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I'm just going to have to make it out to one tournament just too see some of the armies once I get back. It sounds like to much fun

Hulk: No, not towards you, but more to RedBeard from his quote:
" All sites like this do is pad the egos of the people who care about their toy soldier stats enough to send results in."
He was talking about the Rankings site.
I just pointed out that if results were not important, yu wouldn't see signatures with W/L/D stats piled in.

Agree that change comes slowly, especially when your dealing with someones pet project. Their baby, if you will.
But i'm seeing alot of p1ssing and moaning on different sites; alot of infighting, among some of the top people in the community who have different viewpoints on how a Tournament should be set up.

Just look at the carping going on between the BoLS people and the YTTH (stelek) folks. We are about to have 2 major Tournaments Bols/WarCon and NovaCon. WarCon is 7 games over 2 days (non ticked IIRC) while Nova is set for 4 games on 1 day AND is a ticket event.
Their is a pretty serious hatefest going on between the sites over format, scoring, organization, etc around these 2 events. It's not doing anyone anygood when you have players of influence essentially boycotting other peoples events.

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

I beat Darkwynn
Lost to Dash
Tied Marc

...oh and I beat you Hulksmash


Tied Sparks twice!!! (lucky bastard to avoid 2 losses)
Lost to Redbeard
About 50/50 against Dave Fay


And I know the answer of of the question of where there is better 40k: California or Florida.

Your an oddity Blackmoor. You actually travel more than anyone I know for GT's because that's almost the only time you play. And I was actually sad I missed you at the Bash and at the Slaughter. But I guess our points didn't match up this year You gonna make it out to the SoCal Smackdown? No Comp/Sports (well thumbs up/down but its only a total of 8-10 total points out of 150). Your chance to pull in a ticket for this year. And yep, you pulled a win off my last edition Nids which is more than most people could say back then. In fact I think you were 1 of my 2 losses with that army....Damn you!!!!!!

As for the hatefest actually MVB's been really good at staying out of any kind of hating. He's actively discouraging it where he can. It's mostly YTTH's issues with everyone. Don't tar Nova w/that brush. Personally if I could I'd hit up BoLScon to but the wife would friggin kill me if I tried for that and the Nova Open Gotta give BoLScon props. They have a 7 game format which should give them a 7-0 winner as the tourney winner.

p.s. Never said 40k was better in Cali, just challenged that the best players were in Florida

The BEST player in the world on any given day is ME. There is no one I can't beat on any particular day. Conversley, there probably isn't anyone who can't beat me. The blind guy @ Gen Con 2009 scared the hell out of me. Does that mean I expect to lose to a guy cause he's a tourney winner? HA! I'll spread him open like my resume'...

Wow Hulk it's starting to sound like a broken record now. Maybe it's time to give it a little rest. Doesn't seem like you have really convinced anyone yet.

G

Kell553 wrote:Hulk: No, not towards you, but more to RedBeard from his quote:
" All sites like this do is pad the egos of the people who care about their toy soldier stats enough to send results in."
He was talking about the Rankings site.
I just pointed out that if results were not important, yu wouldn't see signatures with W/L/D stats piled in.

Agree that change comes slowly, especially when your dealing with someones pet project. Their baby, if you will.
But i'm seeing alot of p1ssing and moaning on different sites; alot of infighting, among some of the top people in the community who have different viewpoints on how a Tournament should be set up.

Just look at the carping going on between the BoLS people and the YTTH (stelek) folks. We are about to have 2 major Tournaments Bols/WarCon and NovaCon. WarCon is 7 games over 2 days (non ticked IIRC) while Nova is set for 4 games on 1 day AND is a ticket event.
Their is a pretty serious hatefest going on between the sites over format, scoring, organization, etc around these 2 events. It's not doing anyone anygood when you have players of influence essentially boycotting other peoples events.

No, there's definitely no hatefest between NOVA and WarCon or anyone else. In fact, I've been more in talks w/ other big GT's toward the notion of cooperation than antagonistic behavior.

Stelek at YTTH has promoted the Open pretty heavily b/c he approves of the format. I'd appreciate not being referred to as a YTTH-tourney or anything similar, though. I'm not "his" man and he's not mine. We disagree on a lot, especially tone and style.

