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Forgot about what scenario?

What does the release timeframe of the missions tell us? IMO they probably were just less organized this year, and would have had the missions out sooner if they could.

Danny Internets wrote:I guess it was just convenient that you forgot about that scenario then, at least for the purposes of our discussion. In case you have also forgotten about the release of the scenarios last year, it was done many weeks prior to the first round. Testing players by forcing adaptation to unusual challenges would be conceivable if they didn't provide the scenarios with ample prior notice.

Not sure if this was pointed at me or not. So I'll respond. I just didn't have time in a week to put together model's or switch model's out or in the case of sister's completely switch to a new army to minimize the kp aspect (too much rl stuff going on). I went to ardboyz just to have fun figuring that my mech sister's wouldn't do well in either of the last two missions, at least not well enough to earn a slot at the next round, unless of course I got good matchup's. VP game in corners against a mech ig list for round 2 and a foot eldar list in round 3 sealed it. But this is just like any other tournament where you can get matchups that just hose you. I think it was the level of hose for this one. Even without the additional kp he would have had me almost 2 to 1 which gives him the inherent kp advantage because of me taking mech.

Forgot about what scenario?

The scenario from the preliminaries last year that I already described to support my point. Feel free to read my post again if needed.

Regarding the release of the missions, writing these things isn't exactly rocket science. What on earth would have prevented them from releasing them sooner? Creating a PDF takes all of 5 minutes. Even the artwork is recycled.

Edit: My comment was directed at Mannahnin, I should have specified.

The HQs one? How hard is it to swap out an HQ? I fielded two HQs and won that one. But again, that mission clearly supports spending money. A box or two of additional troops is more expensive than an HQ model. Just like having dedicated transports worth 0 the year before clearly encouraged buying a couple more of them.

As for what prevents them from releasing them sooner, are you joking? What prevents GW from making a more than half-hearted attempt at FAQs? Simply their choice of priorities, the staff they assign to it, and how long it takes said staff to get around to it. It's not hard to make good FAQs, either. Remember that the scenarios for AB are written by the Trade Sales guys, who presumably take this on as a once a year project on top of their regular duties. Writing the scenarios probably just slid toward the back of the pile this year.

OK Mannahnin I shall take up this gauntlet then!

Mannahnin wrote:

sourclams wrote:...somebody 'wins' because they have 3x the opportunity as the other guy, how is that not just sanctioned discrimination?

As previously noted, your confusion stems from the fact that you’re looking for steak in the vegetarian restaurant.

‘Ard Boys is not, and has never been, designed to support a “pure” (ie: rigorously balanced and universally representative) competitive play environment. The facts that it is played at an unusual points size, with unusual (deliberately difficult or unbalanced) missions, make that clear.

Really? Has never been designed to support a pure competitive play environment? Well, look at this quote strait from the GW website:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=500011a

GamesWorkshop wrote:'Ard Boyz Tournaments are a three-part, competitive series of events hosted by Independant Retailers across North America. For the last two years we've hosted 'Ard Boyz Tournaments for both Warhammer 40K and for Warhammer Fantasy. We plan to add War of The Ring to the mix starting in 2010 to make an 'Ard Boyz event for all three of our core systems!

Unlike the traditional tournament format you may be familiar with, that takes into consideration your painting and sportsmanship, the 'Ard Boyz Tournaments focus on one thing and one thing only; how well you play the game! These tournaments are the place to field that nasty list you felt guilty about playing, or that massive horde army you couldn't hope to paint it in time.

To be more explicit:

GamesWorkshop wrote:'Ard Boyz Tournaments are a three-part, competitive series of events....

GamesWorkshop wrote:...'Ard Boyz Tournaments focus on one thing and one thing only; how well you play the game!....

They are advertised by GW as exactly pure competitive play environments, by games workshops own words for tourneys from the last 2 years, regardless of what may have been run before that.

Slanted mission as hidden comp doesn't really foster that, in fact custom missions don't line up with that either. It ought to be simply the book missions, every year, so the emphasis is how the game is played, not how lucky you got with missions, matchups or day of adaptation to scenario, that's not "the game" it's last minute changes added in.

