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Bugeater GT results.

http://www.bugeatergames.com/Bugeater_Results40k.pdf

Chaos lash list wins!!!
BA, Eldar, Deathwing (hulksmash), DE, SW round out the 5-1's.

BA, IG, SW (drop pod), Nids round out the top 10.

Pretty nice "mix" of armies really. The BA armies were storm raven/razorspam heavy I think.

Win-Loss events promote a wider variety of codex AND list, because you do not need to win by very wide margins; you simply need to barely win.

You'd be amazed at what you can "just barely" win with, that never is taken by people to Margin of Victory events where massacring is the way to win, and barely winning all your games is as useful as simply losing them.

You start to read things like "that list doesn't seem very optimized" (i.e., what almost anyone/everyone said about Tony K's winning AdeptiCon list).

Super cool that the 5-1's were pretty varied there ... and no IG either, with only one SW.

Also something of a reflection on increasing incidental balance in the game.

Shhh....ignore that 3/4 top 4 were 4th edition codexes....believe in codex creep!

Well done! And yes, clearly only "douche-hammer" lists win. The internet says so!

After playing in the Nova Style System, I am sold on it. I found it to be very fun and I like how it made me think more than the regular scenarios. While they did not do the 2nd day bracket tournament at the Bugeater, I could see how that is yet another improvement you made Mike.

Please hold a Nova next year so I can go. I'm out of town this year for Firefighter convention this year. I definately sold on it for 2012, plus then Hulk will quict buggin me to go.

Chaos lash list wins!!!
BA, Eldar, Deathwing (hulksmash), DE, SW round out the 5-1's.

How did those army lists look like?

MVBrandt wrote:Win-Loss events promote a wider variety of codex AND list, because you do not need to win by very wide margins; you simply need to barely win.

You'd be amazed at what you can "just barely" win with, that never is taken by people to Margin of Victory events where massacring is the way to win, and barely winning all your games is as useful as simply losing them.

Hasn't the UK been doing this for a long time now? They have all sorts of army's that make it to the top (plus they only play 1500 right?)

whitedragon wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:Win-Loss events promote a wider variety of codex AND list, because you do not need to win by very wide margins; you simply need to barely win.

You'd be amazed at what you can "just barely" win with, that never is taken by people to Margin of Victory events where massacring is the way to win, and barely winning all your games is as useful as simply losing them.

Hasn't the UK been doing this for a long time now? They have all sorts of army's that make it to the top (plus they only play 1500 right?)

I do not know enough to meaningfully comment. While data and anecdote supports the assertion I made regarding w/l, that's not to say NO other styles or points sizes or mission formats or whatever encourage the same types of conclusions or results.

My understanding was that among the codices routinely doing well in the UK, you see a lot more of a cookie cutter style to the lists brought, in part due to the smaller points values (which tend to force - in "competitive" events - a tighter focus on repetition of optimal unit choices/gearouts). But, again, I don't personally possess enough data to comment in concrete fashion.

I follow the UK gts pretty closely and you see a lot of similar lists due to the points size, but you do see a lot of wacky lists in the finals, or did. The reason is because it was considered funny to make it to the finals and then bring a weak army for a laugh. Sometimes though, one of those guys would actually do well with the funky list like the guy who got third with assault crons a few years back.

Reecius wrote:I follow the UK gts pretty closely and you see a lot of similar lists due to the points size, but you do see a lot of wacky lists in the finals, or did. The reason is because it was considered funny to make it to the finals and then bring a weak army for a laugh. Sometimes though, one of those guys would actually do well with the funky list like the guy who got third with assault crons a few years back.

This was my impression when there were GT heats and finals. The last final here in Germany was in 2008 and it was a lame tournament.

Glad to see these kind of results. I've been running win/loss events at my local store and I would love to see the death of the "stomp-a-noob" (IE the margin of victory) system eventually.

Nova is the way to go and Im trying to ween people off the massacre system

OP updated with some recent results for your perusal.

