Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

@NotMatt

I had a long rebuttal but then I realized it's not really worth it. We're coming from different viewpoints. Though I agree that any event you are competing at is competitive however I do think that that doesn't make the format competitive. Two different things.

Either way, great event from the sound of it.

Any tournament can be competitive, regardless of format. People often mix up the notions of evaluative and competitive. I.E. a tournament's competitive SIDE should in a vacuum fairly evaluate the best player in THAT tournament for THAT weekend, and the path to achieve best player should be appropriately predictable ... perceivable consequences is a phrase often bandied about.

Long story short, for the competitive side, a player should be able to say "If X, then Y." If I Massacre every game, I win, for instance.

The reply was given to this initial objection that it's the same as any other event where the actions of others invariably influence your result, and that's not entirely true.

In a NOVA, AdeptiCon, Bay Area, etc., type event - you're going into it knowing flatly that if you win every one of your games, you'll win the event's competitive track, period.

In a Battle Points and Margin of Victory type event, you're going into it knowing that the more you win BY, the better your chances of winning, unless someone beats people even MORE than you ... this is in the VACUUM sense of tournament theory LESS ideal than the first set, but still - you only will lose because someone else flat out did BETTER; that's to say, your final placement is not impacted by those who performed worse than you, only by those who performed better.

In the Throne of Skulls format, the water gets muddied even more because your final placement is not necessarily at all related to who does BETTER than you, but to how well your peers BELOW you did. Hence, you're getting quite far away from the simple notions of perceivable consequences, self-determination, and the ability to win by ... winning.

As I said earlier, I think Throne of Skulls sounds like a resounding success for those who attended, but it is not very accurate or appropriate to throw up the hands and lump ALL tournaments in together as equally evaluative or "fair" in giving players control over their own destinies.

Such control is not necessarily valuable - to the originator of the Throne of Skulls format, it was not valuable at all; generally, it was irrelevant whether players had much control over their own fates. That's OK, because it's openly stated that's the case - the format blatantly makes clear that your final placement in the overall competitive track will be in many ways divorced from your own personal success .... winning all your games helps you, but guarantees you nothing. Too bad so sad, yatta yatta.

Competitiveness is determined by the closeness of the field; if Michael Jordan in his prime were to compete against me in the most FAIR field possible at Basketball, he'd murder me so horribly it wouldn't even be funny - the fact that the format in which we played was fair and even and balanced and evaluative is irrelevant to COMPETITIVENESS ... such a match would not be competitive at all, despite the fairness of the format.

Similarly, if everyone playing in Throne of Skulls was a highly competitive player with a strong list and a lot of skills, the event was like to be EXTREMELY competitive, whether or not the final placement of the winner was his fault or the fault of his peers.

It's important, I think, that when these types of discussions start to heat up, we all take a step back and realize that there's a) a big difference between competitive and evaluative, and b) TOs are the ones with the rights to choose what is and isn't a valued function of their format, and as long as they are very clear well ahead of time about how things will pan out ... well, more power to them and try not to jump their case so much; it's not as if they've deceived or harmed you in any way.

This is most especially the case when evaluating Throne of Skulls ... the field was certainly competitive, and the event was extremely well advertised and clear in how it would play out. Beyond that, Ed and co threw an amazing time by the feedback of all who participated, and mostly great players won awards. I think it's a good point for all of us to call it a success, shake hands on differences, and look ahead to the next big events

Well said, Mike. I agree with all of your points.

There is room for all types of events, and all types of events can be fun.

cheers!

I am a big proponent of any format that encourages army diversity (which is why I have always been in the Battle Point camp), so in principle, I liked what the format created. But it has some issues, for sure.

The high value of favorites votes allow for a lot of shenanigans and tilt things in ways I am not fond of. Its also a huge boost to play someone who is also playing your army, as you lower the "team" average by pounding them. I am not sure how you go about fixing those issues, while preserving the positives of the base system they used.

The other issue is that the system all but encourages you to take the most nakedly abusive army your codex allows (or guess right and be the only person to show up with the army, like Scott Hokum did with beasts) with no thought to making something that looks like an army or a theme. This is not really an issue in 40k (balance is better there, at least among the more rescent books), but in Fantasy letting Teclis or the Power Scroll into the game massively alters things.

