Thinking about Comp

So if you have not noticed recently (and on going) GW took a big dump on competitive play.  The game with the new data slates and Super Heavies, and D weapons...is as unbalanced as I can remember.  Another big culprit for "no-fun" 40k has been Super Shooty armies and 2+ re-rollable saves (which by and large were a response to those super shooty armies).  All of these things tend to dumb the game down into a series of dice rolls (did I roll up my uber combo...did I win first turn...did I fail my power...) and luck than being super tactical.  To me this is an issue...as a tournament organizer if players are not having fun they are not showing up to the events I run...(which have been rare enough recently due to issues in my own life).  As a TO I want to provide my players with a venue where play is as enjoyable as they can be.  So my thought process has gone through a lot of stages on this.

Stage 1 (prior to escalation, strongpoint, dataslate hell):  We should tweak the game rules to prevent some of the abuses.  Nerf the Grimoir and fortune or Protect.  Nerf Serpent Shields, and Tau mass ignores cover (either through rules or terrain.)

Stage 2: Data slates and the like hit...same as above but ban data slates, escalation, and new fortifications.  They are too powerful.

During all that time though I kept thinking.  Changing rules will confuse players...or they won't read the rules changes and bring stuff and play as normal...or forget because it is not the normal rules...or...just not have as much fun because their army got nerfed etc.

So that brought me to stage 3: Comp-  now there are various ways of doing comp...you can give a score and rate units (subjectively), you can limit spam (much like Da Boyz GT no more than x of any one unit.) I see a lot of make every non-troop a 0-1 selection...That way all the broken stuff is limited (so long as you ban Escalation because making a Revenant Titan 0-1 does not really solve the issue)  In my thinking I started to wonder why 40k FoC is so different from Fantasy.  In fantasy you have a certain percent of your points that you are allowed to spend on each unit type...So maybe 40% toward your Lord choices etc.  So I went about trying to think about what was needed in 40k for this to work and I came up with the following.

We use the Current FOC

Primary
1-2 HQ
2-6 Troops
0-3 Elites
0-3 Fast
0-3 Heavies

Allies
1 HQ
1-2 Troops
1 Elite
1 Fast
1 Heavy

1 Lord of War

1 Fortification

Inquisitorial detatchment

Formations (units in these formations are still the FOC type that they currently are...i.e. while the Storm Talon in the Space Marine Formation does not take up a fast slot...it is still a fast attack unit.)

Then we simply put percentage restrictions on the FOC slots

HQ <= 25% of total points
Troops >= 25% of total points
Elites <= 25%
Fast <= 25%
Heavies <= 25%

Fortifications <= 10%
Lords of War <= 25% (which effectively eliminates them from lower point games as at 2k you max out at 500 points, so some Baneblade variants can make it in but to take a Revanant you would need to be playing 3600 points.)

Giving it some more thought I thought well this fixes some armies looking at 2k points (less than this obviously things will be even tighter)

Screamer star won't really function well as Fateweaver + 2 Heralds (Ml 1) is 480 points and does not include the grimoir.  So you would need to either go without Fateweaver (and his re-roll) and bring 3-4 heralds, or go with Fateweaver and 1 herald and minimize your chance of getting Forewarning.

Seercouncil - 2 Farseers run 240 points, at 50 points per Warlock (minimum) you cap out at 2 Seers and 5 Warlocks...so a small council and no Baron for hit and run.  Or include baron and go down to 3 Warlocks

No O'vesa Star to speak up as you need Farsight and O'vesa (which I think puts you at or near 500 points already), so no buff commander.

It limits the Tau Formation as 3 Broad sides cost 195 points with no upgrades...so you would naturally cap out at about 7 models.

But then I came to Wave Serpents and Nightscythes...neither of which would be limited at all (beyond regular FOC restricitons) as troops are not point limited.

So I came up with

Dedicated Transports <= 25%

This allows 4 Serpents at 2000 points and 5 Night Scythes (not much comp there really) and really hurts dedicated land raider spam (so hurts BA without allies if they want more than 2 land raiders, and don't want allies)

After that I got to thinking a bit more maybe we need a bit of flexibility

So how about

5-10% flex points to be spent on Elites, Fast, and Heavies.

This allows a few things...You can go over by a little bit so if you are at 25.2% and to drop down would put you at 20% we don't need to drop.

