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Sadly Adepticon used to factor in theme and soft scores more heavily in the final results. Unfortunantly it has turned into a massive 'Ard Boyz tourney, with a painting requirement. People we ridiculously rude and the quality of the armies on display were way down hardly anyone displayed their armies for players choice awards. There were several armies painted at the bare minimum 3 color standard. Something virtually unheard of in Adepticon championships of the past. This was my last championship event. 'Ard Boyz tournaments have their place and I appreciated and enjoyed them for what they were, however you have certain expectations going to an event like that and that was not my experience in a previous championship event.

Are the vods for the finals posted somewhere?

 NecronLord3 wrote:
Sadly Adepticon used to factor in theme and soft scores more heavily in the final results. Unfortunantly it has turned into a massive 'Ard Boyz tourney, with a painting requirement. People we ridiculously rude and the quality of the armies on display were way down hardly anyone displayed their armies for players choice awards. There were several armies painted at the bare minimum 3 color standard. Something virtually unheard of in Adepticon championships of the past. This was my last championship event. 'Ard Boyz tournaments have their place and I appreciated and enjoyed them for what they were, however you have certain expectations going to an event like that and that was not my experience in a previous championship event.

When you say people were "ridiculously rude" could you give some examples of the behavior you saw?

@relic: Vanilla Marines got 2nd place..

The assumptions people make are ridiculous...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I had 8 great games, with very VERY polite players. I also had the good fortune of facing SEVEN different codexes. Say what you will, but if you weren't there, you probably don't know what you're talking about.

Big Bucket of win to team TSKF

 hippesthippo wrote:
@relic: Vanilla Marines got 2nd place..

The assumptions people make are ridiculous...

Only way that happened is because of a hybrid list. Space marines/IG The winner of the tournament had a Hybrid list as well, thus the way of 6th ED.

These are the pros and I congratulate all those who participated in the tournament.

 NecronLord3 wrote:
Sadly Adepticon used to factor in theme and soft scores more heavily in the final results. Unfortunantly it has turned into a massive 'Ard Boyz tourney, with a painting requirement. People we ridiculously rude and the quality of the armies on display were way down hardly anyone displayed their armies for players choice awards. There were several armies painted at the bare minimum 3 color standard. Something virtually unheard of in Adepticon championships of the past. This was my last championship event. 'Ard Boyz tournaments have their place and I appreciated and enjoyed them for what they were, however you have certain expectations going to an event like that and that was not my experience in a previous championship event.

sadly you are wrong. Adepticon has always had people who brought the lowest quality attempts to just get by. For every Redbeard, there are ten people with barely meets qualifactions painting.
I have been to 4 Adepticons, 3 there in lombard and 1 in schaumberg. I missed out this year because work has me overseas. it is an event that has no qualifactions other then getting a ticket before they sell out. The painting and soft score took a dump value because most armies got similar paint scores. the difference between winning and 2nd became how heavy handed you opponent in game 1 was with sportsmanship score. There is no good or fair way to judge sportsmanship and putting high value on painting gets sketch if you have gone with subtle hilights. The 40k Friendly might have been more you speed.

 hippesthippo wrote:
@relic: Vanilla Marines got 2nd place..

The assumptions people make are ridiculous...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I had 8 great games, with very VERY polite players. I also had the good fortune of facing SEVEN different codexes. Say what you will, but if you weren't there, you probably don't know what you're talking about.

Space Wolves (aka Cheese Wolves) are not vanilla marines.
He spammed cheap grey hunters with a bunch of undercosted IG stuff......

What? Kopach used Vanilla marines with 2 guard blobs. So I don't think you know what your talking about ;p

Oh, really, you were there? Please, tell me what he played again, because I couldn't see it two feet away from me.

This thread has turned into a pile of rubbish. Congrats to all who competed. I'm done here.

Cheers,
Ken

Chancetragedy wrote:
What? Kopach used Vanilla marines with 2 guard blobs. So I don't think you know what your talking about ;p

The early reports I saw showed Space Wolves + IG. If he used Vanilla, I stand corrected (and would be very surprised).

