Stacey's SoCal report
So I pick up John around 9-9:30am, fill up my small 2 door car and hit the road.
Half the trip felt like it was spent in the horrific LA traffic and we arrive at the hotel around 5ish. We find Derek and Hengl jugging down the free booze, and I myself was amazed at the glass graveyard Derek had built up before him. I am pretty much the smallest LD2 guy with Derek being a close second if not smaller. And that amount of booze would put me in the ER. I drink a few beers and watch Derek slip further and further into madness. Cameron and I head up to the room, and as soon as Derek realized the love of his life at the time (Cameron) had left he starts to chase after Cameron like a dog in heat. We run to the elevator and get the door closed before Derek can join us.
The rest of my night is pretty tame; the highlight was Johnny and his "Silver Fox" comments at the hot tub. Basically an older lady with a breasts the size of Ed's ego, and she wasn't afraid to show them.
I can't remember all my opponents' names, but the armies and games I remember in detail for the most part.
Game One:
Clive? – Empire
I got to the table and sat down across this empire army. My opponent instantly started telling how fluffy and high comp his army was.
2250 Pts - Empire Roster - Cult of Steam Triumph
- Master Engineer of Steam (2#, 275 Pts)
- 1 Arch Lector of Sigmar @ 275 Pts
- General; Prayers of Sigmar; Hand Weapon
- 1 Steam Avatar of Power (War Altar) @ [0] Pts
- Chariot; Large Target
- 2 Mechi War Hound @ [0] Pts
- 1 Hammer of Judgement @ [25] Pts
- 1 Armor of Meteoric Iron @ [25] Pts
- Master Armour, Tyi Crisis (1#, 160 Pts)
- 1 Warrior Priest @ 160 Pts
- Prayers of Sigmar; Barding; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Shield
- 1 Warhorse @ [0] Pts
- 1 Biting Blade @ [5] Pts
- 1 Talisman of Protection @ [15] Pts
- 1 Van Horstman's Speculum @ [30] Pts
- Mechi Wizard of Steam, Misstress Thunder (1#, 130 Pts)
- 1 Battle Wizard @ 130 Pts
- Level 2 Upgrade; Hand Weapon
- 1 Rod of Power @ [30] Pts
- Mechi Wizard of Steam, Lord Fire (1#, 145 Pts)
- 1 Battle Wizard @ 145 Pts
- Level 2 Upgrade; Hand Weapon
- 1 Crystal Ball @ [15] Pts
- 1 Doomfire Ring @ [30] Pts
- Warriors of Gears (42#, 277 Pts)
- 21 Swordsmen @ 277 Pts
- Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Shield
- 1 Duellist @ [16] Pts
- Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Shield
- 10 [Det] Speamnen of the Torch @ [60] Pts
- Hand Weapon; Spear; Light Armour; Shield
- 10 [Det] Speamnen of the Anvil @ [60] Pts
- Hand Weapon; Spear; Light Armour; Shield
- Steam Volley Regement (24#, 188 Pts)
- 11 Crossbowmen @ 188 Pts
- Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Crossbow
- 1 Marksman @ [13] Pts
- Hand Weapon; Crossbow
- 6 [Det] Spearmen of Black Fire @ [36] Pts
- Hand Weapon; Spear; Light Armour; Shield
- 6 [Det] Spearmen of Black Rain @ [36] Pts
- Hand Weapon; Spear; Light Armour; Shield
- Mechi WarHounds of Engineer Marcus the Great (6#, 198 Pts)
- 5 Knightly Orders @ 198 Pts
- Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Barding; Hand Weapon; Lance & Shield (x5); Full Plate Armor
- 1 Preceptor @ [39] Pts
- Hand Weapon; Lance; Full Plate Armor; Shield
- 1 Steel Standard @ [20] Pts
- 6 Warhorse @ [0] Pts
- Knights of Gears (6#, 221 Pts)
- 5 Knightly Orders @ 221 Pts
- Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Knights of the Inner Circle; Barding; Hand Weapon; Lance & Shield (x5); Full Plate Armor
- 1 Preceptor @ [42] Pts
- Knights of the Inner Circle; Hand Weapon; Lance; Full Plate Armor; Shield
- 1 War Banner @ [25] Pts
- 6 Warhorse @ [0] Pts
- Wonderus Steam Repeaters of Death (5#, 113 Pts)
- 5 Outriders @ 113 Pts
- Musician Mus; Hand Weapon; Repeater Handgun; Light Armour; Fast Cavalry
- 5 Warhorse @ [0] Pts
- Wonderus Steam Repeaters of Destruction (5#, 113 Pts)
- 5 Outriders @ 113 Pts
- Musician Mus; Hand Weapon; Repeater Handgun; Light Armour; Fast Cavalry
- 5 Warhorse @ [0] Pts
- Light Battery Reliant (4#, 100 Pts)
- 1 Great Cannon @ 100 Pts
- Cannon
- 3 Crew @ [0] Pts
- Hand Weapon
- Battery Forlorn Hope (4#, 110 Pts)
- 1 Helblaster Volley Gun @ 110 Pts
- 3 Crew @ [0] Pts
- Hand Weapon
- Battery Victory (4#, 85 Pts)
- 1 Cannon [Dogs] @ 85 Pts
- Cannon
- 3 Crew [Dogs] @ [0] Pts
- Hand Weapon
- Black Guard of Battery Victory (20#, 134 Pts)
- 10 Spearmen @ 134 Pts
- Musician Mus; Hand Weapon; Spear; Light Armour; Shield
- 5 [Det] Crossbowmen @ [40] Pts
- Hand Weapon; Crossbow
- 5 [Det] Swordsmen @ [30] Pts
- Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Shield
- Total Roster Cost: 2249
He scored a 13.5 with this list and I only a 14. He ends up tabling me. Killing every one of my models. Now, I have never been completely tabled before. So I was a little taken back on how high he scored comp wise with that army. He had so many casts and bound items I couldn't even get close to stopping his magic phase. I found out later that evening that was not the list he scored the 13.5 comp with. I guess there was a judge mistake and he turned in that list second. The judges scored his original list at 13.5, but he played with this new list. So his first 2 rounds he got to fight opponents with higher comp scores with his lower comp score list. He goes on to win overall at the tourney.
Massacre
Game 2
After the game 1 beat down I got the face Warriors of Chaos Next. My opponent was the guy who scored the 15 comp. His army was 4 Exalted champs each with a different mark, 4 dog units, 2 units mark of Khorne, 2 units mark Tzeentch, 2 units mark Nurgle and 2 units marke of Slaanesh. Was a fun game that we fought to a draw. My squigs hoppers tore through his marauders pretty bad on the left flank after eating 2 dog unit.
Draw In my favor.
Game 3
Robert – High Elves.
Very small high elf army, level 3 mage, BSB with d6 banner, Hero, big unit of Phoenix guard, 2 units of archers, great eagle, small unit sword masters, 15 strong white lions, 1 lion chariot and 8 Dragon princes. My first turn shooting was dead on killing 6 of the 8 dragon princes. On his next turn the plague would kill off the other two. My two pump wagons single handedly killed off the white lions (Take that always strike first!). I avoided his phoenix guard the entire game. The game was the best I would have all weekend and loads of fun.
-Draw in my favor.
Game 4
Ogres. I decided I wanted to switch and I got to. And because of this game I will NEVER play ogres. I got to watch as my goblins tore apart this ogre army. I got to command 2x 3 man bull, 4 x 3 man Iron guts, 2x 2 man lead belchers, slave giant, 1 unit of gnoblers, 3 butchers and a tyrant. The small unit size of the ogres and not have enough attacks to break the static rez of the goblins. I tried to set up some flanks, but the speed of the wolf riders would block the charges. The squig hoppers ate the giant on one flank while the other ate threw a couple units of ogres before getting eaten by the tyrant. At least my goblin won one game at the tourney, even if I wasn't the general.
Major Loss
Game 5
I was going to rape Johnny a new one, but he lucked out and the judges switched our opponents at the last second, so we didn't get to play each other. I would have rather played Johnny and had fun my last game.
Tomb King with a Casket of souls. I would go into more detail, but this game was not fun for me at all. The casket ate up all my small units while I held my big units back to avoid magical movement flank charges. He had 3 casters and a king, so I could do very little to stop all is movement. He wouldnt commit his chariots to charge with out a flank I wouldnt give him one, so not a whole lot of combat. He killed all my small units with the casket.
Major Loss.
So I ended up 3 losses 2 ties. I was the boat anchor. I also scored very low soft scores, which was surprising to me. Maybe the fact I wasn't really having fun at the tourney showed. It was though nicely run and the food situation was great. They even brought the food to your table or announced it was ready.
-Stacey
Comments
Comments from Q
First off, Stacey should have gotten a perfect comp score. One of the judges gave him a 4 and I think his reasoning at the time was the quantity of magic and shooting, to which my response was how else is a goblin army supposed to compete? Ultimately, I should have fought harder on his behalf, but we had many more lists to go through. As far has how Clive scored, it was an error on Mike's part in that he did not have Clive's final list that he had emailed the day before the competition. In my opinion, the list Clive played should have scored 10-11, the same as the similarly built empire army. Clive had a fair amount of shooting and the popemobile, but he also had things like spearmen with halbedier detatchements and other subpar options all over the place. He was also one of two Empire players without a Steam Tank and he had the least shooting and heavy cavalry of any of the Empire armies being run. Had Mike gotten that email Friday morning, I am certain he would have been dropped some points. Thats not a big shift, but it would have kept him from playing Stacey, who should have squared off against one of the other Ogre players in all likelyhood.
As much as I feel we did a descent job on things this year, I have to conceed that there were a couple of gaffes. Unfortunately, they included a couple of high profile armies (Clive and Stacey) that may have diminished the system. We also had pairing issues caused by the fact that our scorer was being fed armies at the last minute and also handling the 40k crap in the back of the hall. The bulk of this falls on my head as we literally doubled our event size from last year and I had outside issues that took some time away from the event that could have been used to preempt some of the stuff that occured. It bothers me, because my primary goal is to be fair, impartial, and transparent, but some things were simply taken out of my hands due to growing pains and my time being spread too thin.
