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There are just so many problems with the tournament I don't know where to start.

First off 40k is a game. We play it for a lot of different reasons, but the actual game play has been taken out of he BSB. There is a total possible of 115 points with 50 of them coming from battle points. But if you read how many points you get for losing it is 6 points. So if you massacre 5 players you will have 50 points. If you lose all of your games you will have 30 points, so there is only a 20 point spread. You massacre two guys and lose 3 games you will have the same score as someone who has 2 major wins and 3 minor wins. Does that sound right to you?

Then the horror of player judged sports has been written about over and over again. What do you expect to have happen at a tournament? Fistfights if you do not have player judged comp? It seems like every other major event can have a lot more players than you have and the players act civilly to one another like adults should. Player judged sports lets the worst sports get away with a lot of crap because you are afraid to call them out because you do not want your sportsmanship score tanked.

Then the missions...

I will not drive 6 hours and pay $60+$20 for parking and lot more in gas to play in an event I don't look forward to playing in. I will see what they can do to fix the problems, but it looks like it has a lot of holes in it and it is taking on a lot of water.

You mean the end of May Alan Memorial Day weekend!

I thought about joining this conversation for a while, and thought it would be best to toss in my two cents again.

dkellyj hit the nail on the head. Some of these missions just are not fair, at all, in any way shape or form to some armies. Missile wolves or MSU IG will shoot other armies down to 50% KP in one round of shooting. The missions are fun in a non-competitive format, but they have enormous holes in them from a tournament perspective.

For the record: Espa (Jason) and I do have personal bad blood. It is very unfortunate as he and I used to be good friends. I will not go into the details as that is between he and I, but I will say that despite me trying to bury the hatchet, we still have great animosity. That said, he is an intelligent guy and I mean no personal disrespect towards him.

Personal issues aside, the facts of the matter are that Jason does not play competitively. There is nothing wrong with this in and of itself. He plays in a for fun league that emphasizes fluff and had a large number of house rules. They do not play tournament style games, and have little to no experience with this type of play. I am not saying this as an inherently negative comment, simply a statement of facts that I know to be true. When I suggested that the league guys go to more tournaments as they all had fun at the BSB, Jason specifically said one tournament a year was all he wanted to participate in.

Again, nothing at all wrong with that, I respect the fact that other people like to play the game differently. That is fine. But, know that this is the mentality and experience level of the rules and scenario writers of this event. They quite simply do not play in tournaments. Period. Fact. This does not mean they are newbs at all, they have a wealth of knowledge of the game and a love of the game equal to what we competitive guys have, they just have a different gaming philosophy.

Kurt is a good guy. All of the PacMads are good guys and I personally like them all. They just feel the game should be played a certain way and tend to look negatively on those who play to win. It is a very old and deeply held belief in that club.

As for my input into last year's scenarios, yes, I argued till I was blue in the face to change them as with my experience in competitive gaming I KNEW them to be skewed and unfair. It did little good. In all fairness though, Jason had very little time to get them together. he did the best he could. I also did argue for DP's (destruction points) as at that point I still didn't like KP's. I have since realized I was wrong on that count, and that KP's are an important balancing act tot he game.

At any rate, this is a lot of story that really isn't important. I apologize if I have turned anyone off from attending this event as I didn't mean to. I want to see tournaments grow and flourish as I love going to them so much. My friends will be at this event which makes me want to go and have fun, but if my presence will make it less fun for others then maybe I will skip it this year as I don't want to undermine the effort of the guys putting it together.

So, good luck to those who go, I wish them all the best. I am sorry if I came across as being negative about any individuals because I did not mean to. Like I said, the BSB is a well run event that is fun, even if the system is pretty far out of touch with the current tournament scene.

Tell ya what Reece. If they fix the issues (scoring/scenarios) your comin down this way and we'll rock the house.

I think the big problem is that some of them didn't realize before they posted the actual scenarios and scoring just how bad it looked outside of their group. But they have 4 months to fix it. If they do I'm pretty sure they'll see their attendance increase. If they don't then there are already 7-8 dudes who went last year who won't be attending in addition to people who would attend if the stuff was fixed who didn't come last year but are friends with those 7-8 dudes.

@hulk
Yeah I want to go, but I certainly don't want to cause any drama for those people going who don't really care much about the system or missions.

If they listen to feedback and alter things it will only help. A lot of guys going won't care and taking out all of the subjectivity that is now present will make the event so much more clear. The people who don't care won't notice, the people who do care will have a much tighter system.

