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-666- wrote:

J_Dearth wrote:Hells to the yeah!

Just got a look at the results! Mission accomplished. I went in to this thing wanting to get Nids into the top 10.

And coming into the second day having to play against Christian's Guard for Round 5 I was nervous.

That was an awesome tourney and I am stoked as hell about coming back next year. Thanks again Reece.

Congrats !! What was your Nid list if you don't mind me asking?

It was 3 Tervigons
1 Tyrant with a single guard
two venomthropes
2 hive guard
Doom in a pod
20 Termagaunts
2 dakka-fexes

That was pretty much the list. Nothing fancy really. Just got lucky I guess.

Defeatmyarmy wrote:

Voodoo

"then we've also met, I was the poor tau player. I was thinking of what i could've done differently, maybe extremely aggressive tactics, focusing all fire on everything non wraith and just leaving the wraiths to kill me as fast as they can hopefully my speedbumps first. It'd be a Killy race though I think Id still lose

I don't think my results were entered correctly. I went 4-2-1 with all three objectives in the four games that I won, but ended up placing lower than people who went 3-3-1.

Warmahordes results are up!

@Rob

Shoot us an email with the details, we'll get it fixed.

@thread

A number of folks have asked us if we would look into running a 40K event at KublaCon, but it is the same weekend as the Slaughter in Space, one of our favorite tournaments to go to and actually play in. Unless something changes, the whole team plans on making the trip to LA for SiS.

Here's the recap of the team event that we didn't quite win http://www.3forint.com/2012/03/bao-2012-team-event-recap.html

It was super fun and our lists turned out to be super tough on the field. Too bad Soldado's army looked like a butt! I think the trays we bought at Ross the night before must've been good luck!

Also, here's some pics of the good looking armies that were on display before the singles event http://www.3forint.com/2012/03/armies-of-bay-area-open.html

Check back later this week for the singles recap!

Thanks to Reece and the rest of team zero comp for putting on an awesome three days of warhammer!

RiTides wrote:

Goatboy wrote:RD 3 - 9 Dread BA list - Won this one - Stole the Iniative!

Oh man, can you describe his list? I have been really wanting to run this! However, at 1750 it seems to get 9 dreads, he would've had to have 15 Death Company, and probably very little in the way of scoring units. I've figured out how to swing 8 dreads in a 2K list with 20 scoring bodies, which seems decent. Oh, and 11 pods = 6 dreads coming down turn 1

Anyway, would be very curious hearing about that army / list if you can remember anything!

Yep, I played him. I believe coming into the game we were both 2-1-1, so he obviously crushed a couple of people before getting to me to be able to win with only a single scoring unit (of like 5 Assault Marines).

He had 15 Death Company with a Chaplain attached, 5 Assault Marines, 3 Lascannon/Missile Launcher Dreads, 3 Death Company Dreads w/ Blood Talons & 3 Furioso Dreads also w/ Blood Talons.

All his Blood Talons had Meltas on them, but obviously not having any Dread CCWs put him at a severe disadvantage against my Dreads & Kans. Although he did a great job of killing off my only Loota squad on the flank across from his Heavy Dreads, it was only a matter of time before my Dreads & Kans walked their way through his all his Blood Talon dreads.

Even so, it was pretty awesome to see all those Dreads in action against each other! If he had even a few DCCWs it would have been an absolutely epic match.

Phazael wrote:
3) Slow Play- I am not accusing anyone of stalling, but in a straight win loss format certain armies are always going to win if the game never makes it past turn 4. Using degree of difficulty for scoring can make these guys play more agressively and faster, but that may not mesh with your philosophy. Something should be done to ensure that games play to completion more often, though. Its really a shame that the table one game that decided everything never made it past turn three and the two armies had barely fought to that point. I would have Seth talk to Hengle or some other TOs about brainstorming something that works and that everyone can agree to.

I think the solution is the same one I've been touting for quite a while. Start putting on the results sheet for people to put what turn their game ended on (and whether or not they finished their game on a 'natural' random game length roll).