Your ball.




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Danny Internets wrote:

...present examples of other ‘Ard Boyz scenarios which you think represent attempts at Comp, though.

...kill points mission that heavily emphasized taking troops as they were worth only 1 point each and all other FoC units were worth 2. HQs were worth a whopping 5 each...

Oh Snap!

Way to go Danny Internets!

Let's try and stay focused, shall we? We are talking about a set of tournament missions, not an FAQ. I agree that the FAQ release schedule is horrible, but a lot more thought goes into the various complex arguments put forth regarding tricky rules situations than goes into developing 3 missions, only one of which deviates significantly from the standard rules (past or present).

While I would never be foolish enough to vouch for GW's general corporate competency, I think they are capable enough of finding someone to take 20 minutes out of their day to whip up a few missions. The alternative, that such a simple task was held up for weeks, seems far less realistic to me.

Augustus:

Those are some solid arguments.

I think it’s a good idea to link our sources, too. In the Ard Boyz rules this year I also find the statement

“‘Ard Boyz tournaments are all about commanding large armies and doing your best to blast your opponent to bits.”

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1080430a_40K_Ard_Boyz_2010_Rules.pdf

Which seems to draw a slightly different picture, though I will concede that the statements you’ve quoted do indicate that they seem to be shifting the focus/intent of the event a bit.

I still maintain that selling more models is the primary goal, however, and that the packet’s not going to say that. And I maintain that the last two years’ scenarios make more sense when viewed in that light than by trying to build a case that the Trade Sales department is trying to enact some kind of de facto Comp.

Danny:

False dichotomy. There are more possible options than just “a simple task was held up for weeks” or “the lists were deliberately sprung on people late to enforce de facto Comp.” Committee decision making can also slow things. Or simple incompetence. Or they might just have another motive for waiting.

One thing I did notice in reviewing the rules packet again is that it does say that the missions will be released about a week before the event. So it does seem that the late revelation was deliberate. One thing I remember about Ard Boyz and Gladiators prior to 2009 (or was it 2008?) was that the missions were always supposed to be a surprise. It was supposed to test your adaptability. They finally started releasing them beforehand, IIRC, because they were leaked the year before, and some people got an unfair advantage by seeing them early because their store owner friend spilled the beans.

Anyway, there can certainly be other motives for waiting. One might be: to see if they, or their independent retailers, can track a sales bump specifically linked to the missions’ release.

God forbid anyone change the status quo....

As I see it, as poorly concieved as the third mission was (a rule mechanic making fast stuff less reliable would be preferable to just KP alteration), they did a good job of spreading the love out in the missions.

Mission one, mandating 5 objectives instead of just rolling them, pretty much favored mechanized troop wagon armies, as they can move around and secure objectives more easily than anyone else. Foot sloggers with low numbers of troop units, not so much.

Mission two, mech and foot are on equal footing. Vehicles suddenly giving half points for immobilization is balanced by the fact that the troops now do the same and generally cost more. Spearhead again put more of an emphasis on mobility.

Mission Three, well if you were mechanized going up against non mech, you probably still had a pretty sound advantage, but if you were the person who brought jump packs or bikes you were royally boned. Foot Sloggers who could bring good firepower had a solid advantage in this mission.

So, Mech was great in one mission, average in another, and poor in a third. Foot Slog, the same. If anything, the army types that really got a boost were the reserve hammer armies and the tiny model count elite armies that had a tough time of it. I mean, guard still won a ton, at least as much as Nids and Orks combined.

Again, the idea behind making missions good and bad for general archtypes is sound, but the execution here left much to be desired....

Mannahnin wrote:The HQs one? How hard is it to swap out an HQ? I fielded two HQs and won that one.

You did?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I have to ask the people that are complaining about these missions something...

Have you played in tournaments other than 'Ard Boyz? Particularly RTT tourneys? They have extremely wacky missions, where everything can Deep Strike once per turn or Fast Attack is the only thing that can start on the table and all kinds of insanity. Crazy missions are part of tournaments because they force you to think outside of the box and figure out who the good players actually are.

Augustus wrote:Slanted mission as hidden comp doesn't really foster that, in fact custom missions don't line up with that either. It ought to be simply the book missions, every year, so the emphasis is how the game is played, not how lucky you got with missions, matchups or day of adaptation to scenario, that's not "the game" it's last minute changes added in.

How are changes to scenarios that require good generalship not testing how well you play the game?

...when they handicap one side with KP.

...when they introduce new victory conditions no one has ever seen before.

Basically anything that changes the basic conditions of the game in the original book.

Imagine if they started scoring for style and technique in the triathlon like they do for figure skating at the Olympics next time, or had a timed chess tournament where the queen moved 3 squares max on the black side and like a night on the white side. That's what tripple KP conditions are.

Augustus wrote:...when they handicap one side with KP.

And if it had been casually dropped in on the day, then you would have a leg to stand on, because you didn't have a chance to make an army list to cater for that eventuality.

But you did have the chance.

Which means that better generals are going to have found ways to win, while not as good generals aren't, which means that it was a legitimate test of generalship.

Augustus wrote:...when they introduce new victory conditions no one has ever seen before.

See above.

Augustus wrote:Basically anything that changes the basic conditions of the game in the original book.

See above. The ability to think through a new scenario and work out how best to accomplish the mission is the sign of... wait for it... good generalship.

Augustus wrote:Imagine if they started scoring for style and technique in the triathlon like they do for figure skating at the Olympics next time, or had a timed chess tournament where the queen moved 3 squares max on the black side and like a night on the white side. That's what tripple KP conditions are.

Except that both players have the opportunity to take white. Or black. Nobody dropped a bombshell on you the day of saying that transports are suddenly 3kp. It was known weeks in advance.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:

Augustus wrote:Slanted mission as hidden comp doesn't really foster that, in fact custom missions don't line up with that either. It ought to be simply the book missions, every year, so the emphasis is how the game is played, not how lucky you got with missions, matchups or day of adaptation to scenario, that's not "the game" it's last minute changes added in.

How are changes to scenarios that require good generalship not testing how well you play the game?

Please explain how it takes good generalship for an Ork horde with 16 kill points to beat a mechanized list with 58 kill points. I'm dying to hear this one.

Except that both players have the opportunity to take white. Or black. Nobody dropped a bombshell on you the day of saying that transports are suddenly 3kp. It was known weeks in advance.

Actually it was known exactly a week in advance, and only if you were watching the internet like a hawk to catch it the second it was released. A week, and more likely less, is not exactly ample time to go out and reconfigure your whole army, unless you're unemployed and have tons of cash to waste.

Augustus wrote:
... or had a timed chess tournament where the queen moved 3 squares max on the black side and like a night on the white side. That's what tripple KP conditions are.

You know, Bobby Fisher came up with a game called Chess960 or Fisher Random Chess, because he felt that traditional chess was too focused on memorizing openings, and didn't reward creative play and original thought enough. There are a decent number of fans of the game.

So this here tournament changed some mission structures to make a more interesting game. They announced this ahead of time. Anyone who attended knew what they were getting into, and despite Danny's assertion to the contrary, a week is more than enough time for anyone to reconfigure, or even make a completely new army if they didn't like how their army would have fared in the tournament. (As proof of this statement, I offer the fact that I not only built, but painted, to award-winning standards, 5500 points of daemons in a week last year. Simply assembling models takes far less effort)

So, you had three options. A) go with your traditional army, knowing what was coming. B) change armies, knowing what was coming, or C) stay home.

People had the opportunity to make educated decisions about which option they would take. Yes, they weren't "by the book" missions, but they made for a more balanced tournament overall. Really, is that a bad thing?

Anyone who attended knew what they were getting into, and despite Danny's assertion to the contrary, a week is more than enough time for anyone to reconfigure, or even make a completely new army if they didn't like how their army would have fared in the tournament. (As proof of this statement, I offer the fact that I not only built, but painted, to award-winning standards, 5500 points of daemons in a week last year. Simply assembling models takes far less effort)

I once wrote a 26 page research paper with over 100 references in 48 hours for a masters level neuroscience course. Does that mean 48 hours is a reasonable amount of time for people to be expected to complete that amount of work? Your argument is ridiculous.

Danny Internets wrote:

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:

Augustus wrote:Slanted mission as hidden comp doesn't really foster that, in fact custom missions don't line up with that either. It ought to be simply the book missions, every year, so the emphasis is how the game is played, not how lucky you got with missions, matchups or day of adaptation to scenario, that's not "the game" it's last minute changes added in.

How are changes to scenarios that require good generalship not testing how well you play the game?

Please explain how it takes good generalship for an Ork horde with 16 kill points to beat a mechanized list with 58 kill points. I'm dying to hear this one.

The Ork horde has to get there first, and it's entirely possible for the Ork horde to be tabled.

Except that both players have the opportunity to take white. Or black. Nobody dropped a bombshell on you the day of saying that transports are suddenly 3kp. It was known weeks in advance.

Actually it was known exactly a week in advance, and only if you were watching the internet like a hawk to catch it the second it was released. A week, and more likely less, is not exactly ample time to go out and reconfigure your whole army, unless you're unemployed and have tons of cash to waste.

If you don't have the cash to revamp your army, it doesn't matter how long in advance you get the notice, you can't revamp it.

My bad on the timeline though. I haven't been sleeping much lately.

The Ork horde has to get there first, and it's entirely possible for the Ork horde to be tabled.

Good players virtually never get tabled because it's exceedingly easy to hide a model or two. I've been playing for over 10 years and I've never had every model wiped off the table. Furthermore, there's no reason for the Ork player to commit 100% of his forces in this situation. Horde armies and mech armies are generally very large in terms of space--getting to the other army is never a problem with 5000 points of models on a standard 4'x6' table over the course of 6 turns.

Lastly, if a player can win simply by not getting tabled how is that a test of their skill?

Danny Internets wrote:

The Ork horde has to get there first, and it's entirely possible for the Ork horde to be tabled.

Good players virtually never get tabled because it's exceedingly easy to hide a model or two. I've been playing for over 10 years and I've never had every model wiped off the table. Furthermore, there's no reason for the Ork player to commit 100% of his forces in this situation. Horde armies and mech armies are generally very large in terms of space--getting to the other army is never a problem with 5000 points of models on a standard 4'x6' table over the course of 6 turns.

Lastly, if a player can win simply by not getting tabled how is that a test of their skill?

If your opponent has a bad list for a scenario while you have a good list, there isn't much skill involved on the table, true.

Does that mean that there was no skill involved?

The ork player used skill in building his army, as did the mech player. If the ork army was the better choice, then the ork player was more skillful. If the mech army was the better choice, then the mech player was more skillful.

And besides all this, the Ork player had to get past other armies to be in a position to screw you over in the first place. The entire tournament is a test of skill. There's always going to be an archetype that has an advantage, simply because of the fact that archetypes exist in the metagame. If you played Mech you made a concious choice to take heavy risk in the third scenario in order to have a good army in the first and second.

I won the Local Ard Boyz with an Ork Horde army. The third scenario against a IG, but not a Leaf blower( not that he didnt have considerable template love) but it was IG reserve love army. so everything was off board.

He had bad luck on reserve rolls, and i had luck.

his vehicles were my target, but frankly i think if he had just started on the board with his templates hammering me from turn 1 it would have been a much different game.

good Mech players didnt lose much sleep about S3, mostly because they knew they had the armies to table horde, or would be playing other mech players in that scenario.

and the results we are seeing with IG armies are the leading army coming out of the prelims, shows that they were not hurt that bad.

if your army design was intended to table your opponents, like leaf blower, then in s3, you just go out and play your army like you intended to and you did fine. if as with most of these games you ended up playing for first place against another mech you just had to ensure you killed more. and if you had the rarer luck of facing a horde army like mine then just beat it like you would in a regular game.

Danny Internets wrote:Your argument is ridiculous.

