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MVBrandt wrote:

 RobPro wrote:
Anywhere to see what the lists were for the top bracket?

My list, which finished 2nd on a single dice nailbiter to DeFranza and pulled in Battlemaster as well, is as follows:

Farseer w/ Singing Spear - 105
Rune Priest w/ Meltabombs - 105

Lone Wolf w/ Chainfist, Storm Shield, Terminator - 85

8 Grey Hunters w/ Meltagun - 125
5 Dire Avengers w/ Wave Serpent (Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon, Ghostwalk Matrix) - 205
5 Dire Avengers w/ Wave Serpent (Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon, Ghostwalk Matrix) - 205
5 Dire Avengers w/ Wave Serpent (Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon, Ghostwalk Matrix) - 205
5 Dire Avengers w/ Wave Serpent (Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon, Ghostwalk Matrix) - 205
6 Dire Avengers w/ Wave Serpent (Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon, Ghostwalk Matrix) - 218

6 Swooping Hawks - 96
6 Swooping Hawks - 96
6 Swooping Hawks - 96

Land Raider Redeemer w/ Multi-Melta - 250

Thanks for posting your list, some interesting choices here.

Anyone knows what was in the 2 Chaos Space Marine lists that made it into the top bracket?

I know both.

Jack's, that I played, had two black legion princes, two heldrakes, four cultist units with flamethrowers, daemon allies with fatey, cd daemon Prince, and ten plague bearers. All princes were tzeentch.

James, one of our crew, had csm allied to black legion. Juggy lord, nurgle bike lord, abaddon, nurgle spawn unit, two regular spawn units, two maulers, heldrake, three total cultist units. He lost in a close one (charge shenanigans were make or break) to defranza's jet star. He also had four lascannon havoc in a quad gun bastion. So to their credit, they were knocked out by the eventual final table.

My point is though that if the results of those player are fairly even, (if fact those that lost earlier did better) then why does when the loss happend really matter. If there was some evidence that a loss round 1 in general meant the player was not on a level with the rest of the bracket, and as such should not get in...I'd understand. People beat up on seals in the kiddy pool, then get dumped into the shark tank and get eaten alive is bad. But that is not the fact. This does not happen, what happens is pretty equal showings. At which point all that changing it ammounts to is that you value losing later higher than margin of victory in games.

I don't necessarily think that the issue is that "bad" players will get into better brackets. At some level, 40k skill is pretty close. There are a bunch of name players that are consistently at the top tables of GTs you expect to go to the top 16. There are a bunch of people that could easily end up in the top 16. Most of those people are going to end up in the 3-1 range. None of that is really a problem. My main takeaway was wondering whether or not there was an "optimal" time to lose, if one does end up losing before the bracket cutoff.

Unless we are really worried that people will "Tank" early on to try to steal back up to those top brackets, it shouldn't matter. In fact one could argue that battle points allowing the "wild card" in is every bit as fair as randomly pulling easier matches through the first few rounds then losing to a top player.

You are right, it really doesn't matter. I don't mean to suggest that people will tank. However, I did find it interesting that in both these past two events, the one loss player that got in to the top bracket happened to lose game 1. Now, we all know that the subsequent rounds are power-paired. Thus, it is on some level harder to keep winning (at least in theory). As you correctly pointed out, players can always run into a really tough match game one, two, or three. However, there are some things that mitigate this a bit. For instance, the "club" affiliation stops players who game together from hitting each other round 1 (and maybe round 2 as well IIRC).

Now it sucks for someone like you if you feel like you should get seeded higher, but no more than if would for some one that plays a top bracket player round 1 (randomly) and loses and then is religated to a lower end bracket, where as someone else pulls a noob round 1 (and round 2) and ends up much higher.

I don't. Like I said, I never meant my post to come off as whining. I don't believe that I deserved to go higher in the context of the event. I lost, and in my wins, I didn't get as many points as other people. I do think that any change should be backed up by numbers though. If it does seem like there is a strong correlation to losing later and having lower points, or losing earlier and having higher points, that is at least worth considering.

As we have both stated there is no perfect system (short of having a full compliment of players, but even then how do you decide on the 2-1 brackets, I simply don't feel that losing game 1 or 2 is far inferior to losing game 3 or 4.)

Sure. I don't really disagree with you. The system is "fine" on paper. I do think that it is worth always thinking about or questioning whether something is optimal or not. Hence, I brought up something I noticed. But I don't completely know how I feel about it in general. You (and others here) have brought up valid counter arguments.

At BFS I lost game 2 (out of 3) on a dice roll to end on 5, if it goes on I win...I get a minor loss, go on to 20-0 round 3. Get into the second Bracket and 20-0 round 1 against someone that lost round 3. What I am essentially saying is that a loss at any point is equivalent. You can make arguments about easier path because of easier second and later rounds, but that does not take into account that losing earlier meant I may have had tougher round 1 and/or 2 match ups that are equivalent to your round 3 or 4.

Like I said before it is like bubble teams in the NCAA tournament. Some team that gets left out will always feel like they were more deserving, or some other method is better.

