Team tournament Feedback Thread

[Jack Shrapnel]

Hey everyone, 

in efforts to always be improving our tourney experience - would appreciate some feedback from teams this year


So for those who attended If you wouldn't mind giving me some feedback on a few things it would help greatly for future tournaments:



- How did you find the five game format as opposed to the six games it normally is?

- would you recommend that our two day tournies (club champs / team champs) move to a five game format or do you prefer six?

- Is there anything that you really enjoyed about this tournament?

- Is there something we could do better for next time?

- Do you have any suggestions for the team tourney moving forward?

[artonas]

5 Games was great, I really enjoyed getting to play every team and for once this year we weren't dying of the heat and humidity like others years due to less players though I understand if things get better, we would have more teams next time.

5 games for club champs would be great though my main issue is amount of time per game. I would like an extra 30 mins so 3 hour rounds which for the team event would give you that extra time to plan secondaries and even pairings. I found most games we were rushing through them as fast as we could and were still crunched for time. I understand that there was a magic event which cut into our time, but I would have been ok with coming in an hour earlier and having dice roll at 8 instead of 930.

Games were all great, a couple hiccups here and there, but all and all went super well for myself. I mean I would have liked to have seen a few un named terminators fail a couple 3+ armour save but that's the luck of the dice.

My main suggestion is time, I know some games are done earlier then the allotted time, but having a bit of extra time helps get through a game where getting all your rounds in matters.

[ohgodsnakes]

- How did you find the five game format as opposed to the six games it normally is?
- Five game format is wonderful. I love it.

- would you recommend that our two day tournies (club champs / team champs) move to a five game format or do you prefer six?
-Yes.

- Is there anything that you really enjoyed about this tournament?
-Missions (thanks 9th!), tables/terrain, space, temperature, storage room in the back, 

- Is there something we could do better for next time?
-Time. More than happy to get up earlier if we get a more relaxed day. Doors open at 8:00, dice roll at 8:30, or even earlier ha. At least for the first day.

- Do you have any suggestions for the team tourney moving forward?
-No faction secondaries, just CA ones. 
-Once a terminator squad makes 15 consecutive 3+ saves in a row, the next 9 should be reduced to 4+, in case he also makes them 

[Jack Shrapnel]

I will certainly ask Mike if we can start earlier on tourney days. It's a pretty easy commute for me to get to nexus (under 10 minutes) so I can be there, it's whether or not Nexus can accommodate.

what also suffered time wise this time was I was unable to get into Nexus to set up tables the day before as there was MTG Friday night as well!

I again apologize for the crunched time on day one. I hope day two was a little more relaxed?

I'd be totally fine with no faction secondaries for teams, I found them quite a bit lopsided (even called one my own team took as total bullshit...lol)

[raceygaming]

- How did you find the five game format as opposed to the six games it normally is?

I think this year it was great and did it definitely felt like the right call. When there are only 6 teams due to restrictions being able to play everyone and get some time off early is amazing. It helped show it off as a more viable format than I thought. I know out team had some traveling to do after and leaving a bit early on Sunday helped out.

- would you recommend that our two day tournies (club champs / team champs) move to a five game format or do you prefer six?

Can I say both? I think that Teams is a fun format where you can play some games. It wasn't like there were any armies I saw that were a slouch (nothing too fluffy), but the format does lend itself to having weird or out of whack games or games that only go to turn 3. I think the points total 5 games works great, and hopefully next year we can be back up to 8-10 teams, in which case playing half the field is great, and you can make the match ups based on points so more tuned lists go against more tuned lists.

For Club Champions I think that I’m on the side of what gives the best results for a competitive setting. For example, if we are capped at 32 players (Covid or otherwise) I think 5 rounds is prefect since you can get to a single 5-0 player (best general) and still have enough games to name best overall (battle points etc). However if we do only do 5 rounds I'd love to see the games extended but 15 mins day one and 30 min day two. I know that makes for a hell of a long day one but I really think everyone would love it. I'm even happy to pay a little extra in fees so mike can have a staff member stay until closer to 7 if that's an option.

If there are MORE than 32 players I’d like to see 6 rounds to make sure that there could be a 6-0, it also helps give a better feel for cumulative points scored since if you have one rough game you have an extra game to bring it back, 5 can really create a spike if you get one bad matchup. I am happy to play more 40k, if it means that 40 people who want to play get to play (again this is assume we can get 32+ Covid or Otherwise). In the end this is the “big one” for the competitive list and I’d like to see the set up that does right by that style.