You can buff up one slot.  At 2k and 5% you have 600 points to spend in a slot which allows things like 3 Large units of Khorne dogs....At 10% it is a bit more.  That might be better at lower points than at 2k (at 1500 points 10 % is only 150 points added, which is 525 in one section, at 2k it brings you up to 700 points...but that is usable as well.)


Which really just left me with this question...if I let all the rest of this stuff in...why not FW as well...I really don't have a good answer for non-experimental rules that are 40k Approved, units and army lists(or Lords of war if FW designates some.)  My only thought would be perhaps not allowing any books previous to IA 11 (published not Number, so any book published 2012 or later), because these books lack the table of contents published on the FW site and as such make it difficult to determine which book has the most up to date units in them.

So what do people think about this system?

Is it more or less fair?

Anything I am missing that will be uber broken?

Preregister for Connecticon 2014

Hi all,

Connecticon 2014 is Schedule for July 10-13th 2014.  And Preregistration is up (click on the link)  and is $45 if you register prior to January 5th 2014 so register now and save some cash.

Some Changes we are making for next year with the 40k tournaments

1.) Better Terrain...this was one of the biggest comments I received and already knew...so we are working to make this work better.

2.) I'm hoping to have all your badges prior to the event next year, so you will come find me instead of the long line to wait in (assuming you pre-reg...if not I cannot help you.)  For the few people that got stuck in line and missed the event last year...hope that this will help.

3.) Trying to schedule some longer breaks during the day for those who want to check out some other convention happenings, or grab some better food.

Battle For Salvation Grand Tournament Oct 12-13th 2013

Hi all,

I just wanted to drop a plug for perhaps my favorite tournament event of the year:  The Battle For Salvation Grand Tournament.  This is a great 6 round 40k GT using the NOVA format (including re-bracketing for day 2) They have tons of Prize support, a great group of players.  The Location at the Palisades Mall is a great one with easily available food, and plenty of space.  I have been going to this event since the first year and it has gotten better every year.  I also leave every year with nearly as much in prizes (raffles, swag etc.) as it costs to play.

2k Points 6 rounds single FOC.

I hope to see people there it is tons of fun.

1850 point NOVA style Tournament Gaming ETC August 18th 2013

Gaming ETC (555 Lordship Boulevard) Stratford, CT

Entry Fee:$10

Check in: 9:30
First Dice 10:00

2.5 hour Rounds.

We will be using the
NOVA primer for our missions
for missions at this event so that players that are practicing for the NOVA Open at the end of august can use this event as a tune up.  It is also a good Chance for players who have never played the format to experience one of the Major GT formats and the one used by our largest local GT, The Battle For Salvation GT.

As such Battle points will work slightly differently.

 For cumulative missions we will continue to use the Margin of Victory calculation we have been using at our typical events.

For Tiered missions Winning The Primary Goal will be worth 11 Battle points, the Secondary Goal will be worth 6 battle points, and the Tertiary goal will be worth 3 Battle points.

We are looking to get this started Promptly at 10:00, if you are not checked in by 9:45 you will be docked 10 Battlepoints.

We will be giving out awards for

Best General
Best Painted
Best Sportsman
as well as 2nd and 3rd place.

Please Send your lists to Gallagher.b@connecticon.org by Friday 8/17

Connecticon 2013 Recap

Connecticon 2013 is now over.  All in all though there were a few Hiccups it was a great success.  I'll start with the Overall Numbers

I had 8 Teams Pre-register for The team event on Friday.  A decent number and about what I expected.  While 26 players pre-registered for the 2000 point GT, which while not hitting my ideal 32 was still more than double the players in attendance last year.  Furthermore, we had a number of GT regulars from the North East in attendance.  All in all very good.

So now for the hiccups.  Of my 8 teams registered one player lost his teammate to Australia just weeks prior to the convention.  No big issue here as I figured with extra players hanging around he would pick up a team-mate, or I could have my ringer play with him.  Which is what I did.

Clay with My Ringer Sieu in Round 1.

  

While I was working out all that I got emails from 2 of my registered teams....they were stuck in the line and my 11 AM start was soon approaching (Connecticon drew around 15,000 people so lines were long, I cautioned my players to arrive early to make sure they got in.)  Apparently there were some issues with the Network so things were going extra slow as well, and one team got fed up and left (they had not pre-reged).  So now I was short a team, with one team stuck in line.  But I started the rest of the teams on time.  Around 11:30 my other stuck team arrived, and got to play me as the ringer....I'm a bad ringer....I did not want to ring, but my only ringer was already playing on a team....So I promptly went 3-0 as the ringer with 3 decisive victories (I told you I'm a bad ringer, on top of which my actual ringer was borrowing the ringer army which left me with essentially my GT list.....)

