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Fetterkey wrote:Obviously, differences in terrain and so on make it so that you can't totally standardize games--

...although a series of blow-moulded tables made available to TO's would go some way towards that end. Would also remove issues of 'terrain creep' (the terrain slowly moving around the table) as the event progresses.

The problem with this is that people might adapt tactics for each board beforehand, which is generally silly. I like that some elements of your tactics have to be composed on the fly, as that adds a useful element of skill to the game. Terrain creep is an issue, though. Outlining the location of the terrain bases on the board seems like it would be a good solution, but would require the board to be used the same way each time (or else some form of marker that doesn't damage the terrain). Another good idea might be a board with small but powerful magnets buried in the board and in the bases of the terrain pieces. That would be more customizable than an "outline board" but would help stop terrain drift.

I think we need some sort of "tournament forum" here on dakka to start bringing about these kind of changes.

EDIT-there is now a Nuts & Bolts thread about it.

The problem is a lot of TO's believe they know best regardless of what others say :p They love silly scenarios cause they dont have to play in them

Fetterkey wrote:The problem with this is that people might adapt tactics for each board beforehand, which is generally silly.

Not really. Wherever possible, a commander should scout out a battlefield and prepare tactics beforehand. And your tactics are still going to be compromised by your opponent's force, and by the actual mission you wind up playing.

Rotating in a couple of different tables and retiring a couple of older ones each gaming 'season' would help keep things fresh.

Of course, the required expense of actually doing such a thing makes it a pipe dream... It's just something that occured to me a while back that I think would be a great equaliser for 'circuit' tournament play along with standardised missions and game sizes.

I feel a 5 game event should have 3 standard missions and 2 new ones. this makes the events special. I loved when GW used to make different missions for RT's

I think that would be a really good idea if and only if it were possible to switch board setups after every tournament and never reuse the same layouts. Sadly I agree with you that it will almost certainly not happen.

Fetterkey wrote:Terrain creep is an issue, though.

Simple. Put sticky tac on the bottom of all the terrain pieces :p. Has no one ever thought of that before or am I just missing something I should know XD.

It's certainly possible to do, but would likely get gross and mess up the table surface.

Fetterkey wrote:It's certainly possible to do, but would likely get gross and mess up the table surface.

Good point... It is a pain removing that tac residue when taking the posters down in your dorm room -.-

EDIT: You could go the way GW sells some of its table tops. Built squares with terrain pieces glued on and fit them together on the table top. So long as the pieces are not dependent on another square they can be easily mixed and matched.

Masking tape lines on the table?

Timmah wrote:

Heck we don't even know what the power builds are in 40k currently because no one ever posts crap about tournaments outside of a bat rep here or there.

I hear the MtG people post their deck builds on the internets. You should go check them out. You could also tell those MtG players all the characteristics shared by that game and 40k.

Iron_Chaos_Brute wrote:Masking tape lines on the table?

Better, but I'm still not confident that that would be totally safe on the table texture.

I am excited to hear about hte Bolts & Nuts thread and am going over to check it out now. It's nice to see something come out of this discussion.

Shane you know I am always behind you.

G

The only way I see 40k working truely competatively is by isolating these four things: points level, tables, missions, rules. In Starcraft, they have a set of maps they cycle through, and I think this could work for 40k. However, 40k has the complexity of various mission objectives, instead of simply "kill him dead" (usually). Say various leagues (1.5k, 2k, 2.5k), with a pool of 30 boards and maybe 10-15 missions one could mix and match while still having a unified game. As it is, there are way too many variations in the tournament rules for an equal, competative game. The biggest issue, however, are the rules themselves. Games Workshop is constantly (I use that word loosely) updating various armies, changing the metagame.

You need to make as many elements as static as you can so that the player skill becomes the most important thing. However, the game was built for friendly play and story telling, not competative play. As it stands we have none of those four things. This isn't to say player skill can't or doesn't shine through (and I believe it does), but you can't have a ranking system with a 'best player' or 'best list' until you've unified everything else.

olympia wrote:

Timmah wrote:

Heck we don't even know what the power builds are in 40k currently because no one ever posts crap about tournaments outside of a bat rep here or there.

I hear the MtG people post their deck builds on the internets. You should go check them out. You could also tell those MtG players all the characteristics shared by that game and 40k.

