Alternative Tourney Format Discussion

[Jexik]

Many people complain about seeing the same units time after time in tournaments. They get annoyed when they see the same "A+" units time after time. Some say that certain units are not allowed in their tournaments or prescribe some kind of point total penalty for certain kinds of armies. I believe that these are simply band-aid fixes for a deeper problem. I also don't like being told what to play. If you really want to see variety in tournament builds, while simultaneously chaning up the entire play experience, you need to change the tournament format.

As everyone knows, spider poison's rankings deal primarily with the assumption that you're playing in a "standard" tournament. Many tournaments are different, but here are some of the more commonly accepted practices.

1. 24 Hex starting zones, at either end of the map
2. 45-60 minute time limits
3. 400-600 point limit
4. You play the same army all day
5. Swiss Format, sometimes with a Single Elimination Playoff.
6. Glyphs are used.
7. Marvel Figures are not allowed.
8. Maps use just 1 Master set, and possibly one or two Large Terrain Expansions.
9. All of the games are one-on-one.

If you change just one or two of these constraints, you can drastically affect the metagame at the event that you are running.

1. Perhaps my favorite variant of all so far has been the Heat of the Battle at GenCon. All it really changes is #1- the location of the starting zones. It's just like a regular tournament, except each player takes turns placing their figures card by card. This makes underused units like Heavy Gruts, Samurai and Warriors of Ashra into powerhouses. I went 4-1 this year with an army that included a Dumutef Guard, a ton of Romans, Warlords, and even Johnny Shotgun Sullivan.

2. One idea I've been toying with is the idea of a Speedscape tournament. Instead of playing hour long games, you'd play on smaller maps with 200-250 point armies, a 20 minute time limit, and those clocks they use in chess. When someone scatters with their rats, they have to punch their clock. If someone rolls one die at a time with their Queglix gun, again, it's on their time. A Glad/Blast player wouldn't be able to play nearly as methodically. If there are few enough people at a tournament like this, I could see opting for a Round Robin structure as a very real possibility.

3. My friend really enjoyed the Classic Draft tournament at GenCon. He made the 'bad' choice of going for Grimnak early almost all the time, but he did enjoy chomping Agent Carr twice, and an entire squad of Krav Maga at least once. This forces you to play at least slightly different armies. It might also be neat if each table had a different draft pool. "This is the Wave 4-7 Unique table, that one has Orm's Return and the SotM Uniques," and so on.

4. Glyphs. Taking glyphs out of the equation certainly affects what people will run. Also, which glyphs are in the pool is also an important decision to make. They can make or break a lot of games and maps. I liked the glyph pool at GenCon, but I often felt like a defense or common attack glyph had a little more weight than would be nice. On the other hand, they also provide something to fight over, and help break up stalemates and close matches that would otherwise be nothing but dice fests.

5. Marvel- I'm not touching this one.

6. Maps. For practical reasons of space and set availability, 1 MS seems like a good cap, although I could certainly see people going even smaller, especially for a 'Speedscape' tourney. Like Glyphs, they can also make or break a tournament. If a map favors one type of unit too much, it will be unfun for those who didn't realize that, and less challenging for those who did. Similarly, maps can make some abilities not useful enough.

7. More Team tournaments. I've been in 10 or 11 tournaments so far, but none of them have been team events. RotV and SotM both come with 4 sets of OM's for a reason.

Feel free to add your own ideas and formats. I know that Velenne has been pushing the envelope with his MOP and Putting the Hero BACK tourneys, and I'd like to hear more about those.

[Nadom]

Originally Posted by Jexik

3. My friend really enjoyed the Classic Draft tournament at GenCon. He made the 'bad' choice of going for Grimnak early almost all the time, but he did enjoy chomping Agent Carr twice, and an entire squad of Krav Maga at least once. This forces you to play at least slightly different armies. It might also be neat if each table had a different draft pool. "This is the Wave 4-7 Unique table, that one has Orm's Return and the SotM Uniques," and so on.

I especially like this idea because it allows the great things about a draft tournament while still putting reasonable parameters around what can be drafted, yet still enabling (or forcing) people to play a wide variety of units throughout the day. Good stuff!

[Onacara]

I have been toying with the "Blind Man" tournament.

A list of competitive armies from the site is selected. Each participant must bring the army assigned to them. The TD then selects 6 additional armies from the list and builds them.

The armies are then placed in a box and given a random number.

Before each game the player draws a number and then must play with that army for that game.

