Western Pa Tournament August 15th at Noon

[ReverendBayes]

Tib,


I'll see you this afternoon to set up two maps:

1) Blutsymburg (featured in HS Codex 5)

and

2) Can't see the Jungle

Both of these maps will see slight modification only to allow 40 space starting zones instead of 24.

[Tiberius]

Thanks for showing up last night to help set up ReverendBayes, your Blutsymburg map is awesome and I cant wait to play on it. I got a call last night from a friend who will be trying to go but he really doesnt know the location so I will be surprised if he actually does show. Oh well, if nothing else, Revendbayes and I will enjoy playing each other.

Has anyone heard from Soberman lately?

[ReverendBayes]

Thanks for running the tournament, Tib!

I hope I speak for everyone when I say I had a great time.

Things I noticed:

1) The Blutsymburg map looks great, but is not an ideal tournament map (for many reasons I won't list here). It also takes too long to set up.
I liked this map less than I thought I would.

2) The Can't see the Jungle map has starting zones sprinkled throughout the map...makes for easy first activation engagements and thus opens up lots of new strategy options/considerations. I liked this map more than I thought I would.

3) Playing 5xDividers, Q-10, and Su-Bak-Na, I never activated SBN over the course of 4 games. He just sat in the back of my starting zone, enhancing my dividers' D20 rolls. Now, this enhancement happened exactly 3 times (that is, over the course of 4 games my dividers rolled a 16 exactly 3 times). So, is it worth having 160 points parked in your starting zone for this? I think yes, because 5xDividers take a long, long time to get rid of. At the end of each game, the Dividers were still going strong, with at least 5 figures left. This, combined with Q-10 for ranged support, means that, SBN or any other 160 point substitute would have never been activated. Might as well have something that occasionally boosts the Dividers without sucking up order markers.

4) The Ashigaru army is formidable (at least when played by Tib!). Do not underestimate activating 8 units on a single order marker!!

[soberman]

[quote=ReverendBayes;897329]I hope I speak for everyone when I say I had a great time.[/qoute]

I had an okay time, but not great. My match with Denny, which started things, was one I should have won, but two things got in the way. 1) He regenerated a few figures, one of which became the "last man standing", and 2), I could not roll more than 2 skulls with Captain America's "range 5 Attack 4" special. It was a tense, epic match, but ultimately unsatisfying. Even Denny felt as if he didn't win it.

Blutsyburg, or whatever it is called, ruined my chances of defeating the second hive army I went up against by placing numerous obstacles, incuding a giant wall, between me and the hive. Totally unbalanced. This was the first time in the history of my playing in HS tournaments that I considered just calling the match at the outset, and going off to enjoy other games for the next 45 minutes.

I would have done better against Lauren, but I was actually coaching her about how to use her army. I won, but big deal. She was young and inept.

By the time I went up against you, Rev, I was just going through the motions, however, without even really trying too hard I did manage to kill Q-10, and almost baby Suie, which leads me to this:

3) Playing 5xDividers, Q-10, and Su-Bak-Na, I never activated SBN over the course of 4 games. He just sat in the back of my starting zone,

I have to correct you and remind you that I did force you to activate Su-Bak-Na, albeit via a nagrub card. Also, as to spending 160 on a start zone booster, I think you need to factor in the 30 pts. you spent on nagrubs as part of his cost, just to be fair, as you wouldn't have spent them on that particular unit otherwise.

Anyhow, In point of fact, I've had many matches at HS tourneys wherein one person simply kept a high point figure in their start zone, out of reach, so they could minimize pt. lossess. This is a big part of why I hated Tib's old scoring system that placed greater emphasis on points over win vs. loss ratio.

Which leads to my next controversial point: I actually think HS has turned a corner with the Marro. I love the Marro, but I think they finally have created a build that should be banned from tourney play. Self-replicating armies, while legal and official, do alter the true outcome of a given match. Tournaments are now dominated by these units because everybody knows that they are extra insurance. Your score goes down, and it comes back up, and down again, and back up, etc. As a consequence, the final tally does not accurately reflect a true "kill ratio", or serve as a true barometer of who performed better. Many matches are won by people who should have, under normal circumstances, been elimanated earlier in the match save for their ability to create extra units throughout. This is essentially equalivalent to playing a match with a handicap, as one player can call up reinforcements while the other cannot. All these are the reasons why there are so many armies that feature these guys. We all know it. It is becoming tiresome. I've now reached the point where I feel I have to bring Marro to every single tournament ad nausea, just to keep my head above water, especially since my lack of luck with the dice is a largely documented phenomena.