Relic07 wrote:

Chancetragedy wrote:
What? Kopach used Vanilla marines with 2 guard blobs. So I don't think you know what your talking about ;p

The early reports I saw showed Space Wolves + IG. If he used Vanilla, I stand corrected (and would be very surprised).

His list was
Khan
Libby
2xtacticals
3x storm talons
3xthunderfires

Commissar
2xPCS
50 man blob
40 man blob

That was what I know of, there may have been more.

Relic07 might have been confused with discussions of Tony's list for the NOVA.

Relic07 might be confused, period.

NecronLord3 wrote:Sadly Adepticon used to factor in theme and soft scores more heavily in the final results. Unfortunantly it has turned into a massive 'Ard Boyz tourney, with a painting requirement....

I guess there's that thing about pleasing some of the people some of the time. Adepticon used to have a number of games and then declare a winner, and used strength of victory to determine this (along with soft scores). Then other events decided that strength of victory wasn't as good as win/loss, and due to the pressure of the most vocal, Adepticon followed suit. But win/loss means that someone who goes 3-1 and is super friendly and has a nicely painted force is out of the running, while someone at 4-0 who's a bit shady and barely painted advances.

The event changed because some vocal people demanded to know who the "true winner" was, and defined winning as going undefeated.

But, they kept the soft scores in place, just as they had in prior years. There was a Best Overall handed out on Thursday night, which included appearance and sportsmanship points. The difference is that the "competitive" crowd largely ignored it. Yakface posted those results on page 10 of this thread, and congrats to Eric Hoerger for taking Best Overall. (And I think I may have been the first person to say this in the six pages since it was posted).

The Finals on Friday really are more of an 'ard boyz event. And good for those people who got there and had fun playing in it. But to me, that's more of a sad footnote of what has become important in our hobby than the top goal to strive for. To me, what Eric did, winning games, being fun to play against, and looking good doing it, is the loftier achievement. And maybe if a few more of us here were to recognize his achievement, rather than view it as simply a "qualify Yes/No" thing, then others would spend more time on those things too.

Congrats Eric! Anyone have pics of his army?

Redbeard understands the intention of the event. AdeptiCon has always strived to offer a variety of 40K events. There is much more going on than the 40K Championships. If you do not like the qualification format of the Championships, or just see past the Thursday awards because they are somehow less valid - then try another event. The Friendly even used the same mission format as the Championships, but I am positive that event had a very different feel/player attitude. It really doesn't have as much to do with rules, missions and scoring formats as it does with people's attitudes and perceptions going into an event.

Matthias - I think there is a flaw in the implementation of that intent though.

There is a fairly large base of, shall we say, highly competitive players. These players believe that the game is best played with the toughest lists possible, often with an uncompromising approach at the table, and that winning is the measure of success. (I'd also like to say that I actually don't have a problem with people with this approach, it's not how I like my hobby, but it's a perfectly valid way to want to play).

There is another group of players who would like to play games with strangers, see a variety of themed lists, and while they would like to win, don't really see winning as more important than having list with a theme.

The current implementation puts these two types of players in the same event and as a result, those who were looking for the greater variety, nice paint jobs, and so on, get to face the 18 wraith lists. Talking with Jim Wappel yesterday, he said something about losing so fast that he had to find ways to kill two hours between rounds. That's probably not fun for him, and not fun for his opponent either.

The way this seems to work out is that the people who want the really competitive scene get it. Maybe they crush a "baby seal" in the first round, and then fight each other for the next seven rounds. Meanwhile, the people who wanted more of the old GT flavor are largely left wanting. Sure, they could try the "Friendly" - but that's not so much friendly as wacky, with additional rules and modifiers thrown around.

The end result is that, in spite of being positioned as more of a middle-of-the-road offering, with the second day being left for the highly competitive, it ends up being a field of mostly highly competitive players (or at least, those who aspire to be and play lists designed as such).

