Auctorati 2010 (WHFB)

[sapper]

I whole-heartedly endorse Mike (954)'s suggestion of extra awards. I think levity and humour are much needed, even in the competitive environment. However many people we get competing, I would suggest that the ultimate victor will come from
2 or 3 individuals we could mostly name now. There needs to be some light relief and FUN for the rest of us who make up the numbers.

The mysterious terrain rules do add randomness, but they also add fun and can level the playing field slightly too.

I don't subscribe to Mike C's view of what a strategy game must consist of either. Warhammer is a wargame. Being a fantasy wargame it cannot aspire to simulating reality in the way that, for example, Napoleonic wargames rules might. The ultimate strategy game is chess. It is an entirely level playing field (other than which colour goes first) with no random element at all. We are wargamers, not chess players. I for one will be entering this competition with the aim of playing varied games against varied opponents using varied armies, and... having FUN. There is a real danger, to my mind, of us becoming too pompous about our hobby. We push plastic models of mythical beasts about a table to have fun. I enjoy the visual spectacle and the unpredicability of the whole event, otherwise we may as well play a board-game or use card-board counters to represent our playing pieces. As soon as you add dice into a game you are adding a random element and, consequently, you are compromising the 'fairness' of a competition using that gaming mechanism.

I like Mike954's fun awards because they will provide talking points and make games memorable. There is no fundamental difference between a player achieving an advantage by means of a lucky dice roll when venturing in to some mysterious terrain and in gaining an advantage by rolling better dice in combat. The skill element in any wargame is for players to so choose, position and manouevre their forces as to maximise their advantages and, equally, minimise the disadvantages which may result from random elements. So, you give yourself what advantages you can in terms of combats and terrain, but ultimately you are at the mercy of the dice.

[dave3]

I think the inclusion of some other awards, such as best painted army, most chivalrous opponent, and so on, will give players something to play for, as Sapper says, we can probably put money on one of three members winning it, which does deter people playing, perhapse.
Dave

[Stephen Mawson]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this one will be rather closer, purely as it feels like the new rules has brought a number of the armies closer together in terms of how good they are. Some of the much less impressive armies have got a great deal better, and several of the really good ones have got worse (mainly those armies that tended to rely on magic to win their games).

Hopefully some additional variety introduced by the scenarios will also help in that regard.

We're probably going to have to look at changing the tournament scoring mechanism as well, as the victory point table doesn't exist anymore. So no more massacres, solid and minor victories. You now simply win, loose or draw, and if I'm remembering correctly you have to be within a hundred points of each other to get a draw now.

I think I may have slightly changed my mind on the mysterious terrain. I don't actually object to the different types of woods and rivers as such, I actually like the characterfulness of having different types of the same terrain feature that do slightly different things.

What I don't like is simply the fact that you don't know what you're getting when you start the game. It just feels slightly wrong that the only way you've got of knowing what certain terrain features do is to shove a unit into them and seeing what happens. It just feels a bit like a boobytrap, kind of like walking through a mine field and hoping you don't step on one.

I don't mind random factors, after all I play Skaven, most of whose intersting units have some kind of random effect.

But with most of the dice rolling in warhammer you can work out how risky the thing is before going ahead with it. Generally you don't go for a low percentage option unless you have no choice about it. If the odds on the dice are against you you don't charge into combat anyway and hope for the best, you try and change the odds somehow into your favour.

Mysterious Terrain as written in the rulebook just doesn't feel like it works that way. Its a random choice of something that will then often have another random effect.

If you know that the wood is a wild wood and might hurt you unit, but you need to move through it to outflank your enemy, you can weigh the risk against the reward and make your decision accordingly. If you don't know what effect entering the terrain will have it's harder to make a sensible decision.

If you simply roll for what the terrain is at the start of the game before you choose sides or start to deploy, that would be fine. Presumably both sides would send out a few scouts who will report on the terrain on the battlefield.

More awards are a good idea though, give people something else to aim at while Mark is busy winning the league.

Here are some thoughts on some possibilities:

Most Bloodthirsty General: Goes to the player whose games have seen the most casualties (Add the points scored and points conceeded of each player together to get an overall casualty total)

Most Sporting Opponent: Presumably done as a vote at the end of the league. Maybe get each player to nominate their first and second most sporting opponents from all those they have played.

Cheesiest Army: Possibly not such an honour to receive, going to the player who has managed to shall we say "optimise" their army build the most. Once the league is underway, show everyone all of the army lists and get each player to pick the one they think is the worst (cheesiest). The army with the most votes wins (looses).

[mike954]

Well, if mysterious terrain isn't going to harm the tournament then I'd still like to see it included somehow.