Here I am Getting ready to ring

After the first round my ringer informed me that he had to take (he was not reliable, won't be using him as a ringer next year.) off leaving a team 1 man down for round 2.  But we were later able to catch a casual player to fill in that role for the last round.  The Tournament wrapped up on time, everyone seemed to have a good time.  Our Winning team was Simon Leen and Bill McFadden with their pairing of Grey Knights and Sisters.

Bill and Simon above thoughtfully taking down their IG opponents.

   Other Team tourney Pics.

 

So after the team tourney was brought to a close my wife and I went over to East Coast Dog to enjoy some of the discounted local food available to Connecticon Attendees.  I highly recommend this place if you are ever in Hartford.  The service was friendly and the hot dogs were amazing.  Havarti and Bacon on a hot dog yes please.  After eating I returned to my hotel room and passed out so ready to resume the next day with the GT.

Thankfully for the GT no one got stuck in line.  I did however have one player drop because he could not get off work.  The good news was however, that I had a player attending the convention want to play so we still ended up at 26 players.  The first day went off without a hitch and with 3 hour rounds every game played to a natural conclusion. After Day 1 there were 4 Undefeated players.  John Anderson with his Nids, Daniel Bunker with Draigowing, and Bob Roda with Daemons all went 3-0, and Bill Souza went 2-0-1 with John leading in battle points.  After the events for the day My Wife and I (with a few other friends) went out to dinner at Burger Baby, with 11 of the players from the event.  Good food, nice atmosphere, and just a great opportunity for guys to hang out.

Players facing off on day 1.

Sisters Vs Space Wolves Results in out first Draw of the event, the players re-scored it 3 times before the actual result was determined.

Picture of the Sister Vs Wolves action. 

 

Day 2 began a little rougher, I had several players late coming in (by 5ish minutes), and had one player message me that he had gotten sick and would not make it back.  So I was down to 25 players, on top of which my ringer did not show up....so I would need to ring(I tried to find someone else but had little luck.  I really need to find a reliable ringer for next year.  I could just offer byes but with 3 hour rounds, I prefer not to, guys pay for 5 games.).  So I rang, played against a Daemon Player in an absolute blood bath that he took the win in, which was good.  The highlight of that match was my soul grinder charging his, both hitting and penetrating one time, and knocking of each others power fist...epic slap fight ensues.  Round 1 due to its later start was also the only round of the tournament which had a game not end naturally, it still went to 5 but got called on time.  After round one I had another player feeling under the weather so had my second drop, and while I was not happy that he was not feeling well, I was happy that I no longer needed to ring.

Players thinking hard during a game, while con-goers look on

Everything wrapped up well and on time, with awards going to

Best Overall(Combination of Battle Points, Paint, and Sports)- Clay Saunders -Iyanden Eldar

Best General( Player with the best win-loss record) - Bill Souza -Space Wolves

Best Painted - James Mahood - Space Marines

Best Sportsman- Stephen Burris (Necrons/Grey Knights)

Overall Results

Even Nids Vs Orks went to a Natural Conclusion

More Nids Vs Ork action

Players engaging interested con-goers who were not used to seeing that many War-gamers at the con.

We also had a fairly diverse set of armies.

 Lists

Army	Total	Primary	Allies
Grey Knights	7	4	3
Eldar	4	2	2
IG	4	2	2
Necrons	4	4	0
Daemons	3	3	0
Space Marines	3	3	0
Dark Angels	2	1	1
Orks	2	2	0
Tau	2	2	0
Sisters	1	1	0
Space Wolves	2	1	1
Tyranids	1	1	0

Dan Bunker's GK army

Nick Williams'  IG

Bob Roda's Daemons

Dante Di Giasnate's Tau

Carl Grivakis' Orks

Bill Souza's Squats (Space Wolf) Army

Michael Morales' Eldar Force

Simon Leen's Sisters + IG

John O'Rourke's Necrons + Grey Knights

James Mahood's Best Painted Space Marine + Space Wolves Army

 

Bob Sinnot's Ultramarines + IG

Stephen Burris' Dread Knight

Connecticon GT on 11th Company

So I interviewed with Pat from the 11th Company Regarding the Connecticon GT.  Should be on an upcoming episode.  SO for those interested give it a listen.  Though I recomend listening to the 11th Company in general they are a great bunch of guys

Team Tournament at Gaming ETC Stratford CT May 26th

Hi all,

Given the success of our learn to play event in April, and just for the sake of doing something a bit different I decided to go with a team Tournament in May.

