Castle Assault Tournament

[Johnnylama]

I looked around a bit and didn't find anything like this-- feel free to direct me to threads if this has already been discussed somewhere.

The other day I was thinking about how we haven't done any kind of castle assault in a while. Balancing the points is always an issue, but I think I saw a formula somewhere-- twice as many attackers to defenders or something like that? Maybe it was double plus 250 to account for the door. I know it's somewhere, but I couldn't find it.

Then I started thinking that if a formula exists to balance the points, would a castle assault tournament be possible? I've been kicking around some ideas with Wookie. This is what I'm thinking so far, but these ideas are very gooey in the middle if you stab them with a toothpick.

Each person brings two armies-- one to attack, one to defend. Should the same figures be allowed in both armies? I'm not sure, but my initial feeling is no-- it will avoid Raelin overkill, add more strategy to developing your two armies, and there will be some extra armies around for players who show up without them.

Instead of just "kill 'em all" I think it might work better if the attackers have to occupy 3 glyph areas inside/ on top of the castle to win. The defenders would have to survive a certain number of rounds, like the scenario in the castle rulebook. Determining a winner by points won't work since both armies are starting with different numbers. Maybe in addition to win/ loss, keep track of the number of glyphs obtained to have some sort of tie breaker for those with equal records?

Outside of that, I don't think there should be too many restrictions of figures. I *could* band A+ or something just so everyone doesn't perch Q9/ Raelin on top of the castle. I'm not sure, though.

The number of rounds is problematic as well. It should be an even number so that everyone can get an equal number of plays as attackers and defenders, but 5 rounds seems to be the tournament norm. 4 is a bit short, and 6 is a bit long. Should I go with 4 longer games, 6 shorter ones, or 4 with some sort of fair way of determining a pairing for a fifth?

I have a pretty large collection, but even I only have 4 castle sets, and I think I'd need closer to 10 boards to put something on like this, so I'd need others to bring some maps. Even though, each map should use no more than one castle set to avoid shortages. Speaking of maps, are there good ones around? There's the one in the castle rulebook, but is there a thread somewhere of them? I can't find one. There are plenty of maps that use the castle, but I haven't had much luck finding fair castle assault maps-- fair meaning giving both attackers and defenders a reasonable chance of winning (no super height, etc.). This would be a fun cartographer project!

With asymmetrical maps getting some attention these days, I thought this might be a worthy avenue to explore. Thoughts?!?!