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I say mix-em next year! I loved the event but it's not going to stop me personally from sending what I saw as some opportunities to improve. It was a first year event that went off amazingly but there is always room for improvement

Mike seems to thrive off feedback. So send it to him so he can get started for next year

dahli.llama wrote:

The biggest problem I see with KP is that it can seriously hurt the chances of certain armies, and it can cause auto-win conditions in games. Armies like Dark Eldar and Tau have little choice but to play lists with a large number of killpoints if they hope to be competitive in any mission. If the DE player get matched up against a Deathwing player in a KP mission, it really doesn't really matter who the better player is, because the DE player has a huge disadvantage coming into the game already. The DE player can kill 90% of the enemy and still lose.

At least with VP they are both on a more or less even playing field with at least the same number of points available. Sure maybe the balance swings more towards the DE, but the skill of the players is much more prominent.

I find this take interesting. I played in an Indy GT in Washington State this weekend and took my Dark Eldar. My Army gave up 23 Killpoints and I was facing off against an 8 Killpoint Space Marine army in a Kill Points mission. Guess who won? Me.

Killpoints is there for a reason. It puts some armies such as Dark Eldar or a MSU army like Razorspam at a disadvantage, but those armies have other advantages. By taking away Killpoints a tournament ELIMINATES a disadvantage for some army builds. When you change something like that over the entire course of a tournament you change the game in a BIG way.

You are playing 40k 4th edition missions with 5th edition points costs.

Yeah I'm a big proponent of KP's. Simply because my SW's are ridiculous if you take them out. I see it as a balancer a good opponent could exploit against me. Without it even excellent opponents struggle against it.

I think the absence of Kill Points does hurt the Nova as far as what type of builds will be successful and what wouldn't be. By removing Kill Points, you remove a fundamental aspect of list building in 40k, one designed for in all current 5th edition codexes. That is obvious here as it skewed the type of lists that one would field versus an event like Adepticon where the Championsips winner was still a Space Wolf Player, but with a decidedly different list (there are other factors in the scoring of both tournaments, but that is a different discussion).

You can't help random pairings and from the organizers stand points, the random pairings is your way out. Does the Thousand Sons player feel great that he pulled Stelek in the first round, when he could have gone up against a much more inexperienced opponent to have a better shot at a win?

I know that the Nova open is supposed to be about player skill, and that is great in the sense that it is a truly competitive event. I agree with it, and I love the fact that it was successful as a fully competitive event.

But removing core mechanics of the game, especially when we are dealing with terrain rules and victory conditions, fundamentally changes the game into something else. I am just afraid that the Nova will start to be referred to as "Nova 40k".

It is doubly true concerning units that have rules designed specifically because of Kill Points. What about Lone Wolfs, they are good, but they are weak in KP missions because they have to die not to give up a KP. The points cost a a Lone Wolf reflect this condition, and you increase their effectiveness, if they never have that downside.

I will say that in this format, kill points (and victory points) should probably never be the primary objective, kill points should be at best the 3rd tie breaker in maybe one or two scenarios.

Just my $.02 on this fantastic debate.

asugradinwa wrote:

dahli.llama wrote:

The biggest problem I see with KP is that it can seriously hurt the chances of certain armies, and it can cause auto-win conditions in games. Armies like Dark Eldar and Tau have little choice but to play lists with a large number of killpoints if they hope to be competitive in any mission. If the DE player get matched up against a Deathwing player in a KP mission, it really doesn't really matter who the better player is, because the DE player has a huge disadvantage coming into the game already. The DE player can kill 90% of the enemy and still lose.

At least with VP they are both on a more or less even playing field with at least the same number of points available. Sure maybe the balance swings more towards the DE, but the skill of the players is much more prominent.

I find this take interesting. I played in an Indy GT in Washington State this weekend and took my Dark Eldar. My Army gave up 23 Killpoints and I was facing off against an 8 Killpoint Space Marine army in a Kill Points mission. Guess who won? Me.

Killpoints is there for a reason. It puts some armies such as Dark Eldar or a MSU army like Razorspam at a disadvantage, but those armies have other advantages. By taking away Killpoints a tournament ELIMINATES a disadvantage for some army builds. When you change something like that over the entire course of a tournament you change the game in a BIG way.

You are playing 40k 4th edition missions with 5th edition points costs.

Except that DE are obviously not a 5th edition army, so in your case you were playing a 5th edition mission with 2nd edition point costs.

Congrats on that win, you were obviously the better general in that position, but at the same time, you were at a fairly large disadvantage going into that game. You not only overcame the opponent, but also the mission.

The way I see it, it I am played a balanced army that happens to have 15 KP (not abusing MSU or deathstars) and I face an army with only 5 KP, not only do I have to defeat my opponent, but I also have to defeat the mission. The mission is actively working against my ability to win the game, while one table over the players may both have 15KP armies and there it is up to player skill to determine the winner.

The way I see it, it I am played a balanced army that happens to have 15 KP (not abusing MSU or deathstars) and I face an army with only 5 KP, not only do I have to defeat my opponent, but I also have to defeat the mission. The mission is actively working against my ability to win the game, while one table over the players may both have 15KP armies and there it is up to player skill to determine the winner.

Yes, but the point is that a balanced list should be able to defeat a list with only minimal kill points because said list is hurting itself in effectiveness, and probably isn't winning very many objective based games.

I think the disconnect is the concept of the individual game versus the tournament as a whole.

If KPs become an equation in proportion with the rest of the back of the book missions on the whole limited KP armies will suffer. You may perceive to suffer when army + mission = bad match up, but if you have a balanced competitive list that you know how to use, that situation should be rare enough to minimize that possibility.

Like I said, bad match-ups are inherent in the system. I think the Nova Open has done a great job minimalizing that, but they will still exist. Those sitiatuons are inherent in every 40k win condition.

Trust me, I am not a fan of Kill Points, I think they are one of the worst things to come out of 5th edition (an edition I love with a passion), but newer codexes are priced and built around them being in existence, and the removal of them removes a key element to how these armies are supposed to be balanced. My only argument to the Nova Open is to just include them at the lower level, so therefore they are still a factor, but they are sufficiently downplayed to keep things even.

MVBrandt wrote:To the above, we're back in a situation where I don't want to reiterate my point too much, but it hasn't been addressed yet - random match-up can hurt you in terms of your opponent's skill, or if you built a list that isn't all-comers capable, but the mission can be built for reliably if it is vp, objectives, quarters, and a couple others.

Kill points CANNOT be built for reliably, because you cannot control the number of scorable kill points you'll face. In all the other situations, that which you must score is STATIC (2000 vp, 5 objectives, 4 quarters, etc.), whereas in kill points not ONLY could you be "harmed" by a poor match-up, your match-up alone determines the number of objectives you have to score and the number of objectives your opponent has to score.

All you know in a VP, objective, or quarter mission is the maximum possible score differential. But it's never the maximum that matters (in a pure win/loss objective) - it's the relative comparison of what I achieve vs what you achieve. I can win by 1500 VPs, or by 251; you can claim 4 quarters, or just 1 more than I manage. Lists can be built for VP denial as easily as KP denial, and MSU lists with cheap transports are GREAT at VP denial.

Basically, any time you tweak the victory conditions, you alter the game theory. In this case, removing KPs also removes the disincentive behind MSU-style lists. As it happens, 6/8 of your day 2 finalists were drawn from codexes that, in my opinion, benefit from taking VP over KP. If you've got the data, I'd be curious to see how everything that wasn't a SM, SW, BA, or IG list did, when mission outcome came down to VPs.

Mahu wrote:Trust me, I am not a fan of Kill Points, I think they are one of the worst things to come out of 5th edition (an edition I love with a passion), but newer codexes are priced and built around them being in existence, and the removal of them removes a key element to how these armies are supposed to be balanced. My only argument to the Nova Open is to just include them at the lower level, so therefore they are still a factor, but they are sufficiently downplayed to keep things even.

