armies if they choose to go this route. I think this is more of a mountain out of a molehill situation. Some missions are going to slightly favor 1 of the 10+ codexes out there than others. This one happens to help guard while the 4 objective one hurts them just as badly.

Also since the 4 objective mission is being changed so that they are deployed after zones are determined I think a single player turn is actually the right way to go. Clearing a space in the enemy deployment zone is hard enough. Keeping units from driving back and contesting it will keep the number of ties down.

<-- Mech IG!!! BAM.. doh, there goes my comp score

Glad to hear they are fixing the 4 objective mission.. I will admit against some armies my list is an auto-win, through no fault of my opponent, if I go first. I would hate to be in that situation, even as an auto-win it really detracts from the gaming experience as either the winner or the loser. For those that ever played MTG its basically like the situation Flash Hulk decks created, and hence why some of the cards that enabled Flash Hulk were restricted. Flip a coin, heads, yay, I win.

@Absoluteblue

If someone doesn't bring enough anti-tank in the current environment knowing how prevalent and nasty Mech IG can be then I don't really blame the Mech IG guy. The only army I feel slightly bad about is Nid's if you go first. Everyone else has the tools to deal with mech guard. And Necrons are an auto-lose against a lot of lists out there so unless you hit a 3 monolith army Absolute that might be a walk too

Personal experience only though. Grain of salt and all that

Hulksmash wrote:@Absoluteblue

If someone doesn't bring enough anti-tank in the current environment knowing how prevalent and nasty Mech IG can be then I don't really blame the Mech IG guy. The only army I feel slightly bad about is Nid's if you go first. Everyone else has the tools to deal with mech guard. And Necrons are an auto-lose against a lot of lists out there so unless you hit a 3 monolith army Absolute that might be a walk too

Personal experience only though. Grain of salt and all that

Apparently not DE.

I think DE can work. But I prefer wych cult to kabal. I also like haywire grenades

My limited experience with DE was that it seemed to depend on mission. (and assumes a good DE list)

With regards to Necrons, of course now that you say that I will show up and get crushed by Necrons

@Dash-
The KP alive mission is not Slaugher KP (the last mission is the only one that uses Slaughter KP). We may be dropping the dedicated transport thing because of Blood Angels getting dedicated LRs, anyhow. Final decission will be rendered this wednesday and the scenario updates will be considered final at that time.

The sabotage the objective mission should have stated placing objectives after sides are chosen and it will require units to be disembarked out of transports to accomplish the sabotage. It is difficult for some armies to defend objectives, but you can assign multiple units to the task, since all you need to do is contest it to keep it from being popped.

But as it stands at least they don't count if they are alive or dead. If you start counting dedicated transports then it's an even bigger bonus for mech armies since they'll have 20+ units on the table.

Oh and you should edit mission 4 for placement of the objectives as well (i.e. after deployment zones are determined). And dedicated transports should count in this one since it'll actually make it so one missions it's good to have lots of transports and one mission that it's bad. Especially if you take the dedicated transports not counting out of the second mission.

My *apparently not DE* snipe was aimed at the assertion *everyone has the tools to handle mechanized IG except Necrons* comment.

I've decided that taking DE to the SoCal slaughter is probably a bad idea, despite how much I love them for three reasons.

1. I'm told that mechanized IG is a popular build in and around LA and the events in Cally.

2. The missions to me seem (or did seem) a bit unfairly skewed in the favor of mechanized IG players. Hulksmash tells me that some of them are being reworded and added rules going in...this should all help.

3. DE can't effectively answer mechanized IG. At 2,000 points my "take all comers" list has 15 dark lances, 8 blasters, and 9 disintegrator cannons. I could try building specifically to kill mechanized guard and give up my disintegrators (thereby gimping myself to a good extent against horde, tyranids, and space marines), but that would defeat the idea of a take-all-comers list. Even if I go first (and I use a nightmare doll to try stacking the odds), my 15 dark lances against all those AV12 chimeras / vendettas etc get an average of 4 glances on the first turn. I might blow up a chimera or a vendetta somewhere. And in return, a vast array of multi-lasers with as much range as I have, some added lascannons and autocannons, and probably a manticore and maybe some hydra flak cannons are going to absolutely annihilate my AV10 open-topped mess in return. Seems to happen pretty much every time. ><

Put those three things together, and you have an obvious rock to my scissors that is a popular build in the area around the GT, missions unfavorable to my scissors but favorable to that rock and the conclusion is that L.A. is instead going to be visited by the plague that is my Pink Waaaugh!

Dashofpepper wrote:
3. DE can't effectively answer mechanized IG. At 2,000 points my "take all comers" list has 15 dark lances, 8 blasters, and 9 disintegrator cannons. I could try building specifically to kill mechanized guard and give up my disintegrators (thereby gimping myself to a good extent against horde, tyranids, and space marines), but that would defeat the idea of a take-all-comers list. Even if I go first (and I use a nightmare doll to try stacking the odds), my 15 dark lances against all those AV12 chimeras / vendettas etc get an average of 4 glances on the first turn. I might blow up a chimera or a vendetta somewhere. And in return, a vast array of multi-lasers with as much range as I have, some added lascannons and autocannons, and probably a manticore and maybe some hydra flak cannons are going to absolutely annihilate my AV10 open-topped mess in return. Seems to happen pretty much every time.

Agreed. If your average is 4 glances/pens, then you got the best of averages against me (dead Chim, dead Vend, 2 Chims w/out MLs)...and we both remember what happened next

You need to have dedicated transports as kill points.

The reason why is that it is such a huge advantage to Mech Armies. It is hard to kill transports, and then you have to kill the guys inside of it to get one kill point? Razorback spam Space Wolves are a brutal army, and then when you try to kill the troops, they just hide behind some cover.

The other reason why is that some armies get to have things like Land Raiders as dedicated transports, and they are so hard to kill, and dish out a lot of damage, and then not have them as a kill point seems wrong.

Blackmoor wrote:You need to have dedicated transports as kill points.

The reason why is that it is such a huge advantage to Mech Armies. It is hard to kill transports, and then you have to kill the guys inside of it to get one kill point? Razorback spam Space Wolves are a brutal army, and then when you try to kill the troops, they just hide behind some cover.

The other reason why is that some armies get to have things like Land Raiders as dedicated transports, and they are so hard to kill, and dish out a lot of damage, and then not have them as a kill point seems wrong.

You're missing half the conversation, Allan - one of the missions goes to the player with the most KP left alive. So a mech Guard player would start with 28 or so KP, versus a Tyranid's 10....

