Blog Wars 6 - Tabling for Maximum VPs

Sorry for the delay with these posts. I've had a busy week getting the house ready for the in-laws coming this weekend so I'm just catching up.

So entering round two I was somewhat flustered by having to sort the scores out and going from 15 minutes ahead of schedule to 5-10 minutes behind. I was hoping that I'd be able to make the time back by playing my second game quickly allowing me to sort out the scores and hopefully get us back on schedule. That all went to pot when Dan Lane and Franco called me over to adjudicate on their game....

The Incident
Before I get into it I want to say that I'm going to attempt to write this as impartially as possible. I'm sure Franco will mention it on the 40KGlobal podcast so please read this and listen to that and form your own conclusions.

Anyway, they'd reached the end of their game and Franco had tabled Dan at the end of turn 4 (although it may have been turn 5 depending on who you asked). The rules pack stated that tabling your opponent did not automatically give you maximum points. Knowing that this is something that is somewhat controversial I reminded everyone before the event that this was the case. I'll go into more depth about why I decided to use this system later but suffice to say it'd been in the rules pack from the start which had also been sent out to everyone a couple of days before.

Well Franco had tabled Dan but wasn't controlling any of the objectives. Franco's argument was that he should be allowed to play his turns which would easily allow him to claim the objectives. Now I could understand Franco's frustration that he'd tabled his opponent but yet would actually be given a score of zero (although he would get 3 secondaries). I hadn't specifically said that people couldn't have their remaining turns but it's generally accepted that the game ends immediately when the last unit dies. In his mind though anything other than ruling that he could have his turns would be "ridiculous". If I ruled against him he would "leave now, and never come back". With both players (quite rightly) trying to argue their case and me struggling to think clearly I made a mistake. First, I tried to get both players to see it from the other's point of view. Dan could see that to table and score no points sounded daft but justified this by saying that the rules pack was quite clear. Franco refused to see it from Dan's point of view.

I was hoping there might be a middle ground so I assessed the situation on the table to see if, in the "remaining" turns Franco could get the objectives. Sure enough he'd got Farsight (scoring thanks to the BW rules) near the central objective, a landspeeder full of scouts near his objective and some kroot outflanking near Dan's objective. Essentially then I was rulling between a 25-0 defeat and a 0-0 draw. The kroot weren't guaranteed to make it to the objective so I thought I might've found a middle ground. The kroot would need to move 11" through cover to get to the objective. With Move Through Cover they moved 5" but they'd still need a 6 to run into range of the objective. Of course Franco rolled a 6 thus removing my option for middle ground. Having allowed him to do this though I'd essentially permitted him to have his turns and backed myself into a corner.

I wasn't happy with the decision but I needed to get back to my game. In the meantime I was chatting to various people who'd finished their games and had heard about the problem. Some of them had tabled their opponents but not claimed full VPs, as the tournament rules stated. Clearly then I'd need to decide whether I was changing the rules in the middle of the game or if I should go back to Franco and tell him I'd changed my mind.

I probably should've decided sooner rather than later but I wanted to get my game done as my opponent had already suffered enough delays. With the clock ticking down I got my game finished and there was now no choice but to make a ruling. Knowing that other people at the event had managed to play to the event pack I decided that I should enforce this in Franco & Dan's game too. This would therefore mean a 3-0 win to Franco (on secondaries). This wasn't good enough for him though and he stuck to his guns, packing up his models and leaving the event probably never to return.

I'm not thrilled that this happened as Blog Wars is supposed to be a friendly event that welcomes all comers. To have someone leave over a decision doesn't fit in with the Blog Wars philosophy of friendly competition. Whilst I still believe I made the right call in the end the problem was that I hadn't made it straight away. The rules in the event pack should be gospel. This means everyone is competing within the same parameters. To change them in the middle of the event is unfair.

Lessons Learned
I'm sure any 40K player who's been at it for a while knows that the rules aren't perfect. At a tournament you want the referee to make confident decisions that are based on a deep knowledge of the rules. The worst thing they can do is to go back on a call. That's the main thing to take away from this I think.