Re our event, also, it's a 7 game over 2 day function, but with basically elimination after day 1 for most of the field. This isn't b/c that's the "perfect" way or I think it is, but b/c of our ability to budget a full 2nd day venue in our first year as a "bigger" GT. That said, we've set up a lot of open table gaming on Friday and Sunday, to the best of our budget's ability (for a tourney that is already going to cost me probably close to a grand net negative). Anywho, just think twice before you reference my event inaccurately ... I'm a big fan of everyone getting along.



Regarding "superlatives" in the country ... there are things a lot of us are doing to try and give those who care a forum in which to establish their ranking in some meaningful way (i.e. setting up our own qual system w/ a $2500-cash-prize-styled annual invitational or any number of other ideas), but just keep in mind that RankingsHQ (while far superior to anything else we have right now, and deserving of praise because of it) is difficult to glean any real meaningful stat from, due to its lack of "strength of schedule" measurement, and the wide scope within which one can positively influence his/her ranking.

Through it you can generally presume the top players attend a fair number of events and do well at them, which should imply they are good ("very good" even) ... but throwing about superlatives when there's no real national championship? Careful, it just gets peoples' panties in a bunch unnecessarily, and hearkens back more to net-tween Starcraft/e-game style epeenswagging than "grown-up" competitive wargaming.

Aren't these plastic toy soldiers? I mean who really cares who is the "best" or not? Maybe things like being the "best" parent to your children, or being the "best" person you can be, or better yet being the "best" sportsman, those are things we should be worried about not if my green men beat your yellow men with their fake plastic bullets.

Apparently it does matter to some people and there is nothing wrong with that at all. Many hobbies give out awards for the best, it's part of the reason for doing a hobby. The toy soldiers phrase gets old pretty quick.

G

Jenkins,

I think it needs a little perspective to understand. I play in two flag football leagues, and a slow-pitch softball league. I grew up playing competitive sports.

In each of the "adult" coed leagues I participate in now, they are quite competitive ... people want to win. I don't think that's unreasonable - the rules of each game by nature determine win, lose, or draw. Furthermore, each of us invests around ONE HUNDRED dollars per season in playing! Hey, we want our money's worth, we're going to do our best. At the end of the season, a champion is crowned. If this sounds bizarre to you, I don't know how to help your perspective.

Compare to the traveling GT wargamer. JUST to travel to a SINGLE GT take a wild guess at the minimum cost of attendance? $500+ for an army? $XXX in paint and painting hours and assembly hours? $XXX(X) in travel and hotel costs? $50+ for the tourney fee?

You think they should just all not give a crap what happens after investing all of that to attend? When a certain subset of individuals spends the above EVERY TIME they travel to an Adepticon, a WarCon, a Mechanicon, a NOVA Open, whatever ... they have a right to know how they're doing without someone in the peanut gallery firing shots at them for being stupid or caring too much about "little toy soldiers." Give them a break, and let people be who they want to be.

"Fun" is up to the participant, not the peanut gallery. People should have some right to pursue their idea of fun (especially if it doesn't hurt others, and this really, really doesn't) without those who don't see it the same way jumping their case. I'd love to see our hobby elevate itself ABOVE the internetitis of "someone's gonna ream you" that so many other net-centric hobbies experience.

Ard Boyz is just another branch of "fun" for a lot of participants, so are rankings, so are GT's, etc.

Black Blow Fly wrote:Wow Hulk it's starting to sound like a broken record now. Maybe it's time to give it a little rest. Doesn't seem like you have really convinced anyone yet.

G

I don't note anyone actually disagreeing with him, save for you.

Whereas I see several people (and I'll add myself to that list) disputing that the "best" 40k players are from Florida.

No one's saying Good players are not to be found in Florida, just that there's no objective rubric for making that claim at this point in time.

I'm not a huge fan of rankingshq as it currently exists, but, on the other hand, we have to start somewhere, and at least they're making an effort to develop and foster a tracking system for competitive rankings.