- Is there anything that you really enjoyed about this tournament?

I always really like this format (preferred over tag team, teams of two). Our team lost all 5 roll off and had to put up the first armies each time and there was good tactical discussion of what did we want to lead off with. Twice we had to put our Custode against Thousand sons, which was rough but that made for some interesting games. Also, this Tournament can bring people out of the woodwork that you haven’t seen in a long time and lets you play with lots of people so social side of four-man team is always great.

- Is there something we could do better for next time? Do you have any suggestions for the team tourney moving forward?

I’ll treat this as the same deal for the most part. This is just some spit balling.

1. I noticed that MOST players were down a bit before 9. For day one is there any chance to start 830, dice for 9? I know that might make it a little harder to traveling players but a little more wiggle room for lunch or game run over might be good. Again this is more what the fine people at Nexus can do. I know there are always time constraints and some extra ones this year (shakes fist at magic) but if we keep the tournament 5 games maybe add 15 mins to each match for secondaries and deployment slow downs that occur in teams.

2. I know people were out of practice, teams is always slower do to order of operation, and some people were still learning as it a new edition but maybe do 4x 750? each game is 1500 pts. I know we had 1 game get to turn 3 – and there as just still so many unknowns, 3 games to turn 4 and were able to be talked out and 1 game to turn 5 full stop. I know that as you dip into the low points some armies become even more unbalanced and you start to see things like death stars become problematic, but it might be worth a look at. I do like 1000 pts as the smallest army build size but 750 could add in new challenges. If people want to make sure they can get the full 5 turns, with the current time limits.

3. Maybe make a Terrain rules cheat sheet, not just for Teams but tournaments in general. In general, we tried to do a quick coverage of terrain at the start of the game to avoid confusion but I was even having trouble remembering all the keywords you can put on it.

[Jack Shrapnel]

I'll be asking Mike about starting earlier than 9:30 for tournament days. We definitely need more than 2 1/4 hours for games to complete... 3 hours a game is getting a little iffy (that's essentially a 10 hour day for Nexus - gets a BIT much for a two day for sure!) But for teams there's that little bit extra initial setup, so adding 15 minutes per game can help quite a bit. Games were scheduled 2 1/2 hours with overflow on games 1 and 4 into lunch if need be, and I added 10 minutes to game 5 as well.

I like the idea of a terrain rules cheat sheet - might do one laminated for each table (so they can be reused) then will think about some markers of some kind which tell you exactly what each thing on the table is (can be as simple as an A/B/C token and you just reference the sheet)

Good idea Jordan!

[distractedcarnifex]

Five games was good. The scramble format was also good to keep things fresh both in list design and game execution. Really made for some wild games. The rules for team composition were well thought out.

I think that team play will always be slower than 1 vs 1 (all else being equal). I think that 750 per player might help. Would make some builds challenging (like mine) but there it is?

While I like faction secondaries I get leaving them out of Team play.

And yes, rolling those 23 consecutive 3+ saves was wild. I am sure I will pay for that later in the great karmic wheel! Ironic it was against Thousand Sons! Maybe you annoyed Tzeench somehow?

Cheers,

Iain

[lightcavalier]

Sept 20, 2021 11:05:41 GMT -5 Jack Shrapnel said:

I'll be asking Mike about starting earlier than 9:30 for tournament days. We definitely need more than 2 1/4 hours for games to complete... 3 hours a game is getting a little iffy (that's essentially a 10 hour day for Nexus - gets a BIT much for a two day for sure!) But for teams there's that little bit extra initial setup, so adding 15 minutes per game can help quite a bit. Games were scheduled 2 1/2 hours with overflow on games 1 and 4 into lunch if need be, and I added 10 minutes to game 5 as well.

I like the idea of a terrain rules cheat sheet - might do one laminated for each table (so they can be reused) then will think about some markers of some kind which tell you exactly what each thing on the table is (can be as simple as an A/B/C token and you just reference the sheet)

Good idea Jordan!

This is a really good idea that Ive used before in other game systems.

Will also helpwith those weird moments when its turn 5 and everyone forgot what was agreed upon 2 hrs ago

[question]

Glad to see this went so well. I wasn't there but the time issue has been every time I competed in tag team. I would certainly support added time for each game. So whether it is starting a lot earlier, staying later, or a bit of both I think this tournament needs some "assess and assign" time rather than taking it out of each game. And I too would pay a bit more to cover Mike's added staffing costs.