Doing this not only allows you to figure out whether or not your round times should be adjusted (either up or down) but also will start to highlight those people who consistently aren't finishing their games, regardless of what opponents and what armies they are playing against. Once you identify those people and have several years worth of data to show to them you can actually warn them at the beginning of the tournament and have judges standing by their games watching them on purpose to make sure they are speeding things along.

winterman wrote:
Curious if anyone had any more thoughts on the mission setup. Been chatting about this style a bit with friends and was curious what folks who played through it thought. Was any one victory condition a stronger decider of winning then another? Did it get boring after 3 games?

Here's what I would say about the mission: Since in every game the mission is a known factor, you can completely build your army and strategies around completing certain parts of the mission while shutting out your opponent from completing the other parts of the objectives. The stated goal of this mission was to remove that 'oh crap there's no way I can complete this mission against this army' feeling that you often get in tournaments, and in that regards it was an absolute smashing success.

You know what your army can do and you know what you have to do to win before you even start the game...its just about executing that plan against a different opposing army and deployment rules.

Now, the negative side-effect of this is I think that it means most people will play their army generally the same way in every game because if they're smart they've designed their army to work in a certain way for this mission. So if you have an army that gives up a ton of kill points, you know that every mission you're going to need to go balls-to-the-wall and take both the capture & control AND the seize ground objectives in order to win. Conversely, if you've brought an army that gives up few kill points you're probably going to always try to play conservatively and draw on the capture & control and either look to draw or win the seize ground with your kill points as the ace in your back pocket.

So I think that does tend to make games feel a bit the same, especially after playing 7 of them in the tournament. My Kan wall, for example, doesn't tend to give up many Kill Points and has big durable scoring units, but is very slow. That meant my goals were always to try to win on Kill Points, draw on Capture & Control and at least draw on Seize Ground. And that meant I pretty much executed the same style of plan in every one of my games.

Although it is quite hard for my army to normally accomplish a Capture & Control win in tournaments, especially in missions with Dawn of War or Spearhead deployment, I can safely say that in those games the all out push I make to try to capture or contest my enemy's objective creates a very different 'feel' in the game...countered by the very defensive nature of a pure Kill Point mission game. I guess it really comes down to what you're looking for: if you like consistency and balance, then this mission is perfect. If you're looking for unique gameplay and occasionally difficult challenges to overcome created by missions, then this mission really doesn't do it.

The other interesting thing about this mission I think, is that it allows players to bring armies that have some serious weaknesses normally, and players can effectively take those weaknesses into consideration and build the rest of their army to compensate. So again, with my Kan wall, the lack of speed is normally a pretty big disadvantage to me in tournaments where I'm playing a wide array of mission types, many of which require quite a bit of movement to accomplish.

With this mission, I am able to ignore the one objective type that really requires a lot of movement (capture and control) and just focus on trying to win the other two. Although my record this year was worse than last year, I had two really, really close games (one loss & one draw) that could have gone the other way really easily and perhaps allowed me to go 6-1 (although of course anytime you change a game result you change who you get matched up against, so its not really an accurate way to look at things).

J_Dearth wrote:

-666- wrote:

Congrats !! What was your Nid list if you don't mind me asking?

It was 3 Tervigons
1 Tyrant with a single guard
two venomthropes
2 hive guard
Doom in a pod
20 Termagaunts
2 dakka-fexes

That was pretty much the list. Nothing fancy really. Just got lucky I guess.

I just thought I'd point out a few more interesting details about the list for those who are interested in how this army list could be effective...and for the record, he totally destroyed my Kan Wall in round 1 (as I pretty much expected as Tyranids are a pretty bad matchup for a Kan Wall in general):

The Dakkafexes for those not well versed in Tyranids are Carnifexes with x2 twin-linked Devourers. These guys pump out 12 twin-linked S6 shots a turn. While these shots are AP-, they can still be pretty effective at stun-locking enemy vehicles besides Grey Knights. I believe his Tyrant also had at least one set of twin-linked Devourers as well (although he can correct me if I'm wrong)...definitely some sort of ranged weapon.