For example, check this scenario out using the current system.

Say guy 1 has a beautifully painted, themed army. He gets a 30 on painting and the Hardcord award, but loses all his games and ends up with 63 points from those categories.

Then guy 2 comes along with a 3 color tournament standard army and gets an 11 on painting, like you did last year Brad (how, I do not know as your army looks great) and wins all his games. This guy gets 61 points.

Both guys were gentlemen and got full sports scores.

So now you have a system where a guy who loses all his games beats the guy who won all his games.

How does that make any sense to anyone?

Painting is a huge part of the hobby, and I love a beautiful army as much as anyone. I take a lot of time modeling and painting my own armies. But really? The system now makes this more of a painting competition than a tournament. Since losing all your games nets you 30 points, really, battle points are only 20 points vs. 37 with painting and 25 with sports. That means soft scores are actually over three times your battle points.

Oh, and for the record, if anyone cares, Aaron Lovejoy made the comment about wanting to see a tournament where a guy could win the event even losing all his games. I am not throwing Aaron under the bus, he is a super cool dude and the best painter I have ever met, but I firsthand witnessed this. There is nothing wrong with that mentality but it doesn't really jive with the way most people think.

I think the fundamental issue here is that you have fluff oriented gamers creating a tournament but wanting it to be a hobby event. The system is quite clearly geared towards benefitting fluff gamers, that is self evident in the scoring structure. But, they want tournament gamers to come to the event to fill it out. Therefore we get this weird sort of disconnect.

I think this event should just color itself one way or the other because it can't be both. The above situation is compounded by the fact that the rules and scenario writers who while being very involved with and experienced with the game in general, have very little tournament experience and as such are using the skill they do have to create this event. Those skills are geared towards themed, narrative campaigns and big, for-fun style apocalypse games. Both of those are great parts of the hobby, but don't translate well into a tournament.

I agree with everything you said Reece. One thing I would add is this year it's impossible for me to get boned on painting like last year as it's a full blown checklist. Looking at it my Daemons for example would score between 28-30 depending on how stringent the scorer was. The new painting checklist does mitigate the scoring slightly but yeah, if you look at that sheet and aren't scoring a 20-25 your already out of the running for Overall before the tourney starts.

I just dont get calling it a "tournament" - its a painting competition with games thrown in on the side.

Nothing wrong with that, but by saying it is a tournament, which implies playing a game to win, it seems disingenuous.

Call it a campaign weekend and you set expectations correctly.

(As a side note - apart from ToS UK doesnt really "do" comp - in 40k at least. Always seems bizarre that how nice a person you are determines if you are the best at winning games...)

To each his own I guess.

I would enjoy this tournament very much.

But it is 600+ miles away, I'll have to see how many wife points I have.

Doc

As we're still updating the site, some hold-overs are causing confusion. Our apologies, but since all BSB 2011 organizers are volunteering time outside of their employment and responsibilities, it takes some time to smooth out the site. We are working on this, and appreciate your patience.

I feel it is important to articulate a premise of BSB 2011. Perhaps, this might clarify some of the perceptions witnessed in this forum.

BSB 2011, like previous BSBs is not attempting to follow in the likeness of other tournaments. I'm sure we can all agree that it makes little sense to compete with the experience offered by 'Ard Boyz, Adepticon, and the other tournaments which are very good at servicing a particular niche of gaming.

If we organizers hoped for the same experience, we would simply attend those events, as some of us do.

Yes. BSB is more hobby-centric than other tournaments. That's the niche we hope to service. However, few players maintain a particular extreme of gaming styles. Many of us enjoy the hobby, the competition, the narrative, the fluff, the tricks to varying degrees. Where 'Ard Boyz caters to a more aggressive style of play, it can be said that BSB caters just as much to a different style - more fluff, more hobby, more narrative.

Because of this, more categories of awards consider factors outside the common experience of tournament play. By design, and that's what the organizers are hoping for.

This doesn't mean that we don't wish to engage competitive players. As has been noted, the Appearance score is capped in order to better emphasize the game score in Best Overall and is not even considered in the Best General category. But, sportsmanship is a significant portion, which will be screened as has been stated for abuses. And all in all, should promote a culture of amicable gamesmanship that we are actively fostering.