I think it would be very interesting to make round 4 a KP mission. In theory, if the low KP armies are disadvantaged in the various objective-style missions that came earlier, then relatively few should still be in play to act as "spoilers" in round 4. But if you're good enough to win out on objectives with 6-8 KPs in your army, in spite of the inherent disadvantage, I don't see a problem with a low KP army having something of an advantage that late in the pairings.

dahli.llama wrote:

Except that DE are obviously not a 5th edition army, so in your case you were playing a 5th edition mission with 2nd edition point costs.

Congrats on that win, you were obviously the better general in that position, but at the same time, you were at a fairly large disadvantage going into that game. You not only overcame the opponent, but also the mission.

The way I see it, it I am played a balanced army that happens to have 15 KP (not abusing MSU or deathstars) and I face an army with only 5 KP, not only do I have to defeat my opponent, but I also have to defeat the mission. The mission is actively working against my ability to win the game, while one table over the players may both have 15KP armies and there it is up to player skill to determine the winner.

Here is the thing though, I had to grind out & play a great game for the win, the only reason I stood a chance was that I took out his Land Raider on the 1st turn. In a VP game, he'd have to be the one trying to kill all of my stuff and I'd be laughing as I fed 1 raider after another to him, but with Killpoints I needed to play a really good game to pull out the win.

Changing Kill Points to Victory Points is about as big of a change as saying all units, not just troops can hold an objective IMO.

MVBrandt wrote:Heh, put it in the other thread just now but ...

65/100 Overall, 72.5/100 Single Mini, 50/100 Single Conversion

50/100 for my converted farseer on jetbike :S yikes, thought that would have scored much higher, than was an incredibly difficult and expensive conversion to do. Ah well, such is the way of subjective scoring. Doesnt detract from the event.

Made another thread for the debate, since i'm more intrested in looking at finals/final's results discussions here. Take it or leave it.

Surprised that no imperial guard finished 4-0 on day one, seemed like a real contender with some tough players using them.

Congrats Mike.

Sounds like folks had a good time which is the most important part of any event regardless of the results.

It is nice to see a wide variety of events available to players and the community stepping up. Running these sort of events is a learning experience, view point changer and a rollercoaster ride.

Welcome to the club and the line of fire.. : )

Hank Edley
AdeptiCon BoD

Hey it's Nick Nanavati, could let me know what I got for painting as my scores out of 100? I'm a bit mathematically challenged

yermom wrote:Hey it's Nick Nanavati, could let me know what I got for painting as my scores out of 100? I'm a bit mathematically challenged

but your phone is a good swimmer! (inside joke)

Anyways. I'm sure your score and mine were close.

Well Nick, if your score's bad you know what they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

But try to be careful around it. Samsung doesn't make the strongest swimmers.

Dear Rich and Andrew,

You are terrible people.

Love Nick.

yermom wrote:Dear Rich and Andrew,

You are terrible people.

Love Nick.

I really wanted to crack a joke here, but I don't know you well enough to get away with it. =p

Those blue and white scoring sheets make me feel like I'm going to have a siezure.

Mannahnin wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:Until you bracket based upon KP, you can't implement it as a mission fairly, whereas implementing VP as a mission is INHERENTLY fair - with the caveat that the unwinnable argument about "codex balance" still remains (and never goes away, anyway).

I reiterate my theory that vehicles (particularly transports) in 5th edition are priced within the context of KP missions being 1/3 of the games. How else would it make sense for them to univerally get better AND cheaper in every 5th ed codex than they were in the prior versions?

Because GW wanted to make more money by selling more of them?? I think you are giving them way too much credit by saying that they priced them point wise as they did to fit the context of KP missions being 1/3 of the game.

