New England Scene Revival
 

I was wondering if there was enough interest and players to seriously restore the competitive scene in New England? Our scene kind of died, there's been some events scattered around the northeast here and there but not much focusing in New England. I know Onacara and nyys don't play anymore and have moved on to other board game stuff, and I haven't seen a lot of the past scene's regulars around this site unfortunately. But, I do know some who still are around and hopefully are interested.

I'm a competitive player and still play the game competitively (even though tournament wise I really only attend gencon now), and am interested in reviving the scene hoping to get competitive play going again. Right now I'm at college but come home for winter break soon and am probably going to play the game with some close friends. I have several tournament maps (~10) in the works/finished that I've been playing with friends on and will start posting to this site too (again, hoping to re-spark competitive play and discussion) and would love to incorporate some.

With C3V/SoV driving the current online scene, I'd very much like to allow and encourage the Valhalla customs as a part of the (hopefully to come) new scene. There's not much negative with it, in my eyes; they are balanced and most fare well in the standard competitive environment, they add a lot of creativity to the game, they boost units that are lackluster to straight bad in the original game, they allow newer players to attain units easier and at a less expense, and all in all just keep the game fresh and interesting.

If we do have a solid revival, I'd very much like to keep a cohesive statistical rankings going. I can do the data crunching and databasing with pleasure (I like statistics and math in general, am majoring in mathematics currently).

Prize support would be kind of lacking, there's not too much we can do to get around it because sets are scarce and hard to attain. And I understand people not wanting to let go of sets and stuff from their collection. I think entry fee ($$$) --> prize support would work fine, and drive players to want to place higher. I also have some extra unopened sets I'm willing to part with, including some unopened gc exclusives, but not really a ton to consistently provide if the scene does get going. But I don't think people would be opposed to winning money.

I have several friends and family members (some of you I know remember my dad, Bob) who I could probably get to play. But, not enough to completely makeup a tournament by any means (also not sure how many would be up for traveling, I'm sure some would). I'll tag some members I'd hope to see have some interest in this that are still active in some degree:

@Kinseth @ollie @OrcElfArmyOne @Joseph Sweeney @Bengi @Dragon Ruler @nyphot @Taeblewalker

Apologies if I didn't tag you and you're still active, just rattling off names in my head. Also if you're in the New York scene and are interested you're of course welcome. I live in Pittsfield, MA which is all the way western mass, not far from Albany.

Let me know if you have interest. I don't mind if the tournaments are on the small side (8-16 peeps), and I think it is probably unreasonable at this point in the overall 'scape scene to hope for 30+ turnouts. I just want to play competitively again, outside only-gencon.

Hopefully we can get this scene rolling again and at least get some tournaments in the near future!

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Only have a brief moment, but I know myself and my family would be thrilled to see the competitive scene moving again.

~JS

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

I'm in. Work/family/life mean the odds I can make an event on a given day at some distances are not as good as they were 5+ years ago, but I'll try.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

I'd play as long as it is based on a time where I can make it. Travel Soccer for my daughter is on the weekends, but it is only one day each weekend, hope the stars align. Might persuade my dad to come up for the event!

I would not be able to help organize the event though, my days of organizing are over. (Until my kids decide they like heroscape, right now they like Barbies and Ponies...)

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Grok Riders and Templar Cavalry. you're welcome

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

My dad and I would definitely be interested as long as we are available. It would be great to play some Scape again!

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Maybe I will dust off my Quahon...

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Haha, I remember you used him(her? I can't remember) against me, but was I in the camp that disliked him? I remember disliking Cathar... ah well, who knows.

Or you could, maybe, buy my Quahon and have a second?? And the rest of the Scape I'm selling? ;)

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

I'm super glad that you are posting and very, very interested.

HOWEVER (and it's a big however), I honestly think that my ability to participate will not be very high... until a few years from now when my kids will (hopefully) play the game and be interested in taking road trips with Dad.

I haven't played in many a year, but I do have some terrain and Heroclix figs out for the kiddos to play with, so it's only a matter of time, right?

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Decent amount of interest/availability, nice to see. I think an on going league/rankings is out of the question, which i sort of expected, but maybe we could have an event or two relatively soon.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Just in case any of you are interested, we're looking to get a tournament going!

~JS

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Well I shan't believe this. People do play Heroscape in Connecticut. I was so happy to see @OrcElfArmyOne is a resident of the homeland that it reminded me that 75% of the Scape community is over by Utah/Idaho for whatever reason :shrug: . Why must New England have so few yet so many?:pity:

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Permission to revive this revival thread (19 or 20 roll please). I have been having the urge to play something somewhere weather its a tournament just for fun or whatever.

I have a group of 4 maybe more that I have gotten hyped to do something. Not sure if I should make a demo or run a tournament somewhere to get some fresh faces or involve the veterans here that seems to be plentiful in the NE area.

