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Good luck to everyone there. I'm really sad I'm gonna miss this one. It's like a big family party!

Hulksmash wrote:Good luck to everyone there. I'm really sad I'm gonna miss this one. It's like a big family party!

We'll be doing this again next year Hulk. And I'm proud to announce it will be golden ticket sanctioned.

Awesome. Congrats on that. Next year I'm a full time employee. I can take time off for things I look forward to hearing about how the event went and I'll mark it as my California event for next year (assuming you make painting a requirement since it'll be so far out....)

Though convincing the wife I need to fly back to cali so soon after the holidays is gonna be a stretch

Kevin Nash wrote:

Can someone link to me where this typo is so I can fix it?

There's no typo anywhere, I just made up a terrible record and put it in my signature to poke fun at the trend of people putting their Tourney records in their sigs.

lambadomy wrote:

Kevin Nash wrote:

Can someone link to me where this typo is so I can fix it?

There's no typo anywhere, I just made up a terrible record and put it in my signature to poke fun at the trend of people putting their Tourney records in their sigs.

LoL

Wow, so I am like 4 of all the wins you had last year. Sheesh, I suck.

lambadomy wrote:

Kevin Nash wrote:

Can someone link to me where this typo is so I can fix it?

There's no typo anywhere, I just made up a terrible record and put it in my signature to poke fun at the trend of people putting their Tourney records in their sigs.

I love you too Lambadomy!

Unfortunately I need to do it or I don't feel worthwhile so your just going to have to deal with it

I might make it down sunday to check it out and see how it is going.

Just a reminder there are still tickets available for this event. If you want to play tomorrow please secure a ticket on my blog: www.chaoswins.com and head down to Dragon's Den tomorrow for sign in at 10:00 AM. If you are afraid of paypal you are welcome to purchase your ticket in person at the store. First come first serve.

lambadomy wrote:

Kevin Nash wrote:

Can someone link to me where this typo is so I can fix it?

There's no typo anywhere, I just made up a terrible record and put it in my signature to poke fun at the trend of people putting their Tourney records in their sigs.

I actually realized this and was poking fun at you poking fun....and I won't stop posting my record until I achieve global domination!!!! pew pew

Day 1 results of this event are now posted here.

More updates tomorrow.

Congratulation to Dave Fay for winning this event! Final generalship standings can be found here.

I'll have additional information including paint scores and army lists up as soon as possible.

Thank you to all our attendees for coming out to our very special tournament!

Awesome, I got dead last.

Well, my record for the year can only go up from here.

Grats to Dave. Hopefully you'll have a reason to make the flight out to the Nova this year now

sharkticon wrote:Awesome, I got dead last.

Well, my record for the year can only go up from here.

Considering you got an automatic loss for missing round 1 just think of yourself as playing with a handicap.

And you didn't get dead last when soft scores were added in. You got second to last.

Thanks for joining us man!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Final standings and prize payouts are now available here.

I'll try to get Army Lists up sometime tomorrow.

Thanks for the awesome tournament! Wow, what tough competition. Great event, we all had a ton of fun and congrats to Dave, he fought through some really tough lists. I thought White925 was going to cream him in the finals based on lists but Dave pulled a Dave and found a way to win!

I like the format and hopefully you get it so that you have 32 players and 5 rounds so you have one undefeated player. I think you said that you are going to do a few 16-man 4 rounders which is about the same.

I liked the missions. Nothing like the classics.

Complaints/room for improvement:
As you know I got a bye in round #4. When you pay you money you are entering into a contract, you pay $30 you get 5 games. You have people traveling from Northern California, San Diego, and of course me form Phoenix. Yes, I was 0-3 and I had no hope of winning with my unpainted army, but those where my first games with the DE codex ever, and so I wanted to earn all about what they army can do. There aren't any good players in Phoenix, and I need all of the practice I can get. Heck, I almost went to the Ironman Tournament in Vegas, just to practice for this one, so it is all about getting the reps in to learn the army.

Next time have a ringer or make some kind of arangement.

Grats on everyone who won! Was a great and close fought event!

Yeah I had a great time too! I agree with Allan - next time award the bye for scoring and swiss tournament matchup purposes but have a ringer army there to give the person a chance to play - especially for those brave enough to playtest a new army at an event.

I posted my pics of the event here http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-7267-13569_2011%20Sprue%20Posse%20Grand%20Prix.html most of the pics are from my games for (forthcoming) batreps but feel free to check em out.