MVBrandt wrote:Well, and councils tend not to win tournaments regardless, b/c of how badly they are screwed when you don't go first ... if your whole army is built around their success or failure. See, this is the point ... a double seer council army is a rock that HOPES for the right "go first" against the right opponents all games, and has an advantage in KP missions, but is hardly a "great" and well-balanced / all comers' list. Lists like these GAME a kill point situation, instead of building to properly handle and win (Even if by bare margins) all missions regardless of opponent. I don't see why we should be encouraging rock / random armies that simply hope for a good draw in the right missions, vs. those that are genuinely built to tackle an all comers situation in missions that don't inherently advantage certain "rock" builds that are unwise in the greater scheme of things, but capable of pulling off hinky wins vs. certain opponents in certain missions.

Council armies can certainly win going second as long as the tables have appropriate amounts of LOS-blocking terrain on them. The council usually needs to hide in a corner, but due to going second he can refuse the flank and (with terrain) minimize the number of shots he has to take before he gets a turn to cast Fortune.

As long as we're talking specific army builds, I'll mention horde infantry guard again. That's an army which is designed to do very well in all missions, being particularly durable/nasty in KPs.

Monkey, can I make them a less seizure-inducing color for you?

Perhaps puke green and lime green.

While I'm not nearly as high up on those lists as I'd like, I suggest going with lime green and international orange.

Hi

My 2 cents -

1. Generally, I consider VPs to be the superior way to score how well a player has done against his opponent. No need to go into detail, as I agree with MVBrandt.
1a. VPs leads to MSU being one of the best ways to build an army. Some like that style, others don't.

2. KPs does seem to be a balancing mechanic against the objective-based nature of 2/3 of the missions for 5th ed 40K. No need to go into detail, as I agree with Redbeard.
2a. KPs has led to a disappearance from list of certain choices from my lists - lone rokkit buggies, lone kans spring readily to mind - as they provide too high a return for my opponent for too little effort.

In my view, both have a place in a tournament structure.

So which do you use?
Well, for my events - the Warmaster's Challenge - I use both. This forces players to consider both factors in their army design, along with the objective based portion of the missions. In my view, this means that the player betting on MSU will have to work hard in the KP mission, while the player with a high concentration of VPs per unit will have to work hard in the VP mission, but for those with an average number of of KPs and concentration of VPs per unit, they will be reasonably suited to accomplishing either requirement.

Also, just like MVBrandt and the Nova, we publish our missions well in advance, so everyone has the opportunity to walk in prepared. At the end of the day, that is probably the more important factor than which methods of accomplishing objectives/goals are used.

Cheers,
Nate

dahli.llama wrote:

Except that DE are obviously not a 5th edition army, so in your case you were playing a 5th edition mission with 2nd edition point costs.

Congrats on that win, you were obviously the better general in that position, but at the same time, you were at a fairly large disadvantage going into that game. You not only overcame the opponent, but also the mission.

Gotta disagree here. I regularly field 20-25 killpoint DE armies against 8-12 killpoint marine armies.....and consistently beat on them. Having so many targets that can fire and take fire in return while only losing small pieces of my army is an overwhelming advantage. Add on that any gun worth mentioning in my DE army is STR8 AP2 or STR7 AP2, and you have a bonafide anti-marine list.

Its worth risking the killpoints when your 24 killpoints are readily capable of dealing with the marine's....8 killpoints.

The system breaks DOWN when the marine player also has 24 killpoints, and can shoot like you (ala Spacewolves). That's the fundamental difference here. Dark Eldar can be competitive when their massed number of units can overwhelm an army with fewer models because the player brought a balanced list ready to deal with killpoint missions. When everyone else brings massed numbers of units as well, DE are boned.

None do it better than IG and SW, who both provide solid counters to my DE lists. Even if I go first, its unlikely that my alpha-strike can do enough damage to neutralize enough of their army to neuter the return fire.....which is doubly and triply more effective than my own fire, because I'm AV10 open-topped and they have more shots.

yermom wrote:Dear Rich and Andrew,

You are the most amazing people in the world and I just want to be like all of you.

Love Nick.

Fixed.

I hate when people hate. You don't have to like what people do, but don't be judgemental of something that in the grand scheme of things does not cost human lives, does not endanger the lives of others, and does not truly reveal the full depths and character of other human beings

It is a game, there was drama, get over it.