Two of his Tervigons were Troops (one being a HQ choice) and I think two of them had the 'Onslaught' power which allows him to run and still shoot a unit. This was interesting to me as I hadn't seen it used before, but with his army it allowed him to run and shoot either some Toxic Termagants spawned by his Tervigons or to run and shoot one of his Carnifexes, which helps to overcome the fairly short 18" range of Devourers.

His Tyrant has Hive Commander which gets The Doom on the board sooner and allows him to outflank one of the Troops Tervigons. So between the Doom dropping in and an outflanking Tervigon he has the ability to threaten the backfield of the opponent a bit.

The other really surprising thing (to me at least) was that he had Regeneration on all of his big beasties. That comes out to 160 points spent on regeneration if I'm adding it up correctly, which is obviously a pretty sizeable investment in upgrading models as opposed to just buying more of them (that's almost the cost of a Mawloc right there!).

In my game against that Tyranid army all I had left at the end of the game was a dreadnaught.

Goatboy wrote:The Dread list was 15 DC, 3 DC dreads with Talons, 3 Furioso Dreads with Talons, 1 5 Man scoring squad, and 3 TWL Lascannon/ML dreads.

yakface wrote:Yep, I played him. I believe coming into the game we were both 2-1-1, so he obviously crushed a couple of people before getting to me to be able to win with only a single scoring unit (of like 5 Assault Marines).

He had 15 Death Company with a Chaplain attached, 5 Assault Marines, 3 Lascannon/Missile Launcher Dreads, 3 Death Company Dreads w/ Blood Talons & 3 Furioso Dreads also w/ Blood Talons.

All his Blood Talons had Meltas on them, but obviously not having any Dread CCWs put him at a severe disadvantage against my Dreads & Kans. Although he did a great job of killing off my only Loota squad on the flank across from his Heavy Dreads, it was only a matter of time before my Dreads & Kans walked their way through his all his Blood Talon dreads.

Even so, it was pretty awesome to see all those Dreads in action against each other! If he had even a few DCCWs it would have been an absolutely epic match.

Thanks for sharing that, guys! Yeah, I figured it would be best to mix DCCW and Blood Talons.

Any thoughts on an army like that in drop pods (even the ranged dreads, probably giving them just a multi-melta and keeping a DCCW)? I could fit in 8 dreads in pods, with 5 coming down turn 1, in a list this size. Unfortunately, only 1-2 small scoring units, but that's the limitation of this list (at 2K I can fit in 20 scoring bodies).

Thanks for the feedback and good to see it was at least somewhat viable!

@BAO guys, congrats on establishing what looks to be the premier must attend event on the west coast. Already making plans to make this next year and hope to get other up in the Northwest interested as well.

@yakface -- Thanks for the excellent response to my question. I like the mission style and play it and use it as a single mission in a tournament but was curious how it worked in a 7 game event.

Nice SWAG too.
Last year we got custom GF-9 gaming templates. This year we got a nice turn-counter (and some sample bases from Secret Weapon, a 25mm stowage tray from Tablewar, and some wound markers from DGDesigns(I think that was the companies name?).
Cant wait to see next years SWAG.
Custom Scatter dice? A custom single model (like the old school Gamesday era)? A free landraider/battlewagon/Trygon/Damon Prince/ etc to match your Army?

Good job to Reece and the guys. It went real smooth and I had a great time playing guys I normally never get to play.
And MOST important:
6 hours and 27 minutes from Antioch to my front door in San Diego...a new record for me!!!!
BOO-YA

winterman wrote:@BAO guys, congrats on establishing what looks to be the premier must attend event on the west coast. Already making plans to make this next year and hope to get other up in the Northwest interested as well.

@yakface -- Thanks for the excellent response to my question. I like the mission style and play it and use it as a single mission in a tournament but was curious how it worked in a 7 game event.

Yeah, as much as I enjoy not really having to deal so much with the speed deficit a Kan Wall army is stuck with with this mission, I would be pretty bummed if this mission became some sort of tournament standard that every tournie started using all the time...while I had fantastic, fun, amazing games, they did all have a very similar 'feel' in the way that I personally played my army (very defensive).