The Appearance score is designed to provide players a clear list of what's expected, but not dismiss players who are not able to invest the significant amount of time our hobby demands. We're not playing pre-painted after all.

Regarding the Appearance scoring, and as has been observed, most players should find a table-top quality will approach 26 points, tournament 32, and extreme 37. With the Appearance cap established in game-emphasized categories, we determined this to be an acceptable variance.

The Hardcore bonus is designed to incentivize narrative play, while not punishing legal armies. Since, these players must design a list considered less competitive in terms of gameplay, I thought it reasonable to award the effort. I think many of us will appreciate the difficulty of designing, building, and then playing such an army.

The scenarios are different from what is often experienced in other tournaments. Again, by design. Variety is a crucial part of the quality we hope to offer at BSB. DoW scenarios were reviewed in the 21 original scenarios considered. It didn't make the cut. Perhaps, next year. There is no contempt of this scenario versus that scenario. It's a party, there are many beers, but the cooler could only hold so many. It's really that simple.

There is no animosity between myself and any who wish to attend on this forum or elsewhere or who would like to contact me regarding suggestions they might have. I can't promise I'll implement all, perhaps any of what is suggested. But, please don't believe that failure to act was failure to listen. Please consider, that as I listen to one person's comments and suggestions, another is articulating a distinctively opposite position. With just as much good intention and legitimacy.

The thing we all love most is the unique variety offered by 40k, and that is exactly the quality our efforts for BSB hope to reflect, engage, and maintain.

With Appreciation,

Jason Nichols
nicho043@csusm.edu

My issue is why do you have to cater to a certain style of gamer exclusively? You can have an event that is great for fluff bunnies and crazy competitive people and everyone in between. Other events out there have already proven that you can do this. The event as it is currently formatted is pushing people away.

Why not go to a 1-5 score and you can only give each opponent one of the numbers. That shows you who truly is fun to play against and makes sportsmanship have more of an impact. You don't have to police it round to round, it's less open to abuse overall since it's done at the end of the tournament, and you don't get judges telling people their "doing" it wrong.

You claim to be a hobby centric event when the Nova and BFS actually have soft scores have a higher impact based on the percentages and actual available points. And these were noted to be 2 of the more competitive events this year. I'm not saying you have to do it the same as other people. I am saying that being a hobby event you should reward all aspects of the hobby and right now you waving a finger at people who enjoy playing to win and alienating part of the hobby.

Just my two cents. Hope to see some tweaks that will encourage me to attend. If not then good luck to you guys

dkellyj wrote:The one thing I hate about Comp...you have no idea what a TO is going to ding until its too late.

So; what Army comps will a PacMar TO dock in points, regardless of the logic of the list or precedent found in 40K lore?

Please ohh please, lets clear this up once and for ALL TIME...the TOs scored comp has NEVER, EVER been used for anything other than first and second round pairings. It has never been included in the final scores. The only comp scoring that was used, was player based scoring. This is a persistent rumor that just never seems to go away.

We have nothing to gain by judging your army (one way or the other)...however we do need to insure fair matchups in the tournament. You can disagree with our scoring, but since it is thrown out after round 2, it has no bearing on anything.

Once more...everyone join in....the TO judged comp is never, has never, and will never, be used in the final scoring.

Thanks for your attention.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We do want this to be a HOBBY event first and a competitive tournament second. The scores, while maybe not perfect, do reflect this perspective.

There are plenty of events the emphasize the battle aspect first. In those events, the hobbyist has a very tough road, is never going to win the top prizes, though can certainly shoot for the painting and sportsmanship awards.

Its unfortunate that not everyone agrees with our system or the style of our play. We are hobbyists, first and foremost, and this is the style of event that we want to run. Its then your choice on wether you want to attend or not.

It would be awesome if we could run an event where both the hobby and competitive elements could both be equally important, but I have yet to find a system that would work for us in this kind of manner.

- Kurt

Kurt, you should have just left it at comp doesn't exist for this event. Because I proved to you based on the scores from 2009 how pre-judged comp affected the final scores. They did not last year. But Russ Bartmuss, the gentleman who won in 2009, had a score that was impossible to get comp wise just on points available. He scored over 40pts for comp but only 30 were available in player games. Another 10 were available (I'm assuming as this was never stated) for best army votes (2pts per Vote). That means only 40 possible points if every opponent gave him their vote. Since he scored a 42 or 43 (not sure, but it's probably in a log somewhere) and I didn't give him a vote for anthing other than favorite player (i played him round 5) your statement is false. But you are correct in that they did not effect the event in anyway last year and that they don't this year. And last year your "comp" scoring was used for the first 3 rounds. That's the only thing that would explain me playing a dude with a loss and a tie when I had a massacre and a tie.

