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Just purchased my ticket. Very interested in seeing an example of what terrain will be like.

Mizzouri wrote:Just purchased my ticket. Very interested in seeing an example of what terrain will be like.

Ok Tim, time to get those pics of terrain up.......j/k

He said he would post them up soon, so hopefully some nagging will speed it up.

Squeak, squeak. This wheel needs some oil.

Have no fear - this week I sent my term paper in, did a presentation on the New Deal era court where I labeled Chief Justice Hughes and Justice Roberts the Ambiguously Gay Duo of Ace and Gary, and to top it off I'm collectively bargaining tonight!

So what does that mean for you? Pictures of the "demo table" ... aka what to expect on each board you'll play on at the Bugeater ... will be up this weekend.

In other news. the 40k tournament champion will be invited to compete at the NOVA Invitational, and I have two weekend passes to the NOVA Open that will be going to winners as well, so kudos to Mike and the NOVA for supporting the Bugeater.

Hrm...my wife just gave a thumbs up me flying to NE solo.

Now if I can just make everything else fall into place...

*edit* Apparently my good buddy Hulksmash is also going, so that takes care of most of the logistics.

I'm in!

Any chance at seeing how painting will be judged for sweapstakes? Sorry to keep buggin ya Tim....lol see what I did thar.

Here is the painting rubric - borrowed heavily from Adepticon. We'll get some 40k examples up there soon, but example pictures for fantasy are there now:

http://gt.bugeatergames.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Bugeater_PaintingReq.pdf

Just woundering why armies are limited to 30 points as a high score on the painting?

It give people who are excellent converters but mediocre painter a chance at scoring decently. Basically it allows different aspects of the appearance part of the which is how it should be in my opinion

Hulksmash wrote:It give people who are excellent converters but mediocre painter a chance at scoring decently. Basically it allows different aspects of the appearance part of the which is how it should be in my opinion

That's correct. That way if you assemble your minis exactly as they are on the box, but your paintjob is amazing, you don't get docked for not doing conversions. The opposite scenario that Hulksmash mentions is also true. Along the same lines of having two champions - this is just another way we're trying to reward different aspects of the hobby in our scoring.

Hulksmash wrote:It give people who are excellent converters but mediocre painter a chance at scoring decently. Basically it allows different aspects of the appearance part of the which is how it should be in my opinion

Well, at least that gives you a shot at winning something.

I mean c'mon....I have triple monoliths and you're expecting to DAEMONHAMMER them off the board before the Deceiver eats them? =p

Thanks Tim. I was just woundering what the reasoning was. Thanks again for posting the rubric up too!

Hey all - some people were asking about terrain. We inventoried and set up some demo tables to see how our vision would actually look. We wanted to emulate how Adepticon and other events had set up their tables, but we're not quite sure our table layouts are currently where we want them. You can post your feedback here, or on the blog post, but here is the link with some pictures: http://www.bugeatergames.com/?p=474. We usually game with a little more terrain, but scaled back after looking at the pictures of other tournaments. Since we've posted scenarios for review, we figure we'd discuss terrain as well to get the sage advice of those with more experience than us.

Thanks!

TimmyMWD wrote:
To me, and maybe our scenery is just smaller, it left the boards rather empty. But that prompted a follow up discussion of what makes a good board for a tournament? The usual stuff comes up – area terrain, buildings, etc. but some things that stand out in my mind is terrain tall enough to obstruct LOS for vehicles, some terrain in the deployment zone to give foot sloggers a chance, and not too much terrain to make vehicle movement impossible.

I think you've hit on an important issue here. Its not just the amount of terrain that makes a board, its the quality of the terrain too. The Nova Open had the typical terrain...but one or more of the pieces was a huge BLOS/possibly impassable piece in the middle.

Here's my table from the Nova Open game #1:


Here's from Game #2:


Here's from Game #3:


Here's from Game #4:


Here's from Game #5:


Here's from Game #6:


I didn't take pictures for Game 7, here's a picture from the Whiskey Challenge:


Most of those boards have multiple BLOS pieces of terrain on it.