For those who wacth Food Network this is the Heroscape Tournament version of Dinner Impossible.

[robbdaman]

I think restricted point costs could be an interesting way to go. Limit armies to be made up of only pieces of 50 points or less or only common squads of 100 points or more. Something of that nature really. That type of format would eliminate a very large amount of pieces that are used in excessive amounts.

R~

[Supergeek]

Originally Posted by Onacara

I have been toying with the "Blind Man" tournament.

A list of competitive armies from the site is selected. Each participant must bring the army assigned to them. The TD then selects 6 additional armies from the list and builds them.

The armies are then placed in a box and given a random number.

Before each game the player draws a number and then must play with that army for that game.

For those who wacth Food Network this is the Heroscape Tournament version of Dinner Impossible.

This sounds fun. Jormi_Boced was going to do this for one of his tournaments but scrapped the idea.
I've also been curious about what is called a "side deck" in Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments.
I'm sure most people know what it is and it's been discussed here before but, this would allow you to have an extra point total of units that you could swap out between games.
That would change #4 slightly.

[Onacara]

We used the side bar at the Battle of the Border. Each person brought 600 point army but could only field 500 points of it per game.

[Matthias Maccabeus]

I also like what deliverymanxas has done at the Nebraska Skirmish by giving melee units a 20%ish point increase when not using a ranged unit in your army.

The only down side is units like Morsbane and Sudema get put back even farther on the shelf.

It's really interesting when you're trying to build your armies. Do you make it ranged good against ranged, melee good against ranged, ranged good against melee, or melee good against melee, or a little bit of everything?

[CheddarLimbo]

Velenne's Hero only tourney this past Saturday was a blast. It was great to see what people came up with. Marvel was included (which was resisted at first), but it was still a great tourney. Everyone was so worried about how to counter their opponent's Hulk, that almost nobody brought the Hulk! When you make just a few alterations to the army requirements, it can have a large effect on the metagame.

Another example: Dignan is also planning an event sometime soon with the following requirements:

3-4 player maps
300 point army (or 310 if all from a singular General)
14 space starting zone
No units over 150 points
Must draft at least one Hero of at least 50 points
Must draft at least one Squad

Capping the point cost at 150 eliminated some of the bigger units we're used to seeing, and made lesser Heroes shine. Carr, Iskra, and even Valguard end up being more than worth their points.

[Kahrma]

How about something like this:

Have each player bring 3-4 pre-made 4-500 point armies, with no duplicate figures between armies. In each game, players are required to play a different army than in the last. Depending on the number of rounds in the event, players may need to use an army twice - but must use each army they brought at least once, and may not use any army in back-to-back games.

[rym]

Originally Posted by Kahrma

How about something like this:

Have each player bring 3-4 pre-made 4-500 point armies, with no duplicate figures between armies. In each game, players are required to play a different army than in the last. Depending on the number of rounds in the event, players may need to use an army twice - but must use each army they brought at least once, and may not use any army in back-to-back games.

That very thing was done in the Houston 4x4 Fields of Gore tournament back in February. It was a lot of fun! We simply wrote the army names down on index cards and drew them out of the hat, so to speak. So you knew what your 4 armies were, you just didn't know when you were gonna play them. Much, much fun.

Also, Jexik, you really should give Velenne's MoP tourney a good read. I think as long as you put parameters on the MoP construction, then you'll be okay. Plus, it lets everyone's creative juices flow without having to be BoV standards. And they slide together really well. This by far had to be one of the funnest tournaments I've played in. It's certainly different, and I bet it wouldn't be too difficult to get people on board for either idea.

And, of course, if no one gets on board, you can always move to Texas! We like that kinda play down here.

[Codeman]

I liked the team tourney idea.... last year (or the year before) SP did one down in Iowa City.

It was a great change of pace from the one on one armies. Another advantage it only takes a map per 4 people ... if you need the space or to make your hexes go further.

[GaryLASQ]

Originally Posted by Jexik

More Team tournaments. I've been in 10 or 11 tournaments so far, but none of them have been team events. RotV and SotM both come with 4 sets of OM's for a reason.

If anything new was added to GenCon next year, team-play is what I would like to see. The few times I've played 2 vs 2, it's been a lot of fun. My only complaint about team-play is that there are not enough special powers in the game with the word "friendly" in them, but that's a whole other thread.

Also with team-play, I think a few things would need adjusting like lower army-points per player of course, larger maps and start zones, longer time limit.