As for the difficulty of "hobbyists" to take home first place at "competitive" events consider that the most widely discussed "competitive" event this year actually only made BP's worth 1/3 of the Overall Score. That's more harsh than any other event on the circuit. Hobbyists (by this I mean true hobbyists, not just painters) will do well at any event. They can paint, play and aren't rude. You suffering under a false assumption that being a hobbyist is only about painting and being a nice guy. This is a hobby that involves a game.

In regards to equally important competitive and hobby aspects it's only very hard to do this if you don't have a competitive person in your group. I can see why this is an issue for your club. But there have been multiple formats just this year that are are doing both and there will be even more next year. It's possible to do if you take the time and research possibilities that are out there to steal and tweak to your style. Or if you take feedback given by the community. Claiming it's not possible after it's been proven to be successful is simply wrong.

We do not have a "Comp" award...we had a "Best Army" award, which included the player judged comp, the player votes for favorite appearance and army, as well as the early list submission award. Giving Russ a total of 43, out of the possible 52 possible in these scores.

I can understand where the confusion came in

Once more...everyone join in....the TO judged comp is never, has never, and will never, be used in the final scoring.

My bad, I assumed Painting got the appearance points bonus points since one would think Best Appearance would incorporate those points and that favorite army would go towards...well army... Were the points doubled up for both awards since both scores applied to the Overall total or did you only put it in one? To be honest this is the first year you've actually posted how the points work even remotely accurately as last year there were 30 unaccounted for points in the results which came from player votes.

@Kurt
I must be reading your site wrong or missing something because it appears that you have 25 points for player judged comp, is this accurate or no?

That means that there are more points in comp than in battle points as you can only earn 20 battle points.

So, since everyone gets at least 30 battle points, we just disregard that. That means it is 20 for painting, 25 for comp (unless I am reading that wrong) 37 for painting and about 18 other variable pints based on player vote. That means of the variable scores, BP's are only like 20% of the total.

If you guys want to do it this way, that is totally fine, I am just curious is this was intentional or an over-site.

In terms of judged comp for initial pairings, when you go off of fluff you end up with big mismatches. Some fluff armies are nasty, especially with these missions. Maybe you could consider having a "power gamer" in your judging panel to give some input into the relative power level of the armies to ensure that first round pairings aren't complete mismatches.

Just a suggestion.

Ok I am the organizer of the event and have been out of the loop untill recently and had a chance to look at the new scenarios and point system. That points are going to be changed shortly and will be the same for all systems they are as follows:
Points Categories (maximum possible shown):
Battle points: 100
Sportsmanship: 30
Favorite opponent:5
Army composition: 30
Painting: 33
Early Confirmation: 2
Players' Choice: 1 vote = 1 point. This is only applied to the Best Army category.

Each player will be awarded points after each game in accordance with the scenario.
Massacre - 20
Major - 18
Minor - 16
Draw - 12
Loss - 10 or 11*

*Completing a full game with a loss awards +1 point.

Jason created alot of really cool scenarios and tested them with his local group so they work great in that context. However we are running a GT and that requires alot different criteria for scenarios. I will work with Jason to remove alot of the variables in each mission. I know most GT players do not want to loose a game because of a scenario variable that is out of their control. My main goal is to make sure the attendants have a good time whatever their definition of that is. I will not be able to please everyone but am working towards a general consensus were people are at least ok with the set up. The Pac Mads are interested in the Hobby first but realize in order to run a GT we have to make it playable for every level of competetor from fluff to hard tournament player.

Reecius: I have no idea who said to you that we were hoping to have someone who did not win a game to win it all in our tournament. That is just not true. Each year we get feedback from you guys and tweak things around a bit based on what we heard. 2 years ago we tried a army comp for paring and people did not like that so it is gone we will not be judging your army comp at all.
So please keep posting and give me your constructive critism so we can make it into somthing everyone will want to play in.

NM, this dude above me already is changing everything about what I just went thru

So comp is back in and is the new painting format out? That new checklist was the best idea and execution you guys had this year....

