I wonder if other players out there agree with me on this thought: I love Imperial Guard players. As a current Grey Knight player I love playing against well played imperial guard armies. Many of the games I have played against such players have been my most enjoyable games since the new GK book came out, and win or loss(most have been losses) all of them have been great close games. The biggest issue I have being a Grey Knight player in the current 40k tournament scene is the amount of whining you have to deal with. "Grey Knights are so Cheesey/over powered/broken." "Your army is point and click." "X unit is so broken, GK players should be penalized for taking it." I'll be the first to admit that Grey Knights are powerful (even over powered compared to many books), I'm just sick of hearing about it. Which is why I love IG players. I never hear these guys complain about how broken GKs are, or how they cannot win. Perhaps this is because they can beat GKs or at least play a competitve game against them, or maybe because before GKs IG were the 400 pound gorilla in the room that everyone hated. I really don't know.
What I do know is that the games I've played against IG with GKs are some of my most memorable 40k games. They are what all 40k games should be, close, competitive, slugfests that come down to who makes the least mistakes/or best moves during the game. I wish all codices were more balanced against each other. Perhaps my biggest qualm with 40k as it stands now is that some codices stand very little chance against others simply due to a player's list. For example Dark Eldar, pound pretty much any foot list (I'm looking at you Tyranids and Daemons) so badly that the game is not really even fun for the winner, let alone the loser. I think matchup issues like this are bad for the game and are something GW needs to consider more when they create codices. Ideal like all poinsoned weapons or force weapons are cool when it comes down to fluff, but in the game they end up being far too powerful against certain army builds.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Would 40k be better with less Space Marines? Would Marines?
I was thinking as I drove home from work yesterday (commutes are good for that type of thing), and a thought occurred to me. Would the game of 40k be better if their were fewer Space Marine armies? Lets face it, at most events, at least the ones I go to, I see maybe 70%+ of the field running some sort of Marine army: Grey Knights, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Black Templars, Chaos Space Marines, or Codex Space Marines. Power armored armies are undeniably popular, I mean who doesn't want to play super humans in the 41st millennium. Now I don't want anyone to think that this is just me hating on Marines/Marine players, I have 3 marine armies, and they are the armies I play most frequently. My thought was simply this do we need to have nearly half (7/16 or 43.75%) of all Codices to be Marine Books? What this means is that even if we assumed all the codices were equally popular (they're not) that you would still play against power armor in 4-5 out of every 10 games, or about 2 times in a 5 game GT.
Now what many people will argue (and they are not entirely wrong) is that many of those books are for "unique" chapters. I mean Grey Knights are the super elite, Wolves have their own Norse flavor (theoretically), and the list goes on. To these people I would argue the following, if Marines themselves were unique, would we really need separate books for so many chapters. In other words if there were not so many Marine books would we need marines to differentiate themselves so much. I know the fluff says x-chapter acts like this, and y-chapter specializes in that, but what if there was some way to add a little flavor to your own marine army (though modeling, painting, upgrades, and unit choices.) that would set your own force apart. Would this be enough? Or do we really need 7 Marine books.
What I think further amplifies this problem is the "counts as movement". I'm not against this movement in general as I believe that it provides players the opportunity to be creative with their models to design a force that is unique looking. I've seen Skaven count as Guard, and Dark Eldar for instance, and both armies were cool and different. Where I think this runs into a problem is with marines (and this is a GW created problem), if you own a Marine army, and paint it up in your own paint scheme (i.e. not Wolves, or Angels, or Ultras.) you now just bought not 1 but 5 armies. On top of that if you keep with that paint scheme, with a little extra purchasing you can move into the other 2 marine armies (chaos and Grey Knights) as the vehicles essentially all overlap. Heck if you designed a renegade Marine chapter you could probably pull off using the Chaos Dex with no further purchases to speak of. For me this is where I think a major part of the popularity of Marine dexes comes from. Why buy models for one Xenos race (Necrons Counting as Orks or Nids is proxying in most circles unless you did some major converting, and any such army would probably not be a functional necron army. I mean I could see a Flayed one horde being used for say a Genestealer army, but no one is running tons of Flayed Ones in the Necron book) when I can buy marines and get 5-7 armies in one. Whats more is that because I now own 5 armies it is far more likely I will get a set of updated rules. Dark Eldar went what 10 years, Crons about the same, in that time how many updates did marines get 10? More than 10? Why chance my army becoming obsolete(competitively) when I can play marines a basically guarantee I will always be able to compete on some level.
