2023 club championship feedback thread

[question]

I've been bringing my condensed versions of rules that apply to my army to tournaments for years. Saves buckets of page flipping thru multiple sources (and the time involved of course). I still bring all relevant sources just in case, but rarely have to open them. The time invested in this before a tournament has always seemed a good investment of time and effort during the tournament.

[Typhus]

I think a lot of people are too shy or awkward to make comments about the tables. Social anxiety is something I struggle with, for sure.

I also think there's a perception that it's unfair to ask for more terrain if it would be more advantageous to you than your opponent - it was set up by a neutral third party after all, who am I to ask for more? Whether valid or not, it might keep people from piping up.

Here are some suggestions to avoid this in future:

- Have some volunteer keeners walk around before the start of game one and check every table. I'd certainly be up for helping with this. It's a lot more work to set up a table from scratch than it is to tweak an existing setup, and a fresh set of eyes could pick up on overlooked issues.

- If we take Jordan's suggestion of an extra 10-15 minutes at the start of the round for pregame discussion, maybe one of the explicit steps could be ensuring the terrain on the table is suitable for the mission and matchup - a table might have great terrain for table quarter deployment, but maybe some pieces need to rotate 45 degrees in the case of dawn of war or hammer and anvil.

[harryf]

It seems like no one is ever going to truly agree on what "fair" terrain is, it should be alright as long as we create something that is relatively acceptable.

Case in point, even the LVO, supposedly the most competitive event in the world, have had substantial number of complaints about their approach to terrain.

[Jack Shrapnel]

I honestly cannot add 45 minutes to the day so there's pre-game set up chat... I already pushed it for an extra half hour by starting earlier... there's just no time on either end and I'm sure we don't want to just play through lunch.

Given the amount of work I generally have to do morning of... I honestly don't care if people look at tables and let me know if something is lacking. As a general rule I do 7-8 pieces on every table. I don't have access to 50+ L shaped ruins for all the tables. That's just not going to happen (where would it even be stored?)

I was hoping that the table competition would allow for a more concentrated level of terrain on the tables that remained.

[Typhus]

Well, without an explicit carve-out of time maybe just make a note in the player pack that players are expected to look at the tables before deployment and ask for tweaks/changes if any seem to be needed. If it's explicit in the player pack, hopefully that would encourage people to pipe up before it's too late.

Between that, and Best Table, I think we'd be in good standings. I personally was pretty pleased with the setup this year.

[question]

The terrain question of how much has been around from the beginning. What seems to have developed over the past couple of editions is that many players have decided that pre-determined terrain types only should be on the table. Specifically, that all terrain should grant both shelter and sight lines. The reality is that terrain has and always should be as much an obstacle that can frustrate you as it might benefit you. Some times it is just going to screw you over while your opponent is gleefully rubbing his hands together.

Having been born and raised military, I had the opportunity to talk with those who were there and did that as well as I both studied and taught it. Bottom line, some will help you, some will hinder you, and some will collapse and kill you. Everything from a mound to a hill to a mountain will have to be dealt with. Rivers, lakes, pools, and hazardous waste sites will be there too.

The solution is what used to be, and still is, called "tactics". If terrain doesn't fit a certain preferred type or doesn't work for you, think it through and come up with a tactically sound solution. Standing around complaining about it will get you out manouvered on the tabletop and your ass shot off in real life. We can do some things to sort of balance it out, but unless you are looking for mindless cookie cutter set ups, you need to start thinking tactically about how to deal with ALL sorts of terrain, not just the easy stuff.

Cue Shannon to roll his eyes and go "he's at it again".

[mrmanstory]

I think with all this talk about "needing better terrain" shows why best table was such a good idea this year. Maybe next year more people can set up tables and talk with other players in the community so we can see what a real good set up is. I played I think 4 of my 5 games on tables that were donated or in competition for best table and I found those fantastic. I feel like no matter how much or little terrain is on the table not everyone is going to be pleased either way.

[question]

As the owner of a lot of unpainted terrain it would give me incentive to plan out and paint a table for next year. If I hit my 5K for this year I may just switch over to that. (As once again I bite off more than I have time for.) Even if I can't attend.

[zhivas]

question as much as I agree that you have no control over the terrain you enter combat in in real life. Keep in mind that wh40k is a GAME and the terrain setup should provide relatively balanced benefits and disadvantages to both sides. Fighting an uphill battle before the game even starts is not conducive to fun.

In terms of L shaped ruins for clubs I think a good solution may be if people are willing to do the best table setups or if there are members of the community with access to 3d printers who are willing to print terrain sets at reasonable prices for the community to buy and bring in for clubs. The current terrain that we have at nexus is generally very punishing to melee armies and L shaped ruins go a long way to help. We should also make an effort as a community if we do get our own terrain to not base our terrain on gigantic rectangles or circles. I will personally be trying to get a set of terrain that "conforms" to the gw recommended terrain and bring it in for next year's clubs.