So as with all things, I think this mission is great to use in some tournaments, but I hope there will always be people that keep using different mission types, battle point tournaments, etc.

Variety is the spice of life, and 40k is no different IMHO.

yakface wrote:

winterman wrote:@BAO guys, congrats on establishing what looks to be the premier must attend event on the west coast. Already making plans to make this next year and hope to get other up in the Northwest interested as well.

@yakface -- Thanks for the excellent response to my question. I like the mission style and play it and use it as a single mission in a tournament but was curious how it worked in a 7 game event.

Yeah, as much as I enjoy not really having to deal so much with the speed deficit a Kan Wall army is stuck with with this mission, I would be pretty bummed if this mission became some sort of tournament standard that every tournie started using all the time...while I had fantastic, fun, amazing games, they did all have a very similar 'feel' in the way that I personally played my army (very defensive).

So as with all things, I think this mission is great to use in some tournaments, but I hope there will always be people that keep using different mission types, battle point tournaments, etc.

Variety is the spice of life, and 40k is no different IMHO.

It does look like a lot of tournies are going this way though. I think once you have the mission figured out for your army, you are pretty much playing the same game every time. I liked the wackiness of the missions in the team tourney, but if you design your lists with them in mind, it was kind of easy to have a large advantage. And the last mission was 100% about who won the roll to go first. At least on our table.

I fully support an evolution of the BAO mission though. GE san diego is doing it a little different and I think a little better for their GT. Perhaps further evolving it to where one of the missions drops out after the 2nd turn would add a little spice to it. But it may cause even more draws than the mission does as is.

Actually, that's something I wanted to bring up. Reece, how many draws were there overall? Way more than last year? It just seems like the mission is very easy to draw. I think a tie breaker within the match might do something to alleviate this, but it might end up being too much bookkeeping for the players and the TO's.

Dok wrote:

yakface wrote:

winterman wrote:@BAO guys, congrats on establishing what looks to be the premier must attend event on the west coast. Already making plans to make this next year and hope to get other up in the Northwest interested as well.

@yakface -- Thanks for the excellent response to my question. I like the mission style and play it and use it as a single mission in a tournament but was curious how it worked in a 7 game event.

Yeah, as much as I enjoy not really having to deal so much with the speed deficit a Kan Wall army is stuck with with this mission, I would be pretty bummed if this mission became some sort of tournament standard that every tournie started using all the time...while I had fantastic, fun, amazing games, they did all have a very similar 'feel' in the way that I personally played my army (very defensive).

So as with all things, I think this mission is great to use in some tournaments, but I hope there will always be people that keep using different mission types, battle point tournaments, etc.

Variety is the spice of life, and 40k is no different IMHO.

It does look like a lot of tournies are going this way though. I think once you have the mission figured out for your army, you are pretty much playing the same game every time. I liked the wackiness of the missions in the team tourney, but if you design your lists with them in mind, it was kind of easy to have a large advantage. And the last mission was 100% about who won the roll to go first. At least on our table.

I fully support an evolution of the BAO mission though. GE san diego is doing it a little different and I think a little better for their GT. Perhaps further evolving it to where one of the missions drops out after the 2nd turn would add a little spice to it. But it may cause even more draws than the mission does as is.

Actually, that's something I wanted to bring up. Reece, how many draws were there overall? Way more than last year? It just seems like the mission is very easy to draw. I think a tie breaker within the match might do something to alleviate this, but it might end up being too much bookkeeping for the players and the TO's.

I like the idea of having tie breakers like in Warmachine/Hordes tournaments. That way no game has an actual tie, there is always a winner.

OverwatchCNC wrote:
I like the idea of having tie breakers like in Warmachine/Hordes tournaments. That way no game has an actual tie, there is always a winner.

The thing is, we are fundamentally playing a wargame, and that concept has traditionally carried with it the core concepts associated with war that the game is attempting to represent.