The other thing to think about is being totally explicit in the rules. If I intend to keep the rules regarding tabling then I need to specify that the game ends when the last unit is removed as a casualty. There are no further turns and if you haven't got the objectives then you don't score any points. Provided everyone is well aware that this is the situation then they can play their games accordingly.

Franco argued that "no other event since 2011" has used this system. At the time I was thinking that perhaps it was a good idea to follow suit to avoid situations like this being repeated. However, with more time to think about it I think it's something that should stay. It's important to realise why I want to keep the rule.

Why I want to keep the rule
The scoring system at Blog Wars doesn't have a binary win or loss result from each game. Instead, players are rewarded for winning convincingly and not penalised too heavily for a narrow loss. This may not be the way other tournaments do it but personally I think it works. Obviously there's the potential for someone to win all three games and not finish very high up (it's been Luke Fogg twice now - sorry Luke) but hopefully they've still enjoyed the day and their games will have been close.

That's the crux of it really. Winning doesn't actually matter that much at Blog Wars. Your ticket costs £15 and the most you can win is £25 for 1st place. Essentially then you're playing for a tenner when you take away your ticket cost. That's hardly stellar. Conversely the raffle offers a couple of hundred pounds worth of prizes which you're eligible for regardless of where you finish. Perhaps then Blog Wars shouldn't be viewed as a tournament but rather a social club. Yes there's a competition but, cheesy as it sounds, it's more about playing different people and having fun.

That's why I started going to tournaments in the first place, to play different people. If I win my games great if not who cares. Obviously I bitch and moan about it with the best of them but hopefully my opponents don't think of me as a power gamer.

So anyway, if you aren't awarding full points for tablings then you're encouraging people to play their games differently. In fact you're encouraging them to build their lists differently too. There's no doubt that the current meta encourages people to take cheap scoring units like kroot, cultists, etc so you can afford to pump more points into units that will devastate your opponent. Look at the top lists right now and with the exception of lists where the power comes from the troops section (e.g. wave serpent spam) the lists have barely any points in troops so they can afford the deathstars.

If you don't get maximum points from tabling you can't build your list that way. Your opponent may look at your list and think "I can't hope to beat that" but when they see your scoring is some kroot they'll be thinking they can easily take away your opportunity to score too many points. At Blog Wars the number of points you give away is almost as important as the number you score.

Conclusion
The Blog Wars system isn't the same as the major competitive events and it never has been. For starters there's the compulsory special character rule which came at a time when a lot of the major events were banning special characters. I don't post the results on Rankings HQ which I've been asked to do in the past.

The point is that I don't want Blog Wars to be like other events. I don't get a huge number of players attending but I don't want that either. I'm not trying to make money, I'm not trying to compete with the big GTs. What I want is for people to come to the event, no matter how experienced they are, and enjoy the day. The rule will be staying because Blog Wars is different by design. Perhaps I'll spell it out more clearly next time though.

Blog Wars 5 Update - Maunsfeld Gaming has Closed!

You may have already seen this but Maunsfeld Gaming (the shop formerly known as Maelstrom Games and the venue of the first four Blog Wars) has now gone into receivership. I received an email from the venue this lunchtime to say:


Hi there

I'm sorry to have to say this, but Maunsfeld Gaming is now closed for the foreseeable future.

Maunsfeld Gaming is going into liquidation shortly; the company is not insolvent - there's enough assets to cover any debts - but the longer it carries on, the more debts will accumulate and it will achieve critical mass at some point. With the attendance falling, organisers cancelling events, terrain being stolen, staff leaving, not being able to stock Games Workshop products in the store and the quite breathtaking and totally unjustified vitriol on the internet from some quarters, it seems the venue is no longer wanted by most.

I know this is a major disappointment for those of you that have a booked in event at the mill or attend on club nights, but I have no alternative but to call an end to it...............

.............I hope you all understand why this has happened and that it's not what I or our staff wanted. I wanted to sell the company, perhaps even the assets alone, so that someone can keep it going, but nobody seems to want to take it on, so that's that.