First, I'm glad I went - had some fun games, and got to hang out with some people I don't see often enough, plus play against a few people I've managed to somehow avoid in recent years. We'll see if I can get enough motivation together to put up real battle reports, but here's a few quick thoughts:

Venue:
-It's a fairly new "store within a store." Their back area is okay for the number of tables involved, but I did get a little tired of maneuvering around the poles everywhere.

-They REALLY need onsite drinks. Given the very short time between rounds, there was no chance to leave the store to buy water. If the store doesn't want the hassle, then I'd beg the organizers to consider doing it themselves - grab a couple flats of water from Costco, and sell them to me at $0.50-$1 each. Hell, roll the price into the tickets, and just give them to people every round. Failing that, let us know next time that there is absolutely no refreshment on-site, and I'll bring flats of water with me.

-Terrain: With more time, they'll build up a better terrain collection at the store. As it was, only about 4 of the 11-12 tables actually had any LoS-blocking terrain, and most of those were 6" in diameter or less. A suggestion, shamelessly stolen from Yakface: if you're a TO, with inadequate amounts of LoS-blocking terrain in your pool, then feel free to simply declare a hill per table as being infinitely tall, or a ruin as NOT having all those open windows. The game is much more interesting if the players have to make real choices as to where to position their fire support, rather than having the full field wide-open.

-VERY friendly people at the store (both stores?).

-I wish I had known how little they kept in-stock. I try to buy things from stores that host events, but they had nothing I wanted. Had I known, I would have pre-ordered before I got there.

Games:
-Missions were solid; a nice overview of the book missions.

-Time was too short. I understand that the venue put some time constraints on us for Day 1, but 2:20 was inadequate for me to reach the natural end of 2/3 of my games on Day 1. Yes, I was playing Tyranids. But I'm well over 100 games into my Tyranids, and this is the first event I've felt so rushed.

-I had 3 good games, 1 frustrating game, and 1 game where the opponent conceded on the top of turn 2 (owing to feeling frustrated by his dice & overall performance for the weekend).

Armies:
-6 Space Wolves, out of 21 players.

-A couple really attractive armies there, which was very nice to see in a "painting optional" event.

-On the whole, very solid lists played by very competent people.

Results:
I finished 2-2-1, so in the middle of the pack for generalship, and tied for 4 in the Renaissance standings. At the least, I can comfort myself that my Sportsmanship is better than Reece's.

Janthkin wrote:I finished 2-2-1, so in the middle of the pack for generalship, and tied for 4 in the Renaissance standings. At the least, I can comfort myself that my Sportsmanship is better than Reece's.

Hey! I am a pleasure to play! Ah but well done, buddy. You are a super mellow person to game against and I am sure you deserved beating me in sports!

I agree though, there should have been a ringer army. Will drove all the way down from NorCal with us and he only got 4 games in.

Also, I know the TO had very little control over this, but having the second day start at noon was a pain as it meant we were killing so much time in the morning and we had to get on the road so much later to get home.

Everything else though was great and like I said before, the competition was fierce! Not a weak army or player there, everyone was just about or at expert level. Good fun!

Somnicide wrote:Yeah I had a great time too! I agree with Allan - next time award the bye for scoring and swiss tournament matchup purposes but have a ringer army there to give the person a chance to play - especially for those brave enough to playtest a new army at an event.

I posted my pics of the event here http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-7267-13569_2011%20Sprue%20Posse%20Grand%20Prix.html most of the pics are from my games for (forthcoming) batreps but feel free to check em out.

I agree with that sentiment Blackmoor/Somnicide. We did have a ringer/army for those purposes on day 1 but we were a little strapped from a personnel bandwidth perspective. Somnicide, since you're concurring on the shortcomings with Blackmoor and you're part of our very gaming group that is sponsoring these events I'll trust that you'll put your words into action and volunteer to be the ringer for our next big event in case there is a bye and a player who wishes to play. Thanks for your support!

I think that the person who has won a tourney has to be the ringer ;-)

Janthkin wrote:First, I'm glad I went - had some fun games, and got to hang out with some people I don't see often enough, plus play against a few people I've managed to somehow avoid in recent years. We'll see if I can get enough motivation together to put up real battle reports, but here's a few quick thoughts:

Venue:
-It's a fairly new "store within a store." Their back area is okay for the number of tables involved, but I did get a little tired of maneuvering around the poles everywhere.

-They REALLY need onsite drinks. Given the very short time between rounds, there was no chance to leave the store to buy water. If the store doesn't want the hassle, then I'd beg the organizers to consider doing it themselves - grab a couple flats of water from Costco, and sell them to me at $0.50-$1 each. Hell, roll the price into the tickets, and just give them to people every round. Failing that, let us know next time that there is absolutely no refreshment on-site, and I'll bring flats of water with me.