My two biggest recommendations on what you wrote:

Comp: It's a bad thing to have in a tournament nowadays and will drive a decent number of players who would otherwise attend.
Painting: Keep the new painting checklist. Make it max out at 30 out of a possible 37. This allows people who aren't "converters" or super highlight crazy or display board builders a chance to score well in painting.

Your BP score is misleading.

Basically, it says you get 50 points for just showing up, you don't even have to complete your games Which is fine, but should be worded accordingly.

So it's:

Introducing yourself to your competitor: 50
Battle points: 50
Sportsmanship: 30
Favorite opponent:5
Army composition: 30
Painting: 33
Early Confirmation: 2
Players' Choice: 1 vote = 1 point. This is only applied to the Best Army category.

So it's really, Generalship accounts for 25%. Not a problem, but good to know.



Just one of the few that went last years opinions on the matter:

a) Knee high tables were horrible, aka the Back Breakers. Sounds like not much you can do about this.

b) Missions were "whacky," not to be confused with WAACy . What I mean is, I enjoy a good game, and I enjoy a game with balanced, non-confusing, and non-additional randomness. I can play fluff armies that lose for the sake of story with the best of them. However, whacky games are not fun for me. (not constructive, I know )

c) Player scored Sportsmanship Scores is horrible. I got double dinged last year. I had a horrible game where my opponent didn't know the rules and he wanted to WIN, so tried to abuse the fact that he knew 4th edition rules, but not 5th, so 1) My game was not fun 2) Since I showed him in the book where 5th edition rules were different, he dinged me on Sportsmanship. Yay! How does this add to my fun?

d) I think I have said it a couple dozen times, Comp Sucks! I consider myself very creative and have a great imagination. I also read the fluff. Big fan of Horus Heresy novels and Imperial Armour books from Forgeworld. I also like to give my opponent a good match, meaning competitive. So I fuse both worlds, however, some decide that since I am bringing a competitive it is poorly composed. Out of my hands, what can I do, I have seen comp all over the place in GTs with comp, its random. Not fun. Skip it!

e) Seeing cool painted and cohesive armies, where the modeling, conversions, kitbashes, display boards, and paint jobs tell a story is AWESOME! Love it! However, if you are taking my money and awarding prized on such, is it too much to ask for FULL DISCLOSURE on the metrics for how things are judged?

Ok, that said, I probably won't go... but might if change is supported Though it's going to be hard to get over those Back Breakers... I am just too tall, too old, and apparently too fat to be playing this game

@ AB, that is some good feedback thanks.

We could have said that the BP is a 1-10 scale, rather than 10-20, but we have to scale everything the same...its just easier to have it be 10-20 and allow us to do those other things of the same scale. So don't look at it as 50 points just for showing up.

Dropping it to 1-10, means dropping sports to 3 points max across 5 games...hmm, how do I break that down...see what I mean. No, I am not asking for a new scoring breakdown

Can you expand on the comment about "full disclosure on the metrics"? I am not a thinking that you mean to have all the calculations presented, but what do you feel in not fully disclosed?

Maybe you just mean to know what points go into what category? I could do up a small reference page, and link that the rules page pretty easily.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Let me comment on the soft scores. I know that most people hate them. I am a fan.

Without specific restrictions (you cant take this, limited to X of that), I feel that you need the comp score. I'd rather that people score each other, than arbitrarily limit stuff. Yes, I realize that massive flaws in that...but its the best we have.

Same with sportsmanship, this can lend itself to a checklist style though, as game decorum can be more easily defined within the environment.

So we are gonna keep them, but we do keep experimenting with better systems. Keep the suggestions coming.

captkurt wrote:@ AB, that is some good feedback thanks.

We could have said that the BP is a 1-10 scale, rather than 10-20, but we have to scale everything the same...its just easier to have it be 10-20 and allow us to do those other things of the same scale. So don't look at it as 50 points just for showing up.

It is, though. Minimum BP score is 50; max is 100; actual variation between the two is just 50 pts, or 25% of the overall score. If that's the intended weight for results of games, that's fine. If you intended BPs to actually carry a 50% weight, though, then you should allow scores to vary between 0 and 20 (or 0-10, and just multiply by 2 in your scoring spreadsheet).

Can you expand on the comment about "full disclosure on the metrics"? I am not a thinking that you mean to have all the calculations presented, but what do you feel in not fully disclosed?

Maybe you just mean to know what points go into what category? I could do up a small reference page, and link that the rules page pretty easily.