It will be interesting to see the actual points and how much the friend votes altered things, when they post the scoresheets later this month. I am reserving my final verdict on the system until then.

I found that generally, the people that won each category did the best with that army overall unless it came down to tie-breakers which were sports/army roster. It seemed like "soft scores" were only needed for determining tie breakers and that doesn't seem too far fetched from how many other tournaments do things. Regardless, I definitely did have a great time and all of my wins were very fulfilling so I feel that I actually earned the award I got =).

Like many people have mentioned, it was a competitive event, hands down, as the level of play represented was very high. Evaluative? Well, for each army it certainly did seem that way; for overall winner, though? No, I do not think that was evaluative at all.

And Reece, I think there were at LEAST 10 Eldar players or more, lol, I was surprised how many I saw!

Was there that many? Wow, I thought only 8. That's great! Eldar are great.!!!

On the GW website, it has info for the next GT, to be held in glorious Memphis!

At least they will allow people to buy tickets. I can go down and see my ex co-workers!

Any full results or spreadsheets or anything of the ilk up anywhere? Trying to see how someone I know did.

Hi All,

I agree with Reece. I'm very thankful!
I’m thankful that GW had this event. I’m thankful I was able to have the chance to go to this Event; I know some out there had life stuff come up and were not able to make it. I hope to see you guys at next year’s ToS or at another Tournament soon. I am very thankful I was able to meet SO many new gamers as well as meet up with some of the usual suspects. Everyone was great and I’m happy to say I had 5 really fun games with really friendly gamers that I hope I will get the chance to play with again.

This Event reminded me of the reasons I started this game and I want to thank GW for that. It’s a great game that I love to play and when it’s played with great people it just makes it all the better.

Even Brittani said this was a really cool Event and in my book that means something. ;-)

Cheers!!!

As I won the whole thing (and did not go 5-0 to do it), i can not comment on the ToS as anything I could say would be seen as self-serving...

That being said, I have never had a tougher group of players beating each other to death, never seen a tournament with the army diversity we had, nor had such an amazing atmosphere for such a competitive tournament.

Whatever you think about how the winner should be decided and the tournament scored, without a question GW put together a great event with amazing players... and not one fist fight despite mass amounts of alcohol.

A success in my book. Now I just need to scrape up cash for Memphis.

Brandt, that was one of the most well-written and -thought out posts on the nature of competetive wargaming and differences in tournament format... ever.

Kudos, good sir.

Has anyone got any response for the spreadsheet with the overall final standings?

My email to Ed since the event has gone unanswered. He said at the event everyone would get their respective results on Tuesday but so far nothing.

@Dugg
Yes, and Britanni was hot as hell! Thanks for bringing some femininity to what was largely a weeny roast!

Also, I wrote a review of the event for BoK if anyone is interested:

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2011/06/22/indy-gt-circuit-throne-of-skulls-by-reece-robbins/

@Reece
Yeah, she also wanted me to tell you goodbye and it was nice meeting you.

Her fav. Army was the Pink Chaos. Go figure. I think it was the SnM butterflies more than the Pink. What's Alexs NN on here? I'll have to tell him his Army is a Chic magnet.

I'll check out your BoK post now.

I think Team TableWar will have a "Team Manager" at all the big GTs from now on. They are just so helpful. The time issues that come with most GTs wasn't that bad but having an extra person to help us out was priceless.

I didn't get enough photos but will post some tonight. Anyone else posting any?

http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a26/Sneekygit/TOS%202011/

KeithGatchalian wrote:On the GW website, it has info for the next GT, to be held in glorious Memphis!

Don't lie...there is nothing glorious about Memphis...

Themason wrote:As I won the whole thing (and did not go 5-0 to do it), i can not comment on the ToS as anything I could say would be seen as self-serving...

And chest thumping isn't self-serving George? I have to listen to this for the next year and a half!

In all seriousness though, congratulations to you for winning George. I also want to congratulate Mike Paganini who won Best High Elves. I found the tournament to be both exciting and exceptionally competitive. Some games were definitely harder then others, but every single one of them was enjoyable. My only real complaint was trying to balance the problem with guys playing the same opponent twice by giving them a free "favorite opponent" vote. I wasn't too keen on that, but everything else was fantastic for the most part.