Thanks for joining us! I'd love to read your batreps.

Good idea on the water. I'll look into haveing some for sale/free next time we hold an event there. If it's something we can afford I'll make that available.

-Terrain: With more time, they'll build up a better terrain collection at the store. As it was, only about 4 of the 11-12 tables actually had any LoS-blocking terrain, and most of those were 6" in diameter or less. A suggestion, shamelessly stolen from Yakface: if you're a TO, with inadequate amounts of LoS-blocking terrain in your pool, then feel free to simply declare a hill per table as being infinitely tall, or a ruin as NOT having all those open windows. The game is much more interesting if the players have to make real choices as to where to position their fire support, rather than having the full field wide-open.

We put LOS blocking terrain at every table but some were shorter than others. I do agree there were some shortcomings here and have already lobbied the store manager to improve upon that. Fair terrain is very important to us and we were trying our best to accommodate that with the pieces we had. I'll work to make sure it's better next time around.

-VERY friendly people at the store (both stores?).

-I wish I had known how little they kept in-stock. I try to buy things from stores that host events, but they had nothing I wanted. Had I known, I would have pre-ordered before I got there.

Yeah his stock was small but he was kind enough to offer to ship anything the winners wanted directly to their door.

Games:
-Missions were solid; a nice overview of the book missions.

-Time was too short. I understand that the venue put some time constraints on us for Day 1, but 2:20 was inadequate for me to reach the natural end of 2/3 of my games on Day 1. Yes, I was playing Tyranids. But I'm well over 100 games into my Tyranids, and this is the first event I've felt so rushed.

-I had 3 good games, 1 frustrating game, and 1 game where the opponent conceded on the top of turn 2 (owing to feeling frustrated by his dice & overall performance for the weekend).

I was of the opinion 2:20 was adequate for a 2000 point tournament game. I don't feel like that's short but perhaps I'm off base there? If that really isn't adequate time then I'll probably lower the point value as opposed to increasing the time, or the day becomes painfully long, especially with a lunch and breaks thrown in.

Armies:
-6 Space Wolves, out of 21 players.

-A couple really attractive armies there, which was very nice to see in a "painting optional" event.

-On the whole, very solid lists played by very competent people.

Yeah lot's of space wolves. They are indeed a very good army, I think straightforward to play, cool looking, and of course new. They did finish 3rd and 4th, but not first or second. I think the bet was that they would get 2 of the top 3 slots. They didn't manage to do that. Close though.

Results:
I finished 2-2-1, so in the middle of the pack for generalship, and tied for 4 in the Renaissance standings. At the least, I can comfort myself that my Sportsmanship is better than Reece's.

.500 in that field is nothing to be ashamed of. Congrats for placing so high for Renaissance man. Your army looked fantastic and you were doing a great job with rule clarifications. You clearly have a firm grasp of the rules and that's really refreshing to see.

I was goin to show up on Sunday with my army but I was under the impression I couldn't cause I was not in the tourney. But I did get alot of painting done only my new tanks.

Haha!

Yeah, it is worth mentioning that there was a ringer on day one, but that plenty of our group wasn't available to attend or judge/ring... You know who I'm talking about!!!

Good idea on the water Janth... I always bring my own, been burned too man times by that, but it wouldn't be too hard for us to get a flat or two.

My personal experience with the time limits has been with no problems, I played a 7 turn game with ten minutes to spare and two 6 turn games with 15-20 minutes to spare. I know that moving hordes are slower than static hordes, and I know that a concession needs to be made to horde armies. But on the one hand there are complaints that there isn't enough time to get lunch/water, but you want longer rounds too. These stores that allow us to host tournaments do not budge on late night hours. They just don't. Our next big GT will be at a convention center likely, and I hope that affords us more time for rounds. But in this case, you got short breaks because the organizers of this event were already being as sensitive as they could be to game length.

And if i remember what Mark was saying Reece, the late start on sunday was also the game store's call. We had to beg for an early opening on saturday (they usually open at eleven). But they did not want to open early for two consecutive days. I may have my information wrong here, this is just my foggy recollection. but I'm with you. i like early starts.

The group is going to be making our own tables (32 of them over these next 12 months) and we're confident that once we have the tables we'll be able to rent private venues, and in doing so, will have a lot more control over start time, round time, and available food/water.