I actually think due to the fact that at some level pairings are random, that battle points moving on is quite a bit more fair because it allows for better seeding beyond bracket 1. But win path also works, it just means that at NOVA if there are 256 players you end up with Ben Mohlie winning Bracket 4 because he lost round 1.

All that said, if you give out a Battle Master Prize (for most battle points) you need players with the most points in the top brackets. Otherwise I lose round 1, end up in bracket 4 and roll all the way to that prize because I can get easier match-ups than I might otherwise. If you don't give out said prize then it doesn't matter as much.

I'll need to do some looking at the round 1 losers in the upper brackets and their path to victory and see if there is a case for what you suggest is important. However, what I feel I will find is - Top players losing to other top players(both early and late), battling back and doing well in brackets. At which point I would not like to see what bracket you get into based on luck of the draw.

That is the question really. There is really so much that one can look at. Missions have to also be taken into account. I would love to see the distribution of 0-20, 10-10, 13-7, and 17-3 wins for each mission. Based on purely anecdotal speculation from what I've seen, some missions are more conducive than others to winning big versus winning small. If this is the case, then when a person plays a certain mission can also compound the data.

Of course, it is possible that Mike and others don't feel this level of analysis is needed. As we both have said, the system is fine. I don't mean to suggest that there is something totally wrong with the NOVA format. I personally love it. I just noticed a few aspects of pairing this year that were interesting to me. I like looking at data like this, but others may not. Comprehensive data may not even show anything of value. Hell, it is just toy soldiers at the end of the day. Still, it may be worth considering for the future.

This is good, thought-provoking discussion in my book, Justin. No need to apologize or shy off it! The format gets analyzed and critiqued by fans and opponents every year, and we're always trying to make it better for everyone. Only a fool thinks their event can't get better, so the commentary is most welcome.

SO looked into the distribution of victory margin over the 6 missions at BFS (perhaps I'll do NOVA later but it will take a bit longer.)

Mission 1 :Kill points - had the highest percentage (71%) of 20-0 wins but also had the highest percentage 10.7% of 10-10 wins on tiebreakers. It is hard to determine how much of this is a result of the mission and how much is a result of random pairings (2 elite players go to tie breaker, lots of people noob stomp especially when club members are not paired together.)

Mission 2: Big Guns- (4 objectives, KPs, Quarters Tiered)- Had the highest percentage 25% of 17-3 wins, and tied for second highest of 13-7 (17.9%) while being second lowest on 20-0, but had no 10-10.

Mission 3: Relic + objectives- Lowest number of 20-0 wins (this was tough in this mission because you needed the relic + more objectives + additional bonus(line breaker/warlord) in most cases to max. Also In theory pairings are getting harder. This was the most balanced mission as far as battlepoints go.

Mission 4:Crusade 5 Objectives, Quarters, KPs- had 0 10-10 wins, had the 3rd most 20-0 wins and tied for the most 17-3 wins. This was the most unbalanced battle point mission with 89% of games being 17 point or higher wins.

Mission 5: Emperors will (5 objectives, cumulative)- Second most balanced mission with 60% getting 20-0, but decent percentages in all other categories.

Mission 6: Is Skewed by Ringers playing so lots of 20-0 wins recorded (67% second highest)


In reality to check for battle point balance you would need to play the event several times with a different mission order (is KP really Top heavy, or was it due to it being round 1 etc.)

I will say though that missions 2-3 were the hardest by stats to get 20-0 on, but also that 20-0 was always the highest percentage of wins and in all but one case, was a higher percentage than all other win types combined.

Again I will try to look at NOVA later to see if similar trends appear.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
SO I ran the NOVA open

The Numbers for Missions 1 - 3 are Near Identical to BFS with 20-0 being 69%, 58% and 44% respectively.

5 Was the most different with only 29% being 20-0, 30% being 17-3 and 32 % being 13-7. This could be because it was the first bracket round. Also not sure on games finishing at NOVA, if a reasonable number this mission did not go to natural finish, then smaller wins happen.

Mission 6 Looks simialr but BFS had more 20-0 due to ringers playing (who were likely not as much at NOVA.

Mission 7 Completely Skew due to high number of ringer games (82% 20-0 wins).

Mission 8 Balances back out as their are fewer games this round.

Again, we would need to see if order of the missions impacts the results. Mission 1 was the highest (outside of mission 7 at NOVA) margin game in both events, but again is that the mission, or the pairing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just did NOVA invite quick.

Mission 1 is still close to the other events (at least suggests that it is mission, which to me makes sense, you need to win by 3 mission points to win the mission, and if you win by 5 it is a 20-0)


Mission 3 is also relatively similar as is Mission 4.

Mission 2 was smaller wins (lots of 17 point wins and 13 point wins) I think that tiered missions lead to this a bit because you need to win all 3 goals to max.

Does having a rough idea how "difficult" a mission is play any part in the order it appears in the tournament?

The missions are ordered in a very specific and deliberate way. Some of the results reflect direct intent.

As is often the case, but that intent, and resulting wins and losses need to be taken into account if you ask the question about, how balanced the missions may or may not be.

Gaging the difficulty of getting Max points on a mission is directly tied to when you play that mission. In theory it should be easier to Max point on round 1 based on the chance of pulling an easier match-up.

Breng77 wrote:
As is often the case, but that intent, and resulting wins and losses need to be taken into account if you ask the question about, how balanced the missions may or may not be.

Gaging the difficulty of getting Max points on a mission is directly tied to when you play that mission. In theory it should be easier to Max point on round 1 based on the chance of pulling an easier match-up.

That's true. Also, a lot of people mis-read that and the KP missions often. I had Werner and Nick at dinner both tell me the opposite read. So I need to work on the clarity of the KP tertiaries.

IN those tertiaries, there are 3 factors - KP, Linebreaker, Warlord. Each is worth 1 point to the Tertiary; a lot of people, however, were playing each KP as worth 1 point to the Tertiary (Effectively weakening the value of Warlord/Linebreaker to the game, and breaking the balance of the missions in parallel to 6th edition book missions).

For the KP mission, a lot of people were gauging how much they won by as how many KP they were ahead by, which is an incorrect read. Since a KP differential of only 1-2 is not a Win, and goes to Tiebreaker, you'd have to have a KP differential of at least 5 to win by 3, and at least 7 to win by 5 and get 20 BP. A lot of people were thus mis-counting that.

One of the bigger lessons from this year's "season" if you will, is the need to be more precise and clear with the nuance of some of the missions in terms of how it's written.

Yeah I was definitely guilty of misreading the KP goals then (though it did not impact the outcome of any of my games/my BP total)

For KPs I read it as the Mission point difference which even if I go to tie breaker still exists was used for Determining the Battle points.(I won that mission by like 8ish kill points though so it did not matter.) I think it is an issue with wording where you need 3 mission points more than your opponent to win the game, but the battle points read that if you are ahead by 3 it is worth 17 points. So it is not clear that it is 3 more than the winning total.

I also did not notice that the KP secondary is only worth 1 point, but again never mattered because I won this goal 2-1 in all my matches.

Playing those differently though does make a difference.

MVBrandt wrote:
I know both.

Jack's, that I played, had two black legion princes, two heldrakes, four cultist units with flamethrowers, daemon allies with fatey, cd daemon Prince, and ten plague bearers. All princes were tzeentch.

James, one of our crew, had csm allied to black legion. Juggy lord, nurgle bike lord, abaddon, nurgle spawn unit, two regular spawn units, two maulers, heldrake, three total cultist units. He lost in a close one (charge shenanigans were make or break) to defranza's jet star. He also had four lascannon havoc in a quad gun bastion. So to their credit, they were knocked out by the eventual final table.

Those are interesting lists.

They went 3-0 and made it to the final braket and then went a combined 0-4 to Eldar, Tau and Demons (and then played each other in the final round).

James beat Newton's O'vesa star on Day 1, among other things. He nearly had DeFranza's jetstar, but rolled an 11" charge after setting up the star to lose to combat movement tricks, and it just put him a lil too far into the impact. So, care on the over-evaluation of how those lists did.

Neither was overmatched in those final games ... just lost to good players.

Was another great time at Battle for Salvation!

Had a blast, played some great guys. Had my usual run in with Nick... and he evened our record out, rubber match to ensue. And after seeing Gonyo at all these events we finally got to play a game with him.

Wish I had payed more attention to scoring points in my one loss... or bothered to read the missions at all really. Lost out to Mike on Best General by 3 Battle points.

Terrain was great, the Palisades as always is spectacular for events. And the people make BFS one of the best events to attend. Cant wait for next year.

some unscientific but interesting none the less Tournament info:

- Once again we hit our quota of at least 1 gamergirl. Brittani MacFadden went 2-1 on day 1 with her GK/Sisters army

- 78% of all participants were voted at least 1x as best opponent

- 88% of all games finished naturally
An interesting fact was how the games finished per round.
*round 1 of day 1 and round 3 of day 2 had the most games finish naturally .
*round 3 of day 1 and round 1 of day 2 had the least amount of games finish naturally.
*round 2 of both days fell statistically in the middle.

- there was nothing to indicate that there were serial slow players or armies that did not finish games on time.

I would take this as on day 1, games got progressivly harder as players became matched up with more equally leveled counterparts as well as games becoming more critical to there perspective bracket placements.

Day 2 starts off more intense and levels off as rounds progress and players have less stake in winning.

- Overall there were a total of 6 drops. 2 on day 1 (at the end of the day) and 4 (one a no-show) on day 2. one of the 4 drops were due to personal/family issues.

-Each game had 15 min breaks and 45 min lunch.
- Torrent of fire was incredibly helpful in getting rounds posted during the event. We had 1 small delay between round 2 and 3 on day 2.

It appeared to me and also with limited feedback at this point that even though some players might have had 30-50 min extra between rounds due to finishing early, that it was a welcomed situation and added to a much more laid back feeling even though the competition was fierce.

results posted on site

http://www.battleforsalvation.com/about-2/