40k Throne Of Skulls; A Poor Excuse For A Tournament!

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**MagickalMemories**

Well, I agree that it sounds atrocious.

To be fair, though, you should probably remove the following statement:

Players also noticed that there was no free tea, coffee and biscuits in the mornings this year that was common at the previous Grand Tournaments.

Honestly, it sounds a bit like the attendees felt a sense of entitlement. Makes you sound like a bunch of Americans. ; )

Eric

**MVBrandt**

Proiteus wrote:Just learnt that a group of tournament players who have attended each GT has sent an email directly to Jervis about the scoring and matching problems.

They maybe hope yet, if not it's just another event GW has ruined.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Got a reply from the events team about the issues above...

The Throne of Skulls format is Games Workshop’s new way of running what used to be the Grand Tournament, but this has led to some confusion. The Throne of Skulls is designed as a fun weekend where players come together to enjoy playing games with new opponents and the camaraderie of the Event. It is not the same competitive event that the Grand Tournament used to be. Obviously, there are still winners and losers, but the event focuses on the enjoyment aspect rather than purely winning and the ranking of players (which, for example, is why we don’t want to record Victory Points from the games). The way your club runs tournaments sounds cool but I can tell you that we will be continuing to use the same format, all be-it with some minor tweaks to help the event run more smoothly.

This is basically extreme customer service failure. Events across the world have proven that it is EASY to hold an event where competitiveness, cameraderie, artistry, fun, perks and great times can all go hand in hand, and/or in parallel, with no conflict or negativity attached. I'd be embarrassed to send a response like this, if I were a multi-million dollar public company. It's effectively stating "we're not going to get any better, at all, shove it." The fact that GW puts out the pathetic crap that is Ard Boyz, and now Throne of Skulls, identifies a complete intellectual inability to go beyond forced divisions and lowbrow compartmentalization. L2P. There are dozens of ways to do an event, but that doesn't make them all equal, and this is near the bottom of the barrel. I frankly applaud people who independently are trying to run it similarly but not horribly (ironman).

Sounds like they took away your tea and crumpets, too.

**vhwolf**

I frankly applaud people who independently are trying to run it similarly but not horribly (ironman).

Sounds like they took away your tea and crumpets, too.

Thanks for the plug. I have been spending a lot of time reading all of the forums I could find to get feedback on the system. I can say for sure that we will be doing pairings based off of win loss ratio, and that there will be two missions that use 5 objectives and two missions that use kill points as well as using one of each of the deployment options with a fourth deployment type (it will be familiar to anyone who has played the game for more than 6 months) used to keep each game a little different. We will hand add the results as well as a computer program as I know the GW spreadsheet does not work.

I think people will find that even though it is a low cost one day event it will be a lot of fun.

More details at http://lasvegasgamersclub.com/

**mikhaila**

MVBrandt wrote: Events across the world have proven that it is EASY to hold an event where competitiveness, cameraderie, artistry, fun, perks and great times can all go hand in hand, and/or in parallel, with no conflict or negativity attached. ..........Sounds like they took away your tea and crumpets, too.

I'll only argue the semantics of the word EASY, and change it to POSSIBLE.)

What you did with NOVA, Mike, didn't necessarily look easy.) And I know how much my old bones ached after Border Raids last weekend.

Tea and Biscuits? Is that what they call food in the UK? I served sausage gumbo and smoked chicken barbeque at my GT.)

**Stormrider**

**Bunker**

Proiteus wrote: hyper-optimized lists from known underpowered codexes like Necrons

This is where I stopped reading.

It honestly sounds like you're upset that you lost out to what you consider to be low-tier armies and just want to vent.

**Monster Rain**

I like tournaments of all types, so I'd go to something like this.

**MVBrandt**

mikhaila wrote:
MVBrandt wrote: Events across the world have proven that it is EASY to hold an event where competitiveness, cameraderie, artistry, fun, perks and great times can all go hand in hand, and/or in parallel, with no conflict or negativity attached. ..........Sounds like they took away your tea and crumpets, too.