I don't really have any suggestions for how to 'fix' this, unless possibly split the championship into two tracks. There could be the 'ard boyz' track, with no soft-scores, that leads to qualification for day two, and there could be the 'GT' track, that is a one-day only affair with traditional soft-scores. They could use identical missions, identical time slots, and tables, with the difference being tracking results for the two separately. That would give those who wanted the opportunity to decide a 'true' champion the opportunity to do so, while also giving those who prefer lists with themes a place to play.

 Redbeard wrote:

NecronLord3 wrote:Sadly Adepticon used to factor in theme and soft scores more heavily in the final results. Unfortunantly it has turned into a massive 'Ard Boyz tourney, with a painting requirement....

I guess there's that thing about pleasing some of the people some of the time. Adepticon used to have a number of games and then declare a winner, and used strength of victory to determine this (along with soft scores). Then other events decided that strength of victory wasn't as good as win/loss, and due to the pressure of the most vocal, Adepticon followed suit. But win/loss means that someone who goes 3-1 and is super friendly and has a nicely painted force is out of the running, while someone at 4-0 who's a bit shady and barely painted advances.

The event changed because some vocal people demanded to know who the "true winner" was, and defined winning as going undefeated.

But, they kept the soft scores in place, just as they had in prior years. There was a Best Overall handed out on Thursday night, which included appearance and sportsmanship points. The difference is that the "competitive" crowd largely ignored it. Yakface posted those results on page 10 of this thread, and congrats to Eric Hoerger for taking Best Overall. (And I think I may have been the first person to say this in the six pages since it was posted).

The Finals on Friday really are more of an 'ard boyz event. And good for those people who got there and had fun playing in it. But to me, that's more of a sad footnote of what has become important in our hobby than the top goal to strive for. To me, what Eric did, winning games, being fun to play against, and looking good doing it, is the loftier achievement. And maybe if a few more of us here were to recognize his achievement, rather than view it as simply a "qualify Yes/No" thing, then others would spend more time on those things too.

Exactly, as far as soft scores go, 2 of my teammates finished in the top 16 and I think they placed 7th and 74th overall. Jessie Newton finished 7th overall but in-terms of battle points got 1st after day one.

I really really enjoyed the way they scored the events, I think its the best way to try to please as many people as you can.

In an event this big its all about the masses as someone will always be sour about it.

 skkipper wrote:

 NecronLord3 wrote:
Sadly Adepticon used to factor in theme and soft scores more heavily in the final results. Unfortunantly it has turned into a massive 'Ard Boyz tourney, with a painting requirement. People we ridiculously rude and the quality of the armies on display were way down hardly anyone displayed their armies for players choice awards. There were several armies painted at the bare minimum 3 color standard. Something virtually unheard of in Adepticon championships of the past. This was my last championship event. 'Ard Boyz tournaments have their place and I appreciated and enjoyed them for what they were, however you have certain expectations going to an event like that and that was not my experience in a previous championship event.

sadly you are wrong. Adepticon has always had people who brought the lowest quality attempts to just get by. For every Redbeard, there are ten people with barely meets qualifactions painting.
I have been to 4 Adepticons, 3 there in lombard and 1 in schaumberg. I missed out this year because work has me overseas. it is an event that has no qualifactions other then getting a ticket before they sell out. The painting and soft score took a dump value because most armies got similar paint scores. the difference between winning and 2nd became how heavy handed you opponent in game 1 was with sportsmanship score. There is no good or fair way to judge sportsmanship and putting high value on painting gets sketch if you have gone with subtle hilights. The 40k Friendly might have been more you speed.

It's very interesting to me that appearance is a topic of conversation.

My Genestealer Cult (pics and links in my sig) scored a 24 for painting per the results they posted on Thursday. I was completely shocked by that. I guess the judge felt how he felt -- and checklist scoring can certainly create distortions -- but I think a much higher score was a reasonable expectation based both on my application of their checklist and the army's pedigree as a Best Appearance winner at Baltimore and other awards and recognition.