Well you guys talk as if I too am not a competitive gt gamer. I am. I will tell you whats gets old however since that topic got brought up...games getting ruined by all out competitive play, Magic went through this and the game just became not fun because of it, there is a differance between competitve and rediculous and argueing 4 pages of posts worth of who is the best when there is no real way to determine it is STUPID. I go to RTT's GT's and have plenty of wins and certificates to my credit, but do any of you know my name? Ofcourse you dont, because ultimately there is no scoring system to support wins and things of that nature. Lastly do people have the right to purse their idea of fun at the expense of others, because 9 times out of 10 that is what happens, to many people cant have fun unless they are winning. Just something to think about.

http://whiskey40k.blogspot.com/2010/05/social-contracts-and-needs-in-wargaming.html

That says all my thoughts on the subject you're leaning into with that one, Jenkins.

In summation, though ... everyone has a different set of needs when it comes to what's "enjoyable" for them ... and they should pursue those needs out of self-respect.

That said, sportsmanship is best summed up IMO by a quote from Jesse Owens. When asked about sportsmanship and what "winning" and competing were all about, he said ...

"[Winning] starts with complete command of the fundamentals. Then it takes desire, determination, discipline, and self-sacrifice. And finally, it takes a great deal of love, fairness and respect for your fellow man. Put all these together, and even if you don't win, how can you lose?"


RESPECT for your fellow man is not the same as PANDERING to him. If you bring an army and skillset that vastly outstrips your opponent, you are NOT respecting him if you "play off" or lose on purpose, even in a friendly game. That said, rubbing things in, acting like a total douchetard, cheating, etc. are also behaviors that do not respect him. The person with the weaker list bears the responsibility for respect ALSO ... digging at him b/c your list can't compete with his or b/c you don't like his approach to winning is not necessarily respectful at all either.

I said based upon my experience Florida has the most competitive gamers. Unless you played here extensively you can't really say.

G

I am pretty sure each state has a concentration of really competitive gamers in some location, especially for larger population states lke Florida that more likely has several rather than just one.

Exactly.

G

MVBrandt wrote:
...
In each of the "adult" coed leagues I participate in now, they are quite competitive ... people want to win. I don't think that's unreasonable - the rules of each game by nature determine win, lose, or draw. Furthermore, each of us invests around ONE HUNDRED dollars per season in playing! Hey, we want our money's worth, we're going to do our best. At the end of the season, a champion is crowned. If this sounds bizarre to you, I don't know how to help your perspective.

Compare to the traveling GT wargamer. JUST to travel to a SINGLE GT take a wild guess at the minimum cost of attendance? $500+ for an army? $XXX in paint and painting hours and assembly hours? $XXX(X) in travel and hotel costs? $50+ for the tourney fee?

You think they should just all not give a crap what happens after investing all of that to attend? When a certain subset of individuals spends the above EVERY TIME they travel to an Adepticon, a WarCon, a Mechanicon, a NOVA Open, whatever ... they have a right to know how they're doing without someone in the peanut gallery firing shots at them for being stupid or caring too much about "little toy soldiers."
...

There's a big difference about caring about winning, being competitive, and trying your best, in essence, things I think all of us should do, and being realistic about the nature of the hobby, the role luck plays in it, and the relevance of your wins.

The nature of our hobby, where we have horribly unbalanced rules, and huge random factors, means that being 'the best' is a meaningless distinction. You can win the tournament you're in currently, but that doesn't even mean you were the best player there, it just means that you played through the matchups you drew the best that day.

Compare this with Chess. I wouldn't stand a chance playing against a Kasparov, even if he gave me a queen advantage. It's just not going to happen. We play 100 games, I lose 100 games. Being 'the best' means something there. 40k? Not even close to the same. I'm a competent 40k player with a solid record behind me. And, yet, on any given day, I could lose a game to someone playing in their first tournament because they brought guard and my daemon's wrong wave landed first and my reserves got screwed.

Even seven games over two days is too little to really establish 'best'. Compare that with M:tG, where their tournaments feature eight rounds of three games each, just to make the cut into a three round elimination series - again each one playing out three games. To win their tournaments, you're playing between 22 and 33 games (if you win the first two against an opponent, you don't play the third).

There is certainly skill involved in 40k, I'm not claiming that there isn't. But, that skill is only partly responsible for game outcome - and far less than the skill factor involved in most athletic competitions. When "skill" in a game can come down to not losing the first-turn roll against a leaf-blower list, maybe the title of 'best' isn't appropriate.

In short, it's totally cool to want to win, to want to compete, and to spend the effort involved in list-building, play-testing and preparing for an event. That's all part of being competitive. But to make ridiculous statements like "4 of the top 10 players are from here" - really? We're playing a game with dice. Without a sample-size far far larger than we're ever going to get, establishing who is the best player is just futile.