More than half of all GT participants are represented in three forms. Mechanized IG (parking lot), Longfang Razorback spam (parking lot with shooty infantry assistance), and Blood Angel Predator/Razorback Spam (parking lot). I think that part of the reason so many players have gravitated towards this is because not enough TOs put serious thought into their terrain. Why NOT play a parking lot army if you don't have to worry about angles of attack, or LOS, or being able to shoot an opponent? Not having chunks of BLOS terrain completely takes out a critical tactical element of 40k and goes a long way towards simplifying the game into "Oh, I brought more guns than you. I win."

I brought Orks to the Nova Open and take mobile 4+ cover with me everywhere I go so it affected me less than other people, but I haven't played those Orks in almost a year. What about armies who don't have the option of MSU spam? My Necrons for example. Should they lose simply because an opponent can bring more guns to the table than I can? Getting cover with a monolith requires some 4-5" tall terrain wide enough to cover half of it, BLOS usually isn't an option, but terrain should still play a key feature in games. The three phases of 40k - move, shoot, assault. For the ridiculous prevalence of parking lot armies, not having viable terrain removes the need for the first phase. Oh...you're walking terminators up the field? I'll just shoot them off the board with every vehicle of mine for 3 turns until they get here!

Encourage people to utilize ALL aspects of the game, to have to THINK about their deployment and where avenues of fire are, where they can get cover, how to safeguard precious units. Encourage people to MOVE models around the table.

If Mike Brandt reads this, his head will swell, but they did an excellent job with tables - they had something for everyone, without giving particular benefit to anyone.

Dashofpepper wrote:I think you've hit on an important issue here. Its not just the amount of terrain that makes a board, its the quality of the terrain too. The Nova Open (which Adepticon was modeled after, yes?) had the typical terrain...but one or more of the pieces was a huge BLOS/possibly impassable piece in the middle.

You do realize AdeptiCon has been around for almost a decade and our current terrain sets (over 225 tables) has been a 3-year work in progress? Our terrain is significantly different than what is pictured, is primarily uniform, and built with quality, durability and gameplay in mind.

Not saying the NOVA Open crew didn't do a good job, they obviously did, but the lack of history here is a bit much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Bugeater GT - Terrain is tricky. To have good terrain you need one of two things: a dedicated staff who is willing to put 100's if not 1000's of hours into construction and painting, or a good network of people/stores/clubs to borrow terrain from. Building your own terrain, while a monumental task, allows you to have control over the aesthetic uniformity of the entire set. Additionally, it allows you to craft tables that are generally similar in style and playability. The downsides of course are the time and cost involved.

Being a relatively new event, you might not want to dedicate the sheer amount of resources required to construct terrain in your first year. Newer/smaller events can usually find/borrow enough decent terrain to put on a good show the first year (which is what the NOVA did last year if I am not mistaken). Experience and player feedback will go a long ways in determining your unique approach to you own event. Hopefully, you can also rally some additional volunteer support after year one, which can then aid with a larger terrain project down the road.

AdeptiCon has had varying terrain sets over the years. In the beginning we used the GW GT terrain. After a couple of years we constructed our first set of tables, without much thought to durability or uniformity. Around 4 years ago we started over from square one. This is the terrain we have been using for 3 years now. Every year we add 20-40 tables, spend time repairing damage/replacing pieces that didn't work and adding elements based on attendee feedback. It is a never-ending process, but ultimately an intergral one to a successful event.

Best of luck with the event.

@Dash

Was gonna say the same thing that Matthias did.

@Matthias

The terrain at Adepticon this year was truly excellent. There was even enough decently los blocking and big enough for me to infiltrate a unit of 17 genestealers inside 18" since they couldn't be seen. Never happened in all the tournaments I've played in 5th.

@Timmy

Regarding the pictures I'd recommend some larger, LOS blocking terrain if you can borrow it from someone local. Generally a decent sized LOS blocker in the middle of the table helps as well. Those pictures will make gunlines-esque armies over the top at your event.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Getting to look at those additional pictures as well, adding some pieces that block line of sight will put us in a fine spot. We've certainly got that terrain - as Matthias indicated a good amount of our terrain this first year is donated by the three FLGS in the area - but our first attempts looked a bit light. We'll meet again, pull some BLOS from what we have available and adjust from there.