And also, keep the constructive criticism coming, we know you guys had a good time... (I didn't see any long faces at the end of the day sunday) but we also want to know everything that could improve too.

I had a fun time at the event. And finally meeting a lot of people from dakka face to face. My army had a very poor showing but what can you do haha.

For sure will come on down again.

cgage00 wrote:I was goin to show up on Sunday with my army but I was under the impression I couldn't cause I was not in the tourney. But I did get alot of painting done only my new tanks.

Techinically you could have even entered the tourney for day two but you wouldn't have been eligible for any prizes. You could have come out for some ranked play though. Our system can accommodate that (it also accommodates only playing on day 1 as well).

I want to be the ringer if there's another tournament. I really can't handle playing 5 stressful games over two days. I am still tired from it.

I really enjoyed the tournament. The only thing I'm not very excited about is the sportsmanship scoring. Not only is it 1/3 of the overall possible points, just like battle points it's a 0 sum game. At most tournaments sportsmanship points SEEM like a lot, but in reality they're next to nothing because almost everyone maxes out. In this tournament, I had to choose someone to be last, and absolutely screw them in the renaissance man standings. I enjoyed all my games, every one of my opponents deserved 5/5, there was absolutely no discernible difference in their sportsmanship. I had to give two people what I would consider the equivalent of "you suck" sportsmanship scores.

The fact that sportsmanship only really mattered for two prizes (overall and sportsman) mitigates that, and every if everyone just got 5 points Dave would have still won overall. But if I had randomly chosen someone other than Dave first, Ryan gets best overall. I had very little reason to rate him higher than anyone else, it was a fun game but not obviously better than the other games.

And no, this is not sour grapes because I am apparently a jerk (2 sportsmanship yay!). I just think this puts a huge premium on sportsmanship for a large prize and that most people would have given all their opponents 5/5/ or 4/5 if given a choice.

Shep wrote:My personal experience with the time limits has been with no problems, I played a 7 turn game with ten minutes to spare and two 6 turn games with 15-20 minutes to spare. I know that moving hordes are slower than static hordes, and I know that a concession needs to be made to horde armies. But on the one hand there are complaints that there isn't enough time to get lunch/water, but you want longer rounds too. These stores that allow us to host tournaments do not budge on late night hours. They just don't. Our next big GT will be at a convention center likely, and I hope that affords us more time for rounds. But in this case, you got short breaks because the organizers of this event were already being as sensitive as they could be to game length.

Whoa there, Shep - I didn't ask for longer rounds at this point level, merely said that 2:20 isn't long enough for 2000 pt games. I'm fine either way - run 1850 at 2:15, run 2000 at 2:30 (or 2:45 if you can swing it). That extra 150 pts, for my Tyranids, meant another 19 models in the list to setup, move, shoot/run, assault, and for my enemy to kill.

1 of my 2 games that didn't finish was against Orks. There were a LOT of models on that table, and we were rolling a lot of dice. It happens. Another game finished a good 20-25 minutes early (against Daemons), and one finished about 2 hours early.

If presented with another 2k tournament with 2:20 rounds, I'll almost certainly choose not to bring Tyranids, and I'd expect Yakface will choose not to bring foot orks; whether that has any significance for the organizers is up to them. As I said, I had fun, and I'm glad I went. Everything past that is either an observation or a suggestion/aspiration for improvement, not a complaint.

Kevin Nash wrote:Good idea on the water. I'll look into having some for sale/free next time we hold an event there. If it's something we can afford I'll make that available.

Again, if it's not a task you want to handle, just let the players know - we can (mostly) take care of ourselves, if we know to do so, and are happy to pitch in & help with easy tasks like that.

I was of the opinion 2:20 was adequate for a 2000 point tournament game. I don't feel like that's short but perhaps I'm off base there? If that really isn't adequate time then I'll probably lower the point value as opposed to increasing the time, or the day becomes painfully long, especially with a lunch and breaks thrown in.

There's certainly room for discussion on the points/time ratio, and it's rarely something we have complete data on - I've got my 5 data points, and that's about it. But I've run into Yakface's Kanwall at a SCGWL event before with my Tyranids, and that's a game that would never be finished in 2:20. For me, it'll just be another army-determinative factor; I won't bring the Tyranids to another 2k/2:20 event.

Yeah lot's of space wolves. They are indeed a very good army, I think straightforward to play, cool looking, and of course new. They did finish 3rd and 4th, but not first or second. I think the bet was that they would get 2 of the top 3 slots. They didn't manage to do that. Close though.

The funny thing, of course, is that after worrying about SW and changing my army around, I didn't see one all weekend.