I would just like to say that I personally had a fantastic, dare I say, nearly magically fun time at this event. I give massive, massive kudos to GW's event team for running this and the only thing that saddens me is that they will be pulling it from Vegas next year and putting it in Memphis. No offense to Memphis (I'm sure there are plenty of wonderful things to enjoy there), but its no Vegas.

I also feel a bit sorry for anyone who won a ticket and didn't go specifically because of the format of the tournament. Obviously if the only reason you attend events is to have that true evaluative (thanks Mike for much more correct terminology than 'competitive') experience, I can certainly understand why this event wouldn't have appealed to you on paper. But honestly when the whole package was put together this was just SO MUCH FREAKING FUN that any and all niggling complaints about format were frankly irrelevant IMHO.

When it comes to format, Ed Spettigue actually made an announcement before the tournament addressing this point. He thanked everyone for coming and admitted that he knew that the format was not everyone's cup of tea, but that the Throne of Skulls was their (GW's) tournament...meaning that it highlights the aspect of the game & hobby that they feel are important. Obviously many people wanted a 'finals' style of event that would crown a nationwide 'champion' of the game, but I don't think GW ever made any claims that the Throne of Skulls would be a 'finals' of any sort. After seeing the amount of cash they dropped to give out a free event, as others have said this was much more of a 'thank you' to the players than anything else. I think the independent tournament circuit is who will have to organize some sort of finals/masters event because that sort of tournament mindset is not what GW wants to represent (and it is their right to run their event any way they see fit).

I hope that everyone can recognize that it is okay (or in my opinion, a great thing) to have many events all with different formats, thereby allowing you to have a different style of experience depending on which tournament you're playing in...and of course if you don't like a certain format, then you skip that tournament.


While the Throne of Skulls format is rather poor at being evaluative of player skill, that isn't its stated goal! Instead it provided a few interesting twists on the normal tournament experience that were frankly a breath of fresh air for me personally. Would I want every tournament run this way? Absolutely not. But would I play in this tournament format again? Absolutely without hesitation!


The format made me feel like it was 'okay' to bring out my Tau army again and not feel like I was completely wasting my time. My only 'goal' for the tournament was to be the best Tau player out of the 4 who attended (at which I still failed, but that's another story). But I knew going in that I could take my Tau and have just as good a chance walking away the victor as anyone else, something that isn't true with any other tournament format I've played in.

The format also created a built in brotherhood and rivalry between me and my fellow Tau players, and it was fun to talk to them in between games to see how everyone was doing...again, something that doesn't usually occur in more 'standard' formats.

Beyond that, I can only comment on my own personal path of games I played. I don't know if it was due to the fact that my lowly (2-2-1) Tau record kept me playing 'nice' players all tournament, but the fact is, I played five different army types (Blood Angels, Tau, Eldar, Space Marines & IG) and I played five incredibly nice opponents, any of whom I would gladly play again and twice on Sunday.

And not only that, but besides my very first game (against the Deep Striking Blood Angels), all of my games were incredibly close and hard fought...and even my first randomly paired game against the Blood Angel army it was mainly my lack of recent practice with Tau that kept it from being much more of a tightly contested battle. In other words, there weren't really any blow-outs (despite me playing Tau) and I didn't have *any* d-bag type opponents.

So from the point of view of what the Throne of Skulls is trying to emphasize (fun, tough games against great people) all I can say is that from my perspective is that they hit the nail on the head.

In addition, playing 1,500 points with 2 1/2 hour rounds meant that FINALLY I had a tournament where things were relaxed. What an amazing feeling! To be able to take a moment to sit back and ponder your next move without worrying about whether or not you were destroying any chance for you and your opponent to finish your game on time. And when I did finish early? I was able to check out other games, go grab a quick nap, etc. In short, the actual experience of playing tournament games was much, much more pleasurable than usual because the typical RUSH, RUSH, RUSH attitude that is normally necessary to finish tournament games was not present.