I would guess he just wants a painting checklist, so there is some reasonable certainty as to how applying additional effort will be scored. For example, if I know that a themed display base would add +2 to my painting score, but themed bases on the models (with multiple types of painted elements) would add +5, then I have a better idea of how to spend a limited time budget. (Or, in the extreme, I bring one army over another, as it shows more obvious multi-stage highlights.)

@Kurt

You seem to be deliberately missing his point. There are ONLY 50 BP's really available to be gained since the lowest you can score per game is 10. That means that yes, you get 50pts for showing up.

Variable numbers you can get are what determine winners. Not the actual totals themselves.

Now are you guys going to keep the new painting checklist or are you going back to the last few years version of paint judging?

Did you guys put comp back in now? Because if you did holy gak did this get bad. Let me break down the new point structure of available points so you can see what i mean:

BP's:50 (more like 45 in reality since everyone will "finish" their game for the extra point)
Sports:30
Comp: 33
Early Turn-in:2
Favorite Player:5

So in this you've got BP's being worth 41% of the total available points. But one bad player and you've just lost the tourney because he slammed you for 12pts (10% of the available pts.). See how this is a problem? Your subjective scoring can break a player if he pulls one single sore loser or a person who is gaming the system.

I guess key things in this post:

Are you keeping the Painting Checklist that was posted ( http://www.broadsidebash.com/pdf/WH40Kappear.pdf ) or going back to your old one found here ( http://www.broadsidebash.com/rules.php ) under painting?

Is Comp officially back in the tournament?

captkurt wrote:
Can you expand on the comment about "full disclosure on the metrics"? I am not a thinking that you mean to have all the calculations presented, but what do you feel in not fully disclosed?

Maybe you just mean to know what points go into what category? I could do up a small reference page, and link that the rules page pretty easily.

For example, for painting, have a checklist on your website that is accessible to all illustrating the checklist of items looked for during the paint judging and how many points each item is worth. I know GW used to have a kubrick that outlined 40 points, with details and point amount for each item. This allows the entrants to see what the judges are looking for and paint accordingly. It also allows them to go back after they get scored, evaluate their army and improve their panting skills for future events. Sort of think like posting missions with points for goals before showing to event, same sort of deal.

I would have linked the GW one, but can't seem to find it with just a quick search.

..

For sports, so far I am mostly at a loss, but I actually liked Hulks idea of everyone has to rank their opponents 1 through 5 (no dupes). Not ideal, but it moves away from the chipmunking. Sucks to be the guy who got a 1 or 2 even though maybe you had a great game, but sports seems to be much about relativity and its the aggregate that counts so if your were everyones worse, well then maybe you need to rethink the situation

Comp, yeah, I just don't get the need. I feel its always subjective, either player or judged, same thing, I like to think I know what is good and bad, but there are just so many options and combination's that only a handful of experts would be close to being able to make a fair comp, and even then I would say they would be prone to mistakes based on lack of experience with all armies. As a results, I find it an incredibly hard call. Now if comp is more of a fluff call, well I also think thats too subjective for scoring, but atleast you could do a similiar 1 through 5 no dupes scoring, with opponents ranking who they felt had the "best" fluff army, still subjective, but again aggregate view where no opponent or player can overly abuse.

Just more thoughts.

I am resigning from the 40k coordinator position for BSB 2011.

Ironically, not due to those I've responded to here. In fact, I'd found your points engaging and helpful - Reecius, Hulksmash.

I was looking into the AdeptiCon replacement of Sportsmanship and I agree it has a lot to offer and should be seriously considered by my replacement.

I am resigning because I have been publicly undermined by John Macomber, whom I was asked to help:

Jason created alot of really cool scenarios and tested them with his local group so they work great in that context. However we are running a GT and that requires alot different criteria for scenarios. I will work with Jason to remove alot of the variables in each mission. I know most GT players do not want to loose a game because of a scenario variable that is out of their control. My main goal is to make sure the attendants have a good time whatever their definition of that is. I will not be able to please everyone but am working towards a general consensus were people are at least ok with the set up. The Pac Mads are interested in the Hobby first but realize in order to run a GT we have to make it playable for every level of competetor from fluff to hard tournament player

Apparently, John feels it appropriate to make such a determination before consulting me.

All the best to ya!