You're ridiculous. It doesn't matter what the topic, you're always crying about something. My argument, which you seem to have missed entirely in your quest to condescend towards everyone else, is not that people should have rebuilt their armies, but, rather, that doing so was entirely possible, if that was an avenue they wanted to pursue. My argument is that people who went to 'ard boyz knew what they were getting into, and made their decision fully aware of what the missions were to be. No one was forced to attend, and no one who attended was forced to play with a mech army that would auto-lose mission 3.

Much like in the threads about GWs prices, people are unwilling to take the steps necessary to show their displeasure with the choices presented to them. People would rather go to 'ard boyz and complain about the missions that were announced well ahead of time, than stay home and show GW that this is not what they want.

If your opponent has a bad list for a scenario while you have a good list, there isn't much skill involved on the table, true.

Does that mean that there was no skill involved?

The ork player used skill in building his army, as did the mech player. If the ork army was the better choice, then the ork player was more skillful. If the mech army was the better choice, then the mech player was more skillful.

Let's take your argument to the extreme. Say the scenario was standard annihilation, however Dark Eldar armies automatically get a 15 point kill point bonus.

Now let's hypothetically pit a Dark Eldar army versus a Tau army. The Dark Eldar army wins by a landslide, a whopping 10 points. According to your argument, the Dark Eldar player displayed more "skill."

Does that not sound a little silly to you? Granted, the example is extreme, but it's a test of your argument. If your logic is sound then it should hold up no matter what the example. Here, it seems to fall apart.

In typical scenarios, I agree that there will always be some armies that are better at missions than others. However, the third scenario is so absurdly unbalanced that it creates the potential for complete rocks-paper-scissor style 40k. Ork Horde versus mech Dark Eldar would normally be imbalanced but not impossible for the DE player to win in a standard Annihilation scenario. In 'Ard Boyz scenario 3, well, let's just say I'd like to meet the DE prodigy who can pull off a win in that situation versus an even moderately skilled opponent.


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Redbeard wrote:

Danny Internets wrote:Your argument is ridiculous.

You're ridiculous. It doesn't matter what the topic, you're always crying about something. My argument, which you seem to have missed entirely in your quest to condescend towards everyone else, is not that people should have rebuilt their armies, but, rather, that doing so was entirely possible, if that was an avenue they wanted to pursue. My argument is that people who went to 'ard boyz knew what they were getting into, and made their decision fully aware of what the missions were to be. No one was forced to attend, and no one who attended was forced to play with a mech army that would auto-lose mission 3.

Much like in the threads about GWs prices, people are unwilling to take the steps necessary to show their displeasure with the choices presented to them. People would rather go to 'ard boyz and complain about the missions that were announced well ahead of time, than stay home and show GW that this is not what they want.

Tsk tsk. Ad hominem attacks? Please address your criticisms to my argument, not my person.

Danny Internets wrote:

If your opponent has a bad list for a scenario while you have a good list, there isn't much skill involved on the table, true.

Does that mean that there was no skill involved?

The ork player used skill in building his army, as did the mech player. If the ork army was the better choice, then the ork player was more skillful. If the mech army was the better choice, then the mech player was more skillful.

Let's take your argument to the extreme. Say the scenario was standard annihilation, however Dark Eldar armies automatically get a 15 point kill point bonus.

Now let's hypothetically pit a Dark Eldar army versus a Tau army. The Dark Eldar army wins by a landslide, a whopping 10 points. According to your argument, the Dark Eldar player displayed more "skill."

Does that not sound a little silly to you? Granted, the example is extreme, but it's a test of your argument. If your logic is sound then it should hold up no matter what the example. Here, it seems to fall apart.

No, not really. The DE player displayed basic reading comprehension. The Tau player either ignored it or assumed that they could make up the difference, either of which implies bad generalship, and therefore lesser skill.

In typical scenarios, I agree that there will always be some armies that are better at missions than others. However, the third scenario is so absurdly unbalanced that it creates the potential for complete rocks-paper-scissor style 40k. Ork Horde versus mech Dark Eldar would normally be imbalanced but not impossible for the DE player to win in a standard Annihilation scenario. In 'Ard Boyz scenario 3, well, let's just say I'd like to meet the DE prodigy who can pull off a win in that situation versus an even moderately skilled opponent.

