Buckeye Battles is coming...

July 11-12 outside Columbus, OH
2250 pts
Comp banding day 1 (3 games)
5 games total
$25

You can have input to the rules at:
http://www.marauders-inc.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=15

We are about half full with 30 already planning to attend.

42 signed up. We have 8 spots left. We might be able to swing 10 more after that. Working on that.

Would love to play just a matter of my Class schedule...

Even though I hate tourneys, I will consider it if we have enough going from Cinci to form a team.

I know I will not be going this year, before I go to another tournament I want to get in more game time which doesnt seem to be happening lately

you know, I never used to go to tourneys. Thought they were full of broken armies and jerks. But I wanted to help our club so I ran the tourneys. Found out that all sorts of fun people with neat armies and lists showed up. So I started playing in them. I will say if you are not a good player and willing to learn, you will learn more at a tourney than 2 months of game nights in my experience. This is because you get so much packed in a weekend, you can put to use things game 2 you learned from in game 1 and keeps building. So you remember more and learn more. You also get to talk warhammer to guys outside your circle that have different tactics, thoughts on certain units etc, that can help you become a better player. I usually come off of playing in a tourney wanting to play more than I did before the event. Just something exciting about it.

Anyway, it is fairly cheap, a good experience for a group to go as a team that can solidify your local club, and motivational for learning the game and seeing cool stuff painted well.

I do hope some of you can make it. We now have 58 planning to come.

What I liked about the online info (and emails) last year is you guys seemed to have your act together. Rules, lodging support, etc. Kudos.

The overnight part might keep me out again this year. That and now that crappy deathtrap car is gone, so walking or riding to work these days, and borrowing a car isn't often possible.

Although just getting ready for your tourney last year got ALLOT of mini's done. Woots.

Seeing as graduation is July 9th, I'm back to painting Empire..

I wont commit unless I'm fully painted.. need that carrot

So if someone with a car commits, Bob might come?

We just got our 60th guy to sign up. 20 paid, so 40 spots that are 1st paid 1st held.


Marc we would love to get you up here.

anyone going to the Origins RTT?

Do we have anyone but me willing to commit for sure? If we have enough for a team, I will go.

update

we have 75 signed up for 70 spots. 48 paid. 1st 70 to pay are in. So you can still get in ahead of the procrastinators.

For the sake of sanity here is the dirrect link to the event. http://www.buckeyebattles.com/

Adriving from here done on Saturday will require a dark and evil departure time like 6-6:30 am.

Not sure about a hotel. If a car is rented I'd probably crash in that.

We are down to less than 10 spots available. 64 paid with 6 spots left. If CAG wants to send a few, its time to sign up. We would love to have you. If not, hopefully next year.

i am very interested in this, as i have never been in a tourny environment much less a fantasy one, it does seem like a challenge.

I have a few questions, how does this Band group system work?

And what is the Swiss system?

Also, lets say I were to sign up and pay, but for some reason its too late, or I am the 71st person to pay, what would happen then?


thanks

pricosaint wrote:

I have a few questions, how does this Band group system work?

Funny, that was my first question for Jeff last year.

Bands is a system that is supposed to help group players of similar levels for the first round or first day. Using some kind of system or guidlines armies are rated by how powerful they are built. That way those who bring fluff armies will always face another fluff army for the first game. People who bring very competative forces aren't given away an easy fight.

pricosaint wrote:

And what is the Swiss system?

Basically the people are paired by how many victory points they have. Essentially the top players with the most points face off and the pairings work down from there. Depending on the method deadlocks can be settled several ways, a randomized roll, a history of battles (with computers some CCGs actually can take this over a persons many tournement visits) so people don't face the same person, sometimes a simple judgment call from an organizer.

pricosaint wrote:

Also, lets say I were to sign up and pay, but for some reason its too late, or I am the 71st person to pay, what would happen then?

These guys have a history of running a solid tournemnt. In no small part why it carries on with such numbers from year to year. If there was a mistake you'd get your money back. Jeff is pretty dedicated to the event and wouldn't let a payment error jepordize the legacy.