Ratius, 4th and 5th at Welsh Nats was Grey Knights + vanilla Marines.

*doffs cap*

wuestenfux wrote:

Chaos lash list wins!!!
BA, Eldar, Deathwing (hulksmash), DE, SW round out the 5-1's.

How did those army lists look like?

BA was storm raven heavy with razorspam. Not sure on Eldar. Deathwing list can be found on Hulksmash's blog (all foot termies). DE was some raiders, bunch of venoms with min squads with blaster, unit of helions, and a couple bike squads, one or two ravangers. SW was Loganwing termies and some grey hunters squads and 1-2 long fang units.

Inquisitor_Dunn wrote:Bugeater GT results.

http://www.bugeatergames.com/Bugeater_Results40k.pdf

Chaos lash list wins!!!
BA, Eldar, Deathwing (hulksmash), DE, SW round out the 5-1's.

BA, IG, SW (drop pod), Nids round out the top 10.

Pretty nice "mix" of armies really. The BA armies were storm raven/razorspam heavy I think.

Wow...were the other 2 Dark Angels lists Death Wing?

A 5th Edition tournament where Space Marines and Grey Knights are outnumbered by Dark Angels? Crazy. I'm also surprised by the relative lack of DE.

MVBrandt wrote:Win-Loss events promote a wider variety of codex AND list, because you do not need to win by very wide margins; you simply need to barely win.

You'd be amazed at what you can "just barely" win with, that never is taken by people to Margin of Victory events where massacring is the way to win, and barely winning all your games is as useful as simply losing them.

You start to read things like "that list doesn't seem very optimized" (i.e., what almost anyone/everyone said about Tony K's winning AdeptiCon list).

This doesn't make sense to me....

Player A has an army designed to crush and massacre other players.
Player B has an army that can "just barely" win and gets comments like, "that list doesn't seem very optimized"

Player A and Player B face off.

I would expect player A to massacre Player B.

Point being: Why would having an event that doesn't track the margin of victory, but only the victory itself make it easier for "unoptimized" armies to compete?

Because no army will utterly crush every army out there. So in tourney with margins of victory, if you realistically want to win you need to build to take out one or two popular builds and hope that you don't draw some wonky bad matchup.

In W-L style events, I can cover my bases and build an army that will barely beat every other army. And more codices are capable of barely beating every other than there are codices capable of crushing the "top internet" armies.

I have to agree the W-L style allows people to build more well rounded lists out of more books. It's not totally perfect, but I definetly like that aspect of it.

I dont think that was MVBs point though.

Tournament A only tracks wins.
Player 1 goes 3-0 and wins overall with a suboptimal list.
Player 2 goes 2-1 and comes second with an optimal list.

Tourament B tracks margins of victories.
Player 1 in his 3 wins, wins by 100 points each i.e hes +300
Player 2 in his wins, wins by 200 but only loses his last by 50 i.e. hes +350
Player two is the winner.

In other words in tourney B, player 1 with his suboptimal list has to worry about magin of victories or tieing say 2-1. Someone else who got "slaughtered less" due to having an optimal list built around not giving away VPs will trump him.

With subops it much harder to win marginal rule tourneys because your overall style has to be built around minimising unit losses and point losses as opposed to playing for "just the win".

Dash -

Let's take a margin-tournament I personally attended.

I play with a balanced Straken guard list in Round 1 against a "massacre-optimized totally min-maxed" razorwolf list ... and barely beat it, but definitely beat it. I score 70% of battle point total possible, winning primary and secondary.

I play Round 2 against a massacre-optimized leafblower guard army ... and win, again 70% of battle points.

I play Round 3 against another massacre-optimized leafblower guard army ... and win, again, about 80% of battle points.


I finish 7th, behind 5 people who also didn't lose, and 1 person who had a draw.



The point here is that a LOT of armies are optimized in ways that can and will beat ANYBODY, no matter how much they think they are optimized ... but will almost never slaughter/massacre anybody either. These lists in margin tournaments almost never rise to the top, even if they wind up with same or better records than the winner.

By having an event primarily reward wins and losses, and award equivalent generalship prizes to all those undefeated at the end if there aren't enough rounds for a solo undefeated, you fundamentally reward having a list that can BEAT anyone, whether or not it can MASSACRE everyone.

As such, you permit a wider variety of competitive list. The primary list style you see reinforced is "less killy, more durable." Lists that will weather the storm of a leafblower or a venom/tri-ravager spam or "fill in the blank," and win on the mission at hand (whether it's kill points or objectives or whatever) / win late ... often don't score all that highly on the massacre front, b/c they simply aren't built to wipe someone off the board or get close to it. This does NOT mean that lists designed to wipe people off the board CAN wipe them off the board in return, which is quite the point ... at any given tournament you'll often see "lists designed to wipe people off the board" take their losses barely to such lists as the ones I'm talking about. You don't think about them in your standard data collection b/c both lists wind up in the middle of the pack, despite one or the other being able to pull off victories in very tough match-ups.

I think the main problem with margin of victory events is that you always want to play the weakest players possible in order to get the max points.. If two good players face each other they knock each other out of the event which is stupid, you should be rewarded the same if not more for beating the best players.. not less

Kirasu wrote:I think the main problem with margin of victory events is that you always want to play the weakest players possible in order to get the max points.. If two good players face each other they knock each other out of the event which is stupid, you should be rewarded the same if not more for beating the best players.. not less

This happened to me an my buddy. We played round 1 after coming together. We drawed against eachother in a very hard match. I ended up taking 2nd and him taking 3rd still but had we not played eachother round 1 one of us probably would have won the tournament.


@ people who believe in an all comers list. It doesnt exist. There is always a counter for any build you bring. If you bring an all comers list it only takes one player that spams a lot of something to overwhelm your all comers list. A lot of high strength low ap weapons mean nothing to a horde army and a lot of fire means nothing to a solid mech list. For example: The venom spam list can compete against most armies but would really get destroyed by Mech IG. In the end tournaments are decided by who you get matched up against. The bugeater GT is a prime example. The winner didnt have to face any of the top tier armies such as Mech IG, or Space Wolves. Even though his list would of been weak to mech IG he didnt draw them as an opponent. In addition, he got 3 foot slogging armies (2 nids, 1 deathwing). His only tough hard counter was dark eldar as his other two match ups were assault blood angels and grey knights. Facing only 2 possible psychic hoods in 6 matchs.

Where as I played mech IG: My opponents: Blood Angels, Lash CSM, Deathwing, Mech IG, Space Wolves, Blood Angels. lol, its the road to victory that affects how some of us get there. That is why the win system is better than the point system.

Kirasu wrote:I think the main problem with margin of victory events is that you always want to play the weakest players possible in order to get the max points.. If two good players face each other they knock each other out of the event which is stupid, you should be rewarded the same if not more for beating the best players.. not less

Exactly.

That is why it's often "smart" to intintionally tie your first game in a battle points system as it puts you on track to play weaker players for the rest of the tournament and therefore maximize your battle points.

I want a system that brings the best players together.

Tomb King wrote:
@ people who believe in an all comers list. It doesnt exist. There is always a counter for any build you bring. If you bring an all comers list it only takes one player that spams a lot of something to overwhelm your all comers list. A lot of high strength low ap weapons mean nothing to a horde army and a lot of fire means nothing to a solid mech list. For example: The venom spam list can compete against most armies but would really get destroyed by Mech IG.

I beg to differ. You play Mech IG - just because you win against Venom-based DE armies doesn't make Mech IG a hard-counter to them...hard counter being the diametrical opposite and a a loss waiting to happen.

An all-comer list isn't an army that is guaranteed to win against everyone - or everyone would play that army. It is one that has the tools on hand to deal with ALL other armies out there. Then generalship comes in to lean the game one way or the other.

If your army has the ability to deal with hordes, AV14 spam, low AV spam, MC spam, terminator spam, gunlines, deep-striking armies, and fast assault armies....then you have a take all comer list. The rest is in how you use it.

I have to agree with Dash on that last statement. My SW's are the perfect take all comers. I have the tools to deal with anything. My newest bug lists are built the same way. With the exception of my "get a hair up my ass and play it" armies, all of my armies are designed to have the tools I need to take any opponent.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Tomb King wrote:
@ people who believe in an all comers list. It doesnt exist. There is always a counter for any build you bring. If you bring an all comers list it only takes one player that spams a lot of something to overwhelm your all comers list. A lot of high strength low ap weapons mean nothing to a horde army and a lot of fire means nothing to a solid mech list. For example: The venom spam list can compete against most armies but would really get destroyed by Mech IG.

I beg to differ. You play Mech IG - just because you win against Venom-based DE armies doesn't make Mech IG a hard-counter to them...hard counter being the diametrical opposite and a a loss waiting to happen.

An all-comer list isn't an army that is guaranteed to win against everyone - or everyone would play that army. It is one that has the tools on hand to deal with ALL other armies out there. Then generalship comes in to lean the game one way or the other.

If your army has the ability to deal with hordes, AV14 spam, low AV spam, MC spam, terminator spam, gunlines, deep-striking armies, and fast assault armies....then you have a take all comer list. The rest is in how you use it.

Hulksmash wrote:I have to agree with Dash on that last statement. My SW's are the perfect take all comers. I have the tools to deal with anything. My newest bug lists are built the same way. With the exception of my "get a hair up my ass and play it" armies, all of my armies are designed to have the tools I need to take any opponent.

Okay, I think we are on the same page but are definition of an all comers list varies. A well balanced list can beat any army with the right generalship. I am just trying to point out the possible weakness of a true all comers list. If you build to take on every army than you might fail at taking on one army. The trick is to guess correctly and get a little lucky on match ups. It is impossible to build a list that handles an all mech army, while handling a horde army, and an all terminator army. You would need mass fire, High strength, and low ap. The only armies that can reliably do that to its fullest is Dark Eldar and IG. No matter what your build is though a balanced list can easilly lose to a very unbalanced list. Therefore, defeating the point of an all comers list. We build all comers list based on the current meta and top builds we anticipate facing. That doesnt stop someone throwing in the wild card goofy build.

On a note about optimized lists is that not all people will come to the same list conclusion with what they think is a take-all comers list.

There will be the staple units that most everyone will take, but for flavor, a few units or upgrades here or there will be different.

Hulksmash wrote:I have to agree with Dash on that last statement. My SW's are the perfect take all comers. I have the tools to deal with anything. My newest bug lists are built the same way. With the exception of my "get a hair up my ass and play it" armies, all of my armies are designed to have the tools I need to take any opponent.

Bug lists struggle vs. mech Eldar, hands down.
I'd like to see this SW list...

@Wuestenfux

It's no secret. I've been running it for over a year and a half. Granted it's gone on hiatus for months at a time cause I get bored easy

Logan
2xLonewolves w/Chainfist & SS
Wolfguard:
2xTA w/WC&SS
1xTA w/2 WC
1xTA w/Frost Blade & Cyclone
1xTA w/Chainfist & Cyclone
1xTA w/Combi-Plasma
3xPA w/Combi-Melta
1xPA w/Combi-Flamer

3x5 Grey Hunters w/Melta in HB Razorback
1x5 Grey Hunters w/Flamer in HB Razorback
3x6 Long Fangs w/5 Missile Launchers in AC Razorbacks

And some bug lists struggle with Mech Eldar. Lists with 2 squads of Raveners have far less trouble. Add in Genestealers who limit where you can move by taking up space and Hive Guard you use for a 48" no go zone and it works alright