I love how the discussion has moved past this yet you continue to try and attack me based on differing opinions.

Seriously, what is your problem?

Iron_Chaos_Brute wrote:I think we need some sort of "tournament forum" here on dakka to start bringing about these kind of changes.

EDIT-there is now a Nuts & Bolts thread about it.

I proposed this a while ago but generally got shot down as it was "unnecessary."

Green Blow Fly wrote:
Shane you know I am always behind you.

No, thats ok, please stay up front where I can see you.

Timmah wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:
Here is the secret of being a good 40k player and making good lists.

Step 1: make a list

Step 2: play a game with the list

Step 3: Reflect on your game and see what beat you

Step 4: Add unit(s) to counter what you lost to or change in game strategy.

Repeat at step 1
You will need to go through this 4 step process about 10-15 times against different lists.

There is so many things wrong with this I can't even begin to say anything about it...

I am curious - what is wrong with this approach. Sounds like a standard approach to life let alone gaming. Give it you best shot first, change what doesn't appear to work based on analysis of past failures, improve then repeat until cannot improve.

Explain your self as to why this is wrong. I am interested.

On topic, I agree with DarthDiggler's secret to making a good list/player. Infact, I'd have to say I'm a product of it (indirectly). I use Possessed Chaos Marines to great effect. Optimal? The Internet doesn't think so, but my gaming group makes me play my Orks now. That's because I've been using Possessed since I joined 40k, and I've gotten such a good feel for the unit, whatever the power they roll.

@fullheadofhair

I already retracted my statement because of the likelihood my opinion would start a big flame war if I posted it. So I am staying a way in favor of the current discussion.

Timmah wrote:

I am not saying being bull headed is an insult. Sometimes its required to weed through the BS. But when you only accept the comments that praise your list, its usually a bad thing. You don't get any communications going. Also, there are very few intensive bat reps where people lose or do moderately well. These middle of the pack players are usually the ones grinding it out with other great players and just getting draws because of luck of the draw and the skill of their opponent.

If they are good players, they know what the limitations of their list are, and what they struggle with/against. But when you make any list, you have to make compromises, and decisions and the final list is what they generally end up with. To make a list stronger against some opponents, they have to weaken it against others. Now if someone wins, then they made the right choices.


As far as posting batreps whether you win or lose, if you are a good player you really don’t lose that much. Right now I only post the batreps to the major tournaments I go to. I did go to Adepticon last year and I was just having fun with my 3rd Edition Thousand Sons list and I went 2-2 in the Gladiator and 0-2-1 at the Invitational and I posted those batreps.

No offense, but someone posting how they destroyed 5 other players that were below there skill level doesn't really show tactics and such. (not pointing fingers at anyone, but it seems to be the way it goes if you are going to get best overall)

Yeah…sure Would you prefer that I did not post those batreps at all and left some mystery?

Anyways, I don't mean it as an insult that our hobby is very closed when it comes to info. Its a lot of work to type of players lists without something like army building. Maybe we need a better way of accepting tournament lists. Like the normal paper sheet as well as a flash drive with a army builder file on it of your army. So that the TO can easily publish the lists and what order you finished

It just seems like a lot of people are resistant to this because they feel like they will lose their competitive edge if people know their list/tactics.

Imo you get more competitive events when everyone is on close to the same page information wise. You should win based on your player skill, not because you found the counter to everyones list (maybe one event, but after that it should be out there for the public)

Here is the problem: If you post your list and batreps, everyone thinks that you got lucky, and that you played nothing but bad players, playing bad lists. There is no incentive for a winner to post their lists, in fact just the opposite is true.

See that list that Skipper posted of the best players, and do you know what they have in common? They don’t post batreps, or their lists except for Bill Kim who does it once in a while. There is a lot of mystery behind what they do and how they did it. The wizard behind the curtain is not as impressive as The Great Oz.

I think a large part of why Darkwyn, the guy who won BolsCon and myself got so much flack about our wins, is because we posted our lists and battle reports. Everyone now gets to see how the sausage is made, and we took a lot of mystery out of it.

Every winner of a major tournament needs some luck along the way like, drawing some bad players at the right time, have some favorable matchups, etc., but previously you never saw it, and it was left up to your imagination how they won, and what they won it with, and how they got there.

