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I think the posts throughout this thread has shown that the type of people that run these terrible tournaments are not the types that would listen/care about what anyone has to say.

The problem is that someone needs to run the sanctioning process, and providing/revoking licenses to run anything that even seem official.

This will not change by running our own tournaments. This will not change if those delinquent tournament organizers (albeit not all of them, I'm sure) are spoken to directly about the problems people have with what they do. Make the GW stamp on an event mean something by taking it away from the people causing problems. It is to the detriment of the hobby as a whole to let things continue this way.

Fearspect wrote:I think the posts throughout this thread has shown that the type of people that run these terrible tournaments are not the types that would listen/care about what anyone has to say.

The problem is that someone needs to run the sanctioning process, and providing/revoking licenses to run anything that even seem official.

This will not change by running our own tournaments. This will not change if those delinquent tournament organizers (albeit not all of them, I'm sure) are spoken to directly about the problems people have with what they do. Make the GW stamp on an event mean something by taking it away from the people causing problems. It is to the detriment of the hobby as a whole to let things continue this way.

It would take a lot of GWs time and money to certify/sanction every event beyond having final say on large matters....micro-managing seems to be out of the scope of what they are willing to put up with.......I think the best thing they have done so far was make qualifier games for "ard Boyz free........less likely so see shady effort when money isnt at stake.

I support a tournament format(lets call it Highlander) where you can have no more than 1 of any unit excluding troop choices(and only because of things like Necrons who have almost none). This should allow the competitive and casual gamers to play together in events. There really aren't that many rules lawyers, maybe only 1 in 20 players is. Should still be fun for the less competitive players.

I also like the idea for the Bell of Lost Souls tournament. After the first 3-4 rounds they split the tournament into two tournaments based on the standings at that point. I feel this is a good way of handicapping the field. It also seems like players of all skill levels would be more inclined to play if they knew they always had a shot at an award. Also if you are in the bottom half of the standings you can stay with those in the top half so you do have a choice if you want to continue as an underdog.


*edited system=format(lets call it Highlander)

WC_Brian wrote: I support a tournament format(lets call it Highlander) where you can have no more than 1 of any unit excluding troop choices(and only because of things like Necrons who have almost none). This should allow the competitive and casual gamers to play together in events. There really aren't that many rules lawyers, maybe only 1 in 20 players is. Should still be fun for the less competitive players.
*edited system=format(lets call it Highlander)

The problem with that format is that armies without top-end troops like Eldar need their Elites and Heavies to do its dirty work, a single band of Banshees can do some damage, but if they get caught in the open and get shot down then the Eldar have to fall back on units to do stuff they arnt ment to do. If my squad of Dragons get ripped apart then there is little chance of fighting off a Landraider.....

Yet SM,CSM and Orks dont have that issue

Alerian wrote:The pupose of soft scores to to give players of every skill level an opportunity to enjoy the event. Soft scores alone will not win a tourney, so skill is still necessary to win overall.

Agreed. If someone showed up, won all their games, had a fluffy-bunny army list, was instantly friends with everyone, and had the best painted army - they deserve to win overall. But, that probably never happens.

So, what event organizers have to determine when setting up the scoring, is how to balance the soft scores and battle points. Should soft scores merely be a tie-breaker between two people who are X-0-0 at the end? Should soft scores let someone with a wonderfully painted army, who is 3-1-0, win over someone who is 4-0-0, and has a 3-color army? How about 4-0-0 and bare metal?

Now, my personal gripe with soft score scoring is when the tourney uses a nebulous scoring method like "1-10". Some people will default to 5 or 6, some to 8, some will give everyone but TFG a 10. Set up the soft scores to try to emulate some sort of bell curve. It's like asking people if they're a good driver, 80% of people will say they are. But, you can't have 80% really being good because that would make 'good' really be 'average'.

Good sportsmanship should be expected. Poor sports should be punished in their soft scores. And the really, really good sports should be rewarded. Use a scoring system that forces some sort of bell curve into the scoring, with 'Good Sport' being the big hump in the middle.

