3 Headed Monster Tournament Format

[Onacara]

Ok so I ahve been rolling this around in my head for a few weeks now and figured I would get it down on "paper".


THREE HEADED MONSTER (18 person-5 Round Tournament)*

Ok so here is the basic premise...

6 people are assigned as Captains they each get 2 other player to join them. (manner of determining the 2 other players TBD)

Each Captain will bring 3 premade 500 point armies to the table. (No repeat units)

All maps will be grouped in 3's

At the start of each round the Captain will pick which map in there assigned group and army he and his other 2 players will play on. There opponent will do the same. To determine who sits first is done by d20 roll..the winner of the die roll can choose whether to sit first or let the opponent sit first. Then one player sits down with 1 army. The opposing team then sits a player until all seats are filled.

During the course of play the player on a team can assist the person on their team sitting directly next to them with advice. (i.e.The player on the left/right can only help or be helped by the person in the middle...but the person in the middle can be helped or help both player on the outside..thus creating the 3 headed monster)

Scoring works as follows...

Each win counts for 2 points...if your team wins all 3 games in a round they are awarded 1 additional point.


Each team will play every other team over the 5 rounds.

Winning team is determined by the highest score with the tiebreaker going to the team with more games won and second tiebreaker going to team who scored more damage points.

Thoughts?




*(It can be played with any number of people as long as they are multiples of 3 and can be played for more or less rounds depending on how many people are playing as long as every team plays every other team.)

[Kroc]

Only problem?

What if you don't have two friends? Two people on every team don't get to bring their own army this way. That's part of the fun.

But it does sound kind of cool.

[patzymur]

There's a lot to like about the idea, some challenges, and some challenges that are opportunities in themselves.

Croc suggested the down side that 2 people in the team don't get to bring their own armies - that's a challenge that brings an opportunity. I like the idea of a 3 person team, and the three people come up with armies together. They would have to communicate with each other to make sure there are no repeats between amongst each other. If you don't have 2 friends, there can be a social aspect to the event. Folks sign up for the tournament individually and then people are broken into random 3 person teams. It's then up to each team to communicate (in person, via email, PM on 'scapers...) and come up with their three teams.

My biggest concern with the format is the helping of your teammates. Completing games in the time limit allowed is challenging enough in tournaments. If there's cross game consultation going on during a game, it could cause the games to drag on.

I like that you can only have Q9 in one army. I like the idea of working with a team. I like the idea of some team communication - maybe after starting zones are set up, each 3 headed monster is allowed 5 minutes to talk & discuss strategy of their situations (opponents army, glyphs, terrain details, etc), and then discussing after the games to learn from experience as a team. If communication happens mid-game, though, there needs to be some sort of cap. Something like the NFL's limitation on instant replay reviews.

[Onacara]

Ok a little more detail...

The 6 Captain's need to be predetermined...the remaining 12 players are placed on a team that day so there is no group discussions ahead of time. Ideally the remaining 12 players will be evenly split into "tier 2" and "tier 3" types of players.

The idea of the assistance basically comes from something that has happened at almost every event I have been to...your game is over and you are watching another game and someone moves somewhere or doesnt move somewhere and you just want to say "NO DONT DO THAT!!!" ...it's a way for less experienced players to get the benefit of more experienced players. Games can easily be completed because its not about having a conference with each move. It's about being able to say..."NO DONT DO THAT...DO THIS!!!"

[Jakall]

I think this is a great idea! It would be nice to know who your teammates were before the tournament so they could become familiar with the armies they could be playing. Then again, not knowing means that the captain needs to take that into account when building the armies.

It seems like this would provide a way to get to know some other scapers a little better and help the more inexperienced players become more competitive at the same time.

I think this would work for a variety of formats like General Wars etc. I think another wrinkle that could really increase the variety of units and armies used would be to keep the total points at 1500, but allow some flexibility (+/- 40 pts or so) for each individual army.

[Darkmage7a]

I think this has potential for casual play but there's a few things preventing this from being a clean tournament format.

Time-each player involved in a game brings more army with them and more figs mean more time spent killing figs.

Cooperation-even in a perfect scenario where everyone knows everyone else it very difficult to get multiple players to agree what the next move should be. A move experienced player giving the best and most polite advice may be taken badly by your new beginner who would like to try and explore on his/her own.

Army Construction- Creating 3 effective armies without repeating units can be tricky to do even if your the only person making the builds. To create armies for three players, either 1 person is in charge of army design or you have an extensive negotiation process on your hands.

These are some of the potential issues I see happening. I think this kind of format can work well under the right circumstances but I don't expect things to work out too well for formal tournament settings.

[DrLivingston]

This sounds very cool!

My favorite bit is definitely the three armies with no repeated figures.