The Swiss system is part of why I don't like tourneys. How you place in a swiss tourney doesn't really show how good you are. I played a Confrontation tourney a while back using the Swiss method. I was in second place and undefeated going into the final round. My opponent was the guy who won it, he was in first. My dice went flat, his dice were hot and I placed 8th in the tourney behind 2 of the 3 people I had beaten in earlier rounds. One of them I had beaten very solidly.

No, it doesn't show how good you are, it shows how well you performed in that tournament. Typically, your strength of schedule is used to break ties in records, but if they have a better record than you, they'll place higher.

Ricter wrote:

No, it doesn't show how good you are, it shows how well you performed in that tournament. Typically, your strength of schedule is used to break ties in records, but if they have a better record than you, they'll place higher.

Conf used victory points then broke ties w/ AP won/loss. So you could easily beat an opponent AP wise but still pull out a small margin of victory on objectives (or even lose)

Over the course of several events a ranking system was developed to better seed people going into round 1 of an event.

No, it doesn't show how good you are, it shows how well you performed in that tournament. Typically, your strength of schedule is used to break ties in records, but if they have a better record than you, they'll place higher.

It doesn't show how well I performed, as I stated, 2 people I beat in previous rounds placed higher than I did. I out performed them but lost to them anyway. If a mediocre player plays against mediocre players,he has a good chance of having a better record than a much stronger player. There is a reason they don't do that in the NCAA tourney, they want the championship to be between the best teams. I have always considered round-robin a much better style. It shows what tourneys are suppose to be about. How good a player you are overall. A good example would be a foot race. If the fastest runners start off running against the fastest runners, they could lose to a guy who cannot run nearly as fast in the swiss style. It is easier to see that in something like a foot race because you have lap times to look at. In wargames, it isn't as obvious.

A friend of mine went to a tourney, take a Skaven army that was over 80% core, well painted and he is very easy to get along with. He placed 8th even though he won all 6 of his battles. I will admit that it wasnt' all because of the swiss system, but it makes my point none the less. Wargame tourneys are not about who is best at the game, they are about how liked you are and how many of your friends are there. I have been burn't before on tourneys, people seem to forget about having fun, it is all about the win, nothing else matters. I had considered changing my mind, the last 2 CAG fantasy tourneys I played in where fun, most of the people weren't stressing about winning or lossing, we just enjoyed playing the game. The only reason I playing another is to support CAG.

Anyway, it is only one mans opinion. I can't change the way things are and as long as people enjoy them, they should play.

Agree with the Crobar. the last 40k truny I was at, I was in second place and lost my last game to and eldrad/seer/wraithlord/avatar 100 point list. I then watch people I had beat place higher. A win should be a win and a loss a loss. Being out ranked by people I've beaten is rough. This is all IMHO.

Im not sure about other tourneys, but when I refer to a "swiss system" Im saying your matches are based on battle points at that time. Your overall scores are not weighted by who you beat and how they finished. Just after round 1, top battle points are matched, after round 2, top points are matched to play, etc. No one plays the same guy 2x and we try to avoid guys from the same club playing, but round 3 and 5 thats hard to do. With the bands, round 3 is like a mini RTT playoff, and round 5 is for all the marbles, so we let the scores do the matching, other than players that previously fought.

How banding works is you submit a list. 9 veteran gamers score it 1-10. Your comp grade is used to determine if you play in band 1, 2, or 3 on day 1. So day 1 is like an RTT with your list vs similarly "powered" lists. There can still be bad match ups, but overall the lists should be fairly equal. You want to bring all goblins or dogs of war? you face other lists that are not maxed out with all the goodies. you want to bring Bloodthirster deamons, you face lots of other deamons, DE, vamps, and various other tough builds from other armies.

On day 2, we drop the bands BUT your comp grade is still working. IF the difference in the comp score (score keeper keeps track of it all) is 2-4pts you will get 3 advantages...pick table side, make enemy deploy 1st unit, and chose to go 1st or 2nd. All things you might win at the start, but you know you will, and that can help vs harder lists. If the comp gap is over 4pts, you get all 3 of those advantages and 3 tourney points. so basically moves you up 1 spot from major loss to minor, or minor to draw, draw to minor win.