In war, obviously wiping an opponent from the battlefield is a whole lot different than barely squeaking out a win. Similarly, a draw has always represented neither side accomplishing a strategic advantage leading to both sides pulling back simultaneously.


That is precisely why wargames have traditionally used battle points to help represent that a slaughter is more important than a close win and include the possibilities of a draw.

Recently, many people seem to wish to turn wargaming into more of a 'sport' than a game representing 'war' and thus battle points have started to go away as have draws in some cases.

However, while I can see the need to remove battle points from tournament scoring in some cases, I don't really see the similar need to remove draws. Honestly, when a game is going to a 2nd or 3rd tiebreaker criteria (as some games have), you are talking about awarding a 'win' to a player who has just barely defeated their opponent by the slimmest of margins. Especially when you have 7 rounds of play in a tournament (as you do in the BAO) there is simply nothing wrong with having draws IMHO.

I think that is an advantage of a scoring system that doesn't use straight up Win/Draw/Loss. You only lose convienience, which gets lost when things like ties come up.

I think Massacre/Major Victory/Minor Victory/Draw/Minor loss/Major loss/Massacred is still simple enough to use while almost eliminating the chance of a straight up tie.


Alternativly, you could use Victory Points to break ties.

In our leagues in San Diego we use the same mission but in battle point form where each "objective" is worth 4 points for a total of 12 battle points. (tied objective worth 2 points)

Works out really well when we combine it with sportsmanship and painting in a 60%Battle point 20%paint 20%sport split for top 3 overall.

the Massacre/Major Victory/Minor Victory system hurts armies that can win the mission but cant remove the opponent from the table .My main problem is you can win 3 games with minors (39pt) and still lose to someone who got 2 massacres and a lose.(40pts)

The other problem with the massacre system is if someone gets 3 favorable matchups or new players and wipes their opponents off the field then they get an advantage over people who played hard fought games against skilled opponents and barely eeked out a win.

@yakface; I see your point with draws and stalemates being a part of war, but in a tournament you want clearcut results one way or the other imo. Like I said though, the more stuff you add to the bookkeeping for players and TO's, it becomes that much more of a headache for everyone.

Well said Yakface. Draw conditions in my opinion are a fundamental aspect of the hobby and exercise of wargaming. Removing them changes the exercise and the game.

a tournament you want clearcut results one way or the other imo

@Dok - Why you don't need clear cut results in chess which has 5 draw conditions? Those tournament events function just fine.

Here is a dirty little secret about removing draws from games I don't see discussed. Removing the draw condition from the meta and possible outcome does clearly do one thing. It makes it significantly easier for the "better" players to win games because they do not have to account for a draw condition or draw strategy by an opponent whose either "not as good", suffers from an unlucky result early in the game, has a bad scenario, a bad army matchup, or just wants to ruin your day. The better player only has to execute his tried and true strategy for the victory conditions of the mission.

Now that said. The best players, still win games more often than not with or without a draw condition. So draw conditions really help determine whose wearing big boy pants and separate the men from the boys. : )

Sounds like a great event guys. Well done.

@Reecius (and anyone else who was at AdeptiCon 2011):

Having been present at both events, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the two. How they differ, how they are the same. What sort of impact did boiling it down to just book missions have (as opposed to the oddball third objective at AdeptiCon 2011)? Overall they look similar, and while I suppose terrain and other factors easily alter the overall experience - I think any lessons gleamed from the BAO would be beneficial as we put the final touches on the AdeptiCon 2012 event.

How did removing Victory Points as a tiebreaker impact the overall number of draws?

Draws under the AdeptiCon 2011 system were designed to possible, but minimized. 7.8125% over 512 games on Friday last year (there were no draws on Sunday). That said, I am in total agreement that they are essential to the art of wargaming.

Feel free to PM me if this is going to derail the topic.

The draw argument is an ongoing one in a number of sports and activities. From my own p.o.v., the # of rounds and style of game directly impacts the degree to which draws muddy the water of determining a "best" player for the weekend, especially if draws are easier to attain.