That's really all I have to say right now, except that I want to make it clear the Rev soundly defeated me regardless of any regeneration abilities he may have had, though my score would have been at a good bit higher without them.

[soberman]

[quote=ReverendBayes;897329]I hope I speak for everyone when I say I had a great time.[/qoute]

I had an okay time, but not great. My match with Denny, which started things, was one I should have won, but two things got in the way. 1) He regenerated a few figures, one of which became the "last man standing", and 2), I could not roll more than 2 skulls with Captain America's "range 5 Attack 4" special. It was a tense, epic match, but ultimately unsatisfying. Even Denny felt as if he didn't win it.

Blutsyburg, or whatever it is called, ruined my chances of defeating the second hive army I went up against by placing numerous obstacles, incuding a giant wall, between me and the hive. Totally unbalanced. This was the first time in the history of my playing in HS tournaments that I considered just calling the match at the outset, and going off to enjoy other games for the next 45 minutes.

I would have done better against Lauren, but I was actually coaching her about how to use her army. I won, but big deal. She was young and inept.

By the time I went up against you, Rev, I was just going through the motions, however, without even really trying too hard I did manage to kill Q-10, and almost baby Suie, which leads me to this:

3) Playing 5xDividers, Q-10, and Su-Bak-Na, I never activated SBN over the course of 4 games. He just sat in the back of my starting zone,

I have to correct you and remind you that I did force you to activate Su-Bak-Na, albeit via a nagrub card. Also, as to spending 160 on a start zone booster, I think you need to factor in the 30 pts. you spent on nagrubs as part of his cost, just to be fair, as you wouldn't have spent them on that particular unit otherwise.

Anyhow, In point of fact, I've had many matches at HS tourneys wherein one person simply kept a high point figure in their start zone, out of reach, so they could minimize pt. lossess. This is a big part of why I hated Tib's old scoring system that placed greater emphasis on points over win vs. loss ratio.

Which leads to my next controversial point: I actually think HS has turned a corner with the Marro. I love the Marro, but I think they finally have created a build that should be banned from tourney play. Self-replicating armies, while legal and official, do alter the true outcome of a given match. Tournaments are now dominated by these units because everybody knows that they are extra insurance. Your score goes down, and it comes back up, and down again, and back up, etc. As a consequence, the final tally does not accurately reflect a true "kill ratio", or serve as a true barometer of who performed better. Many matches are won by people who should have, under normal circumstances, been elimanated earlier in the match save for their ability to create extra units throughout. This is essentially equalivalent to playing a match with a handicap, as one player can call up reinforcements while the other cannot. All these are the reasons why there are so many armies that feature these guys. We all know it. It is becoming tiresome. I've now reached the point where I feel I have to bring Marro to every single tournament ad nausea, just to keep my head above water, especially since my lack of luck with the dice is a largely documented phenomena.

That's really all I have to say right now, except that I want to make it clear the Rev soundly defeated me regardless of any regeneration abilities he may have had, though my score would have been at a good bit higher without them.

[royaldoy]

This is the first tournament I have enjoyed for quite a while. I did not have to play against any blasts/glads. I did not have to play against Q9. I did not have to play against Stingers. I did not have to play against a souped up ranged unit. I did not have to play against men in tights. All in all, I think it was a perfect tournament.

In all seriousness, I hope you all had fun. Asigaru would have been fun to play against and also to play. All the other armies were marro/ranged as usual and offered no true variety as has become prevalent in these tourneys.

[Tiberius]

Here were the standings of the tournament:

1) Dennis (4 x marro stingers, 3 x marro drones, Hive, Me-burq-sa)
2) ReverendBayes (Su-Bak-Na, 5 x dividers, Nagrubs, Isamu, Major Q-10)
3) Brian (Marro Hive, 4 x dividers, 4 x stingers)
4) Tiberius (Kato Katsuro, Kozuke Samuri, Ashigaru Harquebus x 3, Ashigaru Yari x 3)
5) Nate (The Hulk!!!, Sentinals of Jandar x 2, Otanashi)
6) Soberman (Captain America, Repulsors x 3, Omnicrons x 2, Zetacron)
7) Brian (Agents, Carr, Major X-17, Syvarris, elf chicks x 2, and something else)
Lauren (Isamu, Acolarh, some other elf wizards, and archers I think)

The last two I had misplaced thier sheets as they were only in it for the first three rounds and were not playing for prizes. Anyhow, I did have fun playing the 600 point ashigaru army which I feel is the minimum cost of an army to make them effective to get in some bigger gun offense like the Kozuke samuri.

