Suggestions for next 40k club championship

[Jack Shrapnel]

Wanted to have a spot available for those who attended the 40k club championships this year to give ideas and suggestions for next year's event (yes, at this point I'm still thinking annual event)

What did you like? What did you NOT like?

One thing that Mike, Ali and I were talking about is due to the higher than normal expenses with running this (and wanting to still maintain a high prize pool) and therefore the big impact drop outs have (we didn't want to start pulling prizes off the table because people didn't show up!) - next year will be pre-pay only for the signups.... we don't want Nexus losing money on this tourney! (especially if we're looking at growing it)

Another explanation of sorts... the painting scoring was very strict this year... and will continue to be for this event... no one got perfect scoring... just because someone is the best painter at the event doesn't mean they get the highest mark possible... As you can see by the scoring sheet (posted WAY in advance) to get the best marks possible there is a number of different "hobby skills" required, including display boards (which there were some very nice ones!) conversions, brushwork, etc. We meant to have a high standard (I wouldn't and shouldn't get a perfect score either! - when we were looking at 15+ on brushwork it was saying this was level James Craig or Scott paints at -> our local examples of "master" level painting) because we are working towards this being a 100% painted event... and want people's painting skills to steadily improve of course!

[LizardTau]

The pre paying is a good idea, you could have it a week before you have to pay. Would a week be enough time to change prizes?

One thing i really liked about the first day is all the crazy missions, i loved them even when i lost i had so much fun. I was laughing (and swearing in my head) during the first mission in the jungle when i lost half a unit of assault marines jump packing into the jungle, but it was so fun.

[thesanityassassin]

Yeah, the crazy missions are definitely fun. I like the attacker/defender ideas, they really make balanced armies key on this one!,

The painting scoring was a bit of a question for me....I agree totally that guys like James or Scott should be getting the top marks, and that it should take solid hobby skills to start scoring highly, but I really kind of feel that there should be a difference between "just done" in 3 colours and painted to a reasonable quality. From what I saw there were a LOT of armies scoring 10 on painting (finished) that had a REALLY big varience in terms of effort put in and quality of painting.

[Jack Shrapnel]

painting will be more equalized next time as bare minimum to play will be 100% painted... which is what the scale is intended for...

.... and I will be the first to admit that we were pretty crunched for time trying to get everything done... if we missed something in someone's painting or scored someone a few points lower than we should have I apologize... a few times it was hard to determine what was a conversion or not... or someone had a really outstanding squad, but other stuff was lacking so we had to make a judgement call... and there were some armies we were scoring not all together (due to me having to play as ringer) and simply three people having at times vastly different views on things... there were things I thought were great for example that others didn't... and vice versa... it's so subjective and I hate grading someone's painting...

I certainly wouldn't be able to score top marks on the painting scale... and the variance was not as big as it could have been as we tried to give at least decent painting marks (10) to those who spent the time to fully paint their armies (what we were trying to encourage!)... it's those points 10+ on brushwork that are the hardest to achieve on this scale... and yes, some armies may have gotten the 10 when they didn't necessarily deserve to be at 10 by the scale...

...problem was I set that as the score to meet or exceed when you showed up fully painted.. and since I said that beforehand I didn't want to go back on what I said... it probably should have been more like 8 minimum...

but like I said, this should all be taken care of next time when 100% painted will definitely be the rule.

[redshirt2375]

I will hopefully have a fully painted army next time

Once again Shannon Thanks! for running a great tournament. I think the overall variety of missions is great. I didn't get a chance to read all the scenarios but they all seemed to be wacky enough to add a nice change from the normal standard lists. I think if I could have changed one thing it would be Escalation deployment. It was my least favorite from last edition and playing it again on 4 of 6 games really reminded me of why I always disliked it (unless of course I finally try my luck with the 120 DE warrior horde )

Maybe for next time we could all brain-storm out some ideas for our own community-designed missions that try and use the currently mission types, but adding in the crazy twists to change them up so it's not your average type of game.

[Jack Shrapnel]

The reason I went with Astro scenarios rather than our own home-brewed ones, is these guys have playtested these scenarios extensively, and use them at 3 major tournies per year for the last several years...

It does appear that either escalation, on the scene or other deployment restrictions existed for around half the scenarios I picked... if this seems like something people dislike, those deployment affecting special rules could certainly be reduced if it's an issue....

[danydaigle24]

For me and my friends it was the greatest tournament ever! Was so fun and two days makes a big difference... Anything can happen and we didnt know until the end who was gonna win Tommy myself Dave Justin Ray Trevor Tom were all trying to figure out but was so close and fun! I like the fact that the painting is very strict cuz I save my ass by winning that trophee my gf was happy to see that all those hours at less were not for nothing ... So next year I just hope to see some more crazy scenario like this and I love them... Maybe not temple of doom tho ... Once again Thanks Shannon!