May I take this opportunity to thank all of you that have held events at the mill, or attended the club nights, over the past few years; you have been superb and I hope you have all enjoyed the facilities we put so much effort and time (and money) in to provide.

I've since received a further email from Tim King (the former Events Manager) who confirmed that the venue is indeed closed. As you can imagine I'm pretty gutted as I've always thought it was a cracking venue (I'm still toying with the idea of exploring the option of buying it or at least the tables/scenery to start my own venue). Maelstrom Games has had its issues but the venue has always been good to Blog Wars. Thank you to those of you who emailed to point this out to me. I may have already known for a few hours but I appreciate you taking the time to let me know.

What's the plan for Blog Wars 5 then?
As it stands at the moment we have 37 paid-up participants (including myself) for Blog Wars 5. Sadly we've had a few people drop out (not related to the closure) and I'm waiting to hear from the reserves before putting the few return tickets up for sale again. I don't know about you guys but I'm determined to run Blog Wars 5 somewhere. Therefore, I'll be looking for alternative venues during the rest of the week and making a few calls and/or sending a few emails. A couple of venues have been suggested already but whilst I haven't got in touch with either yet I know one of them can only accommodate 20 players. It's a similar story for the Outpost in Sheffield but there's a third venue that's been suggested that I need to explore. There are also plenty of other venues that I'm vaguely aware of that I'll be contacting.

Before going any further I'd like to assuage any fears people might have that money has been lost from the Blog Wars fund. Rest assured that I never pay the venue more than a couple of weeks in advance so all of the money is still sat in my PayPal account. The worst case scenario will be the event being cancelled and everyone receiving a full refund of their £15. I'm determined not to let that happen though. The show must go on!

Over the next week I'll keep you updated on any progress I make towards securing a new venue. I'd be surprised if we can get exactly the same date at a new venue so if it has to change I'll offer people the chance to either get a refund or confirm their attendance for any new date.

For now please let me know if you're aware of any suitable venues. I'd like to keep it central if possible, partly for my own sake as I don't want to travel for 3-4 hours before and after running the event, which is tiring enough, but also for people who might have arranged accommodation already. As far as I know Warhammer World no longer accepts externally organised events but in light of the situation I'll get in touch with people I know there and see what can be done. Otherwise I'd be grateful for suggestions.

Finally, I hope you will all stick with me through this. I'd ask you to be patient as I work full time and organise this event on my own. I'm sorry for the inconvenience it may have caused people. There were plenty of people telling me the closure was coming but I think I was hoping against hope they were wrong. I had been following the situation closely and had previously been assured that the venue would remain open until July (meaning BW5 was safe). Hopefully you can appreciate that I had little control over this. Blog Wars 5 will still go ahead if possible with the biggest turnout ever and therefore the biggest prize pot ever!

Cheesy as it sounds, Blog Wars is a great event because of the people who attend so it doesn't matter where we end up playing!

Battle Brothers Tournament (40K Doubles) Report - Overall

I'll throw up battle reports on our progress at this weekend's Battle Brothers event and the best painted stuff over the next few days. For now I just wanted to give me general thoughts about the event. The battle reports will have some proper pictures but for now I'm too lazy and tired to put them in!

Tournament Format

Battle Brothers is the new name for the GW run 40K doubles event at Warhammer World. The format has changed a little this year in that rather than 2x 750pt armies you instead share 1500pts however you see fit between you. You can either take a full FOC from one codex or else use allies. It's a bit less restrictive than the old way but it does feel like it stops it being doubles. Still the joy of it is having 4 people around a table which makes for a much more enjoyable experience. Not being any sort of tactical genius means that when I play solo I tend to not put too much effort into winning. When I've got someone to bounce ideas off I tend to find we perform better together.

In the past we've had some issues with the scoring system. I have to say they've gone in the right direction this time. Previously you simply gained points for win, draw, loss and then there were secret missions to add to your score. The secret missions were horribly biased towards some armies and with only 2 each a game there still wasn't much to separate scores. 