Now, I thought there was a chance I was gonna get hosed on appearance a little when the clearly rushed judge took maybe 40 seconds to look at my army -- while I was only partway done setting it up on my display -- and never picked up a single model. If that's the kind of judging that we can expect, then maybe it's time to go to some sort of pass/fail painting system for the Championships. At least it'd be honest.

Ultimately, it is what it is and I certainly don't need validation from Adepticon about the army. The kind comments from Dakkaites and everyone out there mean much more to me, and I have awards on my shelf already. The GCult is a poor competitive army that loses a lot of games (LOL) but I wanted to share it since I haven't played it much publicly in recent years, and I'm glad that I could do that.

But I will say this -- if I was going to participate in the Championships again, I would bring a gak painted army instead of dragging a top shelf army onto a plane. I could score a 24 again with a few slapdash weeks of work instead of years of time and care.

-Chris Showers

 Redbeard wrote:
Matthias - I think there is a flaw in the implementation of that intent though.

There is a fairly large base of, shall we say, highly competitive players. These players believe that the game is best played with the toughest lists possible, often with an uncompromising approach at the table, and that winning is the measure of success. (I'd also like to say that I actually don't have a problem with people with this approach, it's not how I like my hobby, but it's a perfectly valid way to want to play).

There is another group of players who would like to play games with strangers, see a variety of themed lists, and while they would like to win, don't really see winning as more important than having list with a theme.

The current implementation puts these two types of players in the same event and as a result, those who were looking for the greater variety, nice paint jobs, and so on, get to face the 18 wraith lists. Talking with Jim Wappel yesterday, he said something about losing so fast that he had to find ways to kill two hours between rounds. That's probably not fun for him, and not fun for his opponent either.

The way this seems to work out is that the people who want the really competitive scene get it. Maybe they crush a "baby seal" in the first round, and then fight each other for the next seven rounds. Meanwhile, the people who wanted more of the old GT flavor are largely left wanting. Sure, they could try the "Friendly" - but that's not so much friendly as wacky, with additional rules and modifiers thrown around.

The end result is that, in spite of being positioned as more of a middle-of-the-road offering, with the second day being left for the highly competitive, it ends up being a field of mostly highly competitive players (or at least, those who aspire to be and play lists designed as such).

I don't really have any suggestions for how to 'fix' this, unless possibly split the championship into two tracks. There could be the 'ard boyz' track, with no soft-scores, that leads to qualification for day two, and there could be the 'GT' track, that is a one-day only affair with traditional soft-scores. They could use identical missions, identical time slots, and tables, with the difference being tracking results for the two separately. That would give those who wanted the opportunity to decide a 'true' champion the opportunity to do so, while also giving those who prefer lists with themes a place to play.

The majority of the players in the championships seemed to be pretty nice, of course your gonna have that guy who is an ass but in 256 people, your going to get a few of them. You can totally play hard lists and not be a dick about it. All the guys I know who finished in the top 16 or ended up loosing on the final round of day one are fantastic guys, who are more then happy to talk tactics and lists.

There are enough people to split up the championships into two categories:

Traditional GT like the 2001-2006 GW GT days

and then have the General's Challenge that is closer to NOVA

Matthias you ran a masterful event. Everyone will not be happy as we are human and like to complain. But there is something for every type of player.

Our culture wants a winner. We don't have ties in the superbowl. If a player just wants to have fun and not win then it doesn't matter and there's nothing to discuss. But what I am hearing is that 'some' people want a fun event but not to play hardcore lists but still want to win. That is counter intuitive and doesn't really make sense in a tournament where people pay alot of $$ to come to Adepticon.

Overall I had a great time. I had 4 great games against great guys in the champs and the same thing in the team tournament (including some of my local buddies who nearly knocked us out). Most armies were painted to a pretty solid and higher level with a few that were obviously painted to the minimum but there were still some super impressive armies there.

Big thanks to the Adepticon crew for putting on a great event while dealing with some truly crazy weather. Already looking forward to next year

@Gorgon

I know how you feel on the paint scoring. I felt this year having a single person judge it wasn't going to work out. I brought an army that has been the second highest paint score to two GT's (60+ person) in the last 2 months and got a lower score than I expected. It came down to how you sold it and who you got to judge which was a little annoying.

