EVENT CANCELED - CASUAL GAME DAY INSTEAD May 28th Warren, OH

[killercactus]

Date: May 28th.
Time: Sign-ups begin at 11AM, AUCTION AT 11:30, dice roll at Noon
Place: All American Cards and Comics in Warren, OH

Format and Rules:

Spoiler Alert!

The Amazing Army Auction was a hit last year, so I wanted to bring it back with a couple tweaks. Here's what I have in mind...

All players bring two mutually exclusive 400 Point armies (minimum 395 Points) and three mercenaries (see Merc details below), along with their own dice, wound markers, army cards, and a prize for the prize table if they'd like to take one. Players may not bring Marvel or custom figures. Repaints and Samuel Brown are legal as long as the player has an official or printed card and the correct sculpt, and Sam is repainted or marked somehow if he's played with 4th Massachusettes Line. The two armies and mercenaries may not have any of the same units in common. All players will receive $500 in Monopoly money before the tournament begins.

All armies will be laid out on the table before the tourney begins, and each player will stand by their two armies. A random auction order will be assigned, and the person with #1 will make a bid on an army. Players may not bid on their own armies (ever - not even while it's being auctioned off), and must bid at least $10. The next player in line may raise the bid by at least $10 or pass. When you pass your bid, you're out of the bidding on this army. Once all players have passed except one, that player wins the army, and must place money equal to their last bid on other armies on the table, in increments of at least $10, however they wish. Armies cannot have more than $300 placed on them.

Now - the twist. After you win an army, you're out of the bidding. Also, after one of your armies has been purchased, your other army comes off of the table. You may pick it up and you get any money that was on it. The auction will continue until every player has purchased one army, and every player has had one of their armies purchased. So, you'll be playing with one of your armies and one army of someone elses. You will play your army in Rounds 1 and 3, your purchased army in Rounds 2 and 4, and Round 5 will be random based on a die roll for each game (Skull = you choose which army you play without knowing your opponent's, Shield/Symbol = your opponent chooses which army you play without knowing your choice for them). The last player to purchase an army should have their choice of 2 armies, and they may take whichever one they want for free. I believe it's possible that the last 2 remaining armies could both belong to the last remaining person to buy an army. If this happens, so be it - that person gets to play with both of their armies and may choose which one is "brought" and which one is "bought".

Every map will have 2 power glyphs and 4 treasure glyphs. Power glyphs will be in locations specified by maps, and they will be fixed if the map calls for them. Random power glyphs can be anything except Defense +2, Range +4, Thorian and Brandar (because they're super broken, and Brandar doesn't do anything). Treasure glyphs will be face down in locations selected by me before the tournament, in positions fair to both starting zones. The trap for all treasure glyphs will be 3 attack dice rolled at the Hero, who may defend, unless the map calls for something specific. They can be anything, including the Both of the Witherwood.

After you have your opponent but before the round begins, you may hire mercenaries to fight for you before each round by paying it's point value in money. IF YOU HIRE A MERCENARY, IT ONLY FIGHTS FOR YOU IN THAT ROUND. IF YOU WANT TO HIRE A MERCENARY TO FIGHT FOR MULTIPLE ROUNDS, YOU MUST PAY IT EVERY ROUND. The random glyph pool will include Brandar's Chests. If a Hero in your army reveals a Brandar's Chest Treasure Glyph, you are immediately awarded $100 and the glyph is discarded.

You may hire the mercenaries you bring with you by paying their point value in money. There will also be additional mercenaries stationed at each map. If you wish to hire these mercenaries, you may make them an offer that is not less than their Point value. Your opponent may increase that offer by at least $10, or they may pass. If they increase it, you may increase it again. This continues until one player doesn't want to raise the offer anymore. The mercenary will accept the highest offer and fight for that player. The other player may then hire mercenaries they brought with them as normal.



The mercenaries you may bring are restricted to the following limitations:

• You may only bring one Unique Hero, one Uncommon Hero, one Common Hero, one Unique Squad and one Common Squad. Any combination of these is fine, but no more than one of each.
• You are limited to 3 army cards, and they must all be different from each other.
• You may not bring multiples of common squads or (Un)common heroes.
• You may not bring A+ figures as mercenaries (defined as Q9, Raelin RotV, and Deathreavers). They may be in your armies, though.
• You may not bring any figures that are in either of the armies you brought with you as mercenaries also.

Example: I bring these as my 2 armies and mercenaries:

Army 1
Venoc Warlord
Venoc Vipers x7

Army 2
Runa
Minions of Utgar x2
Zetacron

Mercenaries
Eltahale
Marro Warrios
Mindflayer Mastermind

In the auction, before I win an army, a player bids on my Viper army, and somebody wins it. They get the Viper army, and I get the Minion army, which I'll play in Rounds 1 and 3. I still participate in the auction, and will use my $500 (plus any money that was on the Minions army before I picked it up) to buy another army, which I will play in Rounds 2 and 4. I can use any money left over (and any found in treasure) to hire Eltahale, the MWs, and/or the MFM before each round, or I can make an offer to the mercenaries on the battlefield each round.

