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The second mission did not specifically require observers to be placed and it was entirely possible that someone could have an army without two legal observer units, so I ruled the Staff as mandatory and the observers as optional (since the rest of the rules basically immitated Dawn of War anyhow). The mission was busted enough as it was, with the Salamander guy dropping a 10 man assault term unit as his Staff unit. That was a really half assed adaptation of an old Fantasy mission that really needed some community feedback and testing.

The second mission did not specifically require observers to be placed

Here is what the mission (which I am looking at right now) said as far as placing observers:
The player going first must deploy his observers andywhere in his deployment zone that is at least 18" away from the center of the table. Player two must then deploy his observers in a similar manner.

The inclusion of the word MUST seems to me like you must place observers.

I think redbeard handled it right with his ruling in chicago on making you deploy Monstrous HQ's if thats all you had.

Seems pretty straightforward.

Redbeard did an excellent job on the ruling for the first mission at Chicago. It was just a very poorly conceived and executed mission on GW's part. I don't think it had a significant impact in the overall standings, but it was still a disappointing mission for a lot of armies.

BBF: Marc has won 7 or more GTs. He is respected by a lot of the better players in the country. I am guessing you are somewhat new to the scene based upon what you said.

Looking at the online Rankings Hulk is way ahead of Marc IRT tournaments and national ranking. Hulk aint a noob.

As for "the scene"...would that be the Florida scene or the California scene or the Texas scene? 4 of the top 10 players are cali based. each area has it's 'scene.' Alot of people in different geographic areas may be The man in that area...but that dosn't mean squat 3000 miles away where the 'best of all Florida' is NOT a 40K household name.
Really, how many people in Florida can say they consistently play the #1 player in the country? I play him every month or so (and have learned to lose brilliantly to him...meaning I can win poorly to alot of other top tier players)...but does that make me (or the #1 guy) a big nmae in Florida?

(PS) Don't let the "1 post new guy thing" sway you. My previous account is messed up so I've popped in under a new account (no, I wasn't banned...just a password vs username bit-mix).

Kell553 wrote: 4 of the top 10 players are cali based

According to what criteria?

I'll make it to the finals yet!

Glad eldar made it into the top 9 players. Not even completely mechanized either.

Damned space wolves.

@BBF:
Unless you have GT results that included players from all over the country, and floridaians placed abnormally higher than the others, or some other kind of proof... shut it.

Redbeard:
RQRankings.com
TOs (from RTTs to GTs) send them the results. They post your history and use your top 3 for the current year to run a ranking system. They also host for worldwide if your curious.
If your not in, sign up and any results sent in will give you an instant result.

Redbeard wrote:

Kell553 wrote: 4 of the top 10 players are cali based

According to what criteria?

That'd be a rudimentary ranking system that's rather heavily weighted to CA tournaments (as they are most likely to get their results input).

*edit: Don't get me wrong - I appreciate what they're trying to do. But it's hard to take any assertions of "top 10" with too much seriousness, given that many "major" events aren't included, and various local-area tournaments are.

I don't know that you can claim that 4 of the 10 best players are from California based on a site that may, or may not, contain relevant data from outside of California.

I'm almost positive that Chicago results aren't entered on that site.

On GW's site, you can still find the 2008 tournament circuit results. I think 5 of the top ten on that list are from the midwest, with another 2 or 3 from Florida, and at least one from Atlanta. That doesn't leave room for 4 from Cali...

Kell553 wrote:BBF: Marc has won 7 or more GTs. He is respected by a lot of the better players in the country. I am guessing you are somewhat new to the scene based upon what you said.

Looking at the online Rankings Hulk is way ahead of Marc IRT tournaments and national ranking. Hulk aint a noob.

As for "the scene"...would that be the Florida scene or the California scene or the Texas scene? 4 of the top 10 players are cali based. each area has it's 'scene.' Alot of people in different geographic areas may be The man in that area...but that dosn't mean squat 3000 miles away where the 'best of all Florida' is NOT a 40K household name.
Really, how many people in Florida can say they consistently play the #1 player in the country? I play him every month or so (and have learned to lose brilliantly to him...meaning I can win poorly to alot of other top tier players)...but does that make me (or the #1 guy) a big nmae in Florida?