Yeah, it's mission 4 where transports need to be KP's or at least count toward immobolized/destroyed units and mission 2(?) where it's a good idea to exclude them since it's reverse KP's.

I didn't realize we were following someone at all when we decided to give Vegas tix to the best general.

I assumed every tournament was doing this, but it was an independent decision. There aren't any leaders or followers in the indy tourney circuit, or at least I hope there aren't.

Random,
- Mike B, NOVA Open TO

Didn't mean it like you were a follower. More that more of the circuit is moving in that direction MVB. I'm glad the practice is spreading either thru independent decision, feedback, or seeing how other people are doing it.

Hulksmash wrote:Yeah, it's mission 4 where transports need to be KP's or at least count toward immobolized/destroyed units and mission 2(?) where it's a good idea to exclude them since it's reverse KP's.

Blackmoor's objection is still sound.

If a space wolf player has 9 razorbacks and 9 additional units for those razorbacks.....


In regular killpoints (excluding transports) you have to break your way through 9 razorbacks which don't count for killpoints to get to the nine units inside.

In reverse killpoints (excluding transports) you have to break your way through 9 razorbacks which don't count for killpoints to get to the nine units inside.


There's no difference - only the units inside count for anything, and you have to break your way through an armored shell to kill what's inside. Except in reverse killpoints, breaking through the armored shell doesn't give you any value. I'm being perfectly honest - MSU armies and fully meched up IG/SW/Mechdar DO NOT NEED MORE HELP!!!

These missions are giving it to them. Some changes were supposed to come out today to make them a bit less abusive, but stuff like this is taking the two best codexes in the game, and customizing a GT entirely to their benefit. I'm serious, I'm already not taking the army I wanted to because the GT is structured to benefit the single army out there (mech IG) most capable of killing me, and my reserve army (Orks) is at a disadvantage in my eyes because my lack of reliable ranged anti-tank is being exploited in the foundation of this GT's design.

See the threads wondering why there weren't any orks or Tyranids at Adepticon? I think you're going to see a repeat, where 50%+ of all your lists are mechanized IG or mechanized razorback spam, with 30% of the rest being other marine players who couldn't afford that many vehicles, and a smattering of Xenox. And these overpowered codexes now have a tournament full of missions designed to benefit them.

Nice.

I'm still coming. =p But its my right to whine when I see something unfair.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Black Blow Fly wrote:Danny I would like to hear your opinion how should golden tickets be awarded. Should it go to which category? Also how should ties be decided for battle points?

G

I'd venture an answer here:

The two golden tickets should be to the two highest scoring players of course. We're talking about a tournament here; a competitive event where people go to fight each others' armies - a golden ticket to a bigger competition should go to the top two competition winners.

Sportsmanship, painting, favorite player - those are secondary categories.

Perhaps painting could have its own two golden tickets - and the two winners are allowed to attend a golden daemon competition. I don't think qualifying as "not a jerk" really needs any special advancement.

-----------------------
In terms of tie-breakers - if a tournament scores battlepoints on a 20-30 point scale with bonus points and difficult enough objectives that actually accomplishing the whole thing (I look at Adepticon scenarios) is exquisitely difficult...there shouldn't be ties. And you can log victory points if need be just in case.

I just wanted to say this:


The Las Vegas GT is presumably going to be run like all previous Games Workshop GTs before it, having an overall champion that is determined by a combined score of battle, sportsmanship, painting, etc, so I don't think it is inappropriate at all to have qualifying events use a similar standard.

The other thing that I would like to say is that it seems to me like many people are considering tickets to the Vegas GT like some kind of fantastic awards that needs to be highly regulated to ensure fairness. The fact is, these are just an invitation to play in another tournament that you have to pay to travel to and attend. The truth is, GW could have easily set a 'standardized' set of rules/missions for tournaments that wished to provide golden tickets as a prize, but they have chosen not to.

It could simply be laziness that motivated this choice or it could be the fact that they recognize that having a nice wide variety in the types of tournaments that players have a choice to attend (or not) is something that is *good* for the hobby rather than something that is bad.

Every tournament organizer is allowed to run the tournament the way they want to and you as the player have to decide if you like their tournament rules enough to plunk your hard-earned money down to play in it. If your *only* goal in a tournament is to win it and get the Vegas ticket I can understand why you'd be frustrated by a tournament that has substantial scoring in it that you can't directly control, but this is the nature of the tournament system that Games Workshop has allowed to exist this year, so holding it against tournament organizers is frankly just silly.

Don't play in the tournaments that you don't like the rules for and play in the tournaments that you do...any other alternative is just going to make you angry.


And back on point with the so-cal slaughter: Blackmoor and Janthkin have been badgering me to go because, lord knows, I do need more 40K games played outside of Adepticon once a year. But 2,000 points? I really dislike larger point games in tournaments. I know you have healthy 2 1/2 hour rounds, but still...I just don't know if I can bring myself to do it!

Hulksmash wrote:Didn't mean it like you were a follower. More that more of the circuit is moving in that direction MVB. I'm glad the practice is spreading either thru independent decision, feedback, or seeing how other people are doing it.

No worries - there wasn't any bristle in my post, just idle commentary.

yakface wrote:And back on point with the so-cal slaughter: Blackmoor and Janthkin have been badgering me to go because, lord knows, I do need more 40K games played outside of Adepticon once a year. But 2,000 points? I really dislike larger point games in tournaments. I know you have healthy 2 1/2 hour rounds, but still...I just don't know if I can bring myself to do it!

You can do it! We have FAITH!

Just bring the Tau; they look good, and they play fast.

You've done it before Yakface. Come one out and get in a good weekend of gaming. It's not like it's to far from where you live

Yakface is afraid of my pink orks. That's all.

Dashofpepper wrote:Yakface is afraid of my pink orks. That's all.

everyone should be afraid of pink orks

Hulksmash isn't afraid of the pink orks.

I try educating him, and he beats on them. :(

But everyone else...fear the pink!!

Wait Dash, are you bringing the orks now? I thought you were bringing the DE?

(Still trying to figure out a way to get his DE down to Santa Monica without having to re glue 7 raiders and 3 ravagers)

Bahkara wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Yakface is afraid of my pink orks. That's all.

everyone should be afraid of pink orks

So, you are going to finally make an appearance, or did Chris Hansen finally catch you?

Bahkara wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Yakface is afraid of my pink orks. That's all.

everyone should be afraid of pink orks

Pink orks will destroy you all

Blackmoor wrote:

Bahkara wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Yakface is afraid of my pink orks. That's all.

everyone should be afraid of pink orks

So, you are going to finally make an appearance, or did Chris Hansen finally catch you?

lol, i need an army first. Right now i'm more interested in historicals (napoleonics). If i make a comeback it will most likely be with CSM

asugradinwa wrote:Wait Dash, are you bringing the orks now? I thought you were bringing the DE?

(Still trying to figure out a way to get his DE down to Santa Monica without having to re glue 7 raiders and 3 ravagers)

I'll have raiders and ravagers you can borrow if you'll make some assurances. =p

And I thought I just waxed long and hard about why I'm not bringing DE.

1. DE cannot answer Mechanized IG.

2. There are many mechanized IG players (very good ones I'm told) around the L.A area.

3. The missions for this GT are skewed to support and reward mechanized IG players.

4. The unbalanced missions will make more players take mechanized IG to exploit the missions to their benefit.

If I thought that one in three players wasn't going to play mechanized IG, or that I wouldn't face them 2 or 3 games out of 5, I'd take my Dark Eldar. As it is, there is no way in HELL I'm going to to beat my head against a wall skewed against my success against the army mine is least capable of fighting.

So....the Pink Waaaugh! is flying to California. I think its wrong to reward people for taking MSUs and maximized transport lists by making the destruction of those vehicles not cost them killpoints. Those kind of lists don't need encouragement because they are extremely powerful as it is, and having an entire GT focused on rewarding that.....*shrugs helplessly*

Like I said; I booked my flight from NC to CA and the hotel before the scenarios came out; before I head to Bolter Beach or Mechanicon or any other GT, I'll make sure to research the event and bounce them off of other people. I really wanted to take my DE to LA for their first GT experience - they're good against most armies if I general well, but simply can't answer fully meched up IG in a fair fight, and the scenarios are unbalanced enough to make sure it isn't even a fair fight.

Yes, I'm bitter. ><

So....

WAAAAUGH!

I doubt there are going be 33% Mech IG armies there. And I seriously doubt you'll see them 3/5 games. But you bring the list you feel you'll do best with. Personally I don't think the missions are as skewed as you do but everyone can read something different

I have mech guard that I'm not gonna take because they aren't as balanced. I also considered my orks but I don't have the time to repaint them to the standard I'd like to take to a GT so they're out too

Could you be more clear on how the missions are skewed to benefit mech IG? Not saying you're wrong, just saying I don't get it.

Misson 2,3, and 5 have objectives related to kill points.

Mission 2 - reverse kill points, where keeping units alive is what matters. Dedicated transports don't count for this (so they all count as dead from the start basically). This seems like a minus for IG, though you will still want to kill the transports to get to the stuff inside.

Mission 4 - reduce units to half strength, HQ and dedicated transports excluded. This definitely favors a lot of hiding in transports, but I'm not sure how that is different for ravager/raider DE.

Mission 5 - slaughter style kill points. Since pretty much every dedicated transport is well south of 100 points, this seems like a negative for mech guard and SW, but probably in the end it is a wash for most armies.

lambadomy wrote:
Mission 4 - reduce units to half strength, HQ and dedicated transports excluded. This definitely favors a lot of hiding in transports, but I'm not sure how that is different for ravager/raider DE.

Because Chimeras kill Raiders at about a 3.16:1 ratio?

Sure, but that is just an argument against playing DE because they struggle against IG, not because of the mission. You have the exact same problem with or without those mission rules.

I completely agree that if you expect a lot of Mech IG that DE are probably not the best idea. I just am not sure the missions favor Mech IG in some unfair way.

I'm really just looking for more information since it will help me figure out my own army choice. Not a big deal really.

lambadomy wrote:Sure, but that is just an argument against playing DE because they struggle against IG, not because of the mission. You have the exact same problem with or without those mission rules.

I completely agree that if you expect a lot of Mech IG that DE are probably not the best idea. I just am not sure the missions favor Mech IG in some unfair way.

I'm really just looking for more information since it will help me figure out my own army choice. Not a big deal really.

The simplest answer is that the missions are designed to be EXTREMELY rewarding to heavily mechanized lists. IG can exploit that the most....meaning that mech IG are best positioned to win the GT based on the missions. All those transports don't count as killpoints, and to get killpoints, you have to kill the transports to get the stuff inside, which have no reason to ever come out.

Thus DE are out. DE can't answer mech IG anyway....and every player who can beg, borrow, or steal the models to bring a mech IG army should, because they've got an unfair advantage in this GT.

Oh hai. I have 24 units on the board. But 13 of them aren't killpoints. And you can't get to the other 11 killpoints without killing those 13 killpoints, ha.

Game1: Just fine. Strange deployment, but cool mission.

Game2: Obscene. Whoever has the most killpoints alive wins, and dedicated transports don't count. But....who else but mech IG with AV12 and dangerous guns with enough hatch space to let all the meltas and everything else inside shoot out? So you have to break through all that AV12 that benefits you not at all to get to the stuff inside to kill. So you can't ignore the transports, and killing them counts for nothing. Every mech IG player in the tournament basically should be getting almost an auto-pass here.

Game3: Broken, but enough whining has resulted in an apparent change that will go into effect in the next week. Two objectives per player, with the primary being to destroy your enemy objectives. This mission is/was set up so that you place objectives out in the middle before deploying, and having an infantry model touching one destroys it, meaning that scout vendettas carrying units can flat out scout move onto an objective, deploy, and win the primary objectives on turn1, and Emperor's Tarot makes it more than likely. If the same whining will fix mission 2, I'll keep at it...mechanized armies are powerful; some extremely powerful...the only thing even attempting to keep MSU and vehicle spam in check is them counting as killpoints, which has conveniently been removed.

Game4: Obscene. Whoever reduces the most units to half strength or immobilizes the most vehicles wins. Dedicated transports don't count again. So back to mech IG - immobilizing all those dedicated transports counts for bunk. But you have to deal with them to get to the MSUs inside. No other army (although SW mech/razorback spam comes close) can abuse this as much. All the armies that don't have 8-15 dedicated transports that also pack SERIOUS FIREPOWER are disadvantaged for a third game. And Mech IG can exploit it the best.

Game5: Just fine. Slaughter style killpoints, but not unbalanced or not including half of peoples' armies.

So 2/5 games are good, one of the remaining three is in the middle of getting fixed (I won't gripe about Emperor's Tarot + scouting vendettas here)....

Leaving us a distinct 2/5 games absolutely, atrociously skewed in favor of one army (maybe two).

If I don't play Mech IG (or mech space wolves) during game 2 or game 4, I'll have no gripe, but I'll feel bad for anyone who has to. If missions are going to get broken so badly to help one army, how about helping out assault based armies and making one game that's completely nightfight? One DoW mission with a modified deployment to put everything on the board....that's cool. But then in game5, DoW starts on turn5...which helps no one, and doesn't even really gimp mechdar, who are busy moving flat out onto objectives and can't shoot anyway.

Honestly, this mission BENEFITS mechdar - the turn they're going to pull their cheese, you have to nightfight against them.

Why not just put in the rules packet, "Armies that are not fully painted, fully based, and fully mechanized not allowed. Mechanized IG get +10 points towards tournament point totals.

*bitter*

Yes, I'm bitter. I'm still going, I'm still traveling 2500 miles to get there, I'm still going to have a blast - I'm going to be drunk, and I probably won't remember any of it, hopefully I'll remember to take pictures. I just think that there *is* an unfair skew towards one type of army building, which one particular codex does better than all others. I don't like unfairness or imbalance regardless of who it benefits, but when it specifically hurts me I like it even less.

You do manage to leave out the fact that Game 1 and 3 are going to be very hard to a Mech IG to pull a high scoring win if they can pull one at all. You also leave out that mission 5 hurts MSU/Mech IG almost as much as you claim that 2 and 4 do.

Don't forget that 5th edition is the mech edition. All armies that can mech up probably should. And I'd like to point out that a bunch of bs3 st6 poop ap shots aren't really that scary to most armies (read anyone except dark eldar). Each of those serious firepower users are going to kill 1 MEQ or 2-3 horde models (Tyrannids/Orks) if they are armed with heavy bolters, stubbers and multilasers. Vendettas are scarier but also almost 3x as much as a chimera and would count both the missions you mentioned. Do Dark Eldar suffer in this edition? Yes, because people take a lot of vehicles and they are harder to destroy and cheaper than any other edition. This is just something they have to deal with until a new codex is released and they up frontal armor away from paper airplane status.

Personally I think you put to much stock in certain people you play on vassal. Vassal has issues with LOS which is what is used to mitigate parking lot armies. There will be a fair amount of LOS blocking terrain (4 good sized pieces) on top of the standard forests/walls/fences style terrain.

I can tell you that looking at these missions I wouldn't want to play mech guard personally. I don't believe for a minute that they can clear off an objective in the enemy deployment zone to destroy it (this mission by the way would be skewed toward assault armies like you asked for). Same with mission 1 which has while a little easier for guard still hurts because of DoW which really hurts guards heavy firepower.

Basically build an army you think can do it all, play to your strengths, and don't sweat so much what other people will bring. Can your army sweep another army off objectives? Can you crack armor? Does your army have less than 24 Slaughter KP's? If the answer is yes to all of these then you'll do just fine overall.

Oh and on a side note because I find it funny to give a heads up. I'd be more worried about being able to kill 24 Bloodcrushers Cause if your winning all of your games you might get to see this list.

Hulksmash wrote:Dash, you're a whiny turd.

Well, sometimes you just need to whine.

And if there are two missions that negatively impact parking lots, there's two missions that positively impact them....I just want balance damnit!

Although if there's a good bit of LOS blocking terrain, that helps balance it out, but if the IG can't see my DE, my DE can't see them either....and I think mission 1 can be mitigated by IG by a couple of outflanking vendettas.

You do manage to leave out the fact that Game 1 and 3 are going to be very hard to a Mech IG to pull a high scoring win if they can pull one at all. You also leave out that mission 5 hurts MSU/Mech IG almost as much as you claim that 2 and 4 do.

What are you talking about? Mission 3 is possibly the easiest mission for mech IG to dominate because if they get first turn they can alpha strike on to both enemy objectives and blow them with satchel charges using Vendettas. This immediately scores 14 out of 20 possible points for the scenario and denies their opponent 6 points.

Even if this was the case it still doesn't alleviate the problem. If the scenarios are so lopsided then, as Dash pointed out, winning can be largely due to the luck of the draw with respect to pairings. Poorly designed missions with clear favoritism towards one type of build or the other just make things more rocks-paper-scissors and less a battle of strategy or tactics.

@Danny

You must have missed the part where that mission is changing to put placing the objectives after deployment zones are chosen which means they won't be able to alpha strike them.

And I hate to break it to you Danny but even the scenarios out of the book are lopsided for certain armies playing each other. With the multitude of codexes with the multitudes of builds your never going to see truly balanced missions for everyone. The only way to do what you seem to want Danny would be for everyone to play a single army list. Then it's mostly tactics and strategy with no impact from luck of the draw.

@Dash

Your not a whiney turd. I just like to point out the sky isn't falling Your just as entitled to your opinion on how the scenarios might effect one of your armies as I am to mine. I just wanted to show you how I saw it.

Where is it confirmed that this change is being made? The website affiliated with the tournament still features the original mission. The change would definitely be for the better, but I still don't see how this mission is impossible or even hard for mech IG (or mech anything) to win.

And I hate to break it to you, Hulk, but most players routinely play missions from the rulebook and build their armies based on these missions. Killpoints are expected and accounted for as are objective missions. The metagame and arguably even the codex design revolves around these core mission types and associated rules (such as the method in which scoring units capture objectives).

I understand luck is part of the game so please don't purposely misrepresent my argument and pretend I want everyone to play the same army. Rhetorical tactics like this are beneath you. I simply think luck should be minimized wherever possible. This tournament does the opposite.

It's been confirmed by Phazael several pages back when he also said that the final version should be up this week.

I was actually pointing out Danny that even the core missions are skewed individually toward certain lists builds. I don't doubt that all codexes are built around those missions and concepts found in the rulebook but my point was still that certain missions favor certain builds.

So from that above it's not to hard to move to the conclusion that it's still going to be a matter of luck of the draw in a tournament. If your running mech guard and run into that guy that brings 8 KP's then luck and pairings just hosed you. If your playing Seize Ground against Guard with that low KP army you've just got hosed based on pairing. That was my point. You have to look at the tournament missions as a whole.

I wasn't misinterpreting your arguement Danny. I was pointing out that to get the results and balance you seem to want that this is the direction you would have to go. It's a logical progression from your arguement.

Actually I play mech IG and kill points missions are usually easy wins regardless of match-up for a variety of reasons, but that's not really the point.

I was pointing out that to get the results and balance you seem to want that this is the direction you would have to go. It's a logical progression from your arguement.

Only if you make the (incorrect) assumption that I believe luck has no place in the game of Warhammer or in competition in general, hence why we have that old familiar saying about making assumptions.

My point is that luck should be minimized by either using rulebook scenarios (with the accepted baseline level of luck built in) or constructing new analogous scenarios that don't obviously favor one build or another. Instead, the TO chose to create some wacky missions that have the potential to reduce many games to rocks-paper-scissors. This is a bad thing from a competitive perspective. Poor scenario design like this is a major source of ire from those of us who enjoy competitive gaming.

Hulksmash wrote:
Oh and on a side note because I find it funny to give a heads up. I'd be more worried about being able to kill 24 Bloodcrushers Cause if your winning all of your games you might get to see this list.

This is why I hate theme/comp in tournaments. You end up making a weak, watered down version of your army to be fluffy, and then you go up against Touraj's Bloodcrusher army of death, or anyone else that is ignoring the comp score to crush everyone.

He ignores comp but his army is truly fluffy

Some armies fluff is powerful while others is not. Comp is 30 points out off 200. Comp is a 6 point per game checklist that combined with a 6 point sports checklist all but 1 person last year scored a 11/12 every game. Don't worry about the comp so much. Bring what you want to play and normally you'll do alright.

Scenarios have been updated. Link should be the same on the first page. Main changes are:

-Deploy objectives after deployment zones are determined on mission 3

-Dedicated transports now count toward number of immobolized/under 1/2 strength units.

So basically there is an objective mission. Modified Capture and Control. Reverse KP's. KP's. and Modified KP's similar to VP's combined with table quarter holding.

Hulksmash wrote:Scenarios have been updated. Link should be the same on the first page. Main changes are:

-Deploy objectives after deployment zones are determined on mission 3

-Dedicated transports now count toward number of immobolized/under 1/2 strength units.

So basically there is an objective mission. Modified Capture and Control. Reverse KP's. KP's. and Modified KP's similar to VP's combined with table quarter holding.

Woot. 2/3 missions fixed.

Now just to get mission two fixed, where a mechanized guard list can lose 50%+ of the units ad points in their list without it impacting their killpoints in any way. If you're going to do this, I REALLY think that the dedicated transport and the unit inside should count as a full killpoint, such that if the dedicated transport is killed, the unit only counts for 0.5 killpoints left on the table.

It is simply unfair to let one or two armies from the most powerful codexes whose most powerful builds fit precisely into exploitation of this mission to be able to do this.

So I think my wife points expired with Adepticon and I don't think I'm gonna make it down to Slaughter in Space.

You will have to find another person to score max battle points from.

Am I missing something on mission 2?

If they changed mission 2 so that dedicated transports counted, that would only help guard.

The way I read it, right now, if a mech guard vets list had, say, 15 kill points and 6 of those are dedicated transports, the max the guard player could score would be 9 (9 kill points alive). They just count as "dead" automatically. Yes, you'd not get a lot for killing the transports, but only because you already got those points from the start.

Of course, this mission is still designed to *help* high kill point armies, and screw low kill point armies, which I don't really get - isn't the point of kill points to try to prevent MSU and mech spam, or at least make it a disadvantage sometimes? I can't wait to play a foot guard or marine army and watch them split up all their squads just to get extra kill points to score with.

lambadomy wrote:Am I missing something on mission 2?

If they changed mission 2 so that dedicated transports counted, that would only help guard.

The way I read it, right now, if a mech guard vets list had, say, 15 kill points and 6 of those are dedicated transports, the max the guard player could score would be 9 (9 kill points alive). They just count as "dead" automatically. Yes, you'd not get a lot for killing the transports, but only because you already got those points from the start.

Of course, this mission is still designed to *help* high kill point armies, and screw low kill point armies, which I don't really get - isn't the point of kill points to try to prevent MSU and mech spam, or at least make it a disadvantage sometimes? I can't wait to play a foot guard or marine army and watch them split up all their squads just to get extra kill points to score with.

You're missing something.

Not sure how I haven't made this clear over multiple posts, but I'll try elaborating clearly.


1. Presume that a mechanized guard army has 8 dedicated transports and 3 non-dedicated transports (Vendettas) and other random manticore/hydra/etc.

2. Those 8 chimeras (and please don't anyone argue with me about the reasonableness of 8; 5-7 if you prefer. contain killpoints.

3. You can't access those killpoints until the chimeras are dead.

4. Killing the chimeras rewards you with nothing. Doesn't matter that them living doesn't reward the mech IG player - the multilasers and hull heavy bolters and the AV12 front armored platform that provides a hideout for meltas and plasma to shoot from in safety until their transport gets wrecked is reward enough for the mech IG player.

5. So for this mission, the IG opponent is going to have to spend the same amount of firepower and assault power to disembark all those vet squads / IG squads / stormtroopers / whatever. And all the effort involved with trying to kill up to 25% of the enemy army doesn't count for anything.

My point is that mechanized IG and mechanized spacewolf (Overdrive, or Razorback spam) are potentially the two most powerful codexes and builds within those codexes in existence in 40k at the moment. Building the most powerful freakin' list possible is only offset by threatening players who abuse MSUs in killpoint missions. Taking 20-24 killpoints is meaningful. Giving these two immensely powerful mechanized armies a free pass on exploiting what they do best - removing the only negative side-effect of them doing it, that they have a lot of killpoints in a killpoint mission....

That's simply wrong, abusive, unfair, and ridiculous. Its an incredibly EASY fix too.

Whoever has the most killpoints alive at the end of the game wins the primary objective. Surviving dedicated transports don't count towards your surviving killpoints. Destroyed dedicated transports count for -0.5 or -1 killpoint towards your surviving killpoints.

Alternatively: Whoever has the most killpoints alive at the end of the game wins the primary objective. Units with dedicated transports each count for half of that FoC's killpoint. If both the transport and the unit that took it are alive, you have one surviving killpoint. If the transport or the unit is killed, you have 0.5 killpoints surviving.

It's not broken. It fits the scheme.

Mission 1: Seize Ground (slightly modfied)
Mission 2: Reverse KP's (Helps mech armies mildly)
Mission 3: Modified Capture and Control (designed for less ties)
Mission 4: KP's but with the proviso that below half or immobolized count to which makes it even harder on MSU armies
Mission 5: Slaughter Style KP's which will hurt MSU more than standard armies.

So I'm seeing 2 missions (4,5) that hurt MSU/Mech Armies. A different mission that mech are going to have a hell of a time pulling a win (3). A DoW mission that will limit alpha strike armies (1). And a mission that favors meched armies. Yep, IG's got the advantage here

It's actually a pretty balanced set-up in my opinion but to each their own.

And we'll miss ya Ozy. Maybe next year

Wait, now they changed 4 to "you have to reduce ALL of your enemy units to below half" instead of whoever does the most. Doesn't this cause the same problem, forcing you to kill transports (Guard will just hide, even in immobilized transports). It isn't a kill point mission when you have to get ALL of the kill points to do anything. I'm not sure this is really harder on Mech.

Right now, all of the kill point missions either do nothing, or do the opposite of what kill points intend - give an army with MSUs a disadvantage since they have an advantage in objective missions.

lambadomy wrote:Wait, now they changed 4 to "you have to reduce ALL of your enemy units to below half" instead of whoever does the most. Doesn't this cause the same problem, forcing you to kill transports (Guard will just hide, even in immobilized transports). It isn't a kill point mission when you have to get ALL of the kill points to do anything. Ugh.

Hopefully that's a horrible mistake.

Missions 2 and 4 have been the focus this last week of playtesting and I specifically ran mech guard and mech sisters with the scenarios. Here are the results:

Scenario 2-
My Mech IG vs All around DA - Tie
My Mech IG vs footy SWolves - Tie (should have lost)
My Mech SoB vs same DA - Win (15 BP tabled him)

Scenario 4-
My Mech IG vs Foot IG - Loss
My Mech SOB vs same DA - Win (17? BP tabled him again)
My Mech SoB vs Swarm Nids - Loss (too much attrition)

From talking to others who have played the scenarios, it seems that really the second scenario slightly favors mechanized lists, but not overtly. Our concern was having a variety of missions with different goals, rather than "metagame" our scenarios against what we though would be the likely field. There is enough random objective grabbing mixed with other bonuses to make it hard for even the balls out hardest mech lists to rack up 20s in BPs every round. Again, this is the intent.

Really trying to design missions so that Razorspam/meltavet spam does not fare as well is tantamount to army prejudice, and generally impossible to do, anyhow. The comp pairings will pit those people against each other in the first two rounds, anyhow, which should (has in the past) leveled things, a bit. Simply put, if your list cannot handle transport spam to some degree, you probably should not expect to fair extremely well (in BPs) in most tournaments, so its pointless to skew scenarios against these builds. Its up to the players to comp these sorts of lists correctly and up to the organizers (Scott and myself) to make sure no chipmunking is going on.

And on that note, cue the Danny Internets nerd rage in 5, 4, 3, 2,.......


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dashofpepper wrote:

lambadomy wrote:Wait, now they changed 4 to "you have to reduce ALL of your enemy units to below half" instead of whoever does the most. Doesn't this cause the same problem, forcing you to kill transports (Guard will just hide, even in immobilized transports). It isn't a kill point mission when you have to get ALL of the kill points to do anything. Ugh.

Hopefully that's a horrible mistake.

Might be, didn't notice the change when scott handed me the last update. I will talk to him tonight about it. I will get back to you after I discuss it with him.

Yeah thanks. I was able to travel to Adepticon half-way across the country, but a few hours south for a weekend and it's a no go...

Honestly, scenario 4 is the one that makes my dick itch the most too, but Scott is very passionate about running it in some form. Let me see if Hulk and I can talk him into something less brutal. I know his thought process on it is a KP mission where single man marine units not giving up KP is countered, but I think the whole 12+ chimera/Immospam army effect on this scenario has not occured to him, fully. In all fairness, Hulk is the only guy (other than Blackmoore when he lived here) that runs that sort of an army lately in the LA area. LA is generally a hybrid foot/mech town.

Yeah, I have no problem with mission 4 if it is just kill points, with half strength counting as a kill point. That isn't really a boon to mech, and also requires slightly different strategy than regular killpoints. It sounds interesting and is fine. But forcing you to get ALL the kill points just says "hey, you got a lot of units? Hope you can hide just one for 5 turns!" Making kill points less of a boon to armies that show up with 7 kill points is fine, but having it turn around and make having more of them actually be a bonus when it is normally a handicap twice in the tourney seems weird.

I will say that your play testing does tell me one thing....don't play DA

@Phazael

There were a lot of fully meched armies at the Bash just as a heads up Q.

@OT

Yeah the 4th mission is now the only one I truly have an issue with. I didn't notice that he'd changed the wording back to "all" instead of "the most" when I originally posted. Hopefully we can get this fixed as it is the single glaring mission issue I see and absolute grounds for an auto-tie.

Heck I'll keep a single unit in reserve and force a tie. I have enough units that this isn't even an issue.

Hopefully we can get this fixed.

I am going to be there tonight to put the final packets to print. I will do what is nessecary to put that scenario into a more workable state, instead of the auto-tie it presently is.

As an aside, how many of those meched armies were Razorspam or Chimeraspam? Maybe I am not seeing the same things, but most of the RTTs I have been going to lately I (or you) have been the only really meched up people there.

There were around 4 Razorspam armies including mine and about 5-8 fully meched guard armies (i.e. 8+ AV12+ vehicles). So around 25% of the field was light armor spam. Add in the Marine players in LR/Rhino mech armies, meched eldar, and orks and it jumped to over 50%. I was actually impressed at the number of meched armies that showed up.

<rage>

Mmm, the dangers of trying to "balance" the meta game. For any amateur game designers out there wanting to go pro, look at this for how to NOT design missions Sorry to poke at the mission creators here, but I seriously question the practice of how these missions were created, the implied style through which they are being adjusted, and the perceived last minute changes and "uncontrolled" playtesting.

Again, I am going to have fun regardless, since the missions are only part of the fun for me and just hanging out with fellow 40kers trumps that on the fun scale, but this sort of mission design is sad.

I know I am being meaner than usual and maybe its over the top, so apologies for that I just wanted to voice my own temporary "rage" at the conception of these and other tourney custom missions.

</rage>

I'm not saying that you should write missions that negatively impact mechanized lists....I'm just asking that you not put in missions that are slanted towards their success. neither pro nor anti-mech missions are balanced; they should be neutral.

And one of those missions is clearly pro-mechanized, specifically best for mechanized IG.

I hate to break it to you Dash but 2/3 scenarios in the main rulebook are slanted toward mechanized. It's why 5th is called the Mechanized Edition by a lot of people.

Basically no mission will ever be totally neutral. Even the book missions are slanted so all you can really hope for is a spread across the tourney of missions that balance it out. And this will have that as long as they fix mission 4 and take out the auto-tie.

Again this list only applies if they fix mission 4. I'll write them as they effect your personally hated army. The Mech IG

Mission 1: Modified Seize and Control w/DoW (Hurts mech IG because most of their anti-vehicle weapons won't be able to fire turn 1) And they are going to have to take the center objective which isn't a good thing with all the assault based armies that can get there under cover of night and camp it.

Mission 2: Reverse KP's that don't include dedicated transports. It's different and does slightly favor meching up. But the edition does this. It's a neat twist and it's a good thing they didn't count transports or it would be horrible slanted.

Mission 3: Capture and Control modified to make it less likely to result in a tie. A good mission that will create a nice spread at the end of day 1.

Mission 4: KP's. Hurts mech even more because now all you have to do is immobolize it to get the point for it. That's a 17% increase to score a KP on a vehicle compared to standard. Definitely painful for light mech armies.

Mission 5: Modified KP's which light mech spam will be easier to collect points from. Lots of smaller lighter units result in faster accumulation of points. Mech IG fast attack and heavy support would be worth 12 KP's all by themselves (assuming no squadrons). And that isn't that hard to get on AV12 front, AV10 sides. This mission does favor deathstar units a little bit since they are more durable but KP missions do this.

Missions will always favor a specific build. To many builds to account for and even the rule book favors certain builds. Hence making it as smooth as you can across 5 games which they will do assuming they fix mission 4. If not I forsee a lot of $#@!$ing about mission 4 at the tourney and after it.

AbsoluteBlue wrote:<rage>

Mmm, the dangers of trying to "balance" the meta game. For any amateur game designers out there wanting to go pro, look at this for how to NOT design missions Sorry to poke at the mission creators here, but I seriously question the practice of how these missions were created, the implied style through which they are being adjusted, and the perceived last minute changes and "uncontrolled" playtesting.

Again, I am going to have fun regardless, since the missions are only part of the fun for me and just hanging out with fellow 40kers trumps that on the fun scale, but this sort of mission design is sad.

I know I am being meaner than usual and maybe its over the top, so apologies for that I just wanted to voice my own temporary "rage" at the conception of these and other tourney custom missions.

</rage>

Your concerns are valid and I would have preffered a more controlled playtest than what has been done to this point, but we took over our club and had a limited amount of time to handle things relating to this GT, most of which was spent on getting terrain up to snuff and getting a venue (problems we inherrited as a direct result of the changing of the guard). The aim was to try and not hammer any one playstyle too much. I am personally happy with all of the scenarios except the 4th one, which we will be discussing in great detail when our committee meets tonight. Scott is ultimately in charge of the 40k side of the league (I am primarily the fantasy guy), so I try not to piss on his lawn. He really is passionate about doing the 4th mission in some shape or form, or it would have probably been dumped by now. The only mission that was mine is the third one, so there is where my bias lies. Honestly, designing and refining missions is one of the most difficult and frustrating parts of the process, since someone always gets irritated. I guess in encouraging Scott to use non-book missions with the limited time we had, the fault lies mostly with me on this one.

All things considered, with how last minute a lot of this has been, I will be thrilled if we get it done without incident. We are going into this pretty much knowing we are losing money, but with an eye towards building toward the future, hence the venue we selected. By all means flag me down and talk to me at the Slaughter. I'll be the fat guy with bleached hair running the Fantasy events with a magaritta in his hand.

@Phazael - So you're the one! Understood, I am nit picking at this point and I will always have my list of complaints.. sportsmanship, comp, custom missions, etc. but at the end of the day its all good The fact that people are independently putting these together in the first place is awesome and kudos as I know putting together any event of this scale is "work" and making even some people happy is a challenge .. I will continue to whine of course, but its really about me voicing my preferred set up, otherwise TOs wouldn't know... and then I also know they aren't there to make me (only me) happy, but I am in the hobby for a lot of reasons and even if I don't always get my way, there will be ton of other awesomeness at the event for me to partake in, meeting more people, seeing great looking armies, playing against armies I never played against, or rarely play against (than means I hopefully won't play any ork or ig armies, fingers crossed though doubtful), and rolling dice. I am sure every one of these is a learning experience too.

So I talked to Phazael tonight and mission 4 is changing to:

3 BP's for every slot, excluding HQ, where you destroy or reduce to half/immobolize all slot entries (for a total of 12 points). If both sides accomplish this in for example the elites slot then both players would recieve 2 points instead of 3 (like a tie). If the slot is empty at the start of the game (i.e. guard that don't bring elites) then you get the credit for eliminating the slot.

Transports will count toward the slot they were bought for. Ex. A termi squad that takes a landraider as a dedicated transport means that the landraider counts toward the elite slot.

I'm pretty sure he said the secondary and bonus would remain the same.

This means that mission 4 will create a nice solid spread for points going into the final round.

Overall I'm happy with the change. Focus on the easiest slot to get the points and move on. Much better than having to eliminate all enemy units and it also hurts mech IG since your only out 3 points if you don't kill/halve all the troop choices.

Hulksmash, I actually don't understand. :(

Three battlepoints for every slot. Excluding HQ, where.....all slot entries (for a total of 12 points).

FoC slot? Because there are 17 FoC slots. I don't know where 12 comes from. If you take out HQ, then there's 15. If all 15 of those slots were worth a potential 3 BP apiece, that would be 45 points. I'm confused. :(

Or is it that there are 3 battle points possible for each section of the FoC? 3 for elite, 3 for heavy, 3 for fast, 3 for troops?

And if that's the case, how do the troop choices work? With six troop choices and 6 dedicated transports, what is required to get 3 points?

Sorry I should have been more clear. It's 3 BP's per type of section. I.E. 3 for all elites, 3 for all FA, 3 for all HS.

For troops you'd have to kill/halve or destroy/immobolize all the transports and units. Making the troops the hardest points to get.

Hope that helps

Its 3 points per catagory (1 for HQ, seperately) but only 2 if both sides achieve it. If the opponent lacks any such units, then both players get 2 points. To claim it, everything in the respective catagory has to be either at half strength or immobilized. We made reserves start a turn earlier to limit the reservehammer impact on the mission, as well. This should work to spread the pack on game four, as there is a lot of room for point spread in it.

On a side note, if you have not emailed tiv@cox.net your name and list, please do so. We would like to limit the number of "sharpie" nametags we use.

I'm in.

Now I just have to get a list together and emailed in a day!

@Absolute-
Naw, its all good. Your "whines" were actually very constructive and reasonable. That sort of feedback is always helpful.

We'll see you there Yak

Aww....I must have had bad whining then. :(

At least things got changed around.

Also, Hulksmash has convinced me to do something dramatic; I'm sending in a new army list; untested, unplayed, unexperienced....gonna do it anyway.


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Note on mission 3:

The deployment description and the deployment picture don't match up.

The words say that the objectives must be 12" away from a board edge, meaning that you may not put any objectives inside your deployment zone for capture and control. That ALSO means that the board is not big enough to put all four objectives on the table and meet both the 12" and 18" away from each other requirement.

*EDIT* Also, do you guys want someone to proofread the rules packet? Its got some pretty bad grammatical problems.

I think we are suffering from some burnout. At this point I don't want to mess with it and we will just field questions day of. The Mission three is supposed to be 6" from a table edge, so thats a typo and the diagram is correct. The intent is to allow you to place objectives in areas you can defend properly during deployment, so assclowns in fast transports cannot pop them turn one.


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ps- Really only one person has not been constructive in this thread and its obvious who that is.

You mean the description is right and the diagram is wrong Don't sweat the burnout. It happens. If you wanna bring them saturday I'll check them over between games so at least the final print out copies don't have typo's.

And he's not pointing at you Dash as the non-constructive person

Phazael wrote:On a side note, if you have not emailed tiv@cox.net your name and list, please do so. We would like to limit the number of "sharpie" nametags we use.

One minor item, for future events: it'd be lovely to receive some confirmation email when I send you guys money/lists, or have names of registered participants posted on the web. (As-is, I'll print my Paypal receipt, and trust that everything is fine, or can be resolved the morning of.)

Looking forward to it! Glad you're coming, Faceofayak.

Yeah, not making excuses or sounding like a broken record, but a lot of this was done on short notice and we had a ton of terrain to build up since the previous SCGWL commish borrowed most of his 40k terrain for the first 40k slaughter. We are in the process of revamping our webpage, it just was not as high a priority as getting terrain and venue locked in, to say nothing of cleaning up the scenarios.

Speaking of which, we had someone with technical writing experience help us clean up the language and clarify the writing in the packet. I think we have the bulk of the kinks ironed out now.
~Q

I would get your money back.

For example

Mission 3 states:

Step One: Discuss terrain features with your opponent. (Reference Chart)
Step Two: 12” in from each long table edge and 6” in from each short edge. See diagram.
(See diagram)
Step Three: The players roll-off, and the winner chooses to go first or second. The player that
goes first then chooses one of the deployment zones and deploys his/her forces.
Step Four: (Total of 4 objectives, 2 each) Choose sides and then place your two objectives
anywhere in the shaded areas with at least 12” away from and 6” from a table edge.


Note that step two doesn't actually tell you anything except to see the diagram, ... twice. Also the written information in the diagram doesn't match what I infer step two means.

Both steps three and four have you choose sides.

Step four tells you to place your two objectives but doesn't say in what order they are placed. Does the player going first place both of thier objectives before the other player? Do the players take turns placing the objectives?

I don't think the "new and improved" versions are posted.

Sssshhhhhhh....

Jeez Janth! You'll ruin perfectly good ribbing

So, how many did you have signed up for the 40k event?

I'm not sure since Mike Ulibarri is handling that. I know its not what we were hoping for (there is a San Diego Con with RTTs and supposedly something in anaheim), but thats down partly on us for having to scramble this together on short notice and partly on the fickle nature of the SoCal 40k crowd in general. We will likely simply roll both events together next year and avoid being close to Adepticon, in terms of date, because I think there is a certain measure of burnout at the moment.


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PS- yeah we didn't post our final draft because the tech writer person is still cleaning up our poor gramar!


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PPs- If I had to hazard a guess, I think our numbers will resemble last year (ie 30ish) unless a bunch of the 40k guys from the league sign up late.

Lists were due a week ago or two weeks ago; do you mean to tell me that we could just show up?

Because my army list submission was a list I'd never played before, and I've been trying to cram in practice games to figure out how it works.

If you want to mod your list, just make sure it gets to us prior to friday. Walk ins will get random pairings.

I'll roll with what I have - Brad built it for me, so if I lose I can blame it on him and his poor list writing skills instead of my bad generalship.

And if I win, of course it was my brilliant generalship, and not my great list. Seems like a win/win for me.

On the bright side, 32 people over 5 rounds should give a clear winner.

And we will still hand out the 2k in goodies even if five people and someones mom shows up.....

There are lots of guys planning on showing at the last minute, the nature of gamers I suppose, ha! Should be a really good turn out! Beautiful location too

bootlegbaker wrote:There are lots of guys planning on showing at the last minute, the nature of gamers I suppose, ha! Should be a really good turn out! Beautiful location too

It is possible, but I would not count on it. Due to list submissions etc, I would say that those that are registered now are the ones for the most part are showing up.




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frenrik wrote:On the bright side, 32 people over 5 rounds should give a clear winner.

Has the smell of a new Blood Angels codex brought you out of retirement?

Well, it does have that freshly printed smell. Hopefully I'll do better with them than I have been with the pdf version, although, I haven't had a chance to play a single game with the new dex yet. Maybe I'll get an easy round one against Adam or something.

HAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Flying to California in the morning.

See all you hippies there! =D

Good luck to everyone.

So again to bring back a question from the first page, is anyone allowed to show up? A friend and I would love to show up and watch, meet some dakka people, and learn as much as we can about the tourny scene before jumping in feet first.

Anyone from the general public is welcome to stop by. If you are interested in a battlefoam kit, I believe Romeo is going to be there personally and usually can do the custom traced on site, if memory serves. I plan on getting at least one custom case for my fantasy tournament army.

Driving tomorrow. Lots of time to kill, but I get to drive past the only Sonic anywhere near my house, so at least tasty beverages are in the offing!

You should not have sprung mission #4 on us after we have turned in our lists.

Blackmoor wrote:You should not have sprung mission #4 on us after we have turned in our lists.

classic.

It got modified to make it less auto-tie. Don't know why it's an issue. It's the same framework w/slightly more distributed BP's. And like was said earlier in the thread you could send in a new list Blackmoor as long as you did it before today. Or even hand it to themt tonight. But your probably on the road already.

Janthkin wrote:Driving tomorrow. Lots of time to kill, but I get to drive past the only Sonic anywhere near my house, so at least tasty beverages are in the offing!

Where the hell is there a Sonic in CA? I see their commercials all the time but I don't know if I've ever actually seen a Sonic fast food joint.