I'll only argue the semantics of the word EASY, and change it to POSSIBLE.)

What you did with NOVA, Mike, didn't necessarily look easy.) And I know how much my old bones ached after Border Raids last weekend.

Tea and Biscuits? Is that what they call food in the UK? I served sausage gumbo and smoked chicken barbeque at my GT.)

Executing the tournament? Hard, regardless of format.

Designing a format that isn't a pile of "pisses off half the attendees" poo? Not as hard.

But I feel you.

**vhwolf**

Monster Rain wrote:I like tournaments of all types, so I'd go to something like this.

Well if you can get to Vegas on January 15th The Ironman XVII will be running this format with a few tweaks from the feedback.

**Monster Rain**

vhwolf wrote:
Monster Rain wrote:I like tournaments of all types, so I'd go to something like this.

Well if you can get to Vegas on January 15th The Ironman XVII will be running this format with a few tweaks from the feedback.

Is there are link or something like that?

I'm right down the 15 from you guys.

**vhwolf**

Monster Rain wrote:
vhwolf wrote:
Monster Rain wrote:I like tournaments of all types, so I'd go to something like this.

Well if you can get to Vegas on January 15th The Ironman XVII will be running this format with a few tweaks from the feedback.

Is there are link or something like that?

I'm right down the 15 from you guys.

http://lasvegasgamersclub.com/ here ya go.

**Monster Rain**

vhwolf wrote:
Monster Rain wrote:
vhwolf wrote:
Monster Rain wrote:I like tournaments of all types, so I'd go to something like this.

Well if you can get to Vegas on January 15th The Ironman XVII will be running this format with a few tweaks from the feedback.

Is there are link or something like that?

I'm right down the 15 from you guys.

http://lasvegasgamersclub.com/ here ya go.

Hmmm... reasonably priced, relatively close and seems like fun. And now for logistics!

Thanks man.

**reds8n**

mikhaila wrote:
Tea and Biscuits? Is that what they call food in the UK?

Built an Empire on Tea and biccies mate !

You used to get : free tea/coffee and doughnuts in the morning on arrival, then lunch ( and dinner at one point) on Saturday and then T/C and doughnuts and lunch -- usually a roast -- on the Sunday.

...them were the days eh ?

**Wolflord Patrick**

The GW GT's from the "Old Days" in the US included your hotel room, 3 buffet meals, and a pub quiz with prize support to the winners of the quiz questions. IMO, They haven't been the same in over a decade now.

The Throne of Skulls tournaments look like Jervis's attempt to bring balance to a game system that isn't balanced. The codex and army books are not equal. So in order to keep from seeing the same army builds over and over at the top tables, you have a Throne of Skulls style where you get a winner for each army. Speaking from a prize support stand, I like the idea of awarding each army type. What I don't like are the random opponents and tie breakers when you have so few scoring catagories and points to play with. When a draw is worth a much as a "Favorite Opponent" vote, it is easy to see players win tournaments regardless of how they scored in the game.

**mikhaila**

reds8n wrote:
mikhaila wrote:
Tea and Biscuits? Is that what they call food in the UK?

Built an Empire on Tea and biccies mate !

You used to get : free tea/coffee and doughnuts in the morning on arrival, then lunch ( and dinner at one point) on Saturday and then T/C and doughnuts and lunch -- usually a roast -- on the Sunday.

...them were the days eh ?

Fair point on the Empire Building.

I've been experimenting with serving up food at our tournaments. I just build it into the event budget, and don't go too crazy on the menu. I pick up bulk foods on sale, and spend some time cooking up batches of chili, stew, or gumbo in two big crockpots, or marinading and smoking stuff in my outdoor smoker. A bit more prep time, but keeps the cost down over just buying pizza or other prepared foods. Day of the tournament I bring it into the bunker in gallon ziplocks and reheat it.

I got the idea from the Inner Circle guys. Scooter and Kaleb used to do some amazing barbeques down at the Baltimore Bunker when IC ran tournaments there.

**olympia**

The lack of coffee is a legitimate gripe. Organizers are shelling out decent $$ to rent a hall or room. In October I was at a tournament in a classy hotel. We had one room with about 60 gamers. On the other side of the hotel was a nursing seminar. The hotel provided the seminar with coffee; all the gamers got were strange looks. If you are paying a few thousand $ for space from a hotel, make the bastards provide coffee. Who isn't hung-over for game 4 on Sunday?

**Frazzled**

Proiteus wrote:I’ve been to several 40k tournaments over the last few years from 1 day tournaments held by small gaming clubs and GW stores to popular CGN tournaments like Open War. But the first tournaments I went to were the Games Workshop’s official Grand Tournament and the first doubles tournament, so naturally I had high hopes for the 1st Throne Of Skulls.

When I first looked at the rules pack I was greatly concerned with the new scoring system, I appreciated the idea of calculating the average score of each race to find the best player as it brought a variety of armies to the tournament. But it was so easy to take advantage of, and sure enough there was a good deal of players that had brought hyper-optimized lists from known underpowered codexes like Necrons and the Witch-Hunters.

At the end of the weekend most of the tournament players felt cheated as the overall winner was a Dark Eldar player, this would have been okay but the fact there was only two Dark Eldar players at the whole tournament. So while other players had gotten the best scores out of 15-20 other marine and guard players this dark eldar player had won the tournament by beating just one player.

But this was also later revealed by players to be incorrect and that a space marine player had won it, which brings me on to the biggest problem; the scoring system.

I think the scoring system of 5pts for a win and 2pts for a draw is just too simple for a tournament with so many players taking part, this was later proven right when it was realised that there were multiple players with the same score, even with the extra points for best general; a system were you vote for your favourite opponent to give them extra points. This forced the events team to go with the best looking army roster which is stupid for a tournament tie-breaker and greatly annoyed the other players with the same score.

All the non GW tournaments I have been to have had a advanced scoring system to avoid such problems, a good example is the one used at Open War which uses a 20pt system for each round depending on the difference of objectives held and kill pts: 10/10 Draw, 13/7 Minor Victory, 16/4 Major Victory, 20/0 Exterminatus!
Plus they’ve also used Victory Pts as a tie-breaker rather than favourite opponent votes!

There were also other matters that ruined the tournament for me and other tournament veterans…

All the games were randomly generated so you weren’t fighting someone with the same score, it was rumoured that on the 2nd day they had split the players into a top and bottom half. A Ladder system is a huge requirement at tournaments and as a result only the last two games provided any real challenge!

With the exception of the Throne Of Skulls and Best Army trophy all the awards given for best generals were poorly made, certificates that weren’t even printed in the centre of the paper and placed in a cheap glass frame. I got an award for best army nominee and it pales in comparison when compared to awards won at smaller tournaments that cost 5 to 15 pounds.

Players also noticed that there was no free tea, coffee and biscuits in the mornings this year that was common at the previous Grand Tournaments.

Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed the company and the games played but as the GW official tournament it was a huge disappointment and felt like a weekend of random gaming which for £55 seemed like a big rip off.
Most of the players I had spoken to on Sunday evening also had a strong dislike of the new scoring methods. Saying that looking at the rosters to decide which of the 5 players had won made the tournament feel pointless. Most tournaments end with players having a sense of satisfaction but this was more disappointment and confusion.

The bottom line is I strongly recommend you don’t waste your money! I originally planned to request a ticket to the winter TOS for xmas, but after experiencing the poorly designed system I decided I’d be better off with a weekend tournament ran by a club, being held at Maelstrom games on the same weekend for half the price with evening entertainment and morning drinks provided.

Also I’ve sent a email off to GW expressing my views about the tournament’s lack of a scoring and ladder system and how it was a huge upset compared to the previous grand tournaments, I look forward to hearing their reply and if they plan to make any changes. If so I might consider attending the spring tournament.

I was about to say you sure were bitching, then I saw how much you paid. You seriously have my condolences.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Proiteus wrote:Just learnt that a group of tournament players who have attended each GT has sent an email directly to Jervis about the scoring and matching problems.

They maybe hope yet, if not it's just another event GW has ruined.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Got a reply from the events team about the issues above...

The Throne of Skulls format is Games Workshop’s new way of running what used to be the Grand Tournament, but this has led to some confusion. The Throne of Skulls is designed as a fun weekend where players come together to enjoy playing games with new opponents and the camaraderie of the Event. It is not the same competitive event that the Grand Tournament used to be. Obviously, there are still winners and losers, but the event focuses on the enjoyment aspect rather than purely winning and the ranking of players (which, for example, is why we don’t want to record Victory Points from the games). The way your club runs tournaments sounds cool but I can tell you that we will be continuing to use the same format, all be-it with some minor tweaks to help the event run more smoothly.

Wow I don't play in 40K tourneys any more but thats just lame.

**mikhaila**

olympia wrote:The lack of coffee is a legitimate gripe. Organizers are shelling out decent $$ to rent a hall or room. In October I was at a tournament in a classy hotel. We had one room with about 60 gamers. On the other side of the hotel was a nursing seminar. The hotel provided the seminar with coffee; all the gamers got were strange looks. If you are paying a few thousand $ for space from a hotel, make the bastards provide coffee. Who isn't hung-over for game 4 on Sunday?

The nursing seminar probably paid through the nose for the coffee. I've seen fees of 100.00 to 300.00 for 'Coffee Service'. You can try to build it into the package and get the hotel to throw in some freebies, but not always possible.

**MagickalMemories**

olympia wrote:The lack of coffee is a legitimate gripe. Organizers are shelling out decent $$ to rent a hall or room. In October I was at a tournament in a classy hotel. We had one room with about 60 gamers. On the other side of the hotel was a nursing seminar. The hotel provided the seminar with coffee; all the gamers got were strange looks. If you are paying a few thousand $ for space from a hotel, make the bastards provide coffee. Who isn't hung-over for game 4 on Sunday?

Ah, but the orgnizers for the nurse's event PAID for that coffee.
Looks like your gripe is with the ceap *ss organizer, and not the hotel.

Eric

**Mannahnin**

vhwolf wrote:Thanks for the plug. I have been spending a lot of time reading all of the forums I could find to get feedback on the system. I can say for sure that we will be doing pairings based off of win loss ratio, and that there will be two missions that use 5 objectives and two missions that use kill points as well as using one of each of the deployment options with a fourth deployment type (it will be familiar to anyone who has played the game for more than 6 months) used to keep each game a little different. We will hand add the results as well as a computer program as I know the GW spreadsheet does not work.

Sounds like a great event! Too bad I'm so far away. I had a great time at the Iron Man in PA.

One tweak I might suggest- if you're doing Seize Ground twice, DON'T make them both 5 objectives. Make one of them 3 objectives, or both 4. That mission is supposed to have an average of 4, with the chance of a small number. Having it always default to 5 (as I've seen a few events do) skews the balance in favor of MSU mech armies.

**nosferatu1001**

As Man says above - always having 5 objectives makes it very tricky for certain army builds....

WE go with the Subway approach - costs a few £ per person, built into the cost, and theres normally enough left over for people to have some for the trips home. Not ideal, but given we normally only gain access to the venue about 30mins before registration its all we can manage.

Big buckets o chilli sound fab, as does smoked meat...mmmmm pulled pork

**Proiteus**

Next reply...

Thanks for the swift response.

Throne of Skulls is both a gaming weekend and a tournament – it does calculate the winner in a unique way but people still compete against other players for overall victory. I am sorry to hear that you did not feel that you got your money’s worth and clearly prefer the GT format. We are currently working on improving the Saturday night entertainment and also including more optional Friday evening activities. In regards to the random gaming and lack of competitive feel, it does say in the rules pack that winning is less important and that the throne of skulls is different to many other tournaments.