(PS) Don't let the "1 post new guy thing" sway you. My previous account is messed up so I've popped in under a new account (no, I wasn't banned...just a password vs username bit-mix).

Everybody knows the best 40k player in the world is Greg Sparks.

Easy boys. If your TO dosn't send results in, well maybe you should ping on him to do so (it aint hard). I've noticed a few Tournies I was in haven't been sent and I've sent followups to TOs about that.
As for Chicago results..Adepticon results are rather prominent. Again, if you guys are holding other event (RTTs, etc) not listed, thats on you and the TOs to decide what you want to do about it.

Their is now a system in place that ranks players world wide based on set criteria. If you don't avail yourselves of using that system then you really have no place to complain when your not listed.
Much better than having to figure out if the Ard Boyz winner or Adepticon Winner of BolsCon or even the Broadside Bash winner is the number 1 guy. This looks at the average of your 3 best wins to help alleviate factors like getting matched up with baby seals, great dice rolling on a set day, and other luck (good and bad) factors.

Elthniar wrote:Redbeard did an excellent job on the ruling for the first mission at Chicago. It was just a very poorly conceived and executed mission on GW's part. I don't think it had a significant impact in the overall standings, but it was still a disappointing mission for a lot of armies.

Correct and I think Alex did a great job from what I saw for judging and handling rule issues. That being said that mission was horrible and I think it affected a lot of people. I know playing My opponent who won fair and square but he got to get two assaults on me before turn 1. I couldn't do anything about it. Having to force your opponent to put certain things on the table or in a setup for situations you don't want doesn't make for a good mission.

I also know a couple of daemon players who just had a field day along with other nid players. It gives advantages to certain armies and disadvantages to others which shouldn't be the case.

Is there something special about 2010 that the results so far from this year count for more than say the past decade? I don't think so. Marc won the vast majority of his GTs at GW events that had lots of players around the country, not Indy GTs with a much smaller showing and localized. I have played in events in California and players from California in events outside of the state. I remember a group from Southern California that included players such as Jason Witten & Darrien13... These are the guys who seemed very strong to me when they were playing in national tournaments. I'm not slagging California by any means but to hang your hat on some Indy GTs is not that impressive to me. Another top gamer is Bill Kim from the Chicago area. It's just my opinion so don't get too worked up over it.

What I have found playing in FL over the past 6 years or so is there are plenty of very competitive gamers here and plenty of tournaments every weekend to hone your skills. If I wanted to I could play in a tournament every weekend here in central Florida. If you look at the final results from Ard Boyz the majority of those finishing in the top three each year are from Florida. Darkwynn used to live here in central Florida as well before moving to Texas.

Sure California has a larger population... from the sounds of it all it appears southern California is the most competitive area for that state. There are certainly lots of very strong players in SoCal such as Jankthin and others.

G

Lol, hulksmash. I have not had a fully painted army in 7 years wich makes scoring in tournaments kinda hard:(. But I've made it to a few Rtts every now and again! I'm working on painting up my eldar though so see everyone in Vegas next year!

As for the Florida part I always do make a joke that Three of the Ard boys winners Graduated from University of Central Florida

Jordan Braun for Fantasy, Gareth Hunt for 40k and myself... Obviously their gaming program has high marks.

Don't forget to add Clark Welch to the ranks of Ard Boyz. He is from central Florida as well and won 1st place in PA this past Saturday. The second place finalist last year is from Florida as well.

G

Kell553 wrote:Easy boys. If your TO dosn't send results in, well maybe you should ping on him to do so (it aint hard). I've noticed a few Tournies I was in haven't been sent and I've sent followups to TOs about that.
...
Their is now a system in place that ranks players world wide based on set criteria. If you don't avail yourselves of using that system then you really have no place to complain when your not listed...

Or maybe we just don't care that much. "There is now a system" - you know, you need to sell it better than that. As GBF points out, why is this year's data worth something when the last 10 years data isn't?

Personally, I think it is all a big joke. I mean, we're playing toy soldiers. Best in the world at toy soldiers isn't exactly like being Chess Champion. Fisher, Karpov, Kasparov... people know those names. Being top 40k player isn't going to make anyone's obituary. All sites like this do is pad the egos of the people who care about their toy soldier stats enough to send results in.

skkipper wrote:

Everybody knows the best 40k player in the world is Greg Sparks.