@theHod and Tombking

Thanks for the congrats. We wanted to try to back to back the TT since it had never been done before and we were nervous wrecks the entire award ceremony everytime they announced something we could have won that would have kept us out of Overall. But it was a great event with great opponents for us.

Chancetragedy wrote:

Relic07 wrote:

Chancetragedy wrote:
What? Kopach used Vanilla marines with 2 guard blobs. So I don't think you know what your talking about ;p

The early reports I saw showed Space Wolves + IG. If he used Vanilla, I stand corrected (and would be very surprised).

His list was
Khan
Libby
2xtacticals
3x storm talons
3xthunderfires

Commissar
2xPCS
50 man blob
40 man blob

That was what I know of, there may have been more.[/quote/]

Almost right. He had a company command squad.I played him in Game seven. We actually tied and went to victory points.

I get what you are saying Redbeard, but I'd also argue that segregation of player types has its own pitfalls. If you recall we did this for a couple of years with the Warhammer 40K Invitational. Simultaneous tracks require more resources and do not guarantee an absence of one type of player in either event. Cutthroats will sign up for the relaxed track as they might see it as a means to an easier victory and a 128-player casual track will sell out in less than a day, leaving only the 'Ard Boyz track for those players that still want to play 40K (unless you are suggesting we run 2 256 person events...something we do not have the staff, terrain or space to do).

All that said, I hope it was clearly obvious this year that our goal was to place the focus back on the Team Tournament event, highlight the hard work Teams put into that event and relax the schedule to allow for a more social atmosphere. Bonus being, no one had to get up at 5:30 on Sunday...although, maybe that is proper punishment for these competitive types!!!

spaguatyrine wrote:
Matthias you ran a masterful event. Everyone will not be happy as we are human and like to complain. But there is something for every type of player.

Please do not confuse constructive criticism for complaining. Also, I don't believe there is something for everyone, as I feel like I'm one of the players that has no where to go to find what I want in an event.

Our culture wants a winner. We don't have ties in the superbowl. If a player just wants to have fun and not win then it doesn't matter and there's nothing to discuss. But what I am hearing is that 'some' people want a fun event but not to play hardcore lists but still want to win. That is counter intuitive and doesn't really make sense in a tournament where people pay alot of $$ to come to Adepticon.

It is not counter-intuitive at all. Some of us read the fluff. Some of us look at the new chaos books as ridiculous because Nurgle and Tzeentch shouldn't be running around together. It has little to do with not wanting to play hardcore lists, and more to do with wanting to play in a diverse field that's based on people's creativity, not their ability to read the internet and figure out what unit is undercosted in each codex. Sure, I want to win, but that's not the sole goal. If I wanted to, I too could run an army of the month and play with winning as the only thing that mattered, but that holds little appeal for me. And, in the past, there were events for people like me. At one point, there was the GT system and the 'ard boyz system running alongside each other. The GTs rewarded good play, but they also rewarded creativity, and artistry and the other things that make this hobby fun. And 'ard boyz was there for people who wanted to win games with beatsticks.

It's just as insulting for you to tell me, and other like me, that our approach to the game is invalid, or doesn't make sense, as it would be for me to call those looking for the competitive side of the game WAAC players. We both know that's not true, they're just different ways to approach the game, and both have a base of players who enjoy their way. The issue is that when you mix the two, those who write fluff-based lists end up being marginalized.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matthias wrote:
I get what you are saying Redbeard, but I'd also argue that segregation of player types has its own pitfalls.

Certainly, not saying it is not without challenges, but I'd feel bad for not at least trying to propose a solution.

... and a 128-player casual track will sell out in less than a day, leaving only the 'Ard Boyz track for those players that still want to play 40K (unless you are suggesting we run 2 256 person events...something we do not have the staff, terrain or space to do).