I actually agree with you / agree with you on the "4 of the top 10 players" comment, completely. ANY kind of "superlative" statement is just silly.

Wanting to *have* a ranking system, or have a nationalized circuit for "competitors" or something ... that's a fine desire.

Going around calling yourself or your buddies the best? Absurd. At least in the current environment.


That said, luck is only partially responsible, and there are armies that can tackle most or all situations ... "bad match-up" is an overstated phenomenon, presuming you're bringing an appropriate list to your situation.

I agree with all of this, well said.

MVBrandt wrote:http://whiskey40k.blogspot.com/2010/05/social-contracts-and-needs-in-wargaming.html

That says all my thoughts on the subject you're leaning into with that one, Jenkins.

In summation, though ... everyone has a different set of needs when it comes to what's "enjoyable" for them ... and they should pursue those needs out of self-respect.

That said, sportsmanship is best summed up IMO by a quote from Jesse Owens. When asked about sportsmanship and what "winning" and competing were all about, he said ...

"[Winning] starts with complete command of the fundamentals. Then it takes desire, determination, discipline, and self-sacrifice. And finally, it takes a great deal of love, fairness and respect for your fellow man. Put all these together, and even if you don't win, how can you lose?"


RESPECT for your fellow man is not the same as PANDERING to him. If you bring an army and skillset that vastly outstrips your opponent, you are NOT respecting him if you "play off" or lose on purpose, even in a friendly game. That said, rubbing things in, acting like a total douchetard, cheating, etc. are also behaviors that do not respect him. The person with the weaker list bears the responsibility for respect ALSO ... digging at him b/c your list can't compete with his or b/c you don't like his approach to winning is not necessarily respectful at all either.

MVBrandt wrote:
Going around calling yourself or your buddies the best? Absurd. At least in the current environment.

Michael I am curious as to why you say that? Is this in line with the hobby event syndrome?

G

MVBrandt wrote:
That said, luck is only partially responsible, and there are armies that can tackle most or all situations ... "bad match-up" is an overstated phenomenon, presuming you're bringing an appropriate list to your situation.

That's partially true, but there are also armies that have known weaknesses, and hope to capitalize on their strengths versus their expected opponents. If you expect the field to be 90% meched-up armies and only 10% horde armies, then bringing an army that has a 75% win-rate versus mech and a 15% win-rate against horde is a better overall decision than bringing an army that has a 50% win-rate versus mech and a 50% win-rate versus horde. In a three-game tournament, the total chance of encountering one of those horde armies is still fairly slim (less than 30%), and scoring the wins over mech becomes worth it. Your overall winning percent is higher if you focus on the mech and hope you don't hit the horde.

This is a reasonable way of deciding what army to bring. When it plays out, it can play out big. But, you do run the risk of hitting the matchup you're knowingly hedging against playing. I don't think that this means the list wasn't appropriate to the situation. Using game theory, it was a more appropriate list to bring to the situation, and you just got unlucky...

Why do you people actually care whether or not Cali or FL have better players? Are you people getting government grants or something?!?!?

BBF:

Let's hypothesize a perfect environment, where this happens:


Every tourney over 32 players in the country that wants to qualifies its top 2 finishers for a National Invitational.

That National Invitational wags a $2,500 cash prize in front of the winner for a winner-take-all event.

Let's place the tournament in the exact middle of the country (wherever that is).

How many of the country's top 2 finishers per event can even afford to attend? Let's say a miracle happens and we get 50% attendance, for a total of 64 players.

The tournament goes pure competitive, and simply does win/loss format using the 40k rulebook and FAQ's, using the VP tiebreaker from the back of the actual rulebook. Nothing else. You play rounds until there's a single undefeated player, who takes home 2 and a half grand with him.


Is this the "best" player in the country?

Impossible, STILL, to determine or say ... and absurd to say. It's the winner of A National Invitational oriented around competitive evaluation, sure ... but half the people who qualified couldn't come, people who weren't able to make a qualifier weren't included in the discussion, they didn't use INAT, or they didn't use some other FAQ, or they didn't use ... whatever.