We constantly strive to make our events better so all this feedback is much appreciated and all will be addressed as we take the Throne of Skulls forward.

Many Thanks
Joe Cox
Events and Activities Coordinator

**Monster Rain**

Seems reasonable.

**vorpalhit**

The Throne of Skulls format is Games Workshop’s new way of running what used to be the Grand Tournament, but this has led to some confusion. The Throne of Skulls is designed as a fun weekend where players come together to enjoy playing games with new opponents and the camaraderie of the Event. It is not the same competitive event that the Grand Tournament used to be. Obviously, there are still winners and losers, but the event focuses on the enjoyment aspect rather than purely winning and the ranking of players (which, for example, is why we don’t want to record Victory Points from the games). The way your club runs tournaments sounds cool but I can tell you that we will be continuing to use the same format, all be-it with some minor tweaks to help the event run more smoothly.

**MVBrandt**

That's more or less the point to be hit. Throne of Skulls is all well and good I suppose on the "get together and play some games" front, but the lack of a parallel rock-hard evaluation system screws the pooch and highlights how little they really care ... I think GW sees ALL tournament styles as basically just ancillary events ... not really a concern worth putting a lot of thought into.

Think on it this way - you run a coffee shop, and once a month you have a "book club" where one of your random employees who happens to like books will talk about one of his favorites, and people will get 5% off coffee. GW sees tournaments like that, and sees events of any kind like that (tanksgiving, etc. etc.). I just don't think they really care much.

**Battlecannon it phil**

im off to the next one and one i got my ticket and tourny pack i was sickened, in all probability i get 15 points 5 win on loss woot but then the guard average is 12 points. then boy necron gets 10 points and there is just him on his own playing necrons he wins without actually being the over all winner . sick

**Proiteus**

Battlecannon it phil wrote:im off to the next one and one i got my ticket and tourny pack i was sickened, in all probability i get 15 points 5 win on loss woot but then the guard average is 12 points. then boy necron gets 10 points and there is just him on his own playing necrons he wins without actually being the over all winner . sick

You actually need 2 players to have the chance of winning the tournament there was a Black Templar player but he couldn't beat his overall score so while he got best general for that codex his couldn't win the tournament.

My advice, sell or return the ticket and go to this weekend tournament at Mansfield on the same date for half the price for double the content: http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=74947

**Battlecannon it phil**

says in the tourny pack though if your the only person playing that army the average points to beat are 5. so sounds like the black templar player got a bumming by the organsiers. almost worth using a counts as dark angels army

**linnear**

I was at the tournament and saw the whole thing. Warhammer World is an impressive place for a tournament. And while the best player of each army award is a cool idea, the most important thing I think is that each person know the scoring system fully at the beginning. Yeah it sounded screwed up, but there is no excuse for a lack of clarity.

BTW, there were some great armies there and I enjoyed being a spectator, even if it cost my wallet since I couldnt stop keep going back for more Forgeworld from the store!

Alec

**Fearspect**

Bunker wrote:
Proiteus wrote: hyper-optimized lists from known underpowered codexes like Necrons

This is where I stopped reading.

It honestly sounds like you're upset that you lost out to what you consider to be low-tier armies and just want to vent.

You completely missed the point; it is not that he is griping about losing to necrons (or whatever made up scenario you decided happened to him). The players who performed the best were not winning, and everyone seems so stuck on 'underpowered codexes'. The dirty little secret is that they really are not that underpowered. Yes, a gap exists between the older ones and IG/SW, but it is not even close to as extreme as people make it out to be.

@OP (and his received emails): I get what they are trying to say to you, and that would be fine the 'fun gaming weekend' was only that. In North America, it has been decided that this tournament will decide the culminating winner of the 2010/11 GT Circuit, which would obviously be an atrocity if it plays out similarly (especially if the 'overall' winner won two games less than others).

I am still holding my breath for the tournament package coming in January. Who knows? It may have changed.