So good in fact - that RankingsHQ isn't qualified enough to have me on their list. Damn - have to quit organizing events and actually play more.

@Kell553 - just to give you an idea of how screwed up RankingsHQ's system is - check this out:

Dave Fay - 3rd place in a 47 person event and he gets 90 points.
vs (for example)
Eric Hobin - 2nd place in a 110 person event and he gets 59.45 points.

Not to subtract from the rankings of people, but when you see this type of discrepancy it is hard to take it seriously.

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:

skkipper wrote:

Everybody knows the best 40k player in the world is Greg Sparks.

So good in fact - that RankingsHQ isn't qualified enough to have me on their list. Damn - have to quit organizing events and actually play more.

@Kell553 - just to give you an idea of how screwed up RankingsHQ's system is - check this out:

Dave Fay - 3rd place in a 47 person event and he gets 90 points.
vs (for example)
Eric Hobin - 2nd place in a 110 person event and he gets 59.45 points.

Not to subtract from the rankings of people, but when you see this type of discrepancy it is hard to take it seriously.

Was Adepticon only 3 rounds? if so that would explain why Eric only received a 59.45. If it was 5 rounds he would have gotten 99.09.

The ranking for each player is calculated by adding their best three (3) scores over the last 12 months. The maximum a player can score out of a single tournament is 100 points, and that is done by winning an event that has 60 players or more.

Tournaments require 5 rounds or more to qualify for the total points allocation, events with 4 rounds score 80% of the total and events with 3 score 60% of the total.

The best army general icons are worked out by adding the best three (3) scores a player gains using that army over the last 12 months.

FYI I started playing Fantsay in RI, then I moved to Miami FL, and then San Diego for the last ten years. So can I claim multiple regions ?

I agree that there are alot of strong players in every corner and by no means consider myself #1.

RankingHQ only counts the best 3 games in the year. It would be cool to see historical data.

I think rankinghq is a good comparison tool to see whats going on in the world but not a comparison of US players.

The US is to big and it's not feasible to travel to every event unlike the UK.

Alot of the "top UK players" have the Throne of skulls tourneys factored into thier score which I think are 5 round 1750 gt's with over 100 players.

Cool. Thanks for the clarification.

*Edited because Dave beat me to it *

Personally I think Rankings HQ is hilarious in that I am nowhere near the 8th "best" player in the country. And sadly after they add in the LA Conquest joke of a GT I'll move up to number 3 I think which is even more hilarious

I'm not diggin on Marc. I have heard of him, if only when he ran over the scene with his Orks last year or the year before. He's probably a good player. Probably has to be to score as high as he does regularly. But I don't think there is a group of the "best" players. It's all to random and unorganized. If we solidify the circuit and have consistant styles of events then that changes a little. But as it is there isn't a yardstick for the "best" players and I think claiming any area in the US is home to some of them is just silly.

If seven GW GTs aren't proof enough for you then I think it's time you invested in a new yard stick... :( seriously.

G

Sorry GBF. It's not about "proof". It's about me personally believing there is no upper echelon of players. I won't belittle Marc's wins. He deserved them and like i've said multiple times he's probably a very solid player. I just don't hold to anyone being the "best" or even one of the "best" at playing a game that involves so much randomness. For some reason you seem to see this as a personal attack against Marc which it isn't. It's a personal view on the sillyness of saying someone is one of the best at playing with little plastic toy soldiers

Sure comes across as you trying to knock him down a peg or two. If you had some GW GT wins under your belt, an Adepticon gladiator title or Ard Boyz win then I would put more stock in your opinion. Seems like you were saying pretty much the same thing about the ETC. You are basically dismissing what we have to go on up to now in an attempt to rationalize your stance, it's a slippery slope at best to me. Sure you can just say " Hey it's just a game of toy soldiers." but people sure do seem to take serious at times.

G

Black Blow Fly wrote:Sure comes across as you trying to knock him down a peg or two. If you had some GW GT wins under your belt, an Adepticon gladiator title or Ard Boyz win then I would put more stock in your opinion. Seems like you were saying pretty much the same thing about the ETC. You are basically dismissing what we have to go on up to now in an attempt to rationalize your stance, it's a slippery slope at best to me. Sure you can just say " Hey it's just a game of toy soldiers." but people sure do seem to take serious at times.

