NHSD - AZ - Duel in the Desert 10.18.2008

[hex706f726368]

National Heroscape Day - 10.18.2008
2nd Annual Duel in the Desert

The second annual Duel in the Desert is coming. We met a lot of new faces last year, and I hope we get a few more this year. If you missed it last year, don't make the same mistake twice. Look how much fun this crowd is:

You can read more about the event you missed last year here.

Time:
11am to Midnight!

What:
Let's get together and play some Heroscape! There will be casual games and roughly 4-5 hours of tournament games depending upon how many participate.

We will start the day with some casual games of Heroscape. As has become fairly standard at our game days, I will have each map's starting zones listed on a piece of paper and you can roll a d20 for where you will play. Since it's casual, you can bypass rolling the die if you've got someone in mind you really want to play.

All tournament participants must have registered by 1:00pm. At 1:00pm, we will start the tournament portion of the gameday. Please read the tournament rules below to understand how this is being run. After the tournament is over, the winners will get to select from the prize table (if we have one) in the order that they finished. If you get a prize, be prepared for a photo opp.

There should be plenty of snacks, and we'll do dinner food after prizes are selected. There will also be a photo of the whole group after dinner before we return to casual play (which will last until midnight or everyone leaves, whichever happens first).


Where:
My house. West side of the Phoenix metro area (Avondale), ~1.5 miles SW of the Loop 101 and I-10 interchange.

I think most of you have been to my house before. If you haven't, or have forgotten/lost the directions, reply to this thread or send me a PM noting that you need directions and I'll send them out around a week before the big day. I'm partially lazy and partially avoiding spamming the regulars with unnecessary PM's.

Attendees:
1.hex706f726368
2.Mrs. hex706f7263
3.Cavalier
4.miniCav
5.lonewolf
6.insomnimaniac
7.Mrs. insomnimaniac
8.Hiredgun
9.QueenB
10.Kid Dizaster
11.dillerbocker
12.DangerMouse
13.madster7
14.rehlers
15.Dinky
16.Disorder
17.HeroscapeLunatic
18.Mrs. Lunatic

Maybe's:
Makmorn
Makmorn's friend (John?)

Maybe not's:
robbdaman
Cory
JosFon

Consult a Farmer's Almanac or check the phase of the moon:
HeroscapeLunatic
Mrs. Lunatic

What you need to bring:
- ($) Money ($) Somewhere in the range of $5+ per person for food (The + is because I want to look into options other than pizza. I'll bring it up for discussion after I've made some phone calls).
- Your own dice, order markers, wound markers and army card specific markers
- A 675 point draft army for the tournament (no marvel figures, sorry)
- One or more pre-built 450 point armies for 1vs1 casual games
- One or more pre-built 300 point armies for 2vs2 casual games
- One or more pre-built 800 point armies for 1vs1 casual marvel games with a minimum of 500 points of marvel army cards

Prizes:
Last year, prizes were awarded via random drawing. Despite being random, the prize distribution seemed to bunch up among a few groups, so this year we're going to try our first tournament to determine prizes.
Prize donations are welcome, encouraged and highly appreciated. Custom work (dice towers, dice trays, dice bags, terrain, figures, coasters, etc.) is highly appreciated and goes quickly!

- First place custom Trophy made by Onacara
- (Cavalier) 1 water lexan mat, 1 grass lexan mat
- $50 from House Mouse Games
- $25 from War Gamers Headquarters
- 1 dice tower from VixenTor Games
- (WotC) Sounds like there will be quite a few Agent Skahens available at this event! 10 Agent Skahens, 1 complete set of flag bearers, 1 Ticalla Jungle, 1 Aquilla's Alliance
- (lonewolf) Prize 1:Magic the Gathering Backpack & 2 Planeswalker 30 card Magic the Gathering decks
- (lonewolf) Prize 2:Blue Dragon Role Playing Card Game & 2 decks + 2 game mats & 2 packs - Maple Story TCG
- (rehlers) A RotV flocked terrain set (see here)
- (rehlers) Cursed Village pre-built custom map (see here)
- (insomnimaniac) 1 thick set of Card sleeves and 2 storage cases
- (Hiredgun clan) 1 set of custom heroscape coasters

Thanks to everyone who donated a prize for this event!

Tournament Rules:

Originally Posted by ”From the Swarm of the Marro: Master Edition Rules”

Draft an Army
When you select an Army Card, take the figure or figures shown on the card and place them on the battlefield in a starting zone immediately, before the next player selects an Army Card. You must place your entire army in the same starting zone. If there are more Army figures than spaces in the starting zone, you can't use the extra figures.

For a 2-player game, players draft as follows:
1.Both players roll the 20-sided die. Re-roll any ties. The higher roller drafts first, by choosing one Army Card.
2.The other player then chooses two Army Cards.
3.Each player, in turn, then chooses one Army Card, until both players' Armies have been completely chosen and placed.

For the purpose of this tournament, players will register 675 points worth of army cards. This will be the player's draft pool for each game of the tournament. They will draft a 450 point army from their registered figures using the above rules at the beginning of each match. Start zones will be limited to what is on each map. If your army exceeds the spaces to field it, you will not be able to use those pieces in the game. Typical tournament maps allow for 24 starting spaces.