They've now embraced the 6th edition VPs so that you record your absolute score rather than just a win or loss. This means that you've got a much better chance of being able to separate the teams out in the final scores. Sadly, they still insist on including Favourite Game votes into the totals and what's worse they've made them worth 3pts each. That means a potential 30pts extra if everyone you play votes your's as their favourite game. I've talked before about the random nature of this and its inherent problems (i.e. not everyone votes, people vote for their mates and you're not likely to vote for someone who crushed you). It leads to a situation where the guys who win aren't necessarily the best generals! In the case of this weekend the guys who finished 2nd should've by rights been 1st, 4th should've been 2nd and worse 9th should've placed 3rd! The most shocking is the guys in 23 should've jumped 10 places to 13th because they didn't score any fave game votes!! 

At the end of the day GW are keen to make this a friendly tournament so you can understand their intention is to encourage people to try to make their games enjoyable for their opponents. If you go to the tournament in the knowledge that it isn't a harsh competition and don't worry about your placing too much then it isn't a big deal.

Speaking of encouraging friendlier games. GW took the unique step of making the draw for all 5 rounds random. This makes perfect sense in a friendly tournament but is a bit crap for less experienced players. In swiss pairs they might get a crap 1st, and maybe 2nd, game but otherwise will be playing opponents at a similar level. By randomising it completely there's the potential for them to have to suffer several games against opponents who will demolish them. From out perspective it was great because it allowed us to avoid some of the "top tier" lists for the whole weekend. None of that second game on Sunday on table 2 shenanigans like we had the last two times!

Tournament Organisation

We've attended four of the previous doubles events and despite the usual issues with GW tournaments (i.e. high cost and lack of prizes) we've consistently enjoyed them. I think this is down to the atmosphere. So many people packed into the room makes it much more fun I reckon. They'd put slightly more effort into organisation because we got a name badge each (proper plastic not like the crap ones at that shitty Blog Wars event :P) and an event pack with our first table number, score card, colour copy of the rules pack and.... a free pen!! This is pretty shocking for GW who are soo tight at these things that they print the results for 119 teams in a tiny font to fit them on a single page. You might say they're trying to save the rainforests but I'd say its cost saving! 

I was surprised they'd put the time and money in to give us packs and it was a welcome change. Presumably the money they saved by doing away with the secret missions went on the packs!?!

Refereeing

You'll be able to read more about this in the full battle reports over the next couple of days but here's the problem in detail so that it doesn't spoil the flow of the battle report (why is there always something? - it must be us!). 

In our second game we had our opponent bring a stormtalon on then attempt to use the guns on it at a dreadknight who was very close to their table edge. We said that the weapons wouldn't be able to hit as the dreadknight was outside of their 45 degree fire arc. We produced a neatly folded bit of paper to act as a guide for the size of the fire arc. Our opponents said that the weapon could actually turn 45 degrees to the left and 45 degrees to the right based on the wording of the entry in the rulebook. Here's the entry from page 72 of the rulebook (click to make it bigger):

As you can see from the diagram the hull mounted weapon on the Leman Russ has a 45 degree field of fire. Even if the diagram isn't 100% accurate the arc clearly isn't 90 degrees. We showed them this and then had a discussion about what weapons were hull mounted. We said the codex has to specifically say that a weapon is turret or sponson mounted or else it must be hull mounted. This prompted a call to the referees who agreed that the weapons were hull mounted. Our opponents then asked the referee about the fire arc. The last line of the paragraph next to the diagram reads "Additionally, assume all hull-mounted weapons can swivel horizontally up to 45 degrees". Both our opponents and the referee argued that this allowed the weapon to turn 45 left or 45 right giving a total of 90 degrees. We said it was 22.5 degrees each way i.e. 45 total and the argument continued. In response to this the ref who came over went to fetch the head ref to settle the matter. 

Having been pointed to the correct page the ref agreed with our opponents that it was 90 degrees total and hence the weapons could be fired. This to us was clearly wrong so I tried to state our case to which I was met with "I'm not interested, I've said what the rule is so drop it" from the head ref. Repeated attempted to explain our angle on it (pardon the pun) were met with refusals to even listen. We therefore had little choice but to give up and let the shooting go ahead. Of course this meant that the lascannon, multimelta and mindstrike missiles managed to kill off the dreadknight (Matt failed his invulns). 