The notion nof a draw providing a player with a bad match-up, lower skill or unlucky first turn allowing him to claw his way back in and "tie it up" at the end presents a potentially epic and fun experience, and it's one I firmly support for pick-up games and league play.

In a tournament, however, the general goal - while fun is certainly important ALWAYS - for the evaluative side of things (best general wise) is determining the best general for the weekend. Draws, like margin of victory, CAN muddy the water there. This is made more the case by the limited # of rounds you inherently are able to have in our hobby - you don't have a lot of time to break through the muddying caused by ties and determine clear winners, and can often end up using metrics that are [arguably] also highly unfair to determine your "best" in categories like general when and if the use of draws forces you to pare out players with identical records from things like final brackets (we struggle with how to place 3-1's into the top bracket at NOVA each year), or select one Best General from among several players with identical records.

Taking out ties does not have to have a meaningful impact on appropriately hobby-centric Best Overall scores, but it helps ensure your Best General evaluation is fair and clear-cut ... perceivable consequences and all.

I think draw conditions are definitely a part of baseline 40k - to remove draws from pick-up games would seem to be in opposition to the spirit of it all. That said, the game does include a tie-breaking option in the core rules, so I think it's not a far stretch in certain tournament formats and settings to see it as the RIGHT thing to do to remove them.

Just as it's also the RIGHT thing to do ... to keep them ... in other settings/formats.

One of the great things about our hobby is the variability to which TO's have freedom to pursue their own style of tournament, and in that variety they find their passion to run it.

Judging by the small # of guys I know put in the majority of work for BAO, and the rousing success it had in just its second year, naught but a bravo and more grist for the mill of "ties or not, it's all about meshing your choices in smoothly with your stated format and goals."

yakface wrote:

OverwatchCNC wrote:
I like the idea of having tie breakers like in Warmachine/Hordes tournaments. That way no game has an actual tie, there is always a winner.

The thing is, we are fundamentally playing a wargame, and that concept has traditionally carried with it the core concepts associated with war that the game is attempting to represent.

In war, obviously wiping an opponent from the battlefield is a whole lot different than barely squeaking out a win. Similarly, a draw has always represented neither side accomplishing a strategic advantage leading to both sides pulling back simultaneously.


That is precisely why wargames have traditionally used battle points to help represent that a slaughter is more important than a close win and include the possibilities of a draw.

Recently, many people seem to wish to turn wargaming into more of a 'sport' than a game representing 'war' and thus battle points have started to go away as have draws in some cases.

However, while I can see the need to remove battle points from tournament scoring in some cases, I don't really see the similar need to remove draws. Honestly, when a game is going to a 2nd or 3rd tiebreaker criteria (as some games have), you are talking about awarding a 'win' to a player who has just barely defeated their opponent by the slimmest of margins. Especially when you have 7 rounds of play in a tournament (as you do in the BAO) there is simply nothing wrong with having draws IMHO.

A lot of people prefer to see someone win who has gone undefeated. The three objective format for missions eliminates bad matchups. Nothing is perfect but I prefer this to battlepoints.

The reason the win or go home tournament style sort of works at Adepticon for the singles is that there are tons of other things to do there and most people come for the Team Tournament.

If the team tournament was run on the 'win or why bother' style of tournament then I expect there would be a dramatic decline in participation an effort that people put into their armies and displays.

I believe that Draws are a part of the spirit of 40k - even at the tournament level.

I think there's a lot of "loss" of visibility that happens, here, BA. AdeptiCon's 40k GT winner isn't win or go home. Neither is NOVA's, and ... I don't know for sure but I don't think it's BAO's either. At AdeptiCon and NOVA the Best Overall involves soft scores, and losses can be recovered from by maximizing your objectives/goals, and by bringing a well-painted army. Only Best General (which is one of numerous awards and categories) is Win or Go Home .... and I always wonder if that's really all that different in terms of # of people who wish it wasn't that than "hope for good match-ups to max points" or "well I lost to a good player but oh well I can crush these dudes to get back in it." Six and half dozen.