Mercenaries on the maps will be as follows (subject to change based on what maps we use, but I'm currently assuming 10 maps using 2x Snow, 2x Lava, 4x Swamp, 3x Dungeon, 3x Road, 2x Jungle, because that's what I have). For the maps that have multiple common squad mercenaries, you may make an offer to any or all squads. If an offer is made to all squads, the other player can't counter-offer to one squad - they must offer to all:

Ember Canyon Road - Obsidian Guards x2
If You Can Take the Heat - Shurrak
Arctic Divide - Dzu-Teh x2
Black Gold - Deepwyrm Drow x2
Over Drudge It - Marro Drudge x3
Embattled Fen - Microcorp Agents x2
Atlaga's Grove - Othkurik the Black Dragon
Quasatch Playground - Quasatch Hunters x2

Maps:

Spoiler Alert!

Ember Canyon Road (Obsidian Guards x2)
RotV, RttFF x2, VW


If You Can't Take the Heat.... (Shurrak)
SotM, TJ, VW


Arctic Divide (Dzu-Teh x2)
Heavy Snow, Normal Ice
RotV, TT


Over Drudge It (Marro Drudge x3)
SotM


Black Gold (Depwyrm Drow x2)
BtfU x2, TJ



Atlaga's Grove (Othkurik the Black Dragon)
SotM, RttFF


Embattled Fen (Microcorp Agents x2)
Sotm, FotA


Quasatch Playground (Quasatch Hunters x2)
RotV + TJ x2

Players:

Spoiler Alert!

Definites:
killercactus
Fedex Worker +1
ManTrainChooChoo
MattserTruckRally
weesel99
lefton4ya

Probables:
southwest ninja
Hunpo
HBrass23 +1

Maybes:
phantazm21zero
jacob_j_p

I have no idea:
Pickle4192??
Kara??
Time Limit Tony?? (doubtful)

[lefton4ya]

Awesome. I will be there most likely. I have one CRAZY suggestion (suggested by you ), brought on by a conversation in another thread.

Originally Posted by killercactus

Yep - and like wriggz said, there are really lots of figures that you can do this with - not just the Obsidians and Dzu-Teh

to add to wriggz' list:

Lava: Obsidians, Moltenclaw, Iron Golems, Brunak, Shurrak, Fire Elementals. I could even see Jotun here.

Snow: Greater Ice Elemental, Ice Troll Berserker, Dzu-Teh, Nerak

Swamp: Marro Drudge, plus the Water figures (which would also include stuff like Water Elementals and Sahuagin Raiders)

Originally Posted by wriggz

If you think about it there are lots of units that shine in different conditions.
Water: Vipers, Microcorp, water elemental, etc
Shadow: Drow, Mika, Ambershard, etc
Road: Dumteft, melee units.
Trees: Quasquach

Not to mention the loads of units that get something out of they way the terrain is set up.
Hilly: Flyers and range
High points, any unit with bonus that depend on base attack and defence (i.e. stealth dodge, deadly shot, etc) or units that need hight to gain advantage: Granite Guardians, Microcorp, etc
Jungle and Line of Sight blockers: Melee or figures with slight scupts that are easily hide-able, zombies.
There really are lots of options here.

What if there were also mercenaries available to buy at each map as listed above, and just some extra uncommon heroes on generic maps. When you buy we could make it that they be in your army for just that game and then go back to the map pool for the next players. You could do a straight cost for them or do a mini-auction for that game if both players want the merc, or even have 2 sets available so both players can get if they want. Just an idea, but it would get some more use out of figures that are ranked low for general tourneys but are great for very terrain and scenario specific games.

[killercactus]

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

What if there were also mercenaries available to buy at each map as listed above, and just some extra uncommon heroes on generic maps. When you buy we could make it that they be in your army for just that game and then go back to the map pool for the next players. You could do a straight cost for them or do a mini-auction for that game if both players want the merc, or even have 2 sets available so both players can get if they want. Just an idea, but it would get some more use out of figures that are ranked low for general tourneys but are great for very terrain and scenario specific games.

Hmmm.....

I really like this, and am surprised I didn't think of it myself.

While it would require some extra setup time for me (which was something I was trying to get away from with the Auction format, but this isn't too bad), I think this could be really cool. I'll think about a way to include something like this - what I don't want is a bunch of extra time being spent figuring out who gets what. If there's a way to do this quickly without a bunch of hassle, I'll try to make it happen.

[lefton4ya]

Originally Posted by killercactus

...While it would require some extra setup time for me (which was something I was trying to get away from with the Auction format, but this isn't too bad), I think this could be really cool. I'll think about a way to include something like this - what I don't want is a bunch of extra time being spent figuring out who gets what. If there's a way to do this quickly without a bunch of hassle, I'll try to make it happen.

All that is required is picking out mercenaries to go with each map between now and may (plenty of time) and then making sure they are set aside by you or others to be brought to the tourney and then put by the map. This is a lot less work then last year when you had to decide all the armies and made sure they are brought and set up - I would say 1/4 of that work for the map mercs.