I'll talk in the battle report about how significant this was but the main problem here is that the referees clearly don't have a good enough grasp of the rules. I had a chat with Nick Bayton at the end of the weekend about it and apologised for arguing so much with the head ref. The issue I had was his attitude more than anything else but Nick's response was that they try to get these disputes settled as quickly as possible. He said that they aren't really there for rules queries but rather players should work it out between them. This is fair enough in theory but if you know you're right, it's not that easy to use the "Golden Rule" and just 4+ it or something.

Anyway, I'd be interested to see what you guys think. I'm glad I've got that bit out of the way so the battle reports don't sound as bitter. It's worth pointing out the arguments with the ref we actually had a good laugh about the whole thing with our opponents Sean and Darren. Fair play to them for being understanding about my attitude. I think Sean could identify with it! Anyway, sadly those guys finished 1 point above in the overall rankings which makes it grate even more. 

Right onto the cheerful battle reports!!

40K Doubles Sept 2012 - Aftermath

Matt and I once again teamed up under the name of "Titanic Fenrisians" and headed to Warhammer World in Nottingham for the 40K doubles tournament. According to the organisers this will be the last 40K doubles in this format. They were pretty cryptic about it but hopefully there will be some sort of doubles event run by GW next year.

Anyway, you may recall that we also attended the doubles in June this year and suffice to say we weren't particularly happy with the scoring system. The other problem we had was that because we performed well we ended up on table 2 for our final game and played the most miserable game of 40K I've ever participated in even though we won it! Basically, our every move was questioned, measurements had to be rechecked, rules were argued over. It just wasn't any fun. However, we had only ourselves to blame as we took the most disgusting list we could think of that had a sickening number of S8 shots that not much could stand up to. 

This time around we were determined to do things differently. I'd persuaded Matt that we should take something that was fun to play first and competitive second. We tried out various combinations such as Tau and Orks, SW and IG, Tau and GK and even GK and DE! However, the night before the tournament, when we'd decided to go with SW/IG, Matt called me and said he really wanted to take two dreadknights. I was fine with this as they're certainly fun to use and with my thunderwolves they'd be pretty scary for any army to deal with! Here's what we ended up with:

Titanic Fenrisians - 2x 750pts

Rune Priest (JotWW, LL)

8 Grey Hunters (Melta, MotW, Standard) - Rhino

10 Grey Hunters (Flamer, Plasma, MotW, Standard) - Drop Pod

4 Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield, PF)

Coteaz

5 Purifiers (2 Psycannon, 1 Halberd, 1 KotF Halberd)

3 x 4 Warrior Acolytes 

2 Nemesis Dreadknights (Personal Teleporter, Heavy Incinerator)

The idea was that Matt had taken really cheap troops so that he could squeeze in the two dreadknights. In contrast to our list from June we had next to no high strength ranged shooting. In fact the only things we had were the two psycannons in the purifier unit (on foot) and living lightning from the rune priest. If we wanted to take down vehicles we'd need to do it in combat and frankly we'd got no chance of taking out flyers!!

Our hope was that this list would be pretty hit and miss. We'd have some games where we trounced our opponents still because some armies just can't deal with dreadknights/TWC but we'd also have games where we couldn't deal with a lot of flyers or couldn't bring down heavy mech lists. Essentially the point was that we'd end up in the mid-tables for most of the tournament and therefore play mostly friendly people not total dicks!

Now, I'm not saying we went into games with the intention of losing. Far from it in fact. We would be playing every game to the utmost of our ability but we anticipated that there'd be some games we simply couldn't win thus preventing us reaching table 2 for game 5 again and having a miserable end to the weekend.

Games Workshop again decided to employ their nonsense secret secondary missions system but we couldn't do many of them so were largely just ignoring them. They were also doing the Favourite Game votes again but with a more interesting list than last time and a less competitive attitude we hoped we might get at least a couple.