Of course there is skill involved.

Just because luck plays a big part does not mean skill is not involved, and saying list building eliminates the need for skill is just deliberatly ignoring the skill involved in building lists. It takes skill to choose the right list for the right environment, to taylor it to your play style and the current trends of the metagame.

I lost round 3 of this weekend ard boys for 1 reason and 1 reason only.

I played poorly.

My opponent did not have the rock list to my scisser. In fact he played a list that I have never lost too with my Mech IG ( Dual Sorcerror Lash Mech ). He rolled better than I did, but not beyond the odds that are to be expected.

I lost because I made poor deployment and reserve choices and made a bad targe priority choice on round 3. He was skilled enough to recognize my errors and pounce on them.

At the top tables of a 50 person Ard Boyz there is no room for error and it was his skill and my own failure to use mine that determined who won.

I do agree that there needs to be standards for TOs, there is way too much variety in the quality of events nation wide.

I have come to the conclusion that people just want to argue over some things.

I had been through a poorly run set of tournies and was seeing a lot of griping about tourney structure, fairness, and skill vs build on the forums. So I started this thread, http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/229566.page#554685 , just to see if anyone would be interested in a tournament setting that would be a more realistic assesment of skill.

As you can see, I got crickets, which is I why I think people will argue about this but never push for change. There were several variations that I wanted to discuss but the one below was what I was leaning towards.

Funny, If there had been more interest I was going to work with a couple of guys I know to set up such a tourney. Between us there was about 10,000pts for each army that has a codex.

You would bring in your painted army to be judged and then draw from the house armies. You'd get a half hour to draw up your list, 15 minutes to checkout your pieces, a half hour to set up, 2 hours to play and 15 minutes to check in your pieces. You'd get 45 minute food breaks between rounds with a total of 3 rounds per day(1 to 2 days depending on tournament). You'd draw for different armies each round with no repeats allowed. It would be a long 12 hour days but I think pretty fair. Was thinking the tourney would be set at 1,500 pts.


Let me know what you think
,Later

If I was not already married, I would want to marry Mistress of Minis.

And have Shep as my best man.

In point of fact, wargaming tournaments have been going on for many years. Even just the US GW Grand Tournaments go back about 15 years, and the Rogue Traders have been around since 2000.

Each organization/company decides how it wants to score its events, based on their priorities, and what they want to promote. Some companies and organizations are more dedicated to it than others. Some have more resources than others. And often based on the prior two factors, some are most certainly better at it than others. And every once in a (IME, rare) while you get some tools who run a crappy or rigged local event. Those idiots are the exception, not the rule.

No system will ever be perfect, but most of the ones I’ve seen work pretty well. I’ve met a lot more fun players at tournaments than non-fun players. I’ve seen a lot of gorgeous armies, especially at the ones which scored painting. Tournaments scoring painting give me deadlines, and deadlines have forced me to do most of the painting I’ve ever done. After ten years of practice, I’m now a pretty decent painter. I didn’t start out as one. And if tournaments didn’t score it, I don’t know if I would have had the motivation. So tournaments have led to me becoming a better hobbyist as well as player.

GW has tweaked its tourney rules many times over the last ~15 years. They’ve also run multiple different types of tournaments, rewarding different things. Gladiator and ‘Ard Boyz are two examples of “battles is all that counts” formats. Grand Tournaments and Rogue Traders have traditionally been about the overall hobby, though winning games has almost always been the lion’s share of the points.

There have often been scoring issues. Some systems work better than others. Players who care give detailed and honest feedback directly to the organizers, AS WELL as discussing the issues in the community. The internet can be a place to whine, but it can also be a place to share bad mistakes and best practices.

Many tournament organizers out there (from MoM at her home, to myself with a three tournament series I ran at my FLGS, all the way up to the Adepticon guys) are just players and fans who thought- “I like tournaments, but I think I could do it better, and people would enjoy it even more.” Concerns about the validity or accuracy of Appearance or Sports scoring aren’t new, and they haven’t gone unaddressed. The systems which the better tournies have trended towards in the last five years, for example, tend to be better than the ones we had in 2000. Conscientious tournament organizers listen to complaints and we really DO try to make better tournaments and scoring systems which address the issues.

