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Post by macbeth on Oct 4, 2017 22:33:17 GMT
Thanks McBeth. That explains the tournament rules clearly. It places a big premium on high Aggression armies (so you lay down last) with multiple options and many Allies. How would you handicap system cope with such high degrees of flexibility? Alan - agree that 'come as you are with a matched pair' is a good tournament approach as this means that competitors get to play with armies that they possibly haven't ever even considered before. I tend to collect match pairs anyway.....or rather for every army I have an "equal and opposite pile of unpainted lead!" However, I liked the way that some of the DBA tournaments at DBA 3.0 at Hurricon 2017 were organised as described by Tony Aguilar - a 4 Pike min tournament, a 477 AD to 1065 AD tournament and a Armies and Enemies of China Tournament. Theses specific army lists added variety and interest while limiting "killer armies" such as Qaramita or Lithuania to Open classifications. That said I suppose the purpose of a competition is to win fairly within the rules and if the tournament rules allow army options and/or dismounting then it is fair for players to maximise their advantage by using that flexibility. Paddy - My handicap system would not cope well with such a system. In the past I simply totalled up the Highest Value option for an army (ie the combination with the most expensive options) but that still gave the High Aggression multi option armies a distinct advantage - I balked at totalling up all options as that would have made some armies so expensive as to be prohibitive without them necessarily being more effective.
All of the competitions in Canberra are now 12 elements fixed list games and because we offer a handicap prize (The Magister Militum or "Maurice") each time and have a Grand Prize for players that compete in at least three of the four events (The Magister Militum Per Capitoline Territorialis or "Grand Maurice") many of the better players choose armies with a lower rating to maximise their chance at fame and glory.
My collections are often in Campaign Sets of up to 13 armies - I get excited about a couple of armies and then build up a 13 army campaign map and raise the armies. I cut the map down sequentially from 13 to 4 so that I can set up a game at my club for the number of players available.
Cheers
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Post by macbeth on Oct 4, 2017 22:59:08 GMT
And while we are here - a big thankyou to Stephen Webb for organising another successful MOAB DBA event.
My Trojan/Hittite combination did not perform to expectations and may not be invited back to a tournament for some time.
On the other hand my first serious attempt with an Elephant Army (IV/40 Siamese) went pretty well and I learned some better ways to use it as the day wore on. The big problem was that you can't rely on Kn to tie with 3Bd as a tactic. I have said on several occasions - we remember the times it happens because it is not the expected result.
Of course I did end the event on a high note vs Leigh Dunn (the ultimate winner) when one of my Fast Bd elements killed his general
Cheers
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Post by kaptainkobold on Oct 5, 2017 3:51:57 GMT
Alan - agree that 'come as you are with a matched pair' is a good tournament approach as this means that competitors get to play with armies that they possibly haven't ever even considered before. I tend to collect match pairs anyway.....or rather for every army I have an "equal and opposite pile of unpainted lead!" For those that haven't played in one, a matched pair tournament requires each player to bring two opposing armies (with fixed lists). In a given round only one player's armies will be in use for a particular pair of players. The player who *doesn't* own the armies chooses which one they will actually use. This encourages players to bring a fairly equally matched pair. The draw should be set up such that over an even number of rounds each player will play half of their games with their own pair and half with other people's. It has the advantage that you might see armies that would not normally see the competitive light of day, as part of a pair they are actually OK against. In addition it tests the skill of the player a little more, as in a six-round event, say, the player will get to use their own armies in only three games, and may end up playing with unfamiliar troop combinations in other games. Obviously all games would be historical as well. On the downside, each player has to provide two armies, and be willing to let another person play with their toys. In addition you only get to pit your troops against one other opponent during the day, which may not appeal to some. I'm not sure how you'd run tournaments based on particular army-list books either, as there is potential for book overlap in the historical pairs. Maybe as long as one of the two armies is from the designated book or books, it's OK, so a Book 3/4 comp would allow a Book 1 army as an opponent of something from 3 or 4. It'll only ever fight that one foe. I've played in HOTT tournaments using this system, and we found that the variety of troop types in play was a little more interesting, with 'risky' choices in one army being balanced by similar choices in their designated opposition. One interesting side-effect is that if there is sufficient space and options for the larger or smaller boards, the figure-scale used becomes irrelevant, since a given 15mm armies will be fighting a fixed 15mm foes, aparticular 25mm army a 25mm foe and 6mm a similar tiny opponent.
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Post by kaptainkobold on Oct 5, 2017 3:53:53 GMT
Of course I did end the event on a high note vs Leigh Dunn (the ultimate winner) when one of my Fast Bd elements killed his general Cheers My second, and final, win of the day was through my blades killing a knight general on a draw. As you say, the odds aren't good.
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Post by sydwargamer on Oct 17, 2017 2:27:51 GMT
I myself prefer matched pairs for my competitions.
Previously we have run a matched pair competition on the Saturday and a campaign on the Sunday.
The move last year to running a v3 competition as well as a v2.2 competition required a change to an open event for the v3 adherents as that was what they preferred.
As most did not return this year, I will be considering changing back to the format that was so successful for previous years.
The campaign will probably be similar to the Mongol campaign which was a great success.
Thoughts for those who participated or who may next year?
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Post by gregorius on Oct 17, 2017 3:49:51 GMT
Stephen, for me the preferred option is matched pairs on Saturday and a campaign on Sunday.
Cheers,
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Post by somecallmetim on Oct 17, 2017 7:44:39 GMT
Steve,
This year was my first experience of just using one army, and now that I have I much prefer having matched pairs.
And my thanks and appreciation to you Steve for all your help and your magnificent organising!
Rob
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Post by kaptainkobold on Feb 23, 2018 4:01:07 GMT
Stephen, for me the preferred option is matched pairs on Saturday and a campaign on Sunday. Cheers, I'd prefer it the other way around, but that's because I am involved in something else on the Saturday, and would be less interested in playing in a campaign than I am in playing in a matched-pair tournament.
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