My first match up was against Brian with his marro hive army on Flashfire, a board with alot of roads and a +1 Attack glyph. I used the roads for my 8 man activation, grabbed the glyph, and took out the hive on turn two or three. I had alot of luck and terrain on my side. Marro dividers are a real pain to play against especially for someone that can roll well.

My second match found me against ReverendBayes and his marro divider army...I felt like I had just played this army, but as I found out, 5 sets of marro dividers is much more annoying than 4 sets of them. I killed one, one came back, I couldnt make head way. I got some wounds on subakna and the major by sneaking some men back there and assaulting them to get some points but I had no delusions that I was losing that match with the amount of divisions that were rolled. The jungle tree map we fought on didnt help or hinder me really, it was the marro diveder show this fight.

Then back again to Brian's Hive army, this time on a swamp board. I didnt have the roads to help me get across the long board and he rolled probably 6 20's in a row with his divisions...He definately had luck and terrain in his favor this time and beat me soundly.

Last match was my army versus the hulk on the neat looking castle board Blutsyburgh. I personally did like the map and with the doors, I can definately see how a hive army would rule this board without flying or shooting troops to get to it. But I was fighting the hulk on it and the thought of him leaping onto the walls and stomping a horde of ashigaru was too fun to pass up. As luck would have it, he landed over in front of my castle door and for the first time that day I got to use the ashigaru Yari special of surround attack, 6 attack dice. It took 3-4 rounds of that and 4 ashigaru doing wait and fire at the hulk to drop him and he slaughtered a good number of my spearmen but I did it. The hulk went down. Without the centerpiece of his army, the rest eventually fell, even though his sentinals found a summoning glyph and summoned Kato to them and killed him. I managed to send in the samuri and cleaned up.

I do have to agree with the others with the hive/divider armies and self regenerating vs non-self regenerating. I think the odds are against it working like it did, but when your opponent beats those odds with high rolls, those armies will win the drawn out engagements. You would think dividers would be tougher to get to work with a 17 or higher but that is luck I guess.

I dont like to ban armies or units and I think things are balanced, it is just some people have the luck. I think next time I will bring a captain america army and see what I can do with those guys. Or maybe Zelrig. Or both.

[soberman]

Originally Posted by Tiberius

1) Dennis (4 x marro stingers, 3 x marro drones, Hive, Me-burq-sa)
...snap...
6) Soberman (Captain America, Repulsors x 3, Omnicrons x 2, Zetacron)

I do have to agree with the others with the hive/divider armies and self regenerating vs non-self regenerating. I think the odds are against it working like it did, but when your opponent beats those odds with high rolls, those armies will win the drawn out engagements. You would think dividers would be tougher to get to work with a 17 or higher but that is luck I guess.

But look at the results! I gave Denny the toughest fight of the entire tournament. He said he felt as if he didn't really win. In point of fact, I killed more points of his figures than he did of mine, and he only won by regenerating the stinger that took out my last two figures. In fact, the reason the match was so close was largely due to his not regenerating all that much, therefore not having much of an imbalance in his favor. Anyhow, our rankings reflect this- he was one while came in last among the 4 rounders?!?! WTFrak!

Also, the odds against it working are mitigated the larger the armies are. In other words, the 5 squads I kept seeing were more apt to regenerate than, say, just three. But the dividers are undercosted, so even going back down to 500pt. armies wouldn't help much. (a bit...) I stll can't get over what a bargain they are compared to other artful dodgers, including the Ninjas of the Northern Wind or the Nakitas or the Microcorp...

I dont like to ban armies or units and I think things are balanced, it is just some people have the luck. I think next time I will bring a captain america army and see what I can do with those guys. Or maybe Zelrig. Or both.

I wouldn't actually ask you to, but if classic, vanilla HS is indeed dead in the water, and D&D doesn't mix into the tournaments well for whatever reason (Likely being underpowered as indicated by the fact that the D&D set only includes 8 dice.), then I think the whole HS community should consider new tourney formats to discourage or disallow Marro use. If vanilla HS is truly over, then the Marro will probably forever remain the most powerful army by far, and HS will likely be imbalanced, and borderline broken. Pity.

Bottomline: I shouldn't have to feel as if I need to bring Marro in order to win, and I now do.

[soberman]

Hey guys, reading this makes me tear up a bit. Brian passed away two years back, and I am trