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except that sourclams should have been DQed for not playing his 2nd game.

he and his opponent avoided playing each other and claimed a draw. thats not exactly cricket. and ensured that one of them would not have a loss in the round.

Right, so it was actually a chance for the lower seeds to catch up to the higher seeds, or even pull ahead, since Major + Massacre beats Massacre + Draw.

In both M:TG and chess, both of which far better organized and more competitive than 40k, intentionally drawing is legal and allowed.

My list was so good I won without even playing the 2nd game. What's that tell you about the scenarios?


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WARBOSS TZOO wrote:

sourclams wrote:DE didn't really have any more or less of an advantage than any other army in S1-2, which were basically standard 40k.

DE always have an issue with Kill Point missions since they tend to be somewhere in the upper 20s, but in S3 most of those individual KPs are worth 3, so literally, they are a 60+ KP list at 2500 points.

Isn't that exactly the case with MechIG, which doesn't seem to have had much of a problem doing well?

Not to the same extent. Big difference between 45 KP, which is what my mech list would have maxed out at, and 68 KPs, which is what my friend's DE army would have been had he brought it. IG also have the option to reduce KPs mid-stride with platoon blobbing, and don't have a single vehicle with less than FA AV12, which is far, far more survivable than AV10 open topped. Finally, with the Astropath, IG have the ability to manipulate their reserve rolls to front-load an all-reserve alpha strike if stuck going 2nd. DE have no such luxury.

While I agree that Scenario 3 definitely imposed composition... why not also look at it as a way of imposing some tactical thought to using your transports?

Yes, Mech is the current metagame.
Yes, Scenario 3 somewhat unfairly punished heavy use of fast units- which is the current trend and favoritism from the rules.


But all too often a lot of players will view their transports as just quick ways to get their troops into the fight and then let them get popped without much of a second thought.

Scenario 3 also punished bikers and jump troops, so it didn't completely hate on vehicles alone.

I think a better way to handle it would have been to impose additional damage penalties against vehicles rather than victory conditions.
-- because at 3KP each, fast units WERE the victory condition.

Danny Internets wrote:
Tsk tsk. Ad hominem attacks? Please address your criticisms to my argument, not my person.

You're so quick to point out fancy latin terms when it benefits you, but you're more than willing to present a strawman in place of my actual argument. If you want to babble about fallacies, I'm sure we can go on. Otherwise, try addressing your criticisms to my actual argument, and not some tangent about whether people should be expected to rework their armies.

Let me be very clear about this:

Premise 1: 'ard boyz missions were available before the event
Premise 2: people who attended 'ard boyz had the opportunity to adjust their lists prior to the event, knowing the missions
Premise 3: people had the option to stay home and boycott the event if they felt the missions were unfair
Conclusion: People who went to the 'ard boyz event went with full knowledge of what they were getting into, representing an implied acceptance of the missions.

Your statement, "I once wrote a 26 page research paper with over 100 references in 48 hours for a masters level neuroscience course. Does that mean 48 hours is a reasonable amount of time for people to be expected to complete that amount of work? Your argument is ridiculous." does not address any part of my argument, yet you call my argument ridiculous.

I can only assume you're referring to my second premise, but the fact that you can write a research paper has nothing to do with whether or not it is possible to adjust your list prior to the 'ard boyz event. I think a week is a perfectly reasonable amount of time to acquire and assemble 2500 points of models - even working a full-time job. It's certainly more than possible. Next-day shipping leaves a person 20 hours for construction if they dedicate just four hours a night to the task; that should be more than adequate. Whether the financial burden is worth the chance to win that 3rd mission is a matter of personal choice, but certainly no more so than choosing which army to build in the first place, some armies are intrinsically more expensive than others. Furthermore, that's only the extreme case, where someone feels the need to completely bail on the army they have chosen. More realistically, people should be expected to make minor tweaks with knowledge of the missions. I saw one poster's battle reports who was playing a Tau army, and had blacksun filters scattered throughout his list - wasted points in a tournament where you know there are no nightfight games. And that's a change that would not have involved changing any models.

However, even if I concede premise two (which I don't), my conclusion is still correct - and you still haven't addressed it. The fact that people can choose not to attend, after seeing the missions, does mean that by attending, they're giving their implied acceptance of the missions. Augustus has the right of it - he saw the missions, thought they were dumb, and stayed home. Good for him. If more people acted in this fashion rather than complaining on the internet, maybe GW would start to really learn what we like and dislike. But, as is, they'll see attendance figures, and guess that they got it right.

Redbeard wrote:

However, even if I concede premise two (which I don't), my conclusion is still correct - and you still haven't addressed it. The fact that people can choose not to attend, after seeing the missions, does mean that by attending, they're giving their implied acceptance of the missions. Augustus has the right of it - he saw the missions, thought they were dumb, and stayed home. Good for him. If more people acted in this fashion rather than complaining on the internet, maybe GW would start to really learn what we like and dislike. But, as is, they'll see attendance figures, and guess that they got it right.

This is silly. It's as if you were on a 7 day cruise, and the only food on the entire ship was oatmeal, then the proof that all of the passengers clearly like oatmeal is evidenced by no one starving themselves.

The only tournament GW puts on is 'Ard Boyz. Lots of people think the last mission sucked, including myself, but went anyways just because it's the only tournament that GW puts on. This doesn't mean that it's well run, or has excellent prize support, or reflects the desires of the gaming community. If there's no other alternative, then anybody who enjoys playing 40k more than not playing 40k is going to end up at the event, and if the hobby is expanding, then attendance will be higher just because of a larger player base.

The only bit of 'GW Opinion' I've seen regarding the event is that blurb published by the trade folks that they didn't realize S3 would cause such a bruh-ha-ha and maybe they should just stick to normal missions.

Redbeard, your initial argument was that a week was plenty of time to completely reconfigure and even build an entirely new army. Your support for this position was that you yourself did something similar once upon a time. I merely pointed out that a single instance of someone doing something does not mean it is reasonable to expect all people to be capable of the same. Then you got all hot and bothered and attacked me personally.

I have no problem with the tempered, watered-down argument you have just put forth. My response, having come when you took a more extreme stance, obviously doesn't address it. I'm unclear as to why you're confusing the timeline of the discussion here. I called your first position ridiculous because that's exactly what it was. Your new position is less so as a result of you having moderated it.

Yes, attending the event represents an implied acceptance of the missions, but only to the extent that it doesn't piss someone off enough not to attend. It would be incorrect to think that by attending the event an attendee thinks the mission is good. Some of us just like having the opportunity to play abnormally large games of Warhammer all weekend. That doesn't necessarily imply that we support or even like the mission. We just don't hate it enough to abandon the event entirely.

And on top of those, it's a tournament that you don't have to pay for. You lose nothing by attending except the time spent doing so.

(unless, of course, you has to spend stupid amounts of money to get to it, but still)

I'm still not seeing that s3 is, on the face of it, a tournament destroying experience or anything even close to that, but...

what would you guys have done to make a scenario that favoured footsloggers to the extent that mechs were favoured in s1?

(and sourclams, is there any chance you can give a general rundown of your list? i can guess most of it, but it would be nice to know nevertheless)

>My list was so good I won without even playing the 2nd game. What's that tell you about the scenarios?

nothing. absolutly nothing. but you avoided a loss by not playing. and this year many people were in the running with 50 points.

you only played 2 games, had more time to rest and relax during the day. you were not time stressed and bothered by having to perform during hte 2nd game.

you only played 2 games, and unlike the other players who had to play the middle game were rested and refreshed for the third game.

but then the players that actually had to play hard and earn a draw, are far more deserving than you of their placement.

Intentionally drawing is nothing new to any tournament scene. If I tried to play in any decent sized M:tG tournament and decided that I wanted to risk going x-2 instead of x-0-2 I'd be making a huge mistake that could cost me top 8 placement.

It's unfortunate that GW only puts out the scenarios about a week in advance. As noted above, that's not nearly enough time to make real changes to your list unless you've been playing a long time and/or accumulated a lot of options. I enjoy thinking about lists and optimizing against different missions, so it's a shame to not have much opportunity to do that if you don't have a huge reserve of models to choose from.

I also think that's the best argument against the notion that GW runs 'Ard Boyz in order to immediately move product, as opposed to more generally building goodwill, growing the community, and getting people motivated and engaged to build and play more. I'm sure people buy a fair amount of product for the tournament, I know I did last year for my first 'Ard Boyz outing in order to have a "competitive" 2500 points. But I'm also sure they'd move a whole lot more if the scenarios were known farther in advance.

In general, hitting some of the early commentary throughout this thread, as in most areas of life, I would be hesitant to ascribe sinister motives when different priorities, viewpoints, or simple bad judgement or incompetence will suffice.


Same deal in the missions. Taken individually I would say that S3's rules represents a pretty strong implicit attempt to comp against a particular army type. But, taken alongside the other missions I think there was probably a good faith effort to create interesting overall structure, rewarding one type of Army in the early going and another in the last round. I would not say that is the same thing as comp. Done perfectly it's just a strategic challenge to optimize over competing mission objectives, and if it works out well should be fair to everybody (e.g., reward mech in S1, reward foot in S3). That attempt probably went a little over the top in this case, but I think it's a good idea and wasn't overly bothered by it, despite facing (and losing to) a foot army worth literally half my KP for the critical third round...

Hacksaaw wrote:>My list was so good I won without even playing the 2nd game. What's that tell you about the scenarios?

nothing. absolutly nothing. but you avoided a loss by not playing. and this year many people were in the running with 50 points.

you only played 2 games, had more time to rest and relax during the day. you were not time stressed and bothered by having to perform during hte 2nd game.

you only played 2 games, and unlike the other players who had to play the middle game were rested and refreshed for the third game.

but then the players that actually had to play hard and earn a draw, are far more deserving than you of their placement.

So I would assume that you are a big proponent of bashing your forehead into a wall when unnecessary?

He was so confident in his list that he felt he had more than an even chance of winning the entire tournament without playing the second game. He took an even larger advantage of his list's ability to smoke other lists in S3 that he didn't even bother to play S2. This allowed him to rest, relax and not bash his forehead into a wall so he could be fresh for S3.

Just because you don't approve of draws in 40k tourneys doesn't mean you are correct.

imweasel wrote:He was so confident in his list that he felt he had more than an even chance of winning the entire tournament without playing the second game

Well, yes, except no. He got, what, how many points is a draw?

That he didn't have to play a 2/2.5 hour match for?

His next opponent had to play out the round on their feet, and he got to have an extended lunch.

Does he not deserve the win? Not necessarily, odds are he would have managed a draw if not better, and he might not have needed even that to take out the tournament. But you can surely see where people who think it's a gak move are coming from, right?

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:

imweasel wrote:He was so confident in his list that he felt he had more than an even chance of winning the entire tournament without playing the second game

Well, yes, except no. He got, what, how many points is a draw?

That he didn't have to play a 2/2.5 hour match for?

His next opponent had to play out the round on their feet, and he got to have an extended lunch.

Does he not deserve the win? Not necessarily, odds are he would have managed a draw if not better, and he might not have needed even that to take out the tournament. But you can surely see where people who think it's a gak move are coming from, right?

I can see it as a gak move if only he was allowed to take a draw and take an extended lunch. Everyone was afforded the same opportunity and he exercised it.

Is your whole point that taking a draw is a gak move? Then we will just have to agree to disagree.

imweasel wrote:

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:

imweasel wrote:He was so confident in his list that he felt he had more than an even chance of winning the entire tournament without playing the second game

Well, yes, except no. He got, what, how many points is a draw?

That he didn't have to play a 2/2.5 hour match for?

His next opponent had to play out the round on their feet, and he got to have an extended lunch.

Does he not deserve the win? Not necessarily, odds are he would have managed a draw if not better, and he might not have needed even that to take out the tournament. But you can surely see where people who think it's a gak move are coming from, right?

I can see it as a gak move if only he was allowed to take a draw and take an extended lunch. Everyone was afforded the same opportunity and he exercised it.

Is your whole point that taking a draw is a gak move? Then we will just have to agree to disagree.

Was he allowed to, though? Or did he and his opponent just agree to tell the judge that they drew, in violation of the tournament rules?

Either way, I don't actually care. It really only matters, to me, where he wins points by drawing that he otherwise wouldn't have won, and I don't see this as being the case. Nevertheless, I can see why other people don't like people who do it. They have their reasons. I personally stand on my feet all day erry day, so it doesn't bother me, but still. Empathy, bro.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Was he allowed to, though? Or did he and his opponent just agree to tell the judge that they drew, in violation of the tournament rules?

As I stated, everyone was afforded the opportunity too.

How do I know? I was his opponent.

There was little to no point in both of us smashing our foreheads into a wall.

The game might have been played if we had not been stuck in a small room that was full of gamers with no fan blowing. Not that this has anything to do with this discussion.

imweasel wrote:small room...full of gamers...no fan

Well, I can see why you didn't care to stay. /OT

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:

imweasel wrote:small room...full of gamers...no fan

Well, I can see why you didn't care to stay. /OT

So other than your distaste for draws, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree about draws.

Yes, we were doubly smart not to play a hard taxing game in an environment that most of the other players didn't have to expose themselves to.

S1 ended at 1:30pm and we didn't have to play until 5:30pm.

This store is pretty competitive with regular MtG tourneys every friday. Not allowing intentional draws would be to the contrary.

imweasel wrote:So other than your distaste for draws, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree about draws.

Well, sure, except that I don't care one way or the other except insofar as it seems like one party has just given the other part a draw so as not to slaughter them and take them out of contention. I was just outlining why other people might give a gak about it and regard it as unfair to the other players.

imweasel wrote:

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Was he allowed to, though? Or did he and his opponent just agree to tell the judge that they drew, in violation of the tournament rules?

As I stated, everyone was afforded the opportunity too.

How do I know? I was his opponent.

There was little to no point in both of us smashing our foreheads into a wall.

The game might have been played if we had not been stuck in a small room that was full of gamers with no fan blowing. Not that this has anything to do with this discussion.

It also ensures that both of you played game 3 against opponents who didn't massacre twice; it looks like fishing for easier round 3 games to me.

sourclams wrote:

except that sourclams should have been DQed for not playing his 2nd game.

he and his opponent avoided playing each other and claimed a draw. thats not exactly cricket. and ensured that one of them would not have a loss in the round.

Right, so it was actually a chance for the lower seeds to catch up to the higher seeds, or even pull ahead, since Major + Massacre beats Massacre + Draw.

Yeah, and possibly allow you to play someone who wasn't as good for your 3rd round game.

You cheated, and your win has no merit. Period.

Bingo.

"The game might have been played if we had not been stuck in a small room that was full of gamers with no fan blowing. Not that this has anything to do with this discussion."

and those players who actually did play instead of skipping out, ended up tired and matched against people that didnt skip a draw. just because its allowed by some foolish TOs in other games, does not legitimize skipping a game and manipulating the final scoring without having to actually play.

As Monster Rain says, you ended up not having to face another top player in round 3( that is if you won) you manpulated your match ups. Along with not having the fatigue and exhaustion that 3 ard boyz games in a small overheated room full of gamer stench can provide. Your competition in the tournament did.

You come to play in a tournament of 3 games if you manipulate the outcome of the game, whether through a mutual decision to call it a draw or intentionallly with your opponent during the game, its just bad sportsmanship, manipulating the seed and frankly cheating.


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Which brings us back to s3, which by all reports did not keep mech IG from being the leading army coming out of the weekend. Even DE won some events.

What it might have done in many events is keep 3 massacares from being necessary to win. since i see alot of point totals in the 50s for winners this year. which is a good thing. keeps alot more people in the running going into the final round.

The standings from S1 into S2 were unchanged from S2 to S3. The top 6 people at the end of T1 were the same people that ended up playing each other in T3. The TO knew what was going on and condoned it.

So while "fishing for easier R3 games" does have merit, it didn't actually pan out in this instance.

If I thought that I was cheating anybody, I wouldn't have done it. This is our local store, we play against each other all of the time, 100% of the 18 people who showed up at the tournament were people that we've seen before, and know many by name. We're not going to dick over our entire playing community 'just to do'.

Hacksaaw wrote:...but then the players that actually had to play hard and earn a draw, are far more deserving than you of their placement.

Not necessarily, that's the whole point.

(Maybe they should have brought a better meta mission list?)

He admitted all his advantage came form list building not play, so questioning the integrity of the standings is misplaced.

I like Victory points way more than i like KP. While KP are faster and eaier to figure out, VP give a more complete tally of the damage you inflict on your foe.

I am a huge fan of variable game leangth. It helps make the Wait and then steal a objective strategy less effective since the game could not end the turn you planned for it to end on, it might end sooner or later. I agree that it does introduce an aditional element of luck to the game, but the game features dice driven mechanics so...

I have my own suspicions that Trade sales decided on S3 to give all foot army like Nids a huge boost that they needed to be really competative. I dont believe that nids would have done as well as they did without this bonus.

sennacherib wrote:I like Victory points way more than i like KP. While KP are faster and eaier to figure out, VP give a more complete tally of the damage you inflict on your foe.

But KP aren't about measuring damage inflicted, they're about presenting a counterpoint to the benefits that MSU tactics inherently have. It's why this is a game, not a simulation.

If 5th ed used VP as the default, rather than KP, then there would be no reason not to take more smaller units than fewer large ones. Why take a unit of 2 landspeeders, when you can have two units of one each? They're stronger (not lost to immobilizes), can target more things, can contest more objectives, and require your opponent to shoot with at least two units to destroy them. VP makes this choice a no-brainers. KP makes this choice interesting.

I think that 5e overly rewards mech/mobile armies (compared to more massive armies) too much, and as such has removed another interesting aspect of the game.

In 4th ed, the alternate deployment style was Escalation, which hurt mobile armies and rewarded footsloggers. In 5th ed, Dawn of War rewards mobile armies and hurts foot sloggers. In 4th ed, of the 5 book missions, two (recon and loot counters) rewarded the more mobile army, but two (Take & Hold and Straight VP) were more to the benefit of the larger, less mobile force. (The third, cleanse, is probably a wash, maybe a little advantageous to the mobile player). In 5th ed, 2/3rds of the missions benefit the more mobile player.

These changes, along with the general decrease in price of transports, plus the increase in survivability of the same, have really removed much of the play/counter-play that was found in matching up a slower, larger army against a smaller faster one. Now, the armies that used to operate better as static forces (marines, guard) are all running mobile forces. The armies that can't (necrons, and to a lesser extent nids) are rarely seen.

Mobility gives you the ability to pick the battles of your choosing - that's an advantage in of itself, and really needs to be priced as such. 5th ed has taken that inherent advantage and rewarded it with superior durability and lower costs as well. It's no wonder that you don't see many foot armies in 5th ed. In 4th, the rhino cost you three men, and added a risk. In 5th, it costs you barely two men, and is not only more durable, but safer for the men as well.

I think it is a design failure that has led to everyone having to follow this same trend. And, I think that M3 was a good response to that. I think that the overall mass versus mobility question (and how to tackle it) is one of the most interesting questions in wargames, and I feel that 5th ed has neutered mass armies and buffed mobile armies so much that it's just not a factor anymore. I personally think that's a shame.

Janthkin wrote:It also ensures that both of you played game 3 against opponents who didn't massacre twice; it looks like fishing for easier round 3 games to me.

Considering this is a pretty competitive group of gamers, there was ONE massacre in round 1.

That scenario wasn't going to pan out.


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Hacksaaw wrote:As Monster Rain says, you ended up not having to face another top player in round 3( that is if you won) you manpulated your match ups. Along with not having the fatigue and exhaustion that 3 ard boyz games in a small overheated room full of gamer stench can provide. Your competition in the tournament did.

Unfortunately, only the top players were going to play in that section for some reason.

Hacksaaw wrote:You come to play in a tournament of 3 games if you manipulate the outcome of the game, whether through a mutual decision to call it a draw or intentionallly with your opponent during the game, its just bad sportsmanship, manipulating the seed and frankly cheating.

Interesting. I suppose this 'taking a draw = cheating' must be limited to 40k?

Hacksaaw wrote:Which brings us back to s3, which by all reports did not keep mech IG from being the leading army coming out of the weekend. Even DE won some events.

What it might have done in many events is keep 3 massacares from being necessary to win. since i see alot of point totals in the 50s for winners this year. which is a good thing. keeps alot more people in the running going into the final round.

Multiple massacres are only required to win when the number of players gets 'large'. So the 50ish point totals that won their event probably were in either really competitive stores or from smaller pools of players.

Redbeard wrote:

I think that 5e overly rewards mech/mobile armies (compared to more massive armies) too much, and as such has removed another interesting aspect of the game.

.


I couldnt agree with you more on the comment that 5th ed. rewards mech to much, however massive armies of foot sloggers have an inherent advantage over smaller armies. Massive armies come closer to the mean when you look at the statistical average for damage done from shooting and melee. Orks will roll 120 dice in a charge (extream example but i did it once in a tourni against a stupid tau player whos command unit got a wee bit to close ) The average that you roll always comes closer to the mean with more dice. smaller units have the propensity for big successes and big losses depending on the die. Not so true with hordes. Also hordes are for the most part more forgiving of mistakes.

Me too, it's a tank game now, I like it, but all my armies are MECH now.

Augustus wrote:Me too, it's a tank game now, I like it, but all my armies are MECH now.

A tank game? Even with the results that Orks and 'Nids seem to have come up with?

Monster Rain wrote:

Augustus wrote:Me too, it's a tank game now, I like it, but all my armies are MECH now.

A tank game? Even with the results that Orks and 'Nids seem to have come up with?

Mech is king in normal (5th edition) 40k. Running an event with wacky missions that change the fundamental victory conditions of the game is not normal 40k. Taking the results of this year's 'Ard Boyz preliminaries as evidence of what kind of game 40k is or what's "good" is like looking at a home-run derby in baseball and concluding that pitching isn't important.

Danny Internets wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:

Augustus wrote:Me too, it's a tank game now, I like it, but all my armies are MECH now.

A tank game? Even with the results that Orks and 'Nids seem to have come up with?

Mech is king in normal (5th edition) 40k. Running an event with wacky missions that change the fundamental victory conditions of the game is not normal 40k. Taking the results of this year's 'Ard Boyz preliminaries as evidence of what kind of game 40k is or what's "good" is like looking at a home-run derby in baseball and concluding that pitching isn't important.

I don't buy the analogy. People who weren't already hitting a shocking amount of Home Runs in the regular season weren't picked for the Home Run Derby... if they were, maybe that would add up.

How many tourneys do you play in, Danny? Orks are not to be sneezed at. I'm not busting your balls, dude. I'm honestly asking.