I like this idea, because it makes you ask "Do you spend $ on a better army, on general mercs, or map mercs?" It add extra strategy, and as long as I don't stupidly bid on the worst army in the pool like last year (an all troll army but with a lot of $) I should do better.

[killercactus]

I wasn't really talking about the time between now and the tourney, but more actually setting it up. I'd be wary of asking people to bring more figures than they already are (2 armies + mercs is already a lot), which means I'd have to get 10+ maps of extra figures ready to go with setting up each map. I might not have much right before the tournament to do all of that, and I don't want it to be like the January tournament where everything was disorganized because I didn't have the time I needed to setup.

However, I haven't ruled it out. I really like the idea of using these figures on their respective terrain, so I'm going to try and figure something out.

[ManTrainChooChoo]

Nothing certain yet, but I imagine we(Columbus crew) will try to make it.

[killercactus]

Originally Posted by ManTrainChooChoo

Nothing certain yet, but I imagine we(Columbus crew) will try to make it.

Excellent - any issues with the format?

[killercactus]

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

I like this idea, because it makes you ask "Do you spend $ on a better army, on general mercs, or map mercs?" It add extra strategy, and as long as I don't stupidly bid on the worst army in the pool like last year (an all troll army but with a lot of $) I should do better.

What if I allowed you to pay some $$ to swap out your entire army for one suited to the map?

Each round, you can choose to play the army you're supposed to play, or bid against your opponent for the "home field army"

You sit down in Round 1 on a dungeon/shadow map, and both players pull out the army they brought. However, this army is sitting next to it:

Mika Connour - 110
Pelloth - 210
Deepwyrm Drow x2 - 350
Drow Chainfighter x2 - 400

You can play your army, or say to your opponent "I bid $10 on the Drow army". Your opponent can raise you, or pass and let you play them. You can then add any Mercs you've already hired to it.

There could be a "home team" on each map.

[lefton4ya]

I suppose, but this would be even more work for you than just having one hero/squad as a merc. I like your idea of an entire army with synergy on a map, but I more like the idea of just adding one hero or squad that is good on a map to your pre-brought/bought army. Plus, having an auction each game adds some time to start a round, because players can't start setting up their armies until after the auction finishes.

I am not 100% sure what mercs that can be used the whole tourney are supposed to cost but I am assuming it is $1 per point cost - i.e. a 100 point hero costs $100. If you spend 1/2 your $150 on an army bid then you could have a 75 point hero/squad, then right? If we do the map mercenaries my way, we could say they cost say 1/3 their point value to rent for a game, so Moltenclaw would be $57 and Mika Connour would be 37 (or come up with arbitrary prices for a unit on each map), or at least that would be the starting bid if both players want to bid for that game.

It's up to you though, just my is to have map mercenaries instead of whole armies, although doing your way would change strategy more because you could wait till last to bid on an army and then only play the map armies with $ saved.

[killercactus]

Part of the problem with map specific mercs is that a few of the terrain-specific figures are common squads (Obsidians, Dzu-Teh, Drow, Drudge, etc), and including more than one of those makes it complicated. I also really don't like using fractional points to buy these things per round, and I don't want them to be cheap enough that you can get a 100 Point advantage over another player for something like $20, even if it's only for one round, because then that other player might really feel like they're getting screwed.

I think the best format to do this with would be the pooled draft format, where you can just throw them all into the pool and draft them.

The other choice would be to make players pay to hire their mercenaries each round. Example - I have Agent Carr as a Mercenary. Paying $100 before the first round only allows me to play Carr in that round. I have to pay another $100 to hire him again next round. Players would need to start with more money obviously, but this would allow me to have map mercs too that you just hire for their point cost each round, and it's all equal without fractions.

I'm still at a loss for who gets the first crack at a map merc. The only thing that makes sense is an auction, and the merc will fight for the highest bidder, but they won't fight for less than their point cost. I actually don't think the auction would take that long. Here's what would happen:

You and I are about to play on Arctic Divide. There's 2 squads of Dzu-Teh roaming the arctic expanse that will fight if we pay them.

I say "I'll pay $150 to hire the Dzu-teh" (starting at their point cost, though I could start higher)
You say "I'll pay them $160"
I say "I'll pay them $170"
You say "Ha - they suck anyway - they're yours" and then you're free to hire your mercs you brought.

I write "Dzu-Teh x2" in the Mercs Hired box for this round, and you write whoever you hire in your box. Then when I collect the sheets at the end of the round, I'll know how much money to get from everyone.

I guess it could work.

[lefton4ya]

I like your pay for mercs each game idea. You can pay the point cost for your brought mercs and/or bid on map mercs. easy enough. But yes more $ would be handed out before playing, say $300-$500, the other option being fractional cost which is just a lot more complicated than more $ to start. So either you could blow your $500 on bidding on the best army or get crappy armies with extra $ so you could have close to $100 to spend each game.

Anyone else besides you and me want to chime in? Not everyone is on every day like us so maybe give it a week for input.

[Darkness1717]

My dad and I will probobly attend.