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Thank you to Mvbrandt and everyone who made the Nova Open possible. Had a good time and will be back next year.

Thank you to those I had great games with Tony K., Chris (Jawaballs) ,Andrew B, Keith (SandWyrm) and 3 of my friend Nick (Yermom), Brad (DevianID) and George.

Didn't get to meet as many people from dakka as I would have liked. Made the thread to see who was going hoping to meet a bunch of people but I did meet Aaron A. and his friend Keith (Sandwyrm) from the Back40k blog who were really cool to hang with and I got a game with Keith and his really awesome Tallarn IG on Thursday.

Would have been nice to meet Mannahnin and others but maybe next time.

All and all was a cool event. Very well run and the swag bags were awesome. Laser pointers is great and some of the bits were pretty useful. Terrain was amazing and so were the prizes. Had some great games and met some cool people.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Haven't had a chance to take a look at the videos or upload my pictures yet since I had to deal with a basement flood. Unfortunately won't be writing tournament reports this time due to time required to deal with basement flooding.

Will definitely be retiring Guard though really cumbersome army to travel with but very fun to model, paint and convert.

Uploading pictures of armies is very possible though. Just not tonight.

Blackmoor wrote:

Ventus wrote:
On the issue of game time. I wonder what the correlation is between game time and the majority of armies that showed up to play. You would expect a healthy amount of the newer and powerful 5th edition dexes to be present. However, are players bringing lower model count armies because that is their usual army or did some decide not to bring larger armies because of concerns for time?

This I think is a huge point. That people do not bring certain armies because of the time and the points limit.

I was talking to one of the 19th Legion guys (they are some nice guys from MS, check out their blog) and I played one who was playing tyranids at Wargames Con and asked him if he brought his bugs. He said he didn't because he can't finish his games in time.

MVB is right that almost all of the games finished on time, but I wonder if it is because people left home the armies that they know will struggle with the time limit.

That is an excellent point that you brought up Blackmoor about people bringing armies so they can finish games due to time constraints. And that does make a great deal of sense to me.

@MVBrandt Credit is given when credit is due. Congratulations on pulling off a tournament during some pretty harsh weather. You must have had your logistics down -AND- had back up plans in case of something causing an immediate change.

I will also congratulate your Support Staff.
You must have had a good crew of people who helped you along the way. Most people do not know the amount of paperwork, the co-ordination that is needed to have a large event such as yours The set up. The take down. The clean up afterwards. And I bet you and your support staff was very tired afterwards.

I know that the support staff hardly ever gets any sort of recognition when things goes well, and they get crapped on when things goes bad. I wanted to make a posting here on Dakka and let them know that there are people who know what they do and appreciate all of their hard work. With out good support, there will not be a good event.

So hats off to MVBrandt and his crew for all the hard work that they did at the tournament.

Thanks to Mike and team for pulling of an awesome gaming experience. I can speak for all of the Iron Fist League guys (dudes in the RED and black bowling shirts) that we had a blast - even got an IFL team pic with Gav Thorpe which capped our weekend. Thanks NOVA Open team!

On a separate note I agree with the allotted time constraining play and impacting player moods. I noticed this when my round 5 game with Devin hit turn 4 with less than 30 min left. I would rather play 6 games and add 30 min per game to allow for a complete 5 turns or possibly 7 given random game length. Then you might see larger horde armies brought to the battles.

One of my IFL buddies only got to turn 2 against an ork player who seemed to drag his feet - he wanted to choke this guy so it ruined his day. To prevent this - look at having a minimum turn length for every game - for example 4 turns have to be played or the game does not end.

Overall a great time and will be back next year.

In response to the time issue I absolutely feel that games were rushed. Now I play death wing, with not a lot of model s and I only throw dozens of dice in assault instead of hundreds. That said, I had several games that just finished on turn 5 with no time for random game length. Clauss, who finished early, runs less than 30 models and doesn't even deploy.

Nova games need to have enough time to play 7 turns, but my experience was that many games involving armies that are not small and elite simply eat up too much time to go the distance. There is a huge difference between finishing a game and rushing through turns before time is called. Being required to play faster is simply less fun regardless of finishing your game or not.

I didn't even get to see 3 of the armies up for painting awards thanks to rushed rounds and short lunches, which is a real shame.

I don't have a particularly large Guard army (<70 infantry & 9 tanks) nor do I think I play particularly slowly. But I believe I only had one game where we rolled to end the game before time was called. Several didn't make it past turn 3. Not that anything would have been all that different if we'd played longer, but I admit to feeling frustrated that that was as far as we got.

Only one of my games ended 'naturally' with a dice roll off. All others ended due to time but we always got through at least 4 turns.

It does help the person going second to play to the point of 'don't start a new turn' because they can simply then poop onto objectives/quarters/whatever and win. Now I know why I went first in almost all my games opponents choice... when you know time may end your game, being the bottom of the turn is a huge tactical advantage.

I don't know if I want or needed longer games, but I would have liked longer breaks... so games that needed to go longer could. I don't know how they could get 4 games in one day with longer breaks, but I can see people upset that they lose because of time because they planed for a turn 5/6 win with cant ever come.

I don't feel like any of my games had slow play issues by either player, but I do play orks and rolling 36 dice takes a little more time than other armies.

That is one huge advantage to playing a 31 model army.

I finished all of my games early.

Normally I would be thinking and taking my time figuring out my turn 5 moves when they would announce that we have one hour left. It was nice to know that I had about 30 minutes to make my decision.

Running out of time was one of the problems with my foot Eldar because they just took a while to play (counting out 20+ dice, then re-rolling to hit, re-rolling to wound, allocating wounds, rolling saves, etc. x5+ ). I lost more games because of the time limit than I did due to losing naturally when the game ended.

I think Blackmoor hit the nail on the head.

Good players with small, elite armies have a comfortable game with time to go to turn 7 should it be rolled.

The same good players with larger armies or forces that work with quantity of shots instead of quality must scramble to finish the same game.

So we can eliminate the player from the equasion, leaving army and tourney time limits. If you dont want to have unintended army comp (aka bring elite armies) then the only thing you can do is up the time allowed for a game.

I for one like the idea someone mentioned that you get a 1 hour break in between each game which goes towards slower players finishing their games.

I think logistics demand more time; most games finished, which is very important, and armies like Kopach's were hardly light on models. There are a number of ways we're looking @ adding time back, some as simple as kicking off the GT on Friday evening.

Adding more time is great for those larger/more dice rolling armies if its practical. But what about reducing the points level a bit?

We track a lot of events, talk to a lot of people, field a lot of feedback, and do a ton of our own playtesting. Truth is, the time difference between 1500 and 2000 is marginal, but the balance difference is considerable. Players like Tony K and others lose most of their armies' advantages against their peers at 2k ... Nids, Tau, etc., can all run over them in the hands of a peer. At 1500 this trims a lot ... and, also, it's kind of just "our thing." Every event has a bit of an identity, and 2k for our GT is one of ours.

We've also found that games just aren't really much faster or slower at 1500-2000 ... the difference in lists is often a tank or two, or bells and whistles that add variety. At 1500 you'll see me (pure example) with 5-6 vet squads, straken, and some vendettas. At 2k I add a lord com and al'rahem and some other tweaky things. This tends to hold true for a lot of players, and the speed of play isn't a major differentiator. Further, lists like Nids and Tau and others that already CAN struggle tend to do even worse when their capacity to properly leverage a weaker FOC is removed.

I.E. for sake of it - at 1500 you'll see a SW list like Tony's still have 6 scoring GH units, a couple razorbacks, 15 long fangs w/ 12 missiles, a scout squad or two, and a rune priest. He'll lose a few models here and there, maybe a scout squad, Njal will get turned into a rune priest ... but the list will effectively be the same. Watch what happens to a 9 Hive Guard, 2 Tervigon, 30 Genestealer, Fex/Prime-star "base" Nid list when it has to drop to 1500. The more flexible and popular codices gain MORE advantages the lower you get, b/c they are ... well, more flexible. That's a huge balance discussion, of course, where everyone has their own hammy $.02 (including me, of course!) ... so the "best" comment to BUOY this stance is that we aren't comfy changing the 2k points level for the GT. We're happy that at 2k you see repeat winners who AREN'T spamming 5-man GH squads in razorbacks or meltavets ... but who are getting it done with less-common special characters and near-full GH squads, etc. etc.

Long story short, we'll figure out a way to increase EVERYONE'S comfort zone by providing more round time and time in between rounds, but dropping the points level isn't one we'll probably go too hard at right now.

MVBrandt wrote:We track a lot of events, talk to a lot of people, field a lot of feedback, and do a ton of our own playtesting. Truth is, the time difference between 1500 and 2000 is marginal, but the balance difference is considerable. Players like Tony K and others lose most of their armies' advantages against their peers at 2k ... Nids, Tau, etc., can all run over them in the hands of a peer. At 1500 this trims a lot ... and, also, it's kind of just "our thing." Every event has a bit of an identity, and 2k for our GT is one of ours.

We've also found that games just aren't really much faster or slower at 1500-2000 ... the difference in lists is often a tank or two, or bells and whistles that add variety. At 1500 you'll see me (pure example) with 5-6 vet squads, straken, and some vendettas. At 2k I add a lord com and al'rahem and some other tweaky things. This tends to hold true for a lot of players, and the speed of play isn't a major differentiator. Further, lists like Nids and Tau and others that already CAN struggle tend to do even worse when their capacity to properly leverage a weaker FOC is removed.

I.E. for sake of it - at 1500 you'll see a SW list like Tony's still have 6 scoring GH units, a couple razorbacks, 15 long fangs w/ 12 missiles, a scout squad or two, and a rune priest. He'll lose a few models here and there, maybe a scout squad, Njal will get turned into a rune priest ... but the list will effectively be the same. Watch what happens to a 9 Hive Guard, 2 Tervigon, 30 Genestealer, Fex/Prime-star "base" Nid list when it has to drop to 1500. The more flexible and popular codices gain MORE advantages the lower you get, b/c they are ... well, more flexible. That's a huge balance discussion, of course, where everyone has their own hammy $.02 (including me, of course!) ... so the "best" comment to BUOY this stance is that we aren't comfy changing the 2k points level for the GT. We're happy that at 2k you see repeat winners who AREN'T spamming 5-man GH squads in razorbacks or meltavets ... but who are getting it done with less-common special characters and near-full GH squads, etc. etc.

Long story short, we'll figure out a way to increase EVERYONE'S comfort zone by providing more round time and time in between rounds, but dropping the points level isn't one we'll probably go too hard at right now.

Very nicely put. Wow, you need to start running GW. You have a firm understanding of the bigger issues with the armies right now. Thats the real stroy.

MVBrandt wrote:We track a lot of events, talk to a lot of people, field a lot of feedback, and do a ton of our own playtesting. Truth is, the time difference between 1500 and 2000 is marginal, but the balance difference is considerable. Players like Tony K and others lose most of their armies' advantages against their peers at 2k ... Nids, Tau, etc., can all run over them in the hands of a peer. At 1500 this trims a lot ... and, also, it's kind of just "our thing." Every event has a bit of an identity, and 2k for our GT is one of ours.

We've also found that games just aren't really much faster or slower at 1500-2000 ... the difference in lists is often a tank or two, or bells and whistles that add variety. At 1500 you'll see me (pure example) with 5-6 vet squads, straken, and some vendettas. At 2k I add a lord com and al'rahem and some other tweaky things. This tends to hold true for a lot of players, and the speed of play isn't a major differentiator. Further, lists like Nids and Tau and others that already CAN struggle tend to do even worse when their capacity to properly leverage a weaker FOC is removed.

I.E. for sake of it - at 1500 you'll see a SW list like Tony's still have 6 scoring GH units, a couple razorbacks, 15 long fangs w/ 12 missiles, a scout squad or two, and a rune priest. He'll lose a few models here and there, maybe a scout squad, Njal will get turned into a rune priest ... but the list will effectively be the same. Watch what happens to a 9 Hive Guard, 2 Tervigon, 30 Genestealer, Fex/Prime-star "base" Nid list when it has to drop to 1500. The more flexible and popular codices gain MORE advantages the lower you get, b/c they are ... well, more flexible. That's a huge balance discussion, of course, where everyone has their own hammy $.02 (including me, of course!) ... so the "best" comment to BUOY this stance is that we aren't comfy changing the 2k points level for the GT. We're happy that at 2k you see repeat winners who AREN'T spamming 5-man GH squads in razorbacks or meltavets ... but who are getting it done with less-common special characters and near-full GH squads, etc. etc.

Long story short, we'll figure out a way to increase EVERYONE'S comfort zone by providing more round time and time in between rounds, but dropping the points level isn't one we'll probably go too hard at right now.

Funny how...

I track a lot of events, talk to a lot of people, field a lot of feedback, and do a ton of playtesting. Truth is, the time difference between 1500 and 2000 is substantial and the balance difference is less considerable. I just played in a 1500 event with 2 1/2 hour games, but only 4 games out of the maybe 100 didn't finish in 1:45 mins. I run 1500 events and the same seems to be true. I play in 1850-2000 and all of sudden I see many players not finishing games. The key is looking at your entire playership and not just the top 16 which your event is focused on. Talk to all the players experienced or not.