[question]

And I like Jordan's idea about army size for this event. I PARTICULARLY like the cheat sheet idea.

[matthewbri]

How did you find the five game format as opposed to the six games it normally is?
While i prefer the extra game, it did work nicely for my other team mates. I think in the future, the sunday should be the 3 game day, and saturday the 2- that lets you start a bit later on the Saturday, and gives everyone a few extra hours of prep time.

Would you recommend that our two day tournies (club champs / team champs) move to a five game format or do you prefer six?
See above, though i think Clubs should be a 6 game format. Maybe the only one for the "big tournaments" of the year.

Is there anything that you really enjoyed about this tournament?
Getting to see everyone and have a big tournament after the past year and a half was really nice. I also had a lot of fun playing against and with an army i haven't really done either that much of before(Thousand Sons). Also, the one prize being "a box of crap Mike found in the back" was 10/10.

Is there something we could do better for next time?
I think things ran fine all things considered. I'd say more people, but we're still under covid restrictions so you couldn't help it.

Do you have any suggestions for the team tourney moving forward?
While i think the "cheat sheet" is a good idea, i think it would be easier to just get a label printer and directly label terrain with what keywords it has. This prevents what was the most frustrating game for me, where my opponents rules lawyered and loopholed so that we didn't have terrain that would protect us in our deployment zone, even going so far as to say "I don't care what the TO did, we aren't using his guidelines/what he did". While this is obviously specific, i'd prefer things were laid out ahead of time so that it removes the discussion and keeps a level playing field.

The only other suggestion i would make is Shannon, you need to rope some folks into being assistant TOs even if it's only a yeller, to help you out. I know i say this as i'm leaving for the US for six months(hopefully) but i think it would make your life easier and smooth out things for everyone. Maybe more experienced players like Racey or Lukas, if only to answer questions so you aren't always getting bombarded.


All in all, a super fun tournament and i had a huge amount of fun.

[Jack Shrapnel]

well if you were playing someone who said "I don't care how the TO ruled the terrain" I'm not sure a label would help lol... I think you just got the joy of playing someone who liked to argue everything for the whole game (I got that joy as well this weekend).

[darkeldarguy]

- How did you find the five game format as opposed to the six games it normally is?
As someone from Ottawa and my friend from Toronto we liked that we could leave earlier on the Sunday. Plus 3 games in a day is a lot.


- would you recommend that our two day tournies (club champs / team champs) move to a five game format or do you prefer six?
It would be great for teams to keep it at 5 games. However, I am ok starting the day a little earlier.


- Is there anything that you really enjoyed about this tournament?
It was really well organized. The terrain was great. I liked that there was lots of space between tables.



- Is there something we could do better for next time?

1) Printed Lists. Not sure whether this was mandatory for the tournament or not. I believe they should be. First, I like as an opponent to see the list while we are setting up the units. I can look down and see what relics, weapon upgrades are on each unit instead of always asking throughout the game. Second, it keeps everyone honest. Since spells, warlord traits etc are the same throughout the tournament, it nice to have them printed on the lists.

2) Have cards for your spells. I suggest if you have a lot of spells in your lists you either buy the GW cards or make some yourself. With a lot of spells it is sometimes hard to remember which units have which spells and which spells were denied etc especially if they are blessings etc.

3) Know your codex rules, strats relics. I know everyone makes mistakes. However, I try my best to really know the rules for the relics and the most common strats I use. For example, know when you have to trigger your strat. Some are when a unit is targeted however some happened at the beginning of a phase.

4) Talk to your opponent about what you are doing. I find that if you explain what you are doing and what you intend to do then there are fewer arguments. For example, moving a unit to just get line of sight. I tell my opponent, I am moving this unit so I can get line of sight to shoot this unit do you agree I have line of sight? If my opponent says no then if I have more movement then I can move it a little more until I do have line of sight. Another example, tell your opponent whether you count up or down on your dice for wounds. I had a team where one team mate was counting up and the other was counting down. No one said anything until I looked at the dice and I was confused. I suggest as a team you decide you count up or down not both



- Do you have any suggestions for the team tourney moving forward?

The terrain was a little bit the same. I liked that there were lots of line of sight blocking. However I found the tables to be almost the same. It would be great to add in some forests and more craters etc.