Just a quick "what Matthias said." I'm glad dash appreciated our terrain, and we certainly did our damnedest, but AdeptiCon's terrain is the result of a multi-year strategic plan, not NOVA 2010.

Like AdeptiCon, we have a multi-year strategic plan for terrain, adding about 45 tables of uniform, custom terrain this year to supplement the 25 or so we proper owned last year.

Mike C from showcase, the BFS, and others will contribute the lion's share in return for the same. This is a good thing - working and supporting one another, and it'll sure help a GT through its formative years.

As fer Dash, appreciate the flattery of NOVA; we made a point of guaranteeing 25% coverage and LOS blocking pieces on all boards, just avoid giving us too much credit ... maybe there's some cross influences format wise for AdeptiCon40k, but their terrainwork is an awesome and peerless project @ present.

In that case, I'm going to whip out the noob card and claim hapless innocence.

Matthias, I've only been playing 40k for two years, and haven't had a chance to attend Adepticon. Kudos to your hard work, please don't feel that I was trying to slight you. I get around, but the trip to Chicago has thus far fell on inopportune times. I see a lot of heavy borrowing from the Nova's format, and thought I saw a post by you earlier this year/last year that Adepticon was borrowing the Nova format. No offense intended!

I am glad that everyone is saying the same thing about terrain though.

@DoP - Mike and I had a bunch of good conversations about all asepcts of event organizing. From logistics to formats to specific units, we threw stuff around all last Fall as we both attempted to sharpen our organizing blades. The NOVA 'format' was a single event, one that addressed a disenfranchised subset of gamers that we were interested in reaching out to also and including in the whole. To that end, I personally stole the Renaissance Man idea (which honestly wasn't entirely unique, as the idea of separate but equal awards has been out there for years) and applied our own math to it. Otherwise our format is generally the same as it has always been with a different/flattened out set of scoring. The NOVA uses AdeptiCon's PST system...a system that began locally in Chicago and was given a national stage via our event. We also ran Warhammer 40K Invitationals based off the GW Circuit for a few years (without large cash prizes).

The point being, good TO's talk, learn from each other's successes/mistakes, evaluate the differences in player bases and offer events the community wants to participate in. With the high turnover rate in wargaming and the influx of new players, a historical narrative is not necessary, but false claims really ought to be corrected prior to them becoming whispered gospel. It is also important to note that the Warhammer 40K Championships is one event amongst many at AdeptiCon and is often mistakenly equated with being all that we have to offer, when in reality is only what 18% of our attendees come to play in.

@TimmyMWD - Took a look at the photos on your blog. I think that is a good start for sure. Ultimately you need a little height to your terrain. Building hills that block LOS to smaller units is a good, east start. Additionally, a quick and simple way to convert some of your existing terrain to LOS blocking terrain is to simply board up the windows to some of your ruined buildings, if they are tall enough, it will create some nice LOS blocking stuff. I'd be weary of putting too much terrain on the table to compensate for lacking LOS blocking elements. Get one or two solid LOS blocking pieces per table and the rest is standard gravy.

Yes, I took the liberty of deleting that incorrect assumption from my earlier post.

All you fantasy players - we have one spot left in fantasy! After that we'll start a wait list, and if there's enough additional interest we'll expand the entries. Sign up today!

Big question is:

could Tim post a big photo of every piece of terrain he has right now?

It's really sounding like he hasn't started making any terrain in mass for the event!!?!?! (Took weeks to produce one sample pic, in this age it should take a day or two)

Showing one table is great. but where is the big pic of production line hills, forests and ruins? Or haven't you started yet?

fortykhardcore wrote:Big question is:

could Tim post a big photo of every piece of terrain he has right now?

It's really sounding like he hasn't started making any terrain in mass for the event!!?!?! (Took weeks to produce one sample pic, in this age it should take a day or two)

Showing one table is great. but where is the big pic of production line hills, forests and ruins? Or haven't you started yet?