My plan to mitigate the situation next year is three fold. First, we are going to require lists to be submitted a week in advance (no last minute changes) or suffer a 5 point penalty to your overall score. Walk ins who are playing for fun can still have a crack at the lesser trophies and get their games in, but there is incentive for the competitive people to get the scores well in advance. Second, I am going to be more dictatorial on certain aspects where I delegated in the past, namely selecting scoring judges and handling pairing switches. I think our judge group for comp could have been better and I have floated the idea of having a guest judge from an outside club (who is not playing) acting as the third judge for the event. Also, I need to make sure no more pairing switched occur that I do not sign off on so we do not end up with massive pair ups/downs in the latter rounds. I let these things slide to other people and I feel the areas where the event suffered most are where I did not have my eye on these things. Finally, I am going to farm out the list checking duties to someone else during the event. Though you might not have noticed, I did check lists, both the math in them and making sure what people had on the table matched what was in their list. This is, unfortunately, very time consuming and it took away from other things I could have been doing, especially overseeing the pairing situation.
As for the scoring in general, I have seen some comments on how some people do not like degree of difficulty and some do. I intend to keep it in some form for a couple reasons. First, point denial armies are a pet peeve of mine. They are frustrating for people to play against and very "gamey" in their design. Any time you go to straight win/loss systems, the point denial armies dominate, further encouraging their use. I know that Woodies and Bretts are quite popular up in your neck of the woods, and I think this is at least partially due to the fact that the bulk of your GTs using win/loss battle points making them more effective. The second reason I am sticking with at least some Degree of Victory in the Battle Points is that it creates a more varied spread in the scores, making pairings much more clear cut. And, as Dave has pointed out, it is really hard to achieve 20 battle points. One of the main things I dislike about the Adepticon style of Win/Loss is that the way their missions are set up, invariably one guy always walks away with maximum and the other with the minimum, which causes lots of tie breaking and does little to provide someone who is losing with a shot at scoring some extra bonus points. I do see the need to discourage people from faceraping their opponent to max out battle points, so I have lowered the emphasis on degree of victory a fair amount and increased the emphasis on side objectives, which I might tweak a little more in that direction. Ultimately, it did what I wanted and we had a really wide spread of battle point scores and a really big variation of army types at the top of the standings. Its not perfect, but it is achieving what I designed it to do for the most part, it just needs some more minor tweaks and better oversight on my part.
Anyhow, I hope the experience was mostly positive for you guys. Aside from the glitched, which have caused me to lose sleep since the Slaughter, I had fun running it. With any luck, I can get the issues we had ironed out and get us a little closer to perfection.
thats some janky a** sh*t
on the empire players part, stacey. I wanted to punch whoever put my HE list up against your Gobo horde. My list at Saws comped a 21 which i agree was bullshit, but thats ridiculous that he switched his list out.
just my 2 cents
TJ Crain-Low Comp
Don't sweat it Stacy, it was a 'lil bit sheisty
That empire list is no where near a 13.5. That was REALLY shady on the part of the Clive. Even though I know he's a good guy and all of the mistakes were honest, this snafu should have been caught by somebody before game 2; I will go as far as to say that Clive probably should have investigated his obviously inflated comp score seeing as how he was rolling in on a War Altar, 2 cannons, 2 units of outriders, and a hellblaster. The fact that he won Best Overall is bad news for the Slaughter, they are going to have to back pedal and hand wave to justify it.
To be fair
To be fair to Clive, he went into game three with a crazy high battle score due to the snafu. He should have been matched up with some lists that could have easily kicked his teeth in for the next three games... and yet he still came out on top.
My middle-of the-road comp and battle scores got me matched up with a Star Dragon in game three. Go figure.
I'd be much more upset if his inflated comp score mattered for the Overall calculation, but it didn't. Only player-judged comp mattered for the final tally.
Still, sucks to be Stacey, as there is no way the all-goblin bunny-farmer list was in the same league as shoot them up and let Walter sort them out list that Clive was running.
I don't worry about Stacey too much. Being a guy, with a girls name, he has learned to cope with greater hardships in his life to be sure.
It's true but...
When you consider that it was VERY hard to get full battle points at SoCal, Clive's first two games against obviously mismatched lists allowed him to rack up a lot more battle points than most evenly matched lists were capable of pulling. In general, it was easy to go mid-road on battle points at SoCal but really hard to go big, you either had to get completely tabled or completely house the other guy.
Yup the difficulty to score
Yup the difficulty to score battle points was my main gripe with the tourney. I happen to have one of the so called points denial lists in my Empire knights+stank+walter and I got dinged for it. I am still a little bitter that I went 4-0-1 and didn't even break the top half in battle points. I think that the spread of points between minor win and masacre should be smaller if they are going to stick with that type of system. I still had a lot of fun, so this is really the only thing that would make me think twice about going or bringing that same army.