And here's what you're missing: The DE player had the option of not bring his DE around, or not trying to pull off a win, but simply trying to keep from losing. If they won big in the previous two games, then that may be all they have to do to qualify, which was the point of going to the tournament in the first place.

No, not really. The DE player displayed basic reading comprehension. The Tau player either ignored it or assumed that they could make up the difference, either of which implies bad generalship, and therefore lesser skill.

This seems to imply that simply fielding a Dark Eldar army would therefore be indicative of more skill at 40k in this situation. This is logically consistent with your argument, but it doesn't sit right with me. Perhaps it's the weighted balance between list building skill and actual gameplay skill. I feel that when the former vastly overshadows the latter, as in my example and also in scenario 3, that it fails to be much of a measure of gameplay skill at all.

So as I detailed in my first post, I'm a mech IG/mech Marines player who saw S3 and intentionally brought a low-KP Marine gunline because there were no DoW style missions and because I gave up 20 KP in S3.

In my playstyle, there was really no emphasis on maneuver or out-thinking or out-gaming my opponents. I simply lined up my models and shot theirs off of the table because my army was heavily rewarded by the scenarios.

I didn't even play S2; my opponent offered the draw, I accepted, and we took an extended lunch while I painted Warmachine minis.

According to the posters in this thread, I am some combination of:

-More skilled than my opponents
-More intelligent than my opponents
-More wealthy than my opponents

I don't know about the third one, but I sure don't think I played significantly better than anybody. I won the event before I showed up because I have the resources and proper meta-anticipation to claim a huge tactical advantage.

So thanks for all of the compliments, everybody whose opinion is I did everything perfectly correctly, but this is my third year in a row winning 'Ard Boyz at my store and I'd say it was by far the easiest.

No scenarios that screw with deployments, clear army advantages based on win conditions? If this is what competition and shaking up the status quo are all about, keep 'em coming GW-US because I like getting $60 worth of free stuff.

Danny Internets wrote:

No, not really. The DE player displayed basic reading comprehension. The Tau player either ignored it or assumed that they could make up the difference, either of which implies bad generalship, and therefore lesser skill.

This seems to imply that simply fielding a Dark Eldar army would therefore be indicative of more skill at 40k in this situation. This is logically consistent with your argument, but it doesn't sit right with me. Perhaps it's the weighted balance between list building skill and actual gameplay skill. I feel that when the former vastly overshadows the latter, as in my example and also in scenario 3, that it fails to be much of a measure of gameplay skill at all.

All in all, yes, I agree, and I would be exactly where you are if scenario 3 was all that mattered. But there were two other scenarios where DE may or may not have had a tremendous advantage (I don't know how to play DE any more than I know how to put my head through a wall). Overall, were DE utterly hosed? Or were they given just as much of a chance as anyone else to take home a qualification?


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sourclams wrote:I don't know about the third one, but I sure don't think I played significantly better than anybody. I won the event before I showed up because I have the resources and proper meta-anticipation to claim a huge tactical advantage.

Do you not think that predicting and preparing for the metagame is a huge component of generalship?

DE didn't really have any more or less of an advantage than any other army in S1-2, which were basically standard 40k.

DE always have an issue with Kill Point missions since they tend to be somewhere in the upper 20s, but most of those individual KPs are worth 3, so literally, they are a 60+ KP list at 2500 points.

sourclams wrote:DE didn't really have any more or less of an advantage than any other army in S1-2, which were basically standard 40k.

DE always have an issue with Kill Point missions since they tend to be somewhere in the upper 20s, but most of those individual KPs are worth 3, so literally, they are a 60+ KP list at 2500 points.

Isn't that exactly the case with MechIG, which doesn't seem to have had much of a problem doing well?

Well put, sourclams. I agree.

sourclams wrote:I didn't even play S2; my opponent offered the draw, I accepted, and we took an extended lunch while I painted Warmachine minis.

Seriously? You didn't even bother to play the game?

except that sourclams should have been DQed for not playing his 2nd game.

he and his opponent avoided playing each other and claimed a draw. thats not exactly cricket. and ensured that one of them would not have a loss in the round.