[ralkr56]

I have only smiled at the rules but here are my thoughts.

2000 points (the reason to limit at 1500 has gone), no mysterious terrain, simple pitched battles across the table on pre ordined maps. I am fed up with drawing them so will probably get each player to submit one.

My idea for a change and some added fun is that the two leagues will be split between orcs and goblins (I know we have enough epople with armies) in one league and all other armies in the other. The winner of each league will play each other to decide the overall champion. There will be a special prize for the Orc and goblin league for the player that kills the most Orc or Goblin characters, and in the other league for the player that - hmmmm probably best to decide that when everyone submits their lists (could be gains the most banners, destroys the most hordes etc)

[mike]

Aug 19, 2010 17:38:51 GMT ralkr56 said:

My idea for a change and some added fun is that the two leagues will be split between orcs and goblins (I know we have enough epople with armies) in one league and all other armies in the other.

In that case, can I enter an army in both leagues?

[ralkr56]

Mike - No

[mike954]

Well, I've just read an article by Jervis Johnson on the GW website specifically about tournaments for Warhammer. For me it reinforces the preference for mysterious terrain and the use of all six Pitched Battle scenarios.

www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=&pIndex=2&aId=12400020a&start=3

To quote from the article:

"Tournaments and the New Rules

I know that many experienced Warhammer players get to play most of their games at tournaments, and so I'll finish with a couple of pleas to tournament organisers. First of all, please try to include lots of interesting and varied terrain on your gaming tables. Some players will ask you to stick with a limited selection of terrain, and to restrict it to the basic types (i.e. forests, hills and buildings, and none of the new terrain types with special rules). Giving in to this will not only make the games less interesting to play, but they will also make them less challenging for the players.

In addition, you may come under pressure from some players to either only use one scenario in your tournament (probably Scenario One: Battleline), or to go through the six different scenarios in sequence (so game one uses Scenario One, etc). I'd highly recommend you don't give into these demands either: doing so will lead to your tournament being plagued with the stylised builds I mentioned earlier on, as players will either now exactly which scenario is being played, or will be willing to create armies that can do well in some scenarios and not in others, as they will know in advance how many times they will have to play any scenarios that don't favour their army build. Random scenario selection is your best weapon against extreme army builds at your tournament.

I'd also recommend setting the points limit for games at 2000 points. We've found that 2000 points allows games to be played to a conclusion in two hours or so, which is the average time for each round in a tournament, but more importantly it means that players will face some really hard choices in terms of what they include in their army. At higher points values it's rather easier to include all the basic building blocks you need for an army and then add some extra bits on top, which will make the tournament less challenging.

Finally, I'd recommend playing with the rules and army lists 'as written', and only start to use army composition restrictions (i.e. additional limits on what units may be used in the tournament) once you have run a few tournaments using the new rules. I think you'll find that army composition is a lot less of an issue because the new rules make the game more balanced, and makes the differences between armies far less pronounced. While talking about balance, it is important to note that the balance between different armies and different builds of army varies slightly from scenario to scenario. So, for example, an army that does well at Battleline may have a tougher time with Blood and Glory, and an army that is ideal for Battle for the Pass could find fighting for The Watchtower challenging, and so on. In addition, certain armies, or rather certain army builds, have moved up and down the scale more than others have, so that some popular builds are now rather less effective, while other rarely seen builds have become more effective.

However, it's important not to overstate the impact these things have, especially when compared to your skill and experience. As with every edition of Warhammer so far, and no matter what some pundits might say, how good a player you are is always more important than what army you use."

Edit: In light of Jervis' article, I think it's worth thinking carefully about how much we really need to deviate from the rulebook. It seems to be a choice between a league inclined towards either generals or quartermasters. I'm glad it's up to more experienced heads than mine to decide!

[mike]

I think we should all keep in mind that Jervis Johnson is being paid by GW to say ehat GW wants said. As such he is, in effect, "towing the party line" here. That's not to say he is totally wrong, but I do think we should take his advice with a sizable dose of salt.

The important point to remember here is that this is not GWs tournament, nor is it it Mr Johnson's tournament, it is OUR tournament and should therefore run under the rules WE like.

While I concede that GW has the right to define the rules for any tournament they run, I do not consider their opinion at all relevent to an inhouse friendly competition run by an independent game club like ours. So let's have none of the "GW says it should be this way" type of reasoning please, it adds nothing to the debate.

For myself, I still hold largely to my previously stated opinions:

I do not have a problem with scenario variations as long as they give no advantage to either player and victory is determined largely by the tactical skill of the respective players rather than blind change.