Added on top of that was really, really good catered food, a spacious gaming hall, (compared to most tournaments) great gaming tables, and of course the amazing post-game fun to be had in Vegas, oh and of course that the whole thing was FREE! Put it all together and you had a truly amazing, amazing event.

I was soooo glad to have gone and I had just an amazingly fun time. I cannot emphasize it enough.

Dugg wrote:@Reece
Yeah, she also wanted me to tell you goodbye and it was nice meeting you.

Dude, bring her to another event! Haha! She was hot and nice.

@Yak
You nailed it. I had a blast and would totally go to another tournament with this format so long as it had a few more tweaks to it.

@yakface
Your comments perfectly describe the tournament, I definitely have not had as much fun playing in a tournament as I did at tos. Although the fact that it was on the strip and there was a grand total of 9 of us from calgary there may have helped a bit

Thanks for the games to anyone I played.(razorspam fleshtearers) As well as any my buddy played(orange mechdar) And was also nice to meet a few of the people from the american tournie scene.

Definitive results up for this anywhere?

@Dugg.
Glad to hear that Brittani liked my army

@Twalks
I think we played in game 4. Thanks again for the game, I'm positive my obliterators won't be so accurate the next time we play!

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=&categoryId=300002§ion=community&pIndex=2&aId=15000018a&start=3&multiPageMode=true

I'm the sexy guy in the Star Wars shirt.

Best CSM doesn't get a pic?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I also think that the format really helped spread out the army types. Multiples of SoB, Tau, Eldar, etc is really nice to see at any event. Not having 80% GK/SW/BA/IG is unusual.

Every time I hear Tony Kopach's name, I keep forgetting hes like 5 years younger than me :(

Mannahnin must have been too handsome to accurately photograph (yes I'm sucking up to the mods).

Great they posted the results everyone knew already...has anyone got a response on getting the spreadsheet with the overall results yet??

I would like to see where all the people who didnt get an award landed with the ToS scoring system.

I still don't see why you can't have a more competitive scoring system (e.g. not playing the same player twice, no stackable best player votes being worth a significant amount, battle points to differentiate wins), while maintaining the fun of competing against other places in your race for a "best in race" award. You can still have all the "pros" of the ToS system, and eliminate many of the cons.

Hobby players can still have their fun in a competitively structured system, but competitive players cannot have their fun in a hobby structured system. Why alienate one of those groups when you can please both?

Before you go "Oh I'm a top player and *I* had fun, so nothing's wrong," think about this: If the system had better scoring, but kept the in-race prizes, would you have had LESS fun? Doubtful. People can still have fun with their Tau armies, but people can also feel good about winning overall rather than feel like they won some sort of lottery. However, there's definitely a large group of people that did not attend, BECAUSE of the poor scoring system (as evidenced by the need to open up tickets to friends of attendees).

There's nothing lost by having a sound scoring system. So while we can thank Ed for putting this on and working hard, while we can thank GW for a free tournament with free food, it will never make sense to me why they would implement a scoring system which would alienate so many players, when there are systems that can achieve their goals WITHOUT alienating so many players.

I just can't understand why you guys seem so accepting about that. Or maybe it's learned helplessness. GW is just so stupid and they will never learn that we've trained ourselves to have low expectations and know it's not worth fighting for change.

Leenus wrote: However, there's definitely a large group of people that did not attend, BECAUSE of the poor scoring system (as evidenced by the need to open up tickets to friends of attendees).

I dont think the lack of better attendance had to with the scoring system as much as the: 1.) no holds barred/no comp scored/all SCs allowed composition system AND the fact it was held on Father's Day weekend.

Aside, the event was spectacular. More than enough solid players for me. Every game was tough, there was no one I played where I felt like was "clubbing a baby seal" meaning the level of challenge far exceeded that of other large Indy GT formats, at least in my experience.

I have no complaints whatsoever other than the fact the players dont have the final overall results(and werent able to view it at the end of the event on Sunday). That is strange, Ed and company were very responsive pre-event and now after the event the emails for the spreadsheet go unanswered...worrisome.

Wow. I like how most of the criticism for this event is from people who didn't go. Why not just let folks reminisce about the event and talk about it without being downers? Or start a new thread to talk about scoring.