As to the your army example. Since (as you believe) Nids are subpar in comparison to Space Wolves does it matter what the Nid list looks like? If Tony brought that list to many 1500 tourneys with players of decent skill he would auto lose the KP game because of the build. At least he wouldn't have to worry about remembering Njal pesky rules. Or he could build a list around minimum scoring units with a few death stars. Or he could build a balanced list with a little of everything. All which work at 1500, but at 2000 40k the Math game starts to take over and 40k the tactical game ends.

OH crap I am wrong about the KP thing because at the NovaOpen he wouldn't have to worry about losing that. Unless he just wanted to feed KPs to his opponent.

@ Byte- Agreed, that's a great post and gives a nice reasoning for the point level... even though I prefer lower point levels (for fantasy... of course, "low" for that is still 2k ) I can see where you're coming from.

tastytaste wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:We track a lot of events, talk to a lot of people, field a lot of feedback, and do a ton of our own playtesting. Truth is, the time difference between 1500 and 2000 is marginal, but the balance difference is considerable. Players like Tony K and others lose most of their armies' advantages against their peers at 2k ... Nids, Tau, etc., can all run over them in the hands of a peer. At 1500 this trims a lot ... and, also, it's kind of just "our thing." Every event has a bit of an identity, and 2k for our GT is one of ours.

We've also found that games just aren't really much faster or slower at 1500-2000 ... the difference in lists is often a tank or two, or bells and whistles that add variety. At 1500 you'll see me (pure example) with 5-6 vet squads, straken, and some vendettas. At 2k I add a lord com and al'rahem and some other tweaky things. This tends to hold true for a lot of players, and the speed of play isn't a major differentiator. Further, lists like Nids and Tau and others that already CAN struggle tend to do even worse when their capacity to properly leverage a weaker FOC is removed.

I.E. for sake of it - at 1500 you'll see a SW list like Tony's still have 6 scoring GH units, a couple razorbacks, 15 long fangs w/ 12 missiles, a scout squad or two, and a rune priest. He'll lose a few models here and there, maybe a scout squad, Njal will get turned into a rune priest ... but the list will effectively be the same. Watch what happens to a 9 Hive Guard, 2 Tervigon, 30 Genestealer, Fex/Prime-star "base" Nid list when it has to drop to 1500. The more flexible and popular codices gain MORE advantages the lower you get, b/c they are ... well, more flexible. That's a huge balance discussion, of course, where everyone has their own hammy $.02 (including me, of course!) ... so the "best" comment to BUOY this stance is that we aren't comfy changing the 2k points level for the GT. We're happy that at 2k you see repeat winners who AREN'T spamming 5-man GH squads in razorbacks or meltavets ... but who are getting it done with less-common special characters and near-full GH squads, etc. etc.

Long story short, we'll figure out a way to increase EVERYONE'S comfort zone by providing more round time and time in between rounds, but dropping the points level isn't one we'll probably go too hard at right now.

Funny how...

I track a lot of events, talk to a lot of people, field a lot of feedback, and do a ton of playtesting. Truth is, the time difference between 1500 and 2000 is substantial and the balance difference is less considerable. I just played in a 1500 event with 2 1/2 hour games, but only 4 games out of the maybe 100 didn't finish in 1:45 mins. I run 1500 events and the same seems to be true. I play in 1850-2000 and all of sudden I see many players not finishing games. The key is looking at your entire playership and not just the top 16 which your event is focused on. Talk to all the players experienced or not.

As to the your army example. Since (as you believe) Nids are subpar in comparison to Space Wolves does it matter what the Nid list looks like? If Tony brought that list to many 1500 tourneys with players of decent skill he would auto lose the KP game because of the build. At least he wouldn't have to worry about remembering Njal pesky rules. Or he could build a list around minimum scoring units with a few death stars. Or he could build a balanced list with a little of everything. All which work at 1500, but at 2000 40k the Math game starts to take over and 40k the tactical game ends.

OH crap I am wrong about the KP thing because at the NovaOpen he wouldn't have to worry about losing that. Unless he just wanted to feed KPs to his opponent.

Lol. Too much pettiness and hate in your life, Nick. Expand your mind, expand your empathy, and you'll find it easier not to be considered less of by the broader TO community out there. You don't care, petty petty snarky snarky blah blah, I know I know.

MVBrandt wrote:Lol. Too much pettiness and hate in your life, Nick. Expand your mind, expand your empathy, and you'll find it easier not to be considered less of by the broader TO community out there. You don't care, petty petty snarky snarky blah blah, I know I know.

Sigh... pretty much the whole post except for the bookends was constructive but just happened to differ with your own experience. But I guess that's just easier to ignore...

It's not constructive when it doesn't analyze reality - i.e. the comment that our event focuses on the top 16 (nothing could be further from the truth, especially in comparison to most other formats out there). This is similar to a post he made on BOK where he thought it was inappropriate of us to offer $2k in cash to competitors, but not to random raffle ... only for him to look absurd in light of the fact that we actually did also give $2k in cash to random raffle.

Similarly, I don't believe Nids are subpar in comparison to Space Wolves, and frequently beat Tony using them ... etc. Or the fact that our event uses KP.

It wasn't constructive at all, b/c it assesses the NOVA as it is not ... and/or is a simple troll. Either the "investigative journalist" of the warhams world is simply terrible at his job, operating with presumption instead of fact ... or he's trying to troll up silliness.

Again, the majority of the TO community out there does not take Nick very seriously ... something that I think is sad in light of his capabilities when it comes to very strong blog design and forum trollage/presence.

The NOVA thrives and survives on aggressive management of player input, constructive criticism, etc., and changes dramatically by the year to address that. When someone bases commentary upon absentee facts or things about the event that don't occur at all int he first place ... it is either ignorance, or a troll ... and not actually constructive at all. Hence, I can't take it seriously ... which is sad! We put in literally thousands of hours of work each year putting on the NOVA at 0 profit for the pure sake of attendees enjoying themselves. The more ACTUAL constructive criticism we receive, the better the event is tailored toward that goal.

RiTides - thank you!

That post is how you should have responded. Anyways... any data on average KP brought to the event for this year compared with the inaugural event? I did see mention of KP calculatons on some of the streams; how were they used as a victory condition/tie breaker this year? Also, did list presubmission catch any mistakes? What did you eventually decide on as a police regarding people using/submitting illegal lists?

Here's what I want to know- what are the winners of the various $1k prizes doing with it

I know only that of the 7 cash prize winners, Nick was putting it toward his college education.

We have monthly tournaments in Chicago at the Battle Bunker as part of the AWC tournament series. We have a different points set each month from 1500-2000pts. Many people take the same army and just adjust their points. Some others, like me, have a specific build for each points level.

My footdar are my 1500pt army. At that points level they do very well. Daemons are my 1650pt army, Chaos is 1750 (sometimes), Blood angels and Bugs are 1850 and Blood Angels alone are my 2000pt army.

Each codex does more at different points levels. The higher we go, the better the newer army books become. The newer books have more options to shoe horn into their lists and they can bring it all at 2000pts. At 1500pts a limited army book, such as Eldar, which does not have as many viable options in their force org slot as the newer books can't take as many effective slots as, say, space wolves.

I can also say that we get new players all the time and we have a steady core of veterans. When two veterans play, no matter the model count, the games go fast and usually finish on time. When we have one 'rookie' (or someone who's more of a hobbiest who paints well and just wants to play some games), the game slows down. That could be for a number of reasons, but it happens.

Blackmoor is right. Certain armies play at certain speeds. Footdar do indeed take a while while 60 space wolves all mounted up (so you move 6 tanks and shoot some long fangs) can play faster. The experience of the player and their list also factors into this.

I'm not sure I agree with the statement that the games aren't faster or slower at 1500pts and 2000pts. Our 1500pt games play at 1:30 and our 2000pt games play at 2:15. The 2000pt games sometimes don't finish on time. The 1500pt games do finish on time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One thing I just thought of. Is there a policy about players receiving messages during thier live game feed? Could someone get text messages about there game while it is going on?

potentially they could, but the live feed is usually on a delay, anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds. The receiving text messages part is as likely to go unnoticed as having a buddy try to assist while physically present.

MVBrandt wrote:It's not constructive when it doesn't analyze reality - i.e. the comment that our event focuses on the top 16 (nothing could be further from the truth, especially in comparison to most other formats out there). This is similar to a post he made on BOK where he thought it was inappropriate of us to offer $2k in cash to competitors, but not to random raffle ... only for him to look absurd in light of the fact that we actually did also give $2k in cash to random raffle.

Similarly, I don't believe Nids are subpar in comparison to Space Wolves, and frequently beat Tony using them ... etc. Or the fact that our event uses KP.

It wasn't constructive at all, b/c it assesses the NOVA as it is not ... and/or is a simple troll. Either the "investigative journalist" of the warhams world is simply terrible at his job, operating with presumption instead of fact ... or he's trying to troll up silliness.

Again, the majority of the TO community out there does not take Nick very seriously ... something that I think is sad in light of his capabilities when it comes to very strong blog design and forum trollage/presence.

The NOVA thrives and survives on aggressive management of player input, constructive criticism, etc., and changes dramatically by the year to address that. When someone bases commentary upon absentee facts or things about the event that don't occur at all int he first place ... it is either ignorance, or a troll ... and not actually constructive at all. Hence, I can't take it seriously ... which is sad! We put in literally thousands of hours of work each year putting on the NOVA at 0 profit for the pure sake of attendees enjoying themselves. The more ACTUAL constructive criticism we receive, the better the event is tailored toward that goal.

RiTides - thank you!

I saw the NOVA post on BoK. Mostly 2nd to 3rd hand accounts from people and once again trying to stir some sort of Outrage out of a very well run event. What PastyPaste is trying to do is further split the community and make underhand comments about winning armies or people he does not like. The site was at a loss when there was little to no conflict at the event and was banking on Dash to pull something and to his credit, he won best sportsman. Btw I am not Dash's biggest fan but he at least deserves praise for winning the award. Oh and while Stelek may bash events, he does tell people why he does not like them and how they could be better in his opinion.

I honestly think it is a mistake to simply write off the idea that lowering points costs for a game by 250 points doesn't have any major impact on gameplay time. Are there people out there who are slow players that will fail to finish their games pretty much no matter how much time you give them? Of course, but at the same time, every single point added or reduced to armies will have an impact on game length when looked at an average across a tournament field.

It is folly (IMHO) to assume that because one personally, or even one's friends would only remove a single model (for example) from their army with a reduction of 250 points that this is what everyone, or even most people, would also do. Army composition depends wildly on the personal style of the player, so while everyone you know may only drop a single vehicle or character there may be 5, 10 or 20 people in the field who are dropping a squad of guys.

For just one example, with my Kan wall, when going from 1,500 points to 1,850 I typically add another 20 shoota boyz into the army, which of course adds a tremendous amount of extra time into the game potentially with moving the models, shooting all of them, resolving assaults, etc.

Even going from 1,850 to 2,000 often means I add Snikrot and a unit of Kommandos into the mix. While this one unit, which always arrives from Reserves, may not seem like it would affect the time of a game much, I can say from experience that his presence in my army actually makes my opponents play MUCH slower until he enters play, as they waste time in both deployment and the first few turns of the game worrying about how to castle up to mitigate the damage from his arrival.

These are the kind of intangibles that you can't simply add up by the number of models added or subtracted to an army. Adding Njal to a Space Wolf army, for example (a single model) can add a tremendous amount of extra gameplay time in order to resolve his Storm rules that start to affect the game in later turns.

And even if you're only adding a single model (like a vehicle), while that may not add much extra time towards your gameplay, when that vehicle is assaulted by 30 Orks (for example), then all the time it takes to roll for damage, etc, *is* being generated by a model that wouldn't otherwise be in the game. EVERYTHING added to the army has the potential to lengthen the game, and not only in the conventional ways we always think of.

At the Vegas Throne of Skulls where the games were 1,500 pts with 2 1/2 hour rounds I think nearly every (if not every single) game finished completely and totally. Of course, the VAST majority of people finished way, way early and had to find things to do to keep themselves occupied between rounds, but the point is that obviously adjusting time vs. point values of the games played does allow people (even the slow ones) to finish their tournament games.

I think we can all agree that 2 1/2 hours for 1,500 point games is pretty absurd, but there has to be some sort of happy middle-ground that allows players to take a little bit of time to stop and enjoy their games while playing them. Instead it really does seem that through the years the standard amount of time given at 40K tournaments is based way more on what the event will allow, rather than what the game itself actually needs.

As I've pointed out many times before in many forum threads (so I apologize for beating the dead horse), the constant argument that gets brought up about how X player is totally able to finish all his games playing with a 200+ model Ork army is a terrible, terrible baseline to use. Unless you're dealing with some sort of invitational army where every player is supposed to be a master, then using players who are incredibly experienced as the basis for setting a schedule means you're basically shutting the door on anyone except a master from using such armies.