[Jack Shrapnel]

heh heh... most of the people who played temple of doom said it was the best scenario ever... two people disagreed though

(not bad though, 2 out of 12...)

I agree though, it can be brutal for some armies, depending on the mission you get... but I think of all the missions it is the one that forces you to adapt your game plan on the fly, and deal with the completely unexpected!

[thesanityassassin]

I was just really happy to see Victory Points as the major scoring condition in so many of the scenarios. I've always been a big fan of that over the current 5th ed missions. I really like the fact that it represents the fact that 10 Terminators are harder to kill than 5 scouts, and rewards people accordingly. For example, I sacrificed 3 small units to wipe out a big unit of Terminators + character in one of my games. I came out on top of that by about 300 VPs, where as with KP's I would have lost out by 1.

[calitom]

Agreed with everything, thanks for setting it up and running it for us Shannon! Victory points was definitely my favorite aspect of it as it makes the game feel more like a real tactical exercise rather then point and shoot at something until it dies- you have more risk management that can pay off and can actually spread out your tactics accordingly to each situation...

My favorite maps were actually X-factor and the Temple of Doom- though the power station and bridge were neat as well due to the attacker / defender factor to it...

Here's to looking forward to next year!

[Jack Shrapnel]

I really hate the kill point mechanic... I know it saves time and all that, but I think we're all able to total up victory points quickly enough (no one for example reported that this slowed the tourney down at all!) and it's just a fairer mechanic. A rhino does NOT equal 10 TH/SS termies... KP just doesn't make any sense! (and favours death star play)

My exception of course was the baneblade mission... but even though it's kill points, it was still one of the most popular missions people played!

I do realize that there were some people who were less than happy throughout the weekend (yep, I hear stuff lol) and I welcome criticism as well... the only way this can continue as an annual event and be fun for everyone is that we consider all opinions as to how to make this the best event we can... it's alot of work for sure, and I don't want to spend a bunch of time doing things that people aren't going to like!

I know that not everyone liked having scenarios outside of the book missions.... which is part of why I tried to give everyone a ton of warnings, and previous of the terrain/special rules which may cause some difficulties... I've left all the scenarios in a binder (along with some of the objectives made for missions like Grot Mart, park in space and search party) so people are welcome to play mission they didn't get a chance to, or really enjoyed...

t-shirts... trophies... draws... all that stuff I'd really appreciate feedback on too!

[danydaigle24]

I really like the victory points aswell. Also T-shirt was nice but maybe having it like a day or two before so we can wear it on the first day will be nice... trophies were really nice and I like the idea of draws so even if you dont win the tournament you can still win something thats fun for people that are more casual and since its an anual event and we want maximum participation I think its the best method...

[fritzthedwarf]

Great job Shannon!!! The tournament was lots of fun. I agree with others that have said victory points are far better than kill points. I like the draw idea for prizes for this tournament so that you can take a variety of builds and still have a chance at something. I would also like to keep the variety of missions you used rather that the book missions. No that said we don't know what 6th edition will bring with missions so we will have to wait but hopefully GW will provide a lot more variety there. Favorite missions were the tomb raider and Grot mart (not because my opponent was at a disadvantage right from the start - which he was).

The baneblade mission was fine too and now that I know how it is played I would play differently (messed up my game on that one). I would recommend that all missions like this that are used are simplified in the instructions as much as possible. There is little enough time in tournaments and some scenarios had 2-3 pages of rules that had to be read through and there impact understood before anyone deployed. and that can eat up a bit of valuable time.

Well done again, Shannon. Hopefully we didn't cause you too many headaches.

[Jack Shrapnel]

Well thanks... glad you guys liked things....

I'll take some responsibility unfortunately for some confusion with understanding the missions... originally I was NOT supposed to be playing at all... I was supposed to be hanging out by the more complex missions (if you notice they were at the back end of the store near the end of both rows) and be there to help move things along with the weirdest/ most complicated of the missions, answering questions throughout the tourney...

...was hoping that as the days went on, and people were talking about whatever weirdness they played, word would circulate as to what kind of missions were out there... also why I had the missions out for an hour before the games started... and tried to get matchups done early at least for the missions I could (first ones both days)...

so in all I tried though, really it wasn't enough... I needed to not be playing, bottom line... some of these scenarios were complex, so I needed to be there to make things run smoothly... so that's on me...

in hindsight I needed to have prepays for all spots... because everyone who prepaid showed up! and in addition I probably should have either done "buys" for games if we were at odd numbers, or had some other backup plan so I wasn't the one playing the ringer army (given Mike and Ali didn't know these scenarios at all!)

I also have another 15 or so scenarios I didn't use... so don't expect all of the ones from this year to make the cut - I do want people's favourites to make it though...

but I gotta save some surprises for next year right?... oh man, I'm already sure I'm gonna do this again?

[trevor]

thanks for doing the turnament shannon it was lots of fun. found u were realy buisy though if u want im shur 1n of us would play the ringer army next year i know i would be up for it.