We do this for 2 reasons. 1, we dont have a comp score, and try to encourage balanced and softer lists. 2, we want to encourage average or good gamers to bring soft lists and have a shot at winning. We dont penalize you for comp, but we do a lot to give bonuses for softer comp. All this is in advance, so you dont have to bring a tough list and feel like you get hosed. you can bring a soft list and dont feel like you will get trashed at 5 games vs no comp armies.

We also give out 80% of the prizes as door prizes so that the average joe can win something, and show the GT is about fun, not just winning. We have plaques and swords for the best placement guys, but all the fun awards are door prizes. We have a Citadel gaming tabletop, 2 battalions, charge/wound markers, battle bag, several regiments, 4 fantasy tshirts, dice, etc.

We are actually full at 70 players. I will start a waiting list and if anyone cancels, those on the list will be contacted asap.

It is still the same. The tourney win doesn't go to the best players. Part of the game is army composition. Picking the right troops to bring to battle is a big part of strategy, not as big as 40k, but still it is big. What you are doing in your tourney is legalizing cheating. I enjoy building fluff armies sometimes and playing them, but I would never bring one to a tourney. I have fought fluff armies and deliberately dumbed down my army so I wouldn't take advantage of it. We had fun, neither of us was trying to win, just seeing what would happen because we weren't competing for anything. I once played an ogre list that had as many gnoblars as I could legally bring. They lost to an all goblin army before the new codex, but we had a lot of fun. I am not against the idea, but they don't belong in a tourney.


Let me rephrase that, people should be allowed to bring them, but they shouldn't expect to win with them.

Crobar wrote:

It is still the same. The tourney win doesn't go to the best players. Part of the game is army composition. Picking the right troops to bring to battle is a big part of strategy, not as big as 40k, but still it is big. What you are doing in your tourney is legalizing cheating.

Care to elaborate how/why you feel his scoring system is legalized cheating? I'm curious. They spent a long time discussing this systems pros and cons on another board.

This feels very similar to handicaps in golf which allow players of different skill levels to compete in one event. As in golf you are essentially "taking" strokes to the weaker players (or giving a bonus in this case to weaker lists...not weaker players.). So a good player that can win with a softer list will be rewarded.

I look at this more as an event then a tournament and perhaps that is the reason the you feel the way you do. Tournaments are tournaments...put the crying aside. I think Jeff is trying to encourage fun and participation.

The issue with "tournaments" and wargames is while they seem made for each other, often they are not.

It's not cheating... And if you won all your games by a slim margin, and someone else rocked all there games but one and their dice fell flat but scored more victory points then they should win. A win is not just a win, its how you achieved that win. It is like a war, you don't have to win every single battle (although good if ya did) It is how well you did by maximizing their losses and minimizing yours. As odd as it sounds in a campaign or war there are times when you go to lose, because you are needing to fulfill another objective. Protect the retreat of something, test the strength of something, or just buy more time, so the most wins does not necessarily mean that was the best player, So in the case of your confrontation tourney yes you won all but 1 but did you score better than the 2 you beat so maybe you were good but they were better at managing their wins and losses.

And yes I believe especially with Orcs and Goblins, Empire, Warriors of Chaos, and Britonnians, that you can beat an Min Max list with a Fluff list, it's called strategy, It may not be easy but doable especially because of the way fantasy is structured a great tactition can win even if out number points wise or fluff vs. Uber list...

And I think you'll find that the guys running the Buckeye battles will be running a tournament where people are going to be having a ton of fun and honestly you are sounding more right now like one of the guys at a tournament that you wouldn't want to play, You Seem to care about the prizes going to the winners and not to happy about having fun!

I'm a firm believer of fun first and if I lose well I don't because I had fun, If I win well great i have even more toys... Unless your playing in more tournaments and see that they are changing more from what they used to be according to you and a couple of others then i don't know how to change your perception of tourneys other than get out there and play, so give some more touneys a chance!