That's all I want to say for now so you'll have to check back later in the week for the battle reports to see how we got on. Incidentally, we don't actually know where we finished because we had to leave early and GW haven't put up the results yet. Therefore, if anyone is reading this who went to the tournament this weekend could you get in touch with me via the link on the right and let us know where we came. Hopefully GW will publish the results soon though.

6th Edition - Drama rife across the Blogosphere!

When I used to play EVE Online there were often posts on the forums saying "drama llama is not amused" or words to that effect. To those not familiar with it EVE is a sci-fi MMORPG with the highest number of players on a single server of any MMO. There's a big part of me that misses playing it but I simply don't have the time to get back into it. Anyway, every time the developer released an expansion/patch/ship/module there'd be mass panic on the forums that this new thing was going to break the game forever. Once the new feature was released there were a few days of panic and then everyone realised there was an easy counter to it and things went back to normal.

To me, 40K is no different. Every time GW announces a new codex, or in this case an entire new edition, we hear a few rumours and everyone panics that the new army/rules will break the game. Now I'm not going to pretend that GK are balanced but they certainly aren't as powerful as everyone seems to think. Most players now know how to deal with them. However, when they were first released there was hysteria because of the snippets of rules we heard. A prime example is that a lot of people thought the vindicare assassin was ridiculously powerful. That was until a missile heads his way, he fails his save and is insta-killed.

I've been trying to keep up-to-date with the rumours that are surfacing about 6th edition because I'm just as excited as everyone else about it. Don't get me wrong there's this niggling worry that GW will totally shake up the game but is that such a bad thing? Most people's complaint about 5th edition is that it just involves marines in boxes. If the new rules are anything like they're rumoured to be then we'll probably see less vehicles. So that'll make everyone happy right?

Well no, apparently there's lots to complain about in these rumoured changes to the game. What with cover saves being reduced, land raiders becoming tougher, rapid fire improving, etc. it seems that Space Marines will become even more powerful than before. The important thing there is the word "seems". We've heard only a few bits and pieces and frankly as reliable as some of these sources have been in the past they're still just rumours. Not to mention they're totally out of context. We don't know if armies will get FAQ'd to change how they work in the new edition, we don't actually know much at all.

Some of the rumoured rules seem pretty good to me. There's no doubting that reduction in cover saves will make it harder for xenos armies but low AP weaponry might be more affective against marines now. There might be change to how blast weapons work too. Close combat weapons having an AP makes sense to me, shooting at a fast moving vehicle being harder makes sense, land raiders being less likely to be one-shotted even makes sense. I don't think we'll be seeing armies totally dominated by land raiders but it will at least mean the people will take them again. In 5th edition it seems some vehicles are far too easy to kill at times and others are way too difficult. How many times have you been trying to kill a rhino and achieved everything but actually blowing the thing up? How many times has your land raider exploded on the first shot fired at it?

I think what I'm trying to get at is that (and making a pretty bad job of it) is that we don't have a fecking clue what 6th edition will be like. Does a film trailer tell you everything about a film? Is scanning the blurb on a book the same as reading it? Responding angrily to how supposed new rules will break the game is ridiculous.

What we can be sure of is that when the book first hits and copies of it flood the internet we'll have people posting "invincible" lists and similarly saying that x army is now unstoppable or conversely y army is utterly useless. Then, after everyone has calmed down and actually played a few games we'll probably find that those invincible armies just don't work. We'll then settle into what the internet refers to as the "new meta" for a while until a new codex arrives (looking like Chaos) and churns up the drama again. It's a vicious cycle but it's one that keeps this game from going stale.

Finally, I think it's important to remember one thing. GW doesn't like you, they like your money. That isn't to say they don't want people to enjoy the game but selling plastic comes first. Will it stop the vast majority of us from shelling out for these things when they keep inflating the prices, not a chance. Accept it, you're addicted and until someone comes along as a decent competitor to them, GW will continue to dominate this market. To my mind they make the most beautiful miniature soldiers in the world and every new release is better than the last. When you think about the 2-dimensional armies we were using in 2nd edition compared to the infinitely different armies we field now I'm glad they're still in business. Call me a fanboy but accept first that protesting about everything GW does, means nothing if you keep buying the stuff!