Do you see where I'm going? Until and unless the hobby is professionalized (and I am not saying it should be), "superlatives" are wasted breath. Stick to calling people AMONG the best, but placing them, ranking them, or saying things like "my state has 4 of the best 10 players in the world." Well, come on now ... nobody is ever going to be able to prove or get consensus on that ... so why go down that road?

Stick to suggesting that the people you play with ROCK at the game, and you'll get agreement and buy-in from about everyone. No?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Redbeard wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
That said, luck is only partially responsible, and there are armies that can tackle most or all situations ... "bad match-up" is an overstated phenomenon, presuming you're bringing an appropriate list to your situation.

That's partially true, but there are also armies that have known weaknesses, and hope to capitalize on their strengths versus their expected opponents. If you expect the field to be 90% meched-up armies and only 10% horde armies, then bringing an army that has a 75% win-rate versus mech and a 15% win-rate against horde is a better overall decision than bringing an army that has a 50% win-rate versus mech and a 50% win-rate versus horde. In a three-game tournament, the total chance of encountering one of those horde armies is still fairly slim (less than 30%), and scoring the wins over mech becomes worth it. Your overall winning percent is higher if you focus on the mech and hope you don't hit the horde.

This is a reasonable way of deciding what army to bring. When it plays out, it can play out big. But, you do run the risk of hitting the matchup you're knowingly hedging against playing. I don't think that this means the list wasn't appropriate to the situation. Using game theory, it was a more appropriate list to bring to the situation, and you just got unlucky...

This isn't the theory I personally use ... I take an army with extreme dice redundancy and low odds of things such as: units being pinned or breaking, "missing" all of my anti-tank or anti-infantry shots, being tabled. My goal is never to maximize one portion of my game, but to enable my player skill to "win" against any list and my list's redundancy, resiliency and low vulnerability to the odds to keep it alive until the end, and give me a shot at making it out the other side. If I lose, it's b/c the opponent was superior, rather than he simply had that 15% bad luck match-up against me list vs. list-wise. Your approach is certainly not wrong at all ... just not where I come from, hence my different view of it is all.

@BBF

Sometimes I think you intentionally don't read a persons full statement or intentionally take things the wrong way. MVB was saying the same thing I have been. Without a codified and standardized circuit and without getting all the "good" players together multiple times a year there is no proper way to say who is the "best". And Karl responded for me to your dig.

@Samples

I don't think we do. I think it's more some of us don't think it's possible to say where the "best" players are from.

Look if someone wins a lot of big GTs they are pretty damn good... no make that really damn good. If you and others think it does not matter then why did a certain someone have a sh*t fit when Marc beat them in Vegas? That is all I am saying. Stop trying to throw others under the bus to prop yerself. And I realize now this has turned into an exercise who will have the last word. Sheesh... stop repeating yourself man.

G

@BBF

Wow, angry much over nothing? I don't think I've said a single thing that throw Marc under the bus. Glad your not overreacting anything BBF (this is sarcasm).

No, BBF, that's not what anyone's doing - simmer a little, my friend.

As far as I can tell everyone here thinks Marc is "really damn good." I know for a fact I'm "really damn good." Most know that Hulk is "really damn good." Etc.

The only dispute is if someone started to say "Marc is the best in the country," or "Florida gamers are better than any other state's gamers," etc. Superlatives generate disputes b/c they are impossible to determine in this hobby AT PRESENT and IN the present situation.

Qualifications, though, are NOT impossible to evaluate - Marc is "really damn good." He is not "the best" ... b/c nobody can say that at present. We cool?

sorry Hulk, you're right. Although, I can't help but notice it's mostly my fellow southerners who have instigated this.... go figure lol. But honestly, all this talk of who's best is just flaming this thread to death. It's almost 100% OT.

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

Hey now! I'm NOT in SoCal! Ewww.

So, I'm confused. Are we off topic here, or is this some intrinsic part of 'Ardboyz?


Question on missions:

Diplomacy Fails: Holding the center should have some meaning. Deployment for observers should be "may", as in optional, vs. "must". If a player only has MC for an HQ they should/shouldnot deploy? Demons should have to randomize the half that comes in first turn and choose units from that? And icons or no icons useable on turn 1?

Feeback on other missions? or ok.

Feedback on 'Ardboyz in general?

Post here or PM me, and I'll put it in my email to GW. They asked me for feedback on the event.