WarOne wrote:

yermom wrote:Dear Rich and Andrew,

You are the most amazing people in the world and I just want to be like all of you.

Love Nick.

Fixed.

I hate when people hate. You don't have to like what people do, but don't be judgemental of something that in the grand scheme of things does not cost human lives, does not endanger the lives of others, and does not truly reveal the full depths and character of other human beings

It is a game, there was drama, get over it.

Lol, oops, we were teasing Nick over an episode that occurred later that evening at dinner after the Saturday event, nothing involving the event itself!

And for teasing him about his cell phone snafu, we may indeed be terrible people Although I do agree, we are amazing people.

targetawg wrote:


Lol, oops, we were teasing Nick over an episode that occurred later that evening at dinner after the Saturday event, nothing involving the event itself!

And for teasing him about his cell phone snafu, we may indeed be terrible people Although I do agree, we are amazing people.

Makes more sense. I was suspecting it was a mention from above, but could not really be too sure.

For the number crunching types in terms of Day 1 Results ...

Short-hand, organized alphabetically

Black Templars: 1-3
Blood Angels: 29-27
Chaos Space Marines: 11-21
Daemons of Chaos: 9-3
Dark Angels: 3-5
Daemon HunterS: 0-4
Eldar: 13-15
Imperial Guard: 25-23
Necron: 1-3
Orks: 16-12
Space Wolves: 32-12
Tau: 7-9
Vanilla Marines: 22-22
Witch Hunters: 4-4



Black Templars went 1-3, 1 army

14 Blood Angels went a combined 29-27, with a single 4-0, 5 x 3-1, 3 x 2-2, 4 x 1-3, 1 x 0-4

8 Chaos Space Marines went a combined 11-21, with a single 3-1, 3 x 2-2, 2 x 1-3, 2 x 0-4

3 Daemons of Chaos went a combined 9-3, with all three going 3-1

2 Dark Angels went a combined 3-5, with a 2-2 and a 1-3

1 Daemon Hunter went 0-4

7 Eldar went a combined 13-15, with a single 3-1, 4 x 2-2, and 2 x 1-3

12 Imperial Guard (originally miscounted as 11) went a combined 25-23, with 4 x 3-1, 5 x 2-2, 3 x 1-3

1 Necron went 1-3

7 Orks went a combined 16-12, with 1 x 4-0, 2 x 3-1, 2 x 2-2, 2 x 1-3

11 Space Wolves went a combined 32-12, with 3 x 4-0, 4 x 3-1, 4 x 2-2

4 Tau went a combined 7-9, with 3 x 2-2 and 1 x 1-3

3 Tyranid went a combined 3-9, with 1 each at 2-2, 1-3, 0-4

12 Vanilla Marines went a combined 22-22, with 2 x 3-1, 7 x 2-2, 2 x 1-3, 1 x 0-4

2 Witch Hunters went 3-1 and 1-3 respectively

MVBrandt wrote:...7 Eldar...a single 3-1...

These results are really nice though, amazing to look at all of them at once like this.

MVBrandt:

You love statistics...how detailed of information do you have about each army? Care to share?

I ask because the KP vs VP debate does lend itself to a lot of deep analysis, which I really don't feel has been done. Counting just the KPs or the VPs is not enough, there is definitely a lot of quality differences between different KPs or VPs - how difficult they are to kill, and are they scoring in non-VP/KP missions for two examples.

When we see things like CSM going 8-21 and SW going 32-12, is this because of KPs vs VPs? Are CSM terrible, or just terrible when there's no KPs? Are SW dominant, or just dominant when they don't have to worry about KPs? Did perhaps just half the players in your tournament not really read the rules packet that carefully, or not really care to change their armies to account for the deviation from the book rules?

I don't pretend that all of this can be answered by crunching numbers, but it would be nice to do a detailed analysis of the actual armies and their records, not just the book they're from.

No army benefits from the loss of KPs quite like IG, and they barely reached .500.

I can probably work on that.

Interestingly, Demons are INHERENTLY a lower kp army (no transports), and they went 9-3.