IMO from casual game and tournament play is this....


Tournaments are less about skill...

The only real way to have a tournament based on skill is to have all the armies be default set or to be perfectly even with any other choice army. Same with mission types. If all things are equal then the only off set would be skill.

As of now all things are not equal and opinions can/may determine the winner. Don't get me wrong though tourneys are fun social gatherings and those who win should be proud of themselves. When tourney time rolls around its all about fun. Its great to win but its even greater to play. I would like a random spot light on games to watch instead of the walk around look from a distance type of thing. A player profile would be nifty.

On a side note about luck: A failure or loss at a game is the Generals fault alone and his/her sole responsibility. A true strategists worse enemy is themselves.

Gonna break it down another step: If a game comes down to luck it is because you put the game in that position. Any experienced tactician knows that it is a folly to plan on luck.

I have participated and judged many tournaments in the southeast. There is definately skill involved with winning these events as I've seen the same faces from coast to coast of the US do extremely well in their games. There wasn't trick dice or hypnotism going on, they just played well with minimal mistakes.

After being a part of organizing tournaments I must say it is a thankless job that I may not want to continue. You spend a lot of your time and money making sure your players have a great time only to put that money back into the pot for next year to make it better.

Our group has learned great lessons the hard way by not following the models of successful organisers like the folks that do GW's GTs, Apdeticon, Exterminatus and the like. Some great ideas have been gleaned from some of the posters on this topic that I will pass along to our group.

I go to tournaments to meet up with folks I only get to see few times a year, and support the tournament organisers. Yes I also go to win my entry fee back but that doesn't happen nearly as often as I like. I do like testing my metal against people I don't play often to see where my skills place me. I have even been known to throw a game when I know the person I am facing is new to the game and I have no chance of winning best overall or general.

Thanks for the ideas for modifying the soft scores. I am sure they will be implemented in our next event. There is, however, a very acute need for skill to win in a tournament.


Edited for spelling and punctuation.

Like I said. Everyone wants to argue rather than working towards improving the system.

WC_Brian wrote: I support a tournament format(lets call it Highlander) where you can have no more than 1 of any unit excluding troop choices(and only because of things like Necrons who have almost none).

Nothing wrong with this, although it's also good to shrink the points sizes for the game (1000 recommended, 1500 max).

How would the "Highlander" system work with dedicated transports?

A SM army could have 1 unit in a Rhino, 1 unit in a Razorback, 1 unit in Drop Pod, and make up the balance in Land Raiders / Crusader / Redeemer.

Eh, I go for tourneys for fun and to win who doesn't? But I think they should do something about the sportsmanship thing because I always play nicely but one guy gave me a 1 just because I was being a bit strict with the rules (He tried to move and assault with vanguard vets whe they Ds) I told him he couldn't he said he could and he didn't bring his codex, after we called over the jugde and clarified he couldn't. We argued about this and one other thing.

H.B.M.C. wrote:*spits* Fething tournament gamers. They're like the STD of the gaming world. *spits*

I'd much rather continue being a casual gamer - the very paragon of humanity and the apex of creative spirit.

I knew I sig'd you for a reason.

WarhammerTabletop wrote:He tried to move and assault with vanguard vets whe they Ds) I told him he couldn't he said he could and he didn't bring his codex, after we called over the jugde and clarified he couldn't. We argued about this and one other thing.

lol, he was actually right. They can assault after deepstriking. I can understand why he was pissed, but hey-- who the hell goes to tourney without a codex?

Don't cha know- SM sergeants have a magical pink power prism that does an infinite range Str 10 Ap1 large blast barrage 7.

JohnHwangDD wrote:A SM army could have 1 unit in a Rhino, 1 unit in a Razorback, 1 unit in Drop Pod, and make up the balance in Land Raiders / Crusader / Redeemer.