J

Sad thing is just tweaking the scenarios (something Jason was actually on board to start doing) was what was needed to really help this event from what it was last year. They'd pretty much eliminated comp and actually had a working painting checklist and now we've got all the bad back (according to the scoring John put up) and all we might get is decent scenarios that probably would have gotten if he'd just not shoved Jason under the bus.....

Sorry Jason to see you go. Glad it wasn't something Reece or I did. I think you were willing to work on the scenarios to get them to the point that they were at least not horrible. Oh well

Thanks. I do hope things go well for BSB, and hope you continue to assist my replacement. I'm confident you will, Hulk.

Feedback is crucial to the process. Be gentle.

All the best!

J

I did throw Jason under the bus and I am sorry for that it was handled poorly on my part. I just want to say publicly that I am sorry for the knee jerk reaction to Jasons changes He did have alot of great stuff to contribute. I am open to working with everyone's feedback to make a great tournament and we plan to meet shortly and hash more out. I wanted to get a single scoring system for all the games and we will most likely use the paint score sheet as it will be easy for all to work on with their armies. I am once again really sorry for how this was handled Jason.

I'd heartily suggest dropping comp and just going sportsmanship. The original scoring format that Jason had up does work better than the current one you posted. If you have to drop it for all 3 events I'd say do it. 40k is your largest drawer and you'll draw more players in without a comp score.

Also please for the love of all that's holy use the paint scoring that was up. 37pts available but maxing out at 30 is a really smart way to run painting and no more stuff like get an 11 for an entire converted army because you don't get conversion points if you don't triple highlight....

All of that and fixing the scenarios could see a solid increase in attendance. Failure to do so will keep people away from the tournament, many of whom did attend last year which will result in lower numbers when tournaments are growing nationwide.

Just my two cents.

Wow, I just read the fantasy scenarios and was pleasantly pleased. For the most part, they are pretty good. Comments below:

Magic Vacuum - as a Dark Elf player, I have to say this one scares me a little, but it has some neat creativity to it, there's nothing too random with it. I find it odd you get +1 point if one of your own casters was killed by a miscast result. I think dwarves will like this one, but it's not too bad

Fight For Glory - It's an interesting spin on the breaking point mission, if you have your army reduced to the breaking point, you still have a chance to salvage it (assuming you went first). I do think it should be 2 for the breaking point instead of 1, though I do remember at Da Grand Waaagh a lot of people brought 3 or less, so could be a good call.

Book of Grudges - I love this one for its simplicity. Bonus points if your general kills your enemies general! I can see fluff guys were behind this a little bit, but it makes for a decent mission, only armies that might have an issue, is people who take casters with shadow as their general, as their offensive powers are rather small. And the +2 for having your general in the enemy deployment zone again can hinder people who take caster lords, who want to keep them back, far away from danger (like me!).

Show Your True Colors - This one I'm less excited about, as armies like Orcs and goblins and skaven will have a hard time (as they usually have 2-3 times standard than other lists). Daemons, dark elves, WoC, ogres, etc will do well, as they usually sit around 3-5 standards. With a point limit of 2200, I don't think it'll be too big of a deal, if I brought Dark Elves, I'd have 4 total, if I brought my OnG, I'd have 6-7 total, so not too big of a difference. I do like how it's a completely unique win condition.

Breakthrough - this one's a little murky, and perhaps some clarification can help. This 18" zone marked, how does it work? If one of my units overruns off it, it gives my opponent double VPs? It's a strange mission, after some clarification I can judge it better.

The Fog is Lifting - I played a mission similar to this at Da Grand Waaagh, and thankfully I played against a 10 warmachine orc army that round! It's a great way to balance out gunlines, hope this mission gets used! I liked the added touch of bonus points for destroying rare units, gives a small extra dynamic.

Hearken Back to the Day of Yore - A little 7th edition shout out! I had to read it twice to make sure. For those wondering, the special conditions for this is units fleeing now count towards VPs, and units at half strength or less give up half VPs

Anyway, I think these types of missions are what the 40k guys have been asking for, using the missions out of the book, with some small tweaks that can have a big effect on the game, that's not randomness. There's also enough variety in missions, I don't think it'll be easy to try and exploit them. Good job to the writers!

Probably should not pee in the punchbowl here, but....