@jack Shrapnel perhaps one of the ways we can make things easier for setup for clubs is setting up the night before. If we have permission to I'd personally be happy to come in the night before to help set up tables and perhaps we can use the time in the morning that would have originally went towards setup to extending games.

[Jack Shrapnel]

Let's put this terrain thing to bed guys, honestly.

We are not the ITC, this is by design.

I am also not going to have 16 tables full of that terrible boring L shaped terrain that is not only visually ugly, but essentially devolves into a game of standoff and hide. I'm just not going to do it, no matter how many times it gets suggested. This tournament used to be part of a narrative tournament season that created a very different set of tournaments for the year, including custom missions on every table, etc. Over time that got removed as more competitive players started wanting a solely competitive tournament, again trying to appeal to suggestions etc. about what people wanted.

The argument about melee armies not being able to function on the current terrain setups is simply untrue. I play melee armies almost exclusively. I do just fine.

If you think terrain decided your game at clubs, then I'm sorry, you're mistaken. Nor was it an uphill battle for some armies over others. I watched 16 tables over three games day one, never saw it happen. I played my primarily melee army day two as a ringer and also didn't see it happen. The winner of the entire thing wasn't playing a primarily shooting army it was death guard. Not the big boogeyman guard, Not shooty tau or votann (if it was terrain as the issue then these shooting armies would have dominated the entire tourney right?)

As I've said, we cannot set up the day before. I can get normally 5-6 tables beforehand. This year I was fortunate enough to get 8, so I considered that a big win. There are other games played at Nexus other than 40k. Nexus is a business. We can't just say "don't let anyone else play a game on Friday", especially when we're taking up the entire back room for a whole weekend.

The time in the morning doing setup was before the tourney even started I showed up a half hour before the doors opened and set up. This is not extended time we could use for games. I have a hard enough time ensuring people can get there to roll dice at 9 AM. it takes a good half hour in the morning just to get everyone registered and get the computer setup to run an event of this size. The morning is only Mike and I doing everything.

If anyone wishes to enter a table for the table competition next year, with what they feel is the most optimal terrain to use, then please feel free to do that.

[distractedcarnifex]

I was not able to attend this year (first time in five years), but please keep preserving our little gaming ecosystem!

I'd rather play wacky missions (I do miss Grot Mart in a weird way) than pre-set terrain. And I would rather play at Nexus than go off-site.

[mrmanstory]

Feb 26, 2023 22:49:34 GMT -5 distractedcarnifex said:

I was not able to attend this year (first time in five years), but please keep preserving our little gaming ecosystem!

I'd rather play wacky missions (I do miss Grot Mart in a weird way) than pre-set terrain. And I would rather play at Nexus than go off-site.

I agree with this. Just because clubs is talked about as our "most competitive tournament" when the rest of the tournaments are super fun stuff like secret Santa and great crusade I don't think "most competitive" needs to be "ITC standard"

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm in the minority being only apart of the community for 2 years now but I didn't mind any of the tables I saw. I know I have a very "casual" outlook on the game however. I will say I expect terrain is going to be an issue no matter what. People have different interpretations on what's an adequate amount of terrain. The amount of podcasts I've listened to where people also are talking smack on ITC and GW standard terrain is baffling.

[lightcavalier]

Feb 26, 2023 23:05:09 GMT -5 mrmanstory said:

Feb 26, 2023 22:49:34 GMT -5 distractedcarnifex said:

I was not able to attend this year (first time in five years), but please keep preserving our little gaming ecosystem!

I'd rather play wacky missions (I do miss Grot Mart in a weird way) than pre-set terrain. And I would rather play at Nexus than go off-site.

I agree with this. Just because clubs is talked about as our "most competitive tournament" when the rest of the tournaments are super fun stuff like secret Santa and great crusade I don't think "most competitive" needs to be "ITC standard"

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm in the minority being only apart of the community for 2 years now but I didn't mind any of the tables I saw. I know I have a very "casual" outlook on the game however. I will say I expect terrain is going to be an issue no matter what. People have different interpretations on what's an adequate amount of terrain. The amount of podcasts I've listened to where people also are talking smack on ITC and GW standard terrain is baffling.

I just played 5 games at a tournament here in Ottawa using WTC/ITC style terrain (big 8" tall windowless Ls, etc).....as an eldar player who needs battle focus to live...it was quite literally some of the worst gameplay experiences (both from an aesthetic and mechanical perspective) in a long time.

Still had a blast and had great opponents, but having most of the board be huge LOS blocking silos that provided no benefit if the opponent got around them was double plus unfun

Im 100% supportive of the notion that Kingston's most competitive event, should be firmly situated in the context of what Kingston's gaming community is, and not try to be something its not.