I still dislike mysterious terrain because it essentially unpredictable. If used as stated it is quite conceivable that the game could be decided largely on whose elite cavalry unit is destroyed by a totally random and unpredictable terrain effect.

That said, I do concede Stephens point that the main problem is the fact that you don't know what a terrain feature will do until you blunder into it. His suggestion to roll the random effects before deployment is a compromise I could live with.

[mike954]

Aug 20, 2010 9:06:48 GMT mike said:

So let's have none of the "GW says it should be this way" type of reasoning please, it adds nothing to the debate.

In fairness, hardly the point being made in my post or the article. Indeed it is our league and not Jervis' or GW's.

The fact is Jervis makes well-reasoned points in his article which are food for thought before drawing our own conclusions, nothing more.

[Stephen Mawson]

While I can see the point Jervis is getting at, and for a tournament this makes a certain amount of sense, I’m not sure it applies quite so well to a league.

In terms of mysterious terrain I think that’s something that most players will either instinctively like or dislike. Personally I like the concept, but dislike the mechanics. I think if the majority of players like it then it will be used, and if they dislike it then it won’t, simple as that.

On the scenario’s randomly selecting a scenario each round in a tournament is fair enough, as everyone plays the same scenario at the same time, so everyone will play the same scenarios as everyone else.

In a league this is more difficult to arrange, unless you actually set up a fixture list of rounds for your league, and then randomly select the scenario for each round. If you simply make players roll for each scenario prior to each game, then that will inevitably mean that everyone will play slightly different of scenarios to each other. Anyone who is lucky enough to play a scenario that favours their army several times will then probably do better than someone who has to play a scenario that their army doesn’t work well at.

I do agree however that playing more than one standard scenario will encourage people to take a more balanced army selection, purely as the more heavily optimised an army is the more its likely to struggle in at least one, and possibly more of the scenarios.

I think five of the basic scenarios in the rule book are all fine, and relatively even. A fairly balanced army should do reasonably well in all of them. The watchtower scenario feels a little less balanced, although it should only become a problem for an attacker if the defender has a powerful infantry unit to hold the building initially.

I guess it depends on how much admin the person running the league wants to put in.

Just one standard scenario is easy, and does mean that everyone knows what they are playing every game.

I’d personally like a bit more variety in the scenarios played, as it will make things a bit more interesting, and mean that a bit more thought will need to go into army selections and should mean that winning multiple scenarios requires being able to use your army effectively under different circumstances.

In order to try and keep things relatively even I think I’d look at dividing the games up into rounds (each player playing one game in each round) and then allocating a scenario to each round. You could still then play your games in any order, but who you are playing determines which round the game is, and therefore which scenario is played.

An example might help to illustrate what I mean.

Say we’ve got a division of six players

Stephen, Mike, Dave, Mark, Terry, Martin

That means that every player will play 5 games, and therefore 5 scenarios will be played.

Round One is
Stephen vs Mike
Dave vs Mark
Terry vs Martin

Round Two is
Stephen vs Dave
Mike vs Terry
Martin vs Mark

Round Three is
Stephen vs Terry
Mike vs Mark
Martin vs Dave

And so on for all 5 rounds.

Having worked out who plays who in each round, you can then just randomly allocate a scenario to each round. So say Battle for the Pass in Round One, Blood and Glory in Round Two, etc

A bit more work in the setup, and players will need a copy of the round schedule so everyone knows which scenario they’re due to play, but it’s no more work than working out a bunch of standardised terrain setups will be.

Incidentally Steve since the last few years you’ve selflessly taken on the burden of organising this whole thing, if you feel like you want take a break from league organising and just concentrate on playing some games I’d be perfectly happy to run this years league.

[Matt]

Mike if you met the Games developers for GW you'd be amazed what an uncorporate bunch they are. Jervis is purely trying to get people to go with the new rules and have some fun. Which is what the new rules are all about.

[ralkr56]

Matt I think is confusing "Corporate" with "Suited", this article is very much On Brand messaging by Jervis. The new rules are designed to boost product sales from the rules to more figures and on to new game gadgets and terrain. It is a well executed marketing campaign to upsell the whole range.


No I am not anti it, the rules will change army make up and people will have to learn new tactics but saying the new rules are more fun and the armies are more equal is tosh.

If we are going to run a league down the club then simplicity is essential as we do not have an organising committee to oversee each game set up and not everyone will be a regular WHFB player.

To get things rolling I suggest people nominate if they want to play in the Orc and Goblin or Other league by end of September, army lists have to be in for checking by end of Monday 18th October and we kick off on Monday 1st November.

[daiv]

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[ashleigh]

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