SO all that said let us consider what the land scape of 40k would look like if Marines had say only 2 codices Loyalists and Chaos (I don't really see these books working well as one army book). This would drop the army count from 16 to 11 and Marine books would make up 2 out of 11 or 18%. I'm not going to go into what I think each dex should contain (at least not in this post) so lets assume for the moment that we are looking at the current books. Would the game be overall more balanced if you took Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Wolves, Templars and GKs out of the game. Well IG would still be on top, probably followed by Dark Eldar, but I think the rest of the books would be incredibly well balanced. With a few tweaks to these dexes I think you would end up with a larger variety of armies (less marine players because fewer books, and as such more xenos armies), and a more balanced game. If GW did not need to update 7 Marine armies then other armies would hopefully get updated more quickly. Just look at releases for 5th edition, there have been 4 marine armies released (Codex Marines, Wolves, Blood Angels, Grey Knights.) and 4.5 Non Marine (IG, Nids, Dark Eldar, Crons, and Sisters). Dark Angels and Chaos Marines were released just prior to 5th ed as were Daemons. SO if we assume those as 5th ed updates we have 6 Marine Books and 5.5 Non Marine Books. What this means is that we have had 11 full updates (and one White Dwarf article) or the same number of updates as the total number of books I have proposed, which means that every book would have been updated in the 5th ed cycle. Which would mean no terribly outdated books, which in an ideal world would be more game balance.
My last thought on the subject is this: would having fewer marine armies make marines better. Space Marines are supposed to be the best of the best, super strong, super tough, and highly skilled. Does the game make it feel that way? Now I know we will never have space marines as they are in the fluff where 5 guys kill whole armies, but at the moment the Space Marine Stat line (4s across the board) really just feels average. Part of this issue is that a D6 system only allows for so much variation (BS 5 is twice as good as BS 4, so it would be a huge upgrade), but part of them feeling average is that they kind of are when half the armies in the game boast the same stat line. Would that stat line not feel a bit more elite if only 2 (plus some necrons) armies boasted those kind of stats? Would marines (with a few tweaks) not feel a whole lot stronger in shooting and hand to hand, if they were not always fighting against other marines. Bolters are a whole lot scarier for a bunch of Guants, Orks, or Guardsman, then they are for other marines. Marines might actually be ok in combat, if not for the fact that they don't get enough attacks to kill other marines with a 3+ save (they actually do pretty well against guardsman or eldar guardians.)
Just some food for thought. I know it will never happen, because GW wants to sell models, but what do you think? Would 40k and Marines be better if there weren't so many of them?
Now what many people will argue (and they are not entirely wrong) is that many of those books are for "unique" chapters. I mean Grey Knights are the super elite, Wolves have their own Norse flavor (theoretically), and the list goes on. To these people I would argue the following, if Marines themselves were unique, would we really need separate books for so many chapters. In other words if there were not so many Marine books would we need marines to differentiate themselves so much. I know the fluff says x-chapter acts like this, and y-chapter specializes in that, but what if there was some way to add a little flavor to your own marine army (though modeling, painting, upgrades, and unit choices.) that would set your own force apart. Would this be enough? Or do we really need 7 Marine books.
What I think further amplifies this problem is the "counts as movement". I'm not against this movement in general as I believe that it provides players the opportunity to be creative with their models to design a force that is unique looking. I've seen Skaven count as Guard, and Dark Eldar for instance, and both armies were cool and different. Where I think this runs into a problem is with marines (and this is a GW created problem), if you own a Marine army, and paint it up in your own paint scheme (i.e. not Wolves, or Angels, or Ultras.) you now just bought not 1 but 5 armies. On top of that if you keep with that paint scheme, with a little extra purchasing you can move into the other 2 marine armies (chaos and Grey Knights) as the vehicles essentially all overlap. Heck if you designed a renegade Marine chapter you could probably pull off using the Chaos Dex with no further purchases to speak of. For me this is where I think a major part of the popularity of Marine dexes comes from. Why buy models for one Xenos race (Necrons Counting as Orks or Nids is proxying in most circles unless you did some major converting, and any such army would probably not be a functional necron army. I mean I could see a Flayed one horde being used for say a Genestealer army, but no one is running tons of Flayed Ones in the Necron book) when I can buy marines and get 5-7 armies in one. Whats more is that because I now own 5 armies it is far more likely I will get a set of updated rules. Dark Eldar went what 10 years, Crons about the same, in that time how many updates did marines get 10? More than 10? Why chance my army becoming obsolete(competitively) when I can play marines a basically guarantee I will always be able to compete on some level.
SO all that said let us consider what the land scape of 40k would look like if Marines had say only 2 codices Loyalists and Chaos (I don't really see these books working well as one army book). This would drop the army count from 16 to 11 and Marine books would make up 2 out of 11 or 18%. I'm not going to go into what I think each dex should contain (at least not in this post) so lets assume for the moment that we are looking at the current books. Would the game be overall more balanced if you took Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Wolves, Templars and GKs out of the game. Well IG would still be on top, probably followed by Dark Eldar, but I think the rest of the books would be incredibly well balanced. With a few tweaks to these dexes I think you would end up with a larger variety of armies (less marine players because fewer books, and as such more xenos armies), and a more balanced game. If GW did not need to update 7 Marine armies then other armies would hopefully get updated more quickly. Just look at releases for 5th edition, there have been 4 marine armies released (Codex Marines, Wolves, Blood Angels, Grey Knights.) and 4.5 Non Marine (IG, Nids, Dark Eldar, Crons, and Sisters). Dark Angels and Chaos Marines were released just prior to 5th ed as were Daemons. SO if we assume those as 5th ed updates we have 6 Marine Books and 5.5 Non Marine Books. What this means is that we have had 11 full updates (and one White Dwarf article) or the same number of updates as the total number of books I have proposed, which means that every book would have been updated in the 5th ed cycle. Which would mean no terribly outdated books, which in an ideal world would be more game balance.
My last thought on the subject is this: would having fewer marine armies make marines better. Space Marines are supposed to be the best of the best, super strong, super tough, and highly skilled. Does the game make it feel that way? Now I know we will never have space marines as they are in the fluff where 5 guys kill whole armies, but at the moment the Space Marine Stat line (4s across the board) really just feels average. Part of this issue is that a D6 system only allows for so much variation (BS 5 is twice as good as BS 4, so it would be a huge upgrade), but part of them feeling average is that they kind of are when half the armies in the game boast the same stat line. Would that stat line not feel a bit more elite if only 2 (plus some necrons) armies boasted those kind of stats? Would marines (with a few tweaks) not feel a whole lot stronger in shooting and hand to hand, if they were not always fighting against other marines. Bolters are a whole lot scarier for a bunch of Guants, Orks, or Guardsman, then they are for other marines. Marines might actually be ok in combat, if not for the fact that they don't get enough attacks to kill other marines with a 3+ save (they actually do pretty well against guardsman or eldar guardians.)
Just some food for thought. I know it will never happen, because GW wants to sell models, but what do you think? Would 40k and Marines be better if there weren't so many of them?
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Conflict GT day 2
SO going into the final Day I was sitting in around 5th place as far as battle points. Both of my games today were against great players and both were great and very tactical games.
Game 5: Mission was 3 objectives (one deepstruck at the end of 3 and scattered 3d6, then at the end of turn 4 scattered 2d6, then if the game went on to 6 it scattered 1d6) Deployment was pitched battle.
My opponent was playing IG
3 Vendettas
2 Matacores
1 x 2 Hydras
1 squad of vets
2 Special weapon squads
a PCS
2 Infantry squads (autocannons)
and a CCs
a Pskyer squad
lots of melta , and chimeras for pretty much everything.
I won the roll to go first and turn 1 killed his psykers (blew the chimera, they lost 4 guys and ran off the table.), killed a vendetta, and weapon destroyed another vendetta. My opponent fired back, killing one dread with a mantacore, and one of my Razorbacks. The game continued in this fashion with us trading blows in the middle of the table. ON turn 5 I had most of my stuff out of vehicles, my opponent had His Infantry platoons hiding on one objective, I had 1 Acolyte left on mine, and we had the middle contested. But I forgot that he had a heavy bolter on his mantacore which was able to see my acolyte and he died. The game went on but I was too far away from my objective, and he was able to contest the middle with a chimera that I was unable to kill. My mistake this game was not reinfocing my objective with my second acolyte squad, but as I said I did not see him having any guns that could hurt the remaining model. I should have been more cautious and played to ensure a draw, but I played for the win and made mistakes in the process. My opponent outplayed me turns 5 and 6 and he won the game because of it.
Game 6: Mission was 3 objectives, Deployment was quarters.
My opponent was Dark eldar
3 Ravagers
5 venoms
3 x 6 jetbikes with 2 heat lances each
the barron with a big squad of hellions
a bunch of warrior squad
3 wraks
1 haemonculous
This was a very close game, where my shooting failed me, when it came to killing DE vehicles. My opponents Flicker fields were very hot as well. SO between his saves, and my bad damage results on the hits that went through, this game was very close. The hellions did very little as my opponent charged my vehicles with them Wiffed then got charged by 2 squads of DCA and cotaez. The bikes were very annoying to deal with as the provide a threat to your vehicles, were fairly durable through the use of cover, they get 9" melta range, and then can jump back out of assault range. I actually think these are a very good unit for DE (at least as a GK player I prefer to see venoms to these guys). I barely got out of my quarter after dealing with all the forward elements (bikes, Hellions), but was able to control one objective, and contest a second (after a 6" Difficult terrain roll, followed by a 6" run by a purifier squad). We ended on 5 but agreed to play on to see if one of us (likely him) could win. We ended on 6, still with a draw after a number of rolls going my way.
Game 5: Mission was 3 objectives (one deepstruck at the end of 3 and scattered 3d6, then at the end of turn 4 scattered 2d6, then if the game went on to 6 it scattered 1d6) Deployment was pitched battle.
My opponent was playing IG
3 Vendettas
2 Matacores
1 x 2 Hydras
1 squad of vets
2 Special weapon squads
a PCS
2 Infantry squads (autocannons)
and a CCs
a Pskyer squad
lots of melta , and chimeras for pretty much everything.
I won the roll to go first and turn 1 killed his psykers (blew the chimera, they lost 4 guys and ran off the table.), killed a vendetta, and weapon destroyed another vendetta. My opponent fired back, killing one dread with a mantacore, and one of my Razorbacks. The game continued in this fashion with us trading blows in the middle of the table. ON turn 5 I had most of my stuff out of vehicles, my opponent had His Infantry platoons hiding on one objective, I had 1 Acolyte left on mine, and we had the middle contested. But I forgot that he had a heavy bolter on his mantacore which was able to see my acolyte and he died. The game went on but I was too far away from my objective, and he was able to contest the middle with a chimera that I was unable to kill. My mistake this game was not reinfocing my objective with my second acolyte squad, but as I said I did not see him having any guns that could hurt the remaining model. I should have been more cautious and played to ensure a draw, but I played for the win and made mistakes in the process. My opponent outplayed me turns 5 and 6 and he won the game because of it.
Game 6: Mission was 3 objectives, Deployment was quarters.
My opponent was Dark eldar
3 Ravagers
5 venoms
3 x 6 jetbikes with 2 heat lances each
the barron with a big squad of hellions
a bunch of warrior squad
3 wraks
1 haemonculous
This was a very close game, where my shooting failed me, when it came to killing DE vehicles. My opponents Flicker fields were very hot as well. SO between his saves, and my bad damage results on the hits that went through, this game was very close. The hellions did very little as my opponent charged my vehicles with them Wiffed then got charged by 2 squads of DCA and cotaez. The bikes were very annoying to deal with as the provide a threat to your vehicles, were fairly durable through the use of cover, they get 9" melta range, and then can jump back out of assault range. I actually think these are a very good unit for DE (at least as a GK player I prefer to see venoms to these guys). I barely got out of my quarter after dealing with all the forward elements (bikes, Hellions), but was able to control one objective, and contest a second (after a 6" Difficult terrain roll, followed by a 6" run by a purifier squad). We ended on 5 but agreed to play on to see if one of us (likely him) could win. We ended on 6, still with a draw after a number of rolls going my way.
Conflict GT Day 1 Games
SO my games from day 1.
First my list
Grey Knights
Cotaez
2 x 3 Acolytes in Chimeras
2 x 10 Purifiers (4 Halberds, 2 Hammers, 4 Psycannons) with Psybolt Razorbacks (Psybacks)
5 Strikes with Psycannon in a Rhino
5 Death Cultists in a Psyback
5 Death Cultists 1 Crusader, in Psyback
3 TL Autocannnon, Psybolt Dreads.
Game 1: Spearhead Deployment (quarters), Mission was 3 objectives, that were placed prior to deployment and then scattered 3d6 inches(always scatter). Terrain was also placed and similarly scattered prior to the game(though the terrain did not always scatter.)
My opponent was running Blood Angels
Libby with Fear and Shield
Death Company with a chaplain and a Talon Death company dread in a Storm Raven
3 Minimum assault squads in land raiders.
So not a great match-up for me unless my psycannons can pop his raiders.
This game really came down 2 my vehicles getting immobilized (1 by him, 1 by terrain) and bottlenecking my Psycannons so I could not get to his land raiders. Which resulted in him contesting one objective while we each held one (I would have contested 2 and held 1 on turns 5 and 6 we went 7). So we ended with a Draw. Not an exceedingly fun game as it was a lot of my ineffective shooting at land raiders, and killing anything that got out of them.
Game 2: Pitched battle (12" in), mission was to get troop units into your opponents deployment zone.
My opponent was playing Dark Eldar (Venom heavy)
His list was
3 Haemunculi
a wych squad in a Raider
Grotesques in a Raider
a bunch of warriors in venoms
a squad of trueborn in venom
2 Ravagers
1 Void Raven Bomber
My opponent won the roll for first turn and really agonized about going first, or reserving and letting me go first. He chose to go first, his shooting really failed him (he shook or stunned maybe 2 vehicles), and that was pretty much game as I shot down both Ravagers, stunned his Bomber, shot down 2 Venoms, and killed nearly all the warriors inside those venoms turn 1. Turn 2 was more of the same. He ended up with I think a couple of models left turn 5, and conceded when we rolled to go on to turn 6.)
Game 3: Spearhead, Killpoints
My opponent was running Space wolves
Thunderwolf lord with Bear, Storm Shield and Frost blade
3 x 3 Thunder Cav (allocated 2 Shields, one fist, one naked)
Rune Priest with Jaws and Livign Lighting
2 x 4 Long Fangs with 3 missiles each
3 Grey hunter squads (2 Plasma backs, 1 Rhino with 9 guys)
or close enough.
I won first turn, and shot up his Cav a bit.
HE came forward and charged my Vehicles and 2 Dreads with 2 units of Cav (not the lord.). The ended up getting stuck in with the dreads, and got counter charged by Purifiers and Death Cultists with Cotaez, and got wiped out. His other non lord squad got killed by my other DCA. My shooting then took out most of his vehicles, as his lords squad killed some purifiers before losing to another DCA + purifier charge. THen I spent the rest of the game throwing shots at his long fangs and remaining hunters, and tabled him turn 5.
Game 4: Mission was Dawn of war (night fighting for 2 turns), and Table quarters (scoring units control anything contests.
My opponent was Orks
3 Battle wagons
3 squads of boyz (1 slugga, 2 Shoota)
30 Lootas
A big NOb squad(allocated out)
and a Big mek.
HE came forward during night fighting and managed to charge my lines turn 2. He killed a few vehciles, but then got his nobs charged by Cotaez and Death Cultists, and his boyz by purifiers. My purifiers failed to cleansing flame (which happened 3 times this game), and ended up tying combat with the boyz. My DCA all died but won combat against the Nobz since Cotaez lived, the nobs broke and ran, and then got shot below half before they could rally. I eventually killed off the squad of boyz with a second squad of purifiers, took out all the battle wagons, and ended up using my mobility to contest 2 quarters while controling the other 2. to win.
First my list
Grey Knights
Cotaez
2 x 3 Acolytes in Chimeras
2 x 10 Purifiers (4 Halberds, 2 Hammers, 4 Psycannons) with Psybolt Razorbacks (Psybacks)
5 Strikes with Psycannon in a Rhino
5 Death Cultists in a Psyback
5 Death Cultists 1 Crusader, in Psyback
3 TL Autocannnon, Psybolt Dreads.
Game 1: Spearhead Deployment (quarters), Mission was 3 objectives, that were placed prior to deployment and then scattered 3d6 inches(always scatter). Terrain was also placed and similarly scattered prior to the game(though the terrain did not always scatter.)
My opponent was running Blood Angels
Libby with Fear and Shield
Death Company with a chaplain and a Talon Death company dread in a Storm Raven
3 Minimum assault squads in land raiders.
So not a great match-up for me unless my psycannons can pop his raiders.
This game really came down 2 my vehicles getting immobilized (1 by him, 1 by terrain) and bottlenecking my Psycannons so I could not get to his land raiders. Which resulted in him contesting one objective while we each held one (I would have contested 2 and held 1 on turns 5 and 6 we went 7). So we ended with a Draw. Not an exceedingly fun game as it was a lot of my ineffective shooting at land raiders, and killing anything that got out of them.
Game 2: Pitched battle (12" in), mission was to get troop units into your opponents deployment zone.
My opponent was playing Dark Eldar (Venom heavy)
His list was
3 Haemunculi
a wych squad in a Raider
Grotesques in a Raider
a bunch of warriors in venoms
a squad of trueborn in venom
2 Ravagers
1 Void Raven Bomber
My opponent won the roll for first turn and really agonized about going first, or reserving and letting me go first. He chose to go first, his shooting really failed him (he shook or stunned maybe 2 vehicles), and that was pretty much game as I shot down both Ravagers, stunned his Bomber, shot down 2 Venoms, and killed nearly all the warriors inside those venoms turn 1. Turn 2 was more of the same. He ended up with I think a couple of models left turn 5, and conceded when we rolled to go on to turn 6.)
Game 3: Spearhead, Killpoints
My opponent was running Space wolves
Thunderwolf lord with Bear, Storm Shield and Frost blade
3 x 3 Thunder Cav (allocated 2 Shields, one fist, one naked)
Rune Priest with Jaws and Livign Lighting
2 x 4 Long Fangs with 3 missiles each
3 Grey hunter squads (2 Plasma backs, 1 Rhino with 9 guys)
or close enough.
I won first turn, and shot up his Cav a bit.
HE came forward and charged my Vehicles and 2 Dreads with 2 units of Cav (not the lord.). The ended up getting stuck in with the dreads, and got counter charged by Purifiers and Death Cultists with Cotaez, and got wiped out. His other non lord squad got killed by my other DCA. My shooting then took out most of his vehicles, as his lords squad killed some purifiers before losing to another DCA + purifier charge. THen I spent the rest of the game throwing shots at his long fangs and remaining hunters, and tabled him turn 5.
Game 4: Mission was Dawn of war (night fighting for 2 turns), and Table quarters (scoring units control anything contests.
My opponent was Orks
3 Battle wagons
3 squads of boyz (1 slugga, 2 Shoota)
30 Lootas
A big NOb squad(allocated out)
and a Big mek.
HE came forward during night fighting and managed to charge my lines turn 2. He killed a few vehciles, but then got his nobs charged by Cotaez and Death Cultists, and his boyz by purifiers. My purifiers failed to cleansing flame (which happened 3 times this game), and ended up tying combat with the boyz. My DCA all died but won combat against the Nobz since Cotaez lived, the nobs broke and ran, and then got shot below half before they could rally. I eventually killed off the squad of boyz with a second squad of purifiers, took out all the battle wagons, and ended up using my mobility to contest 2 quarters while controling the other 2. to win.
Conflict GT tournament Report.
First off sorry I have been away for so long, life has been kicking by butt recently.
Anyway I attended the Conflict GT this past weekend and figured I would put down my thoughts on my games and the event as a whole.
I'll start off by saying that I had a great time, met and hung out with a bunch of great guys, and played 6 fun games (2 of which were really great games, that were super close right up until the end.). The venue at the Palisades mall (home of this event and the Battle for Salvation GT) is always great, with easy highway access, lots of food options, and a decently large room.
All that said I think this event took a step backward from last year in pretty much every regard. Last year despite the fact that the TO really had little help, he did a good job of having the event organized ahead of time, updating the website, emailing requestes for lists, posting the missions, having packets ready at the event. Last year I had very few complaints (there was not enough terrain, the missions needed some work, and I think everyone thought that the TO needed a little more staff.). This year there was really no improvement on those concerns, and overall other things got worse.
So starting at the beginning, prior to the event I had to email the TO to find out when to turn my list in as the turn in date was not posted anywhere. Upon arriving to the tournament there were no tournament packets describing the rules of the event, providing sportsmanship rubrics, scoring for missions etc., these were available last year. Looking at the terrain, while it was a slight improvement, there was still very little terrain on most boards, especially terrain that blocked line of sight. I found that the mission for the first game had been placed on the table, and looked at the mission. It was the same first mission as last year, objectives, that scattered randomly, and were placed after deployment (2 by one player 1 by the other.), and that terrain was not set on boards but instead scattered randomly and could not come within 6" of the table center or another terrain piece (this was true for all missions, and I heard multiple accounts of players being unable to place all the terrain due to these rules). One player went to the TO, and described the issue with placing objectives after deployment, and it was fixed, but not every player heard the announcement of the change.
The first game was scheduled to start at 9:00, but as the start time rolled around we were told that 6 people had not yet shown up (to a 50ish person GT, ende up at 42 players) and that we would wait for them to show up, and start in 15min. While I don't agree with waiting for players at large events (especially when we are playing 4 games in 1 day), I figured 15 mins was not too bad, but 15 min became 30 and 30 became about an hour.... Finally, the match-ups were posted...and my name was not on the list. Well another player was not on the list, so ok we were paired together...until 2 members of the same club came up to tell the TO they were paired together, so I switched pairing again. Again no big deal, but just one more thing. As the round started we found out that because the Fantasy GT had spilled over onto the tables reserved for 40k that the table numbers were now wrong and we had to take time to figure out where we were supposed to be. THis all became a larger issue because the TO was pretty much running the whole event by himself (he had a couple of guys who helped hand out missions and put numbers on tables, but no judges, not paint judges, no main administrator, etc), this would be problem enough if it was just a 42 man 40k GT, but when you have a 70ish guy fantasy GT, a Flames of war tourney, a 40k doubles tourney (and a failed, i.e. no one showed, warmahordes event.)., it is just too much for one person.
As the tourney went on we all found that the TO just reprinted the missions from last year, and was using them again. All of these missions are far too easy to tie. Missions went 3 objectives, Get troops into your opponents deployment zone, Kill points, Table quarters (scoring to control, anything to contest), 3 Objectives, 3 objectives. NO tie breakers on any mission, so except the KP mission all of these were very easy to draw (hence I finished 3-1-2), and I know plenty of people who finished with 2+ draw results. This really hurts when you are on the top tables and the players all end up drawing, and get jumped by people playing easier games who win. (I think I have mentioned before I am not a big fan of kill points.
At the end of day 1 after many people had already packed up their armies, we were told to leave our armies out so they could be paint scored overnight....only to then get paint scored during our games the next day.
Other issues I heard from people were: NO time remaining announcements (people never seemed to know when the round was ending and it caused issues), lectures from the TO about painting (he told at least 1 person that if he had seen their army prior to the event he would have not allowed the player to play...if you are not going to check the armies prior to the tourney, don't bother with the lecture.), the tables were placed very close to one another, leaving little room to move around, and no room for display boards, but there was still empty space at the front of the room on both sides of the room, this resulted in delayed games due to peoples armies being on tables people were trying to play on (at one point another player and myself moved 2 tables to the center of the room so people could put armies their so games could get started). Lots of the 40k players did not feel the need to play 6 games (for a battle point tourney) especially 4 games the first day (5 if you played doubles which had 2 rounds friday night and 1 round at 10 pm on saturday.), then 2 on sunday which meant we got out pretty early sunday which was nice...but why not just 5 games 3 and 2.
Announcements, were made as to expanding the flames of war event to 30+ for next year....which gave me the thought that if the TO did not get extra help I would no longer want to go to this event. 3-4 tourneys are too much for one person to run/ref/paint judge, the room does not have enough space to comfortably fit 150+ players and tables. The TO of this event really needs to let go of some of the control and ask other people for help. I know that many of the players had a good enough time because the group of players in attendance was a great group of guys, but I also know many of them mentioned to me that they probably won't go next year. Which leaves me in a quandry, the event is local to me and an easy trip to make, I have had fun enough games both years, but I wonder if my money would be better spent at other, better organized events that the same group of players are attending....
Game reports will be upcoming....
Anyway I attended the Conflict GT this past weekend and figured I would put down my thoughts on my games and the event as a whole.
I'll start off by saying that I had a great time, met and hung out with a bunch of great guys, and played 6 fun games (2 of which were really great games, that were super close right up until the end.). The venue at the Palisades mall (home of this event and the Battle for Salvation GT) is always great, with easy highway access, lots of food options, and a decently large room.
All that said I think this event took a step backward from last year in pretty much every regard. Last year despite the fact that the TO really had little help, he did a good job of having the event organized ahead of time, updating the website, emailing requestes for lists, posting the missions, having packets ready at the event. Last year I had very few complaints (there was not enough terrain, the missions needed some work, and I think everyone thought that the TO needed a little more staff.). This year there was really no improvement on those concerns, and overall other things got worse.
So starting at the beginning, prior to the event I had to email the TO to find out when to turn my list in as the turn in date was not posted anywhere. Upon arriving to the tournament there were no tournament packets describing the rules of the event, providing sportsmanship rubrics, scoring for missions etc., these were available last year. Looking at the terrain, while it was a slight improvement, there was still very little terrain on most boards, especially terrain that blocked line of sight. I found that the mission for the first game had been placed on the table, and looked at the mission. It was the same first mission as last year, objectives, that scattered randomly, and were placed after deployment (2 by one player 1 by the other.), and that terrain was not set on boards but instead scattered randomly and could not come within 6" of the table center or another terrain piece (this was true for all missions, and I heard multiple accounts of players being unable to place all the terrain due to these rules). One player went to the TO, and described the issue with placing objectives after deployment, and it was fixed, but not every player heard the announcement of the change.
The first game was scheduled to start at 9:00, but as the start time rolled around we were told that 6 people had not yet shown up (to a 50ish person GT, ende up at 42 players) and that we would wait for them to show up, and start in 15min. While I don't agree with waiting for players at large events (especially when we are playing 4 games in 1 day), I figured 15 mins was not too bad, but 15 min became 30 and 30 became about an hour.... Finally, the match-ups were posted...and my name was not on the list. Well another player was not on the list, so ok we were paired together...until 2 members of the same club came up to tell the TO they were paired together, so I switched pairing again. Again no big deal, but just one more thing. As the round started we found out that because the Fantasy GT had spilled over onto the tables reserved for 40k that the table numbers were now wrong and we had to take time to figure out where we were supposed to be. THis all became a larger issue because the TO was pretty much running the whole event by himself (he had a couple of guys who helped hand out missions and put numbers on tables, but no judges, not paint judges, no main administrator, etc), this would be problem enough if it was just a 42 man 40k GT, but when you have a 70ish guy fantasy GT, a Flames of war tourney, a 40k doubles tourney (and a failed, i.e. no one showed, warmahordes event.)., it is just too much for one person.
As the tourney went on we all found that the TO just reprinted the missions from last year, and was using them again. All of these missions are far too easy to tie. Missions went 3 objectives, Get troops into your opponents deployment zone, Kill points, Table quarters (scoring to control, anything to contest), 3 Objectives, 3 objectives. NO tie breakers on any mission, so except the KP mission all of these were very easy to draw (hence I finished 3-1-2), and I know plenty of people who finished with 2+ draw results. This really hurts when you are on the top tables and the players all end up drawing, and get jumped by people playing easier games who win. (I think I have mentioned before I am not a big fan of kill points.
At the end of day 1 after many people had already packed up their armies, we were told to leave our armies out so they could be paint scored overnight....only to then get paint scored during our games the next day.
Other issues I heard from people were: NO time remaining announcements (people never seemed to know when the round was ending and it caused issues), lectures from the TO about painting (he told at least 1 person that if he had seen their army prior to the event he would have not allowed the player to play...if you are not going to check the armies prior to the tourney, don't bother with the lecture.), the tables were placed very close to one another, leaving little room to move around, and no room for display boards, but there was still empty space at the front of the room on both sides of the room, this resulted in delayed games due to peoples armies being on tables people were trying to play on (at one point another player and myself moved 2 tables to the center of the room so people could put armies their so games could get started). Lots of the 40k players did not feel the need to play 6 games (for a battle point tourney) especially 4 games the first day (5 if you played doubles which had 2 rounds friday night and 1 round at 10 pm on saturday.), then 2 on sunday which meant we got out pretty early sunday which was nice...but why not just 5 games 3 and 2.
Announcements, were made as to expanding the flames of war event to 30+ for next year....which gave me the thought that if the TO did not get extra help I would no longer want to go to this event. 3-4 tourneys are too much for one person to run/ref/paint judge, the room does not have enough space to comfortably fit 150+ players and tables. The TO of this event really needs to let go of some of the control and ask other people for help. I know that many of the players had a good enough time because the group of players in attendance was a great group of guys, but I also know many of them mentioned to me that they probably won't go next year. Which leaves me in a quandry, the event is local to me and an easy trip to make, I have had fun enough games both years, but I wonder if my money would be better spent at other, better organized events that the same group of players are attending....
Game reports will be upcoming....
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