An interesting comment, as it certainly implies that there are more players interested in the casual approach than in the hardcore approach. A possible solution to that would be to have 256 slots, and let people self-segregate. The casual players don't need day two, and can function just fine without a power-of-two total, and if there really are fewer players interested in the hardcore event, day two could be a shorter affair to determine the ultimate winner. If people were allowed to pick what approach they wanted, I'd be really curious to see what the distribution between hardcore and casual was.

And I'm sure that a few people would try to slip through into what they perceive as the easier route to victory, but that may be tempered by the fact that they'd not be qualified for the day 2 event, so would receive little accolades for their win (as suggested by the number of people who congratulated Nick compared to the number who congratulated Eric).

 Redbeard wrote:

spaguatyrine wrote:
Matthias you ran a masterful event. Everyone will not be happy as we are human and like to complain. But there is something for every type of player.

Please do not confuse constructive criticism for complaining. Also, I don't believe there is something for everyone, as I feel like I'm one of the players that has no where to go to find what I want in an event.

Too bad you aren't in the PNW, Redbeard. We have a really large event that sounds like is a lot closer to what you are looking for.

Teams, with each 'round' having both captains pair up team members for best game, an emphasis on fun games in list building with pre-event review by a list-review council, focus on appearance and sports, etc. It also has a competitive face punchy event on Friday and Saturday. It certainly has its flaws as any event does but has a completely different focus than most events.

 Hulksmash wrote:


@Gorgon

I know how you feel on the paint scoring. I felt this year having a single person judge it wasn't going to work out. I brought an army that has been the second highest paint score to two GT's (60+ person) in the last 2 months and got a lower score than I expected. It came down to how you sold it and who you got to judge which was a little annoying.

@Hulksmash -- First off, congrats! Great job, man!

And yeah, my score initially *floored* me, but in retrospect there was ample opportunity for judging breakdowns.

My comment about a pass/fail system for painting at the Championships wasn't meant to be a snarky criticism -- it was a serious suggestion. Maybe it would be more honest, transparent, and easier on staffing if they dumped it as a scored category for the Championships. I do paint judging, and I know it's hard to do it well. Spending even 2 minutes with each army at a GT even half the size of Adepticon means a *huge* amount of work squeezed into the breaks.

I'm a strong believer that the tournament circuit is healthiest when it has 31 flavors of GTs. So maybe there's a way to redeploy resources so that they can focus on making the Championships the best chocolate it can be, and establish the Friendly as the best mint chocolate chip it can be. Just throwing it out there for something to chew on.

ALSO, I'm very sorry that I didn't say in my earlier post how great it was to see old friends and make some new ones at the event. That's what really makes these things worthwhile. The flight situation on Wednesday was rough (my plane made it after six hours of delays, but many others didn't), and I was really glad I even made it.

I had *great* seminars with Justin from Secret Weapon Miniatures and Victoria Lamb. Justin showed me just how bad my current batch of weathering powders really are (LOL), and Victoria helped me learn the process for doing object source lighting. I understood it at a conceptual level, but I think I just needed the help of the expert to figure out the right process. Big thanks to Justin and Victoria and to the Adepticon staff.

Interesting discussion. It really comes down to the reason yiu travel to GT's. I travel because I enjoy new challenges and new opponents as well as testing my skills against other players.

@Redbeard

As for eric winning on Thursday I say congrats. However, when soft scores are involved it is hard to argue he is the one who deserved it the most. Not saying he didn't earn it or deserve it. Merely stating that the vast inconsistency in the scoring can cause a flux in the scoring.

As for not finding a place to fit in at an event as big as adepticon it might not be the event. In the end the person who controls how much fun you have is you. You can forge a narrative in any game. There is always a back story that can be thought up with just a little imagination.

Lastly, people that build competitive list are also hobbyist. Some of the nicest painted armies I have seen. They do exist. So to make a broad statement saying they are either competitive or in seperate category is a little silly to me because a large majority of the people in this hobby are both. Just my 2 cents. Sorry your army was poorly evaluated it does look pretty awesome. That just strengthens my point about the issue with soft scoring lacking consistency.