What is the condition of you fellow players and others and the locations including shops nearby? It's been a while since the game came out but my group still plays it strong.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

If you have that many to start with then I encourage you to follow the steps in my “first tournament” thread, linked below, and see what happens. If you build it, they will come.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

That was precisely my thought exactly as I have read through both threads (Tourney and demo) fully just before posting this. Your explanation is very throughout as are the questions that followed.

My main concerns is prize pools as I wouldn't know how many people would come and therefore wouldn't know how much to buy for a prize, maybe I can just divide the entry fee and solely use that?

Another than that I tried clicking some download links in the threads but they were outdated, namely the download to the player sheets (I could make them but if there is a download that would be easier)

Because the scapers in NE are scattered and not as active as they once appeared to be I am not sure the implementations of "build it and they will come" works in our case. How do i invite people other than on a post here?

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Excellent questions!

The answer is, you do *everything* to get people to come. Bring your friends who already play. If there are others who might like it, tell them about it too. Tell those people that it's not really a competitive tournament, it's just an opportunity to play a fun game with a welcoming community.

And that's what it will be, because you and your friends will be welcoming to everybody, and you will be able to supply armies for the people who are coming and who let you know. Explore local options for locations and find one that you think might work. It may or may not be the closest to you.

Then post something in the Events forum here, looking for ideas for a date and for a format. That will build some energy here. Also, in that same thread, tag the other NE 'Scapers, and maybe send them a group PM also. In other words, do *everything* to get people to come. I also have normally publicized upcoming events on BGG, but I don't know if that ever makes a difference.

As for your "prize pool," don't worry about that until later in the process. What I do is I collect $5 from everyone who attends as an entrance fee, and then I buy a few gift certificates with that money to give out as prizes. I don't keep any of it, of course.

Start a thread and see what happens. If it's just the four of you that will be fun, but if you get 8 then you will have a real tournament structure. Just see what happens. I guarantee that if you *don't* build it, then they will never come.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

I will be bringing all my friends who play and inviting some that used to along with other potential candidates. As mentioned in your OP on how to make a tournament it will be fun no matter what you bring and how many people go so fun wont be an issue and I intend it to be a structured tournament that is more causal than not.

I want this to just be a whole bunch of people to kickstart the NE heroscape community again. That being said is there someway to search members here from location? I can only see through past posts of who to tag in a post and they may not check here anymore. (also how do I tag people in posts?)

Before I make an official post about this I just want to get all my ducks in a row which includes figuring out how one of these will run and score the location so just a few more questions if you don't mind.

Because this will just be sort of a head count event prizes most likely won't be included but the entry fee will be divided for prizes. I intend this event to be sometime during the summer as that is where a lot of kids have free time and seems like the best time to give me and others time to plan to go.

I love your idea of name tags, I will definitely be doing that. In the sign up sheet (that includes name, army used, I forget what else) is it unheard of to have an email section, in case I want to organize an event afterwards?

I believe I have a good idea of a location, and have 2 ideas. 1) years ago I found this game store that was selling heroscape on the back wall, I picked up what I needed and left. That store may be more likely to host one of these events as they have shown devotion to the game. 2) When wandering a mall I found this new location (this maps turn over rate seems to be every few years) and this place was a board game location and they had classes and such and seemed like a great spot to rent. Not sure which will prove the better spot.

I had a question about how the Swiss point system worked. I played MtG so I have an idea of how to run something like this but the points throw me off a bit. So I'm thinking give 45 minutes per round and its your remaining points (partial squads and wounded heroes counted as well) and whatever you took out, add those up and also count win and loses. Is this correct with how this Swiss goes?

Last question I can think of atm: Maps. I have access to a good amount of terrain pieces but want to maximize how many maps I can build myself. Amount of maps wont be a problem, ill be driving my 4 friends, maybe more, and they can help me setup. Where can I find a good thread of tournament-typical maps and how to build them? Sorry for the long post but I am a very organized person and need to figure everything out before I do something like this.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

To tag somebody, put @ before their username: @itsbuzzi

Any game store will work. Find one that has nice people running it, they might even try and hook some people into coming.

Tournament style is the least of your worries. Just pair the highest records of players, and go down from there. Switch if necessary to avoid rematches. Count points as a tie-breaker, either partial or full, it doesn't matter. I'd give at least 55 minutes per round, though.

Check out the Battlefields of Valhalla, the Wargrounds of 'Scape, or the Architects of the Realms of Valhalla. They each have display threads of maps that are tournament ready, with build instructions.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Thank you! I will look around for game stores nearby as that seems to be the best place to start.

Because I'll be the TM I will need to deal with tournament style at some point but the standard seems to be what I described with map rotation, ties, and players. As for time I've read through the comments of both sticky posts about hosting and it seems 40 or 45 is more than enough time, but I never did this, so I can change to 55, nothing set in stone yet.

I checked out the BoV, Wargounds and ARV and am a little confused as to why they are seperated. Are some accepted by some and others by others? :confused: Thank you!

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

BOV and Wargrounds of scape are older Map groups made for competitive tournament play. The ARV is a new group that makes map contests for the community to get involved. The maps get judged by the judges to make a top ten, and get voted on by the community to see who wins a prize. The goal is to make maps that can be used by tournament organizers to have fun on balanced maps. (I'm one of the founding members.:))

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

The BoV was the original (and still the greatest). They've been judging tournament maps since this forum started, more or less. Not too long after the game was discontinued, that project slowed down significantly. The WoS started to fill that niche. They had a faster process, and were geared towards accepting maps for online play in addition to for tabletop play. For a variety of reasons, that project faltered soon after it started, although they did induct a few (great) maps. The ARV is a new project, based on a contest Sir Heroscape ran a year or so ago. For that, they take map entries based on a theme, review the 10 most popular, and induct the ones that are tournament worthy.

tl;dr

They're from different eras of the site, and each has a slightly different focus. The BoV is the original, the others tried to fill the hole that the BoV left on the site (and in our hearts).

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Ok so all maps in all these categories are fair game when it comes to competitive maps some are just older than others and in the works. Thanks i'll check them out!

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Correctamundo. Have fun.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

i'm checking out all the maps and will make choices based off of what pieces I have access to to be able to build as many as I can (will take lots of time) and I found where all the maps are. Why does wargrounds of scape only have 3 maps? Am I missing something?

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

I would only select the ARV maps from this Tournament Worthy Thread when selecting ARV maps. These have been judged and tested to be balanced. Some of the others not in this thread from ARV are not.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Sadly, WoS died out pretty quickly, and they only had those 3 maps inducted by the time it stopped. They are 3 of my favorite maps, though, and they're used in tournaments all the time.

To address your earlier concern about finding people to attend, reaching out to the old members of the community is great, but also don't underestimate those who will just find the thread online and come. Here in Utah we've had an active tournament scene for the past year and most of our regulars hadn't been to a Utah tournament before we started them. (Come to think of it, I'm the only regular who also attended tournaments before Scape was discontinued.) We have some of our veterans come occasionally, but for the most part it's people finding the game or getting back into it and looking for a place to play. So there's a lot of merit to DS's "If you build it, they will come."

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

That is exactly where I took them from.

Oh ok, didn't find much else on WoS. Kind of feel bad, I hope I use at least 1 from there. Oh yes I completely expect random people to attend because I will be hopefully hosting at a game store but I'll try to tag whoever veteran players I can find.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

The next step is finding the place. The step after that is posting a thread in the Events subforum, including tagging and PMing people.

There is no guarantee you will have twenty people, though I hope you do. Rather, there is the guarantee that if you *don't* do it, then you will have zero people. Just do it. :up:

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

This is looking good itsbuzzi, it's great that you're thinking about definitely doing this. :)

Some miscellaneous facts about how many of the northeast tournaments ran back in the day (though not /really/ back in the day, I think my first event was ~2007):

Fees/prizes. Rather than entry-fees we mostly did bring-a-prize. That way everyone left with a prize too, and it felt more like a swap than a cost. A booster was fairly typical, but there'd be Master sets and more at the top end and it wasn't unusual for two people going together to take a booster of two common squads and split it out as two prizes. Of course, this was when boosters were ~$10 and often available for cheaper. During the Nakita glut, I think people would take extra of those just to try to get them off the store shelves. (At one event, someone claimed that as the prize, opened it and took the snow tiles, and put the rest back for someone else).

Structure: Swiss was the most common (and that's what people have been describing here). However, Rolling Rumble was gathering popularity too and we had a good few events using that structure. I think it's fair to say that we were one of the least competitive 'scaping regions.

Maps. We usually discussed these in the event thread. BoV ones were common. There was usually one person in the area on the BoV judging panel and so BoV nominees were often used. Then favourite maps by local 'scapers. There was even an event that used Ruff Stuff. (This was before the other map-endorsement projects existing; no slight intended on them.)

I'd certainly try to make it out. However, I have more commitments in life now and it's right on the edge of a journey I'd make when I was young and less encumbered (3.5hrs?). When the time comes though, I can certainly help spread the word. We can dig up old users here and I'm still in touch elsewhere with a handful of those who aren't around any more.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Glad to see I'm on the right steps. I really want to do this as I think it'll be super fun! I'm glad you're telling me how past events went. I know when people make an event they try to mimic past events. Here it's a bit harder because of the gap in events.

The fees and prizes were really up in the air for me. I know how they went in the past but now sets are so expensive (I still call the different sized boxes by how expensive they were, $10 for figures, $20 for square boxes, $40 for master sets) I didn't want to break the bank setting this event up and didn't want to deter anyone from coming telling them they need to bring something. So I'm still up in the air on this but would prefer a lower cost, such as the entry fee, just to have a lower cost of entry and thus more people (that's the hope).

It appears that we were in fact one of the less competitive groups and am stuck on which type of event to pick. I used to play MtG competitively and therefore know very well how to run a Swiss but Rolling Rumble seems to be less competitive and so may be more fun but as the TM I feel it may get clustered and disorganized fairly easy if I don't set it up right.

Maps, now I got this one. I used to always make maps at my house to play on but homemade maps can become unbalanced if not created correctly. I like the idea of the APV, WoG and BOV maps because they have been playtested, approved, and work. I downlaoded every single map from these threads (only the finished ones) and will compile a list of what parts they need and will check my inventory to see which combination I can make the most maps (More maps can accommodate more people so why not have more than less)

Thank you for offering to spread the word that would be super helpful. As I have said I would like for sometime in the summer as that seems to be the least busy of time (and there is plenty of time to plan). The location I also wanted to make it semi center from everyone but I don't know who would come so I don't know where to place it. I'm ok with driving a distance but not too too far. So location is still up in the air but I was thinking perhaps lower Mass or Center as that isn't too far from me. If you have where past events were maybe those locations would be happy having us again. Familiar locations may attract new and veteran people alike.

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I played in some of the local MA/RI tournaments back in the day and it was a lot of fun. I would definitely be interested in attending and would try to get as many people as possible.

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Glad to hear! Was checking past posts to see who to tag when I make the official post and didn't see your name, glad you spoke up.

As it stands I'm thinking about either Easter break or summer (trying to get my friend from college here too) and thinking about past places that hosted and places I know of. These places are in Providence RI, Rehoboth MA, Swansea MA and Warren RI.

I will be working on maps today and am thinking about Swiss or Rolling Rumble, that's to be determined. There may or may not be an entry fee for prizes as actual items are risen in price significantly. Will keep working on it and hoping to post the official thread soon.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Stop worrying about prizes. Use the entry fee / store credit system. Sometimes people surprise me by bringing prizes to give out to the winner(s), and I'm always glad to take them and then award them in addition to the store credit prizes. But nobody comes for the prizes. Entry fee / store credit and done. Also quit worrying about your format; that's something you can figure out later.

Much bigger issues are (1) where and (2) when. Focus on that.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Thanks for the insight. Still working that out. Have lots of potential and need to limit it. Thinking around easter, so I have lots of time. Would try to give about 2 maybe 3 weeks in advance so not worried just thinking a lot.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

There was 2 tournaments at the Artist village in Pawtucket that I remember. They were great because I live in Attleboro. I wouldn't worry about prizes and format too much. The big thing is finding the location and enough people to commit. I have a game club at school and all the students love it, but when they find out it's no longer in stores they lose interest.

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Artist Village. I was going through past events and that one didn't come up. My theory is is a place had an event before they are more likely to host another one. The only one I saw that wasn't too far was this place in Providence called mana core. But I will look into that one as well as it isn't too far from me either.

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I am pretty sure Untapped Games in Pawtucket hosted a tournament too. I think there was a games store in the Artist Village that put on the tournament.

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I tried looking up "Artist Village" but nothing came up. Is this a location or the name of the place? A lot of places have either ceased to exist or changed named and such. I Will look into Untapped Games.

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Artist Village is just a big old mill with a lot of storefronts inside.

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Ahh found it. Was strange looking it up but I have a few potential locations thus far and hope to finalize everything by this weekend. Any other venues I should look into?

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Church rec centers, halls or anything similar are all go options if you have some connections.

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No connections that I can think of. The event thread has been posted including a solid location thus far.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Hi, anyone active in CT? I am in the Branford area

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Just found this thread and it would be fantastic to get the scene going again. I see that Buzzi is planning a few events and that's fantastic. My availability is shaky given that I'm in Boston most of the year without a car or any of my Heroscape, but I would be thrilled at any new events.

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That's not too far from where I plan events. I plan in the Providence area and surrounding.

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

@itsbuzzi Gonna throw my name in here - trying to re-enter the 'scape scene, currently in central CT so I can branch out to the RI, MA areas. God bless these tiny states.

(casually blowing dust off this account I haven't touched in five years, feels good to be back)

Re: New England Scene Revival
 

Welcome mate! 'Scape is incredible, I have recently got way back into it myself since the beginning of the year. I'm hoping to hit some of the next tourneys. In the meantime, working on C3G has me hooked every day. :)