Madison, WI NHSD event

[Queenmojo]

Thank you all for a great tournament! Here's the final ranking list with the armies played. Any of you should feel free to write up battle reports and post them on this thread.

1.) TurtleKing99 (5-0) Raelin (ROTV), Cyprien, Captain America, Marcu, Thorgrim, Sonya
2.) Harlax (4-1) Sir Gilbert, Sir Denrick, Alastair MacDirk, 3x Knights of Weston, Otonashi, Shiori
3.) Funnymarx (4-1) Tor-Kul-Na, Krav Maga, Raelin (ROTV), 2x Nagrubs, Ne-Gok-Sa, Marro Warriors
4.) Chris (4-1) Marro Hive, Agent Carr, 2x Stingers, 2x Drudge, 1x Deathreavers, Raelin (ROTV)
5.) Jacob H. (3-2) 2x Gladiators, 1x Knights of Weston, Spartacus, Crixus, Syvarris
6.) Krusni (3-2) Captain America, Otonashi, Venom, Spiderman, 1x Stingers
7.) Yodaking (3-2) Agent Carr, Krav Maga, 2x Microcorp, 1x Deathreavers, Venom, Isamu
8.) Nukatha (3-2) 2x 10th Reg, 2x Axegrinders, Migol, Finn, Eldgrim, Isamu, Raelin (ROTV)
9.) Lord Pyre (3-2) Venom, Braxas, 2x Zombies, Krav Maga, Marcu
10.) Marro Maniac (3-2) Zelrig, Isamu, Krav Maga, Kaemon Awa, Izumi Samurai, Raelin (SoTM)
11.) Queenmojo (2-3) 5x 4th Mass, Captain America, Kyntela
12.) Horde Lorde (2-3) Syvarris, Ne-Gok-Sa, Airborne Elite, Major Q9, Krug
13.) Laurel (2-3) 3x Axegrinders, Theracus, Migol, Braxas
14.) Matthew L. (2-3) Migol, 3x Axegrinders, Eldgrim, Marcu, Isamu, Captain America
15.) Elven Envy (2-3) Captain America, 4x 10th Reg, Raelin (ROTV)
16.) Scapemaster (2-3) 4x Zombies, 3x Stingers, Raelin (SoTM), Shiori
17.) TJ Dewane (2-3) Captain America, Raelin (SoTM) Kozuke Samurai, Izumi Samurai, Krav Maga
18.) Jesusfreak13 (2-3) Raelin (ROTV), 1x Microcorp, Cyprien, Sonya, Me-Burq-Sa, Ne-Gok-Sa, Otonashi, Swog Rider, Marro Warriors
19.) Hsskor (2-3) Captain America, 1x 4th Mass, 1x 10th Reg, Major Q10, James Murphy
20.) Therion (1-4) Nilfheim, Major Q9, Nakitas, Krav Maga, Isamu
21.) mkat51 (1-4) Raelin (ROTV), Airborne Elite, Guilty McCreech, Marro Warriors, 2x Heavy Gruts, Tornak, Ne-Gok-Sa
22.) William (0-5) Crixus, Saylind, 1x Knights of Weston, Zettian Guards, Grimnak, Sir Denrick, Izumi Samurai

If anyone has any pictures, feel free to post them, or send me a PM and I'll send you my e-mail address and we can get them on here that way. I plan on posting the pictures I have tomorrow afternoon.

Again thanks all for a great time...and sorry for the late start and getting so far behind schedule. Note to self: a 5 round tournament=7 hours

[ElvenEnvy]

Originally Posted by Harlax

Two other thoughts. We had a lot of younger players today. I juniors bracket might be good next time.

There were a lot of young players. Personally I'd like a junior's bracket because I'm not a kid person and some don't seem to be quite up to playing in tournaments. Your child probably can play you well, but I'd don't really think a kid under 10 can handle playing a stranger. I don't like to give reminders, count the number of dice they roll, and have line of sight disputes I can't win. I could call over a parent or the TD, but I don't want people to judge me or hurt the kid's feelings. I'm going for a serious game and I think some of the kids I played/observed aren't well-versed enough or are too worried about winning vs. having an honest, fair, and fun game. I think a juniors bracket with an adult helping out would help them become better players, and keep our games more straightforward.

One thing I wouldn't mind is playing a parent and child. If your kid really likes to play, play as a team. Let them pick out the army, you place the OM's, let them take the turns for their favorite unit, you take the turns for the rest- something like that.

More of a tangent than I wanted to go on, but that was the one part of my experience that kind of mellowed it for me.

[Queenmojo]

Originally Posted by Harlax

Two other thoughts. We had a lot of younger players today. I juniors bracket might be good next time.

I don't have a good feel for how many games were completed versus ended by time. My guess is many were ended by time. IIRC three of my games ended by time. One of the Gen Con events - Lightweight - had a point limit of 330. Very few of the games in that event was ended by time.

About the juniors bracket, this was largely my fault. I was under the impression that a lot of younger players were going to be attending and meant to suggest dividing into two different brackets at the start of the tournament, but we got behind and it slipped my mind.

Yeah and 600 points was a bit much, just trying to make the Marvel figures a little more playable, hence the Captain America being everywhere, I guess.

Lastly, I did a little bit of digging on the mindshackle question and posted a thread about it (no response yet) and from what I've found the decision made for counting points remaining would be to add the mindshackled figure to your remaining points. So Jesusfreak13 should have had 180 pts remaining for that game and however many points for the previous game. However in this scoring format that does make for a double point swing (aka 360 points in the Q9 case), so in future tournaments I will not use this scoring format to prevent this from happening again.

[ElvenEnvy]

That Q9 Mindshackle Points case doesn't really have a good answer it's almost like the 2000 election. Popular vote or electorals? Trying to find a consensus among us was probably the best thing to do as said election was decided by the Supreme Court.

This kind of thing happens everywhere at every level.

[Krusni]

I still feel that this isn't that hard of a dilema to figure out. Score goes as this, points of units remaining(180 for q9). then points for units destroyed(q9 is still alive, not destroyed). Therefore you gain 180 for remaining figures and that is it. If you and your opponent had a 600 point army to start in the end it would be 780 and 420. The back fire to mindshackle would then be that you control that figure and they become part of your army. Therefore if the person who originally had that figure proceeds to destroy it after it has been mindshackled they would get the points for destroying it. but that may just be another debate

[Krusni]

Then again the backfire thing only works if once you control the figure it is actually considered part of your army. I am not sure on this, so i may be very wrong. Might not be much of a back fire since itstill washes out points from you remaining army since you origianlly had the figure.

[funnymarx]

I think the answer collectively arrived at (points for the mind-slave only once -- but the win to the player with a figure left) was entirely reasonable.

[Harlax]

Originally Posted by Queenmojo

so in future tournaments I will not use this scoring format to prevent this from happening again.

The system used at GenCon employs a "strength of schedule" calculation as a tie breaker. You are rewarded for playing opponets who play well in other games. The disadvantage of that system is if you play someone who drops out at a later point, you are screwed. That happened to me at GenCon.

The disadvantage of the system we used is that you are rewarded for playing weak opponents and punished for playing strong oppenents. The other disadvantage is that it punishes armies who rely on attrition. The advantage is it is simple to manage.

I think our decision on the mindshackle issue was entirely reasonable. I don't know that I would make a change just because of something that is likely to be a one time occurence.

[TurtleKing99]

I still say that you should have just rolled the twenty-sided die for the mindshackle issue. And I still can't believe I won my first tournament.

[Lord Pyre]

I've got some pictures here!
(All the blurry ones were probably taken by me. I kinda suck at that)

The awesome prize table:





Tj vs. Queenmojo:






Yours truly vs. Queenmojo:




My poor zombies...:





YodaKing vs. Tj in the back, and Horde Lord vs. Krusni up front:





In the far back is JesusFreak13 vs Matthew, in the middle is Scapemaster vs. William, and up front is Queenmojo vs. Hsskor




Me vs. Scapemaster:
(My zombies beat his zombies... )





Me vs. Tj:

[Queenmojo]

Originally Posted by Harlax

The system used at GenCon employs a "strength of schedule" calculation as a tie breaker. You are rewarded for playing opponets who play well in other games. The disadvantage of that system is if you play someone who drops out at a later point, you are screwed. That happened to me at GenCon.

The disadvantage of the system we used is that you are rewarded for playing weak opponents and punished for playing strong oppenents. The other disadvantage is that it punishes armies who rely on attrition. The advantage is it is simple to manage.

I think our decision on the mindshackle issue was entirely reasonable. I don't know that I would make a change just because of something that is likely to be a one time occurence.

I'll look into strength of schedule scoring and think about for the future. I like the idea of being rewarded for playing stonger players and some of my favorite armies rely on attrition

Speaking of the future, me and my sister were talking on the way home about what to do about scheduling another event. I would be more than willing to organize another tournament, this was a lot of fun. However I doubt I will be able to afford to fill a prize table for sometime, especially without prize support. So how does it sound if the entry fee is a prize for the prize table? Just to give a timeframe, the earliest I will be able to schedule another event would be late January/early February. School has to come first until grad school applications go out in January.

Otherwise if you're itching for another tournament, it looks Jexik is planning something in the Chicago area for Nov. 21st. Jexik is a really cool guy and I'm planning on heading down there. I've got to take some study breaks

[Queenmojo]

Thanks for the pics Lord Pyre! The missing names are Horde Lorde, Matthew, and Hsskor in the order they appear.

Here's a few pics my sister and dad took



A shot of the prize table. Thanks to WoTC, Heroscapers, Rÿchean, theGuru, and anyone else that helped to make prize support happen this year!



Waiting for me to get all my stuff together so we could get going



From left to right: Yodaking, Scapemaster, TurtleKing99, ??? he just came to watch, and Nukatha



A bunch of us in the final round!



From left to right, front to back: TJ Dewan, Lord Pyre making an excellent face , Hsskor, Laurel, and a bunch of 'scapers in the background



Me frantically determining final placements and Yodaking very interested in his placement because he wanted a Skahen really bad (he got one!)



TurtleKing99 aka the champ of NHSD



Reaping the rewards from a fun day of Heroscape!