After the draft is completed, you and your opponent will fill out your tournament tracking sheet with the units you chose for this game. You are expected to double-check the accuracy of your opponent's sheet for that match. Just check that the army cards drafted have their points correct and they don't exceed 450 total. After the game is over, update your tournament tracking sheet with your point differential (see below).

Point Differential (PD) is calculated by totaling the point value of your remaining army and subtracting the total point value of your opponent's remaining army.

Originally Posted by ”From the Swarm of the Marro: Master Edition Rules”

Scoring
In cases where scoring is necessary, each player or team scores points for each Army Card with figures still on the battlefield. Score the full points listed on the Army Card, even if there is only one surviving Squad figure.

The first round will be a random match-up. Win/loss record and PD will be used to determine each following round's match-ups. So, after each round, everyone will be ranked 1 through 32(?) ordered first by record, second by PD. The match-ups will be 1vs2, 3vs4, etc. Your ranking after the final round is how you placed in the tournament. If we have a similar turnout to last year, our tournament will last 5 rounds.

Maps for each match-up will be assigned randomly.

Matches will be limited to 50 minutes. All matches will start at the same time. There will be a timer. When time is called, you will be allowed to finish the current turn for both players. After time is called, there will be a 10 minute gap before the next game starts. This is to allow games to finish their remaining turn and setup the next matches. This is our group's first time attempting to strictly manage games this way, please allow some flexibility if we come across any kinks.

We will be using the SotM Master Set Rules and the Advanced FAQ along with the terrain specific rules for all other rules.

Maps:

Looks like we have ~20 definites, ~3 that I'm pretty sure are coming and ~4 that are maybe's. I've got enough maps below to serve 26 people (I'll sit out and just run the thing if we get all 27 to show).

(x2) Turret Rocks


(x2) Fire Isles


(x2) Ice Blossom


(x2) Embattled Fen


(x2) Ticalla Sunrise


(x2) Ruins of Pine Tree Marsh


(x1) Winter Holdout (if necessary)


I will probably be running short on pieces and maybe tablespace after building all these. I think we'll use rehlers prize map as one of the 2vs2 team maps. I'll take some inventory on saturday and get back to everyone if I need some extra supplies, etc.

Glyphs:

Glyphs will be randomly chosen at the beginning of each game from the pool below and placed face down on each map. After all units have been placed on the board and before order markers are placed for the first round, the glyphs will be flipped power side up.

+1 Unique Attack
+1 Common Attack
+1 Defense
+2 Move
+8 Initiative
+1 d20
Wounding
Healer

RESULTS

Follow this link

[Cavalier]

I will be there. Mini-cav will most likely be there with me.

Can't wait!

I will have at least 1 Lexan mat for the prize table.

[lonewolf]

Count me in!

[robbdaman]

I'll look into coming back to Phoenix for sure for this. Nothing beyond GenCon beats an AZ Game Day!

R~

[Rifier_Ace]

I am not sure at all. Since I am 15 and non of my older siblings or parents play the game. That automatically means I can't come even though I really want to.

[hex706f726368]

Originally Posted by Rifier_Ace

I am not sure at all. Since I am 15 and non of my older siblings or parents play the game. That automatically means I can't come even though I really want to.

I'm going to keep the same rule I had last year. Everyone is welcome to come, but if you're under 18, you need to be accompanied by a parent/guardian. They don't have to play; I'm just uncomfortable taking responsibility for someone else's minor. As an example, KoolKukumber has come to a few events and his dad just watches, takes a nap or listens to his ipod.

[Cavalier]

Originally Posted by Cavalier

I will be there. Mini-cav will most likely be there with me.

Can't wait!

I will have at least 1 Lexan mat for the prize table.

Just wanted to make sure you caught that line.
And Mini-Cav is a definate (I need to have him come up with a name)

[hex706f726368]

Yep, I caught it. Got it in my first update to the original post. Thanks a bunch!

I'm going to try my hand at something custom to give away. Need to make sure it looks decent, don't want someone thinking they just won some of my garbage.

[insomnimaniac]

Mr. and Mrs. Insomnimaniac will attend.

I'll see what we can come up with as a prize also.

[insomnimaniac]

I was working on some armies over the weekend and realized that I don't know the criteria for the tournament.

What point cost are we going with?

Can we have more then one army? Can we change out our figures during the day if we don't like the way a particular unit is playing?

Thats all I have for now.

[hex706f726368]

Originally Posted by insomnimaniac

I was working on some armies over the weekend and realized that I don't know the criteria for the tournament.

What point cost are we going with?

Can we have more then one army? Can we change out our figures during the day if we don't like the way a particular unit is playing?

Thats all I have for now.

I had a different kind oftournament idea in mind using a draftable sideboard. But with GBob's revelation that DCI will be used for NHSD, I'm waiting for clearer instructions to see how/if that idea is still feasible.

If we can't try out my idea for this event, I'll likely just follow the crowd and do 540.

[insomnimaniac]

Originally Posted by hex706f726368

I had a different kind oftournament idea in mind using a draftable sideboard. But with GBob's revelation that DCI will be used for NHSD, I'm waiting for clearer instructions to see how/if that idea is still feasible.

If we can't try out my idea for this event, I'll likely just follow the crowd and do 540.

Ok, I'll wait for the news. What do you mean by draftable sideboard?
Thanks Hex