FUN and a laid back attitude IMO are the spirit of 40k. At the tournament level (which the game is not inherently designed for), the spirit of the event is the passion of its organizers ... at which point any format passionately pursued and designed is quite in the spirit of the event. Ties or not, battle points or not, comp or not, etc.

$.02 of course, but I think that freedom and passion are a big part of why events like BAO are such big hits - the love for event that the TO's pursue it with filters down to attendees across the board. Sort of the long hard fought lesson learned when you move from conceptualizing your own particular "brilliant" format to actually executing it, is that value statements placed upon a TO's choices for their particular style are, themselves, perhaps less in the spirit of the game. Sorta like how hobbyists and "competitive" players always go at each other for pursuing their hobby the "wrong" way.

Speaking to just a single event, not an entire convention:

I think it comes down to how you personally perceive 40K and how the different subsets of the general public plays 40K.

I see it as there being four main motivating factors you need to consider when putting together an event. Combining two or three of these factors can sort of show you where those perceptions and motivations lie. There is no right combination, nor is each motivation necessarily separated by that much distance.

Enjoyment should always be the main motivating factor in any event. You do not have a choice when it comes to choosing your first motivation. Overshadowing it with anything else will only serve to diminish the impact of everything placed above it. Enjoyment also has a symbiotic relationship with all the other motivations. If someone wants to play 40K as a Sport, then they will derive amplified enjoyment from an event that treats it as so.

The remaining three motivations as I see them are: The Wargame, The Tournament and The Sport. In reality you can only focus on a maximum of two. That doesn't mean someone cannot play in a style not represented, they will just not have their overall enjoyment of the event amplified.

The BAO strikes me as an event that focused on The Wargame first and The Tournament second, with only a minor gap separating the two. This is how most events have been for many years, the gap between the two being much larger under the Battle Points system.

The goal in designing the AdeptiCon 2011 40K Championships format was to focus on those two factors and reduce the distance between them to a minimum (by comparison, this gap is purposely greater in an event like the Team Tournament). Easy to understand missions, easy to understand/record scoring, missions that were adaptable, results that were definitive and within the spirit of 40K as written. And without question, it was partially influenced by a system that I would consider places The Sport among their motivations, just as that event was previously influenced by older Battle Point systems and the AdeptiCon P/S/T system which placed The Wargame above all.

So while definitive motivations might form any one particular event, those events themselves become a sort of motivations for the community at large and begin an entirely new process of forming and informing events to come. This is turns leaves us with a myriad of events with differing degrees of motivations, allowing all player types to find the event(s) that speak to their own perceptions and playstyle. It keeps the community active and the inspiration flowing. All extremely essential - just like draws!!!

Matthias wrote:just like draws!!!

Trollolol

You are confusing the spirit of the game with the culture that you want to breed and enforce at your own particular event. They are totally different things. Saying that - I do not think it is wrong of you to want to foster whatever culture that floats your boat in your own house

Tournaments that include draws and the ability to recover from a loss in a game - for whatever the reason is - attract more and a better quality of participant than those that do not. That is my experience. That is the experience of many of my peers. If this changes then that's awesome - I just don't see it happening any time soon.

For anyone reading this and assuming that I am not a serious competitor you are mistaken

I definitely hear you guys when you say that getting beat up on the first turn and then clawing your way back to a draw can be a fun and awesome game. And those games definitely have a place in tournaments. But there should be a way to minimize drawing in a tournament setting. The answer to the problem isn't easy or obvious or it would be in place already. But, I definitely think it should be something that TO's strive to handle when creating their tournaments.

Some people will play for a draw rather than go for the win - less risk - some people will agree to draw and split points. W/L eliminates these antics.

-666- wrote:W/L eliminates these antics.

It also eliminates what should be an available outcome to the game - neither side is able to win decisively.

I've played in a LOT of tournament games. I've never seen collusion to draw. I have seen plenty of pure win/loss games end early, when one player feels they've lost the opportunity to overcome an early deficit & achieve a victory; in a scenario that allows for a draw, that game is more likely to continue, to the enjoyment of both players, as they both still have something to play for.