Each team will be 2 Players

Each Player will contribute 1000 points toward the team.

Armies will consist of the following per player

1 HQ
1-3 Troops
0-1 Elite
0-1 Fast
0-1 Heavy

0-1 Fortification per team
The allies rules will be in effect as follows.

Battle Brothers function as described in the Warhammer 40k Rulebook (i.e. if you and your partner bring Battle Brother allies, your psychic powers can effect one another, you can join their squads etc...)

Armies Selected from the same Codex (i.e. both players play Tyranids) will count as Battle Brothers.

Any non battle brother pairing will be treated as allies of Convienience.  (So if you play Tyranids and your buddy plays space marines, you can play together, and not negatively impact one another, but your abilities do not help each other unless otherwise specified.)

All armies must be WYSIWYG.

There is a 5 point bonus if both players bring fully painted armies.

Missions will be those I typically run, see the Connecticon GT primer page for examples.

Army Lists Should be submitted to breng77@yahoo.com no later than Friday 5/24.

Check in for the Event is 9:30 Game one will begin Promptly at 10:00

Rounds will be 2.5 Hours.

Connecticon Tournament Info up

I have posted the Connecticon GT and Team Tournament info the GT info Page. 

Battle for Salvation 2000 point tournament

SO the BFS guys frequent my events so I figure I will give them a plug, they run great tournaments.  Wish I could be at this one unfortunately I already have plans that day.  But if you are in the Northeast (Southern New England, NJ, NY) I highly recomment going to this.

The Battle for Salvation Gaming Club will be hosting a 2000 point 40K tournament on April 20th.


Details:
-Doors open at 9:30AM Dice at 10:00
-Address: 251 Underhill Avenue, West Harrison NY 10604 (West Harrison Rec Center)
-2K points (1 FOC, allies, Bastion and Aegis allowed)
-Entry Fee 20.00
-Prizes for various awards as usual
-no painting requirement but army needs to be modeled appropriately

If you have any questions  email  robert.sinnott05@gmail.com

Tournament at Gaming ETC in Stratford CT 3/23

 I am running another tournament at Gaming ETC in Stratford CT.   2000 points but sticking with a single force org. Chart.

Tournament Info


Missions


Entry Fee:$10

Check in: 9:30
First Dice 10:00

2.5 hour Rounds.

We are looking to get this started Promptly at 10:00, if you are not checked in by 9:45 you will be docked 10 Battlepoints.

Please Send your lists to breng77@yahoo.com by Friday 3/22

2/24/13 Tournament cancelled

Due to the blizzard the store rescheduled a large Magic PTQ to the 24th.  None of the dates for reschedule were workable.  See you guys in March Hopefully.

Gaming ETC 40k Tournament 2/24/13: 2000 points

 I am running another tournament at Gaming ETC in Stratford CT.   2000 points but sticking with a single force org. Chart.

Tournament Info


Missions


Entry Fee:$10

Check in: 9:30
First Dice 10:00

2.5 hour Rounds.

We are looking to get this started Promptly at 10:00, if you are not checked in by 9:45 you will be docked 10 Battlepoints.

Please Send your lists to breng77@yahoo.com by Friday 2/22.

Connecticon 40k Events

SO the main purpose of this blog is for releasing event information about wargamming at Connecticon (as I am the Head of wargamming at the convention).  For those of you who don't know ConnectiCon is New England's ONLY massively, multi-genre pop culture convention, the convention's focus is on all things pop culture and does every genre of pop culture in as big a way as possible. The event attracts over 10,000 people to the Hartford area annually, and plans to expand to other venues in downtown Hartford. ConnectiCon was the proud recipient of the Bring It Home Award from the Greater Hartford Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

Connecticon runs from July 12-14th 2013

Registration for the Convention is currently $50 (until April 5th), and then $60 after that.  Then there will be a $10 entrance fee for the individual tournaments (used exclusively for prize support, last year we gave out around $1500 in prize support to attendees.)

As for what is happening 40k wise:

On Friday the 12th there will be a 2000 point Doubles tournament.

Saturday (13th) and Sunday (14th) will be a 5 game 40k GT.

IN addition there will be a megabattle running during the weekend.

Keep watching the blog as I will be adding specific event details here over the next few days.