@fortykhardcore- One sample shot of what to expect is ok. I have offered my terrain also. I'll bring it down, and if it is needed, he is welcome to it. If it is not, then it can sit in my truck. From their site, it looks like they are working on los blocking stuff too. There is plenty of time to punch out terrain to add to the stuff they have.

Cheer up!! Y SO SERIOUS?

fortykhardcore wrote:Big question is:

could Tim post a big photo of every piece of terrain he has right now?

It's really sounding like he hasn't started making any terrain in mass for the event!!?!?! (Took weeks to produce one sample pic, in this age it should take a day or two)

Showing one table is great. but where is the big pic of production line hills, forests and ruins? Or haven't you started yet?

Well, to post a picture of every board would require a pretty large room, and a combined shot from four different locations. As Matthias alluded to, the majority of our terrain in the first year will be provided by the local shops. The job on our end is to ensure that each table has a relatively similar layout in terrain distribution, and making sure that there is sufficient LOS blocking terrain, etc. as discussed in the posts above. I can tell you right now that we have more tables than we need - Dragon's Lair Blondo has donated six tables, Dragon's Lair Millard has four, the head of our gaming group, the Outriders, has fourteen tables that he's providing for our fantasy side, and the Game Shoppe is providing up to 18 tables for us. That's enough to cover 64 40k players, when in all reality we're closer to 30-40 for our first year. What we started doing this past week (as work commitments have prevented me from doing this sooner) is going to each store and beginning our inventory and determining set up.

Anyway, we set out last night revising our board structure based on the feedback we got here and on my blog. Unfortunately, my camera battery died :(, so someone had to take a cell phone picture and message it to me, so the resolution isn't that high. I'll go back and get a higher resolution one this weekend:



We've also been getting some of the cooler terrain inventoried, like this bad boy:


But most importantly, we've kicked off terrain production from now until June starting today! We call our weekend terrain gatherings Bartcon South on honor of a local buddy of ours. GW was nice enough to send this lovely set of packages to me yesterday:



So have no fear, we are more than good in the terrain department in terms of having terrain. The only question was how to set up our boards, which the experienced members of the site have been nice enough to provide us with some solid guidance.

That picture looks good. I think if the rest of your tables are similiar, you will be good to go.

So you're borrowing the terrain from local game stores! That should work well enough and provide some interesting variety.

Have you figured out who you're going to hire to run it for you yet?

Experienced event staff with solid rules knowledge and a proven track record of sucessful events will be key to pulling this off.

I used to live in the area if you need some names PM me.

fortykhardcore wrote:So you're borrowing the terrain from local game stores! That should work well enough and provide some interesting variety.

Have you figured out who you're going to hire to run it for you yet?

Experienced event staff with solid rules knowledge and a proven track record of sucessful events will be key to pulling this off.

I used to live in the area if you need some names PM me.

I won't be "hiring" anyone to run the event, but we have put together a quality staff of judges and organizers to make sure the event is successful and runs smoothly. Our judges come from the local game stores (again, the two Dragon's Lairs and the Game Shoppe) and have decades of experience running RTTs. They have all been more than willing to volunteer countless hours to develop the rules and scenarios, and I've been more than willing to accept their services and years of experience to shore up mine. That has allowed me to focus primarily on recruitment and getting all the materials and resources needed for the GT, and has helped make preparation far easier - the Bugeater GT really will be a showcase of the Warhammer community here in Omaha! I appreciate your offer for forwarding names, and if you'd like to contact me further to discuss your suggestions feel free to email me at RoyersT@gmail.com.

Pshh...everyone knows that every GT player is fully versed on the rules and that issues requiring judges NEVER come up. Right?

.....right guys?

......*silence*

fortykhardcore wrote:So you're borrowing the terrain from local game stores! That should work well enough and provide some interesting variety.

Have you figured out who you're going to hire to run it for you yet?

Experienced event staff with solid rules knowledge and a proven track record of sucessful events will be key to pulling this off.

I used to live in the area if you need some names PM me.

Hi Bart

Hey tournament sounds good!