Here is an example of what happens when you are transparent:
In the 2008 Adepticon Gladiator Bill Kim won overall. Bill posted his batreps and had a lot of people question the viability of his list, and how he got lucky etc, just like me and the others who post batreps. He played a genestealer horde (his “stealer shock” list) and you can use his win as an example to show that any player who wins a large tournament has to get lucky somewhere along the way. He got lucky by not drawing any skimmer lists. He knew that if he was ever up against one that he had a good chance of losing, but he took that chance and it paid off. Did he get lucky? A little bit. Here is another example of how you have to get lucky to win: Marc Parker played Bill Kim in the last game at Table #1 for the win. Marc ended up losing, and Bill won, but Marc got unlucky to draw a good player like Bill who had a good army to beat Marc’s. If Marc got lucky and did not face Bill on the last table, he might have won the tournament.

Here is what happens when you are not transparent:
In Gamesday Los Angeles 2007 Greg Sparks and I were on table #1 in the last game. We had a hard game and we ended up tying, and Scott Simpson who was on table #2 jumped over us for the win. Did Scott get lucky to not play either of us? Did Greg and I get unlucky to play each other? Because Scott does not post his batreps we have no idea if he had an easy path to the win, and we will never know how hard his opponents were, and we will not know what his list was exactly made up of. So he does not get a lot of people afterward saying how bad his list was, and how he got so lucky to win.

Here are a few simple, easy to answer questions for all you tournament guros.

1-Do you make a point of playing in any event you can? Be it a little 10 man local tournament or a 20 man 60 miles away?

2-Are you selective of who you play casually?

3-How many games do you get in a week.

4-Is there a sense of comradery among you best of the best. I would assume that you could say 'well i made it to table 1, but lost to Marc, Bill, Allen, Scott', so I didnt do too bad.

No offense, but someone posting how they destroyed 5 other players that were below there skill level doesn't really show tactics and such. (not pointing fingers at anyone, but it seems to be the way it goes if you are going to get best overall)

This is like saying Alexander the great was not a good general because he never fought anyone with equal skill level.

blah blah bill kim stealer shock marc parker

I dunno why people questioned the viability of that army list, it looked pretty solid. That was the game with the trygon tunneling up into the ork lootas/kannons?

Questions are always a good thing.

G

Too much emphasis goes on the list, I think. Good players seem to build a list around what plays right for them.

Blackmoor wrote:See that list that Skipper posted of the best players, and do you know what they have in common? They don’t post batreps, or their lists except for Bill Kim who does it once in a while. There is a lot of mystery behind what they do and how they did it. The wizard behind the curtain is not as impressive as The Great Oz.

I think a large part of why Darkwyn, the guy who won BolsCon and myself got so much flack about our wins, is because we posted our lists and battle reports. Everyone now gets to see how the sausage is made, and we took a lot of mystery out of it.

Yeah - several of us have no desire or time to try and justify any lists that we bring or to discuss the tactics that we employ. I personally posted some bat reps once and lost the taste for it right away due to the lack of understanding and closed mindedness by parts of the community. To me - the flack is not worth my time and effort.

I think a large part of why Darkwyn, the guy who won BolsCon and myself got so much flack about our wins, is because we posted our lists and battle reports. Everyone now gets to see how the sausage is made, and we took a lot of mystery out of it.

No. The reason people give you flack for your wins is this: The "Wild West Shootout" had completely ridiculous missions. I'm sorry, but no competitive tournament should make players deal with the missions that the WWS did. They were just plain badly balanced for different armies, really badly.
BolScon was a total joke. They made up their own rules for the tournament, like "we don't like inquisitorial allies, so you can't have them!". Totally slowed. Complete joke of a tournament, did you see how many foot slogger XYZ marines there were in the top 10? Did you see some of the army lists people posted?
Ard Boyz is a strange tournament. It is a non-standard points value and has strange mission rules. However, the most serious contributing factor to the victor here is what everyone knows: getting first turn every game with his all-shooting all-the-time list.

This really isn't that tricky to figure out.

ph34r wrote:

I think a large part of why Darkwyn, the guy who won BolsCon and myself got so much flack about our wins, is because we posted our lists and battle reports. Everyone now gets to see how the sausage is made, and we took a lot of mystery out of it.