I think one of the most dangerous things about this type of 'invisible comp' (as someone else coined), is that you won't necessarily hear about its effects from the people who *do* attend your event. For example, if a player thinks that your tournament doesn't offer enough time for its rounds vs. the point values of the games, they may just not attend your event as a result, and you'll likely never, ever hear from these people as to why they chose not to come.

The other thing that troubles me is that sticking to 2,000 points is put forth as being the most balanced and competitive list size for games, yet what if that point size is causing *any* games to finish improperly, then what is really happening to the competitive balance? For example, I know a lot of people who feel as though if they get 5 turns played, then this counts as a 'full' game. I'll use a post about the NOVA from another thread as an example:

Clauss wrote:In response to Mannahnin and Adam Longwalker regarding the time constraints. For the NOVA Invitational we had 2 hours for each 1750 game, I had no issues with the time. My first game finish with 30 minutes free, my second finished with about 20 minutes left. My third game we got through 5 turns then the judge stopped us at the end of our 5th(for fun I rolled it and it would not have kept going). My fourth game finished with 40 mins left, my last game ended on turn 5. I ran into foot angels, deathwing, eldar, GKs and Mechguard. I honestly dont think you need more than 2 hours for 1750 points. Two adequate players who know their rules can get a game done in less than 2 hours if they are a playing to their best abilities without slow playing. For 2000 points 2.5 hours is easily enough time. I know people who play orks, nids and other larger armies. But During the invitational there was a full mechguard player who got his rounds finished. There was multiple foot armies that finished their games. I really dont think two good players who know their rules wont finish. I have yet to not finish a turn 5 in the past year of playing in tournaments against dozens of armies. Sure, it would be cool to have 2.5 hours for the invitational, you wouldn't have to play efficiently and quickly. But that isn't realistic for a 5 game competition. If you know all of your rules, and every other army, the games go quick.

If I'm reading this right, he's saying that 2 of his 5 games (40% of his games) ended on turn 5 because of time. On one, he rolled to see if it would have continued, and it wouldn't so therefore it feels like he finished his full game.

The big problem with this concept is that random game length is absolutely essential to 5th edition 40K and when you know the game is going to end after round 5 because of time (regardless of what the roll comes up with after time is called), then players play differently. In other words, anytime a game ends on turn 5 or 6 due to time being called, competitive balance is being affected because some of the random nature of random game length is being removed.

For example, in the Open finals, if the game had ended on turn 5 instead of turn 6 then Blackmoor would have won instead of Tony. But more importantly, if they had *known* that the game was ending for sure on turn 5 (due to time running out), then they both would have played turn 5 probably much, much differently...and that's the point...when you know the game is going to end for sure, everything changes about the way you're playing.

And that's not even taking into consideration players who realize that time is running down and then rush to finish only to find they make a critical mistake that costs them the game. I know when Tony and Dash were playing they seemed to be running out of time in the end and rushed to finish. I don't think any major mistake was made that wasn't caught, but it easily could have happened (and I'm sure it has happened).

How much is the perceived competitive balanced of 2,000 point lists worth if the outcome of X amount of games is being affected by time constraints? And how much do these balanced lists help larger armies if only the super-experienced players can take them and be sure that they can finish all their games fully?

Now obviously at the end of the day this is your event and you need to do what makes you and most of your attendees happy. However I always just feel like some of the issues created by too many points vs. not enough time for rounds are 'silent' issues that you won't necessarily hear about (so to reiterate):

1) Players that don't attend the tournament due to feeling like they won't be able to finish their games may not (probably won't) let you know about why they're not attending.

2) Players that consciously or subconsciously choose to not take an army with a high model count can result in a form of 'silent comp' that you probably won't hear about (assuming the players even recognize what they're doing).

3) Games that aren't being finished to their true completion (including those that technically 'finish' but the players knew that there was no way they could get in another turn due to time) are definitely affecting the competitive balance of those particular games and therefore the whole event.


And of course this is all just posted from a high-level perspective from someone who (obviously) didn't attend the event and is simply meant as a basic debate topic as opposed to any critique of the NOVA...I don't think I'm qualified to actually critique the event without attending!

Pat 11th Company wrote:potentially they could, but the live feed is usually on a delay, anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds. The receiving text messages part is as likely to go unnoticed as having a buddy try to assist while physically present.

Tony was giving and receiving text messages all though our game. I thought nothing of it at the time, but now it is interesting.

If you are playing on camera you should ban all communication.