G

You seem to be putting plenty of stock into his opinion...

Hulksmash: I think you're making a distinction without a difference. If a person wins a lot of events, it's pretty safe to say they're an elite player.

I don't' know how large of an upper echelon you're uncomfortable with, but I'm imagining a few dozen guys at least being the elite of competitive 40k.

Just because there are dice and plastic soldiers doesn't mean people can't become pretty good at warhammer. I dont' see why 40k would be one of the few things that is impossible to rank.

It's impossible to rank because most of the guy with major wins and records currently never, ever play each other. Guys like Darkwynn, Dash, Marc to name just a few don't play each other. They play mostly in their local groups and make it to a few larger tournaments (2-4) yearly and of those only one will normally be significantly out of their standard travel zone. And at larger events the chance is that more than one person will finish undefeated. Our country is just to damn big to get everyone together regularly to see who is on top.

I've never said that Marc wasn't a good player. I've stated it over and over again that I'm pretty sure he is. His record speaks for itself. He's a pretty awesome painter and seems a great sport (never heard anything negative said about him which is rare when someone wins like he does). All the things considered I'd happily play him and have a great time I'm sure. I'd buy him a beer and bs after our game win or lose (well he can buy me one if I lose ).

As for the ETC I'm only knocking the format itself GBF. It'll be competitive within itself. I'm not getting on a high horse and screaming that the guys that are going aren't the best or don't represent america. They took the initiative and got a team together. Awesome. Doesn't mean I can't give my comments on the system or the lists taken.

@Polonius

I'll agree that there are probably people out there that are pretty dang good at this game of little toy soldiers we love. But since like I said earlier there is no way to really say who is awesome sauce until we codifiy the actual tournament circuit and everyone who is considered "good" attends. Which simply won't happen. Couldn't help poking BBF mostly when he said Florida has a large group of the best players in the country

@Mort
Can't wait to see them all painted. They looked sweet the parts that were last I saw them. VEGAS!!!!!!

All sites like this do is pad the egos of the people who care about their toy soldier stats enough to send results in.

Everyone has an ego. Hence your your own listing of Tournaments and placings. You cared enough to even include which Army you ran.

So, why not a solution? Why not have the "wheels" of the community come up with a standardized (beyond the simplistic INAT FAQ) setting for Tournies?
Set # of games depending on the format; 5 for GTs (golden ticket events), 4 for other major events, 3 for local RTTs.
Ard Boyz stays as the unique stepchild it is.
Even # of GT events between geographic regions.
Identical list points AND missions for 'ticketed' events.
Minimum # of players present for the event to qualify.
Standardized scoring system to (hopefully) eliminate all the back-n-forth carping over battle vs comp vs painting...everyone knows what to expect ahead of time (Comp and painting should also be set down in hard rules rather than a subjective guesstimate of some overworked judge who happens to hate baby-blue Marines).

Something like that would do wonders to solidify the entire community, eliminate alot of the angst that always pops up at events (especially in the areas of missions and subjective scoring systems), and put everyone on a relatively level playing field.
IMHO of course.

@Kell

I'm assuming your talking about me when it comes ot the placings and record. I do have an ego. Never said I didn't. I think i'm pretty good at playing with little toy soldiers. Just don't have a big enough ego to claim myself or people I play are some of the best in the nation The website you refer to is more if TO's care to send in their results. Anybody TO can get his results posted. It's more the mark of a good TO to me than it is the mark of an egotistical player. I just don't think Rankings HQ can work until a full year has gone by and most TO's have put in their tournament records. I wouldn't expect to place higher than the top 20 if all results for 4-5 game events were sent in.

As for a standardized GT system I genuinely wish anyone who wants to try luck. Getting most TO's to change anything of their pet projects is a chore. TO's that put the time and money in generally want to do things the way they want to. And even when they want to make changes they have to move at the pace of the slowest member of their group just so they can put an event on. Of all the TO's I've dealt with Mike from the NovaOpen and Phazael from the SCGWL have been the best two in regards to taking feedback. But even then Phazael has to move at the pace of the his other organizers. I'm sorry to say but it won't happen unless a group of guys all over the US start up a new system from scratch. But I agree that it would be awesome

These sound so very interesting...I may have to enter 'ard boyz myself one day when I complete my collection entirely.