So then Imperial Guard are limited to one chimera? And Tau are limited to one Devilfish? That doesn't really sound fair.

We don't have to bother with fair when we're making up arbitrary restrictions.

The concept of "fair" is relative.

It's like when SoCal organized a no-MEQ Tournament. All SMs & Necrons & CSMs were outlawed entirely.

A non-MEQ tournament! For when you really want to cater to the elitist donkey-cave!

Let's see how many more ideas we can rack up.

But, but...

That non-MEQ tournament was one of the most fun tournaments I've played...

Sourclams isn't thinking big enough:

A non-MEQ Casual Gamer Event (ie. not a touranment - an 'event'). There are no battle points, no best general - it's all soft scores.

Run by the Dakka Casual Gamer Mafia of course.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

JohnHwangDD wrote:All SMs & Necrons & CSMs were outlawed entirely.

Wow sucks to be a Necron player there. First your army gets shafted in 5th Ed, and then people tell you you can't use your army because you're too much like a Marine. Talk about kicking someone when they're down... but I'm sure you like that kinda thing Jonnyboy.

Actually someone was talking about a narrative tournament where you had one of each army already prebuilt by the store. You didn't have to bring anything everything was provided and the players rolled off to see who got to pick what.


They tracked how well you won etc.. and geared the Scenarios very well toward those 2 specific armies.


It fit into this overall structure and at the end of it you had a little personal story of how this campaign went. So each round you just moved between tables each table had 2 armies with a already prebuilt list and scenario and then you played.


Do a search for Scenario tournament.


It was really interesting; I mean you basically have two armies geared as well as they can toward scenario then the players would have to play each army given a brief but quick overview sheet of the army and what did what.


I think there was some sort of guideline as well as to what the army did etc..


Very cool sounding tournament and more a example of overall tactical skill simply because you have no control other than picking the army you like best.

I actually like that idea - just show up, you're given an army, and play.

That's an idea I've been kicking around since seeing the new Planetstrike terrain.

Something akin to Lord of the Rings (only better, in every way) where you have a third party 'Game Master' who acts as impartial arbitrator while two pre-set armies battle out a pre-set mission with points assigned on the basis of who achieves the most specific goals.

Like a head-to-head co-op mode in campaign based RTS computer games, where the third person is the AI.

I can't remember all of it. I have played in something similar though.

Basically club players donated armies; we had 10 tables set up with awesome terrain.

All armies were represented. With some overlapping on some. It was 1750 points they posted the tournament rules army lists tables ( minus what the terrain was going to be well in advance).


Each table was set up so one army was either attacking defending / with a intermix of some armies being defenders and attackers on different tables.

Before the tournament started we all raffled off the person who got the highest number out of the hat got to pick and so on.

I got fourth and picked a table that was Dark Eldar attacking Vs. Imperial Guard defending and Dawn of War night fight was in effect.


Then it went Lowest to highest IE I won my game with I think 22 so I was the highest score for the round I got to pick my table last and the lowest point last.


So each round the person who is the best gets shafted on his pick it balances out really well because people get to pick who they play against.

So usually people dont want to play the better players etc..


Was great fun every one had a great time fantastic games.

The problem is it seems like the players themselves hate any kind of new idea.. Would anyone show for a true test of skill?

I agree, something needs to be done about TOs.. People in 40k argue because they know TOs generally dont know the rules as well as players (Which is strange because in sports the judges MUST know the rules the best).. same with coaches

So they argue knowing they might get their way regardless of how absurd their claim is

If only the top tournaments could come together and use a set of rules! Even if it means they dont agree on everything. Thats the beginning of getting TOs in line. If the top events dont use the same rules what hope is there for smaller events?

The adepticon faq I know is used by several tournament people; I think its a good faq overall.

Yes, I use it as well.. There are parts I dont agree with, but overall its very solid and isnt prone to corruption like GW is

IE lets change how we rule deffrolla cause we want to sell plastic upgrade kits!