I highly doubt that people were getting text assists during games. Kids these days just can't help texting all the time. I saw it more than once around the hall.

Blackmoor wrote:

Pat 11th Company wrote:potentially they could, but the live feed is usually on a delay, anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds. The receiving text messages part is as likely to go unnoticed as having a buddy try to assist while physically present.

Tony was giving and receiving text messages all though our game. I thought nothing of it at the time, but now it is interesting.

If you are playing on camera you should ban all communication.

I watched the entire video of your guys game, and it didn't appear to me that he was suddenly switching tactics or anything. Most of what he did tactically I would have done in that instance with a few changes to target priority and power selection. He would have to have some very poor sportsmanship to accept help via text messages while playing on a live feed. The only time I have used a cell phone in a competitive event for advantage was in a team tournament where my partner and I discussed battle strategy via text messages to avoid giving away our plan to our opponents (who happened to be playing right into it, hence our silent communication). So while it's certainly possible to cheat that way, and I cannot speak for Tony since I do not know him, it did not APPEAR to me that he was intentionally cheating via texts.

I will say, though, that he made a big mistake with Nja's Lord of Tempest's ability, but if I remember correctly from the video, you likely would have had to cross difficult terrain to charge the Rhino anyway. Part of the hill was blocking part of the Rhino, and in order to get the max number of models in contact with the tank you would probably have had to move some of them over the hill. I could be wrong, and I'd have to go back and check the video to be sure, but I seem to remember thinking that at the time. The bigger mistake I think was that you got Weapon Destroyed and Immobilized on a Rhino that was already Immobile, and thus should have been wrecked, and even after you wrecked it, Tony rolled for repair on it and used the Storm Bolter to shoot and kill your Strike Squad on the objective. He also shot with a Rhino earlier that had repaired in the same phase, which he should not have done. Again, I'm not saying he cheated, but it looked like the number of games and the long hours of play were certainly affecting him.

So does anyone actually know tonys exact list?

MVBrandt wrote:

Similarly, I don't believe Nids are subpar in comparison to Space Wolves, and frequently beat Tony using them ... etc. Or the fact that our event uses KP.

Mike, Simply because your nid list (and ability) can match up against Tony and win. Doesn't mean Nids are on par with SWs. The strength of a book is when your tournament or "all comers" list performs at the same level against random competition. The stats are in on nids, they do not perform as well as SWs, they are not taken by top players at the same rate as SW, this is true at most point levels.

I do agree that 2k allows books that have worse troops or have less point efficient books complete at closer to even levels. But it is naive to pretend the gap is entirely closed. Your personal W/L record against any one individual is not relevant.

Greg Sparks does excellent with Footdar all the time. Does that mean Eldar are better without transports or that if Greg beat Tony K, or Stelek, that Eldar are "on par" with SW?

Better players rise above. They always do. It makes no comment on the power level of the book. Just that the tools are present, though likely in lesser quantity or at increased cost.


Also, I agree with Yakface's comments. Most of my games ended on a turn that both players KNEW was going to be the last turn. Be it turn 5 or 6. It definitely changes the way people are able to play knowing there will not be another game turn.

Though I think you already know from feedback that having slightly longer rounds and slightly longer breaks is something most people want.

Keith - on the last part, yes; the majority did not wish for longer rounds / breaks, but GTs aren't run as attendee-democracies. We're contemplating a variety of things to give people more time so that EVERYONE can feel comfortable, not just 'the majority.'

One of the things being tossed about is starting the GT with 2 rounds on Friday afternoon, having the full 4 on Sat, and then optional drops and the final 2 on Sunday AM. Other notions also being discussioned.

As far as the balance issue goes - your point is a good one, but the point is I don't *personally* believe Nids are subpar in comparison to SW or anything else, and Tasty's statement was that I believed that. I was correcting a falsehood about my own opinions.

As for tournament timing, knowing when the game is going to end, etc., these happen almost regardless of time level, unless you are stretching to "absurd" levels that aren't feasible within certain sizes and qualities of tournament format. I think we'll be trying to move to 2:30/round either way next year. It's important to base our changes upon the goal of seeing as MANY players as possible happy with their experience. Our survey has been heavily responded in in only a few days, and we're looking at a 95%+ satisfaction rate in attendees for the basic question of whether the GT went as or better than expected. I want that to be 100%, with more than the present 75% for whom it exceeded expectations.

One easy to way to do that ("easy") is extending round lengths, and perhaps - spreading rounds over parts of 3 days instead of having all 8 in 2 days.