"With regards to the SCGWL drama...the ironic thing is that is pretty much was started by and involved, other people...no one from the Broadside Bash team was involved in that drama. It was between various San Diego gamers and various other OC/LA gamers. We don't now, nor have we ever had anything against the SCGWL players or organizers...even if we do disagree on how "competitive" events should be played. "

This is flatly untrue. Your group had five attendees come to the first Slaughter (back when Dark General was in charge, and it was at GMI games) and several of your membership bitched about it at the time (not you Kurt). When Mike and I took the reigns, there were some rumblings left over from the bitching about year one and your (then) involvement with Game Empire tourney guy (Clifford) that single handedly killed all of the events at Strategicon with his manipulation of scores and favoritism. Everyting you guys seemed to be doing at that time emulated his style and he was involved in some of your initial tournament creation. Some extremely negative things were said from your membership, as was from ours. For our part, we were very terse over members like Henry Hertz and other problem players being embraced by the group, so we essentially avoided each other's events in our year two.

Year Three, under immense pressure from outside sources, we try to play nice and a number of our guys attend your events. We issued two free passes to Slaughter 3 and the only Pac Marauders in attendance were the people who used the free tickets (Wade, and Craig). Wade is a great guy and goes on to win Best Army. Craig has a hissy fit over his point denial WE army being given an average judge comp (no affect on actual scores, remember, just pairings r1 and r2) and rides my ass all weekend. Year three also featured a bunch of bagging on Ian's Tides of War event, with you guys flaming the crap out of him in the thread on your board he started to thank you for attending, so apparently its not just us who gets that kind of treatment.

Now we are at year four. I will personally be attending to play fantasy in an attempt to further repair our damaged relations, even though your format is... odd... (more on that later) and in all likelyhood I will be tanked in soft scores just for being me, even if I show up with a pro painted magicless common goblin army. This is how its been with the BSB for our guys, but we will make another effort to mend fences with your club even though the bulk of your membership does not seem interested in it. In fact, in four years of Slaughters the only communication I have gotten from your crew are emails asking that we get together with the express purpose of unifying our scoring systems to conform to your methods of scoring and asking us to encourage L2 and PAWS to do the same. Not exactly encouraging.

Now, I know you (Kurt) and Wade are not responsible for the behavior of all the members of what is (in essence) an all inclusive hobby club, but both sides have as much blame in the start of this drama fest. The general tenor of the PacMaraiders forums is an "us vs them" vibe, and there are numerous examples of this in archived thread you have there. Our side has these as well, but the leadership has been keeping is under raps and private. Mind you, I have a lot of personal misgivings about PM, outside of Kurt and Wade, so I share some blame in this as well.

Ok, boring drama out of the way, now the tourney itself...
Plain and simple, you guys have too many subjective points (and in the hands of judges who are playing, yet again) in this event. Painting needs to be a checklist, desperately (we have the GW one if you would like a copy), and no one who is playing should be anywhere near the paint judging. This is especially true when your 20 point range BP scores are going to decide so little of the overall.

Second, I know why you picked 2200 points for Fantasy. Everyone in southern cali knows how much you guys hate daemons/dragons and 2200 is the point level where no GD or monster riding lord other than a BT is possible (yet coincidentally enough, the tooled Slaan and Anvil guy fit in just dandy). Its your tournament, and all, but every other major GT on the continent is running at 2500 (and the prior standard was 2250) so people can play with their big toys if they want. Frankly, you are just mandating Slaan and Gunlines as the dominant armies with that point level, which is indicative of 7th edition thinking. The Hearken scenario is a pretty big clue that you guys are unhappy with it. If you want more people, let them play with the toys they want. For every GD/Dragon out there, theres a dude with two cannons waiting to make him his prison bitch.

Finally, the major issue I had with the last couple years were the (frankly) subjective rules alterations, and I am expecting more of the same this year, so please be sure to make your house rules open knowledge early (especially if you are going to push the whole, no ranks/no steadfast houserule) so people who do attend can at least try and make some sort of army that works. There is no bigger turnoff to an out of towner than being made to play houserules that hose their entire army.

Anyhow, I know no good can come of this post, but I figured I would rather air this out than bottle it up, so theres my 2 cents on it all.

@Jason
Hey man, I know you and I have our differences but I want you to know that I in no way wanted to see you leave the position you took. Writing scenarios is a thankless job and I respect the effort you put forth even if I disagree with some of them. So sorry if anything I said influenced you to go as I truly had no intention of doing that.

Wow, this thing has turned into drama fest 2010. I hope this doesn't discourage people from going as at the end of the day, the tournament is fun with cool peeps to hang out with.