No. The reason people give you flack for your wins is this: The "Wild West Shootout" had completely ridiculous missions. I'm sorry, but no competitive tournament should make players deal with the missions that the WWS did. They were just plain badly balanced for different armies, really badly.
BolScon was a total joke. They made up their own rules for the tournament, like "we don't like inquisitorial allies, so you can't have them!". Totally slowed. Complete joke of a tournament, did you see how many foot slogger XYZ marines there were in the top 10? Did you see some of the army lists people posted?
Ard Boyz is a strange tournament. It is a non-standard points value and has strange mission rules. However, the most serious contributing factor to the victor here is what everyone knows: getting first turn every game with his all-shooting all-the-time list.

This really isn't that tricky to figure out.

At each tournament there are a lot of players all playing the same missions. So why didn't one of the others win? They were all playing 5 games against the same field of opponents, with the same missions.

So what you are saying is that wonky scenarios must be the reason why the winners won. The scenarios made them win!

And the reason why the army that won Bolscon was because IG could not take Inq. allies? Heaven forbid you only get to use everything in one codex.

You would have no idea about how the scenarios played out, or what went on with them if I did not post those batreps. For example, in game #4 of the WWSO I might have gone second and had to play a brilliant game, but without me showing what really happened I leave myself open to comments like this.

I think Greg might be right. I post my batreps to show people what goes on in major tournaments, and to follow along, and to see the types of armies you face, and to see how the people play. I also do it to show that you can win with non-traditional lists, and that you can do well with just about any army if it is well balanced, but it ain't worth the hassle.

I think in the future if I post them I will keep them to my blog. Especially since it takes a long time and a lot of work to write them.

You wrote:At each tournament there are a lot of players all playing the same missions. So why didn't one of the others win? They were all playing 5 games against the same field of opponents, with the same missions.

I wrote:They were just plain badly balanced for different armies, really badly.

The WWS missions had such crazy special rules that there is no way they were balanced for all armies. 3 turns of night fight? Having to carry an objective? NO TERRAIN?
I'm sure you are an experienced and skilled 40k player who knows his tactics and uses them well, but seriously, you can't tell me that these scenarios didn't totally screw over certain armies.

Well I for one appreciate your well written bat reps - especially the pics. That goes for anyone who puts time in to make a bat rep. It is a bit time consuming, and explaining your tactics and a full analysis of the game takes work. I think a lot of people just read them and move on without telling you how awesome it is to have a solid report like that coming out from a major event.

Its not really convenient for me to travel to tournies, nor do we have many big ones in the city I live. I like to read about top tournies for 40k in a very similar way that I follow the top Chess tournies - I look at the games, analyze to the best of my ability and try to learn from the best.

There will always be naysayers. Especially from the peanut gallery. Don't worry about them - you didn't write the report for some dude with no experience to tell you how to play. Quite the opposite in fact.

Reading reports like yours, as well as posting lists and getting ideas from criticism (note: take net list criticism with a grain of salt, and always use what works for you over what internet dudes tell you to play) is a fast way to improving your game.

edit: @ blackmoor



Automatically Appended Next Post:

ph34r wrote:

You wrote:At each tournament there are a lot of players all playing the same missions. So why didn't one of the others win? They were all playing 5 games against the same field of opponents, with the same missions.

I wrote:They were just plain badly balanced for different armies, really badly.

The WWS missions had such crazy special rules that there is no way they were balanced for all armies. 3 turns of night fight? Having to carry an objective? NO TERRAIN?
I'm sure you are an experienced and skilled 40k player who knows his tactics and uses them well, but seriously, you can't tell me that these scenarios didn't totally screw over certain armies.

You are being melodramatic. Do oddball scenarios like that often favor some armies? Yes.

But the scope I think is much smaller than you imagine.

The point is it's hard to really respect a victory in 40k when it isn't really 40k, but 40k without any cover, or 40k with terribly nerfed shooting, etc. 40k is not balanced for that.
It's like saying that the MLB is going to be played entirely at night with no light, or running backwards, or with a football, or with chairs instead of bats.
Is it still a competition? Yeah. Can you still be the best at that competition? Sure, why not. Would baseball fans be impressed by it? Probably not so much.
Now the analogy isn't perfect. On the positive side, the examples I used were exaggerations, as it isn't as hard to play 40k as with those "adjustments" to baseball.
On the other hand, each army is effected by a crazy scenario in a different way, some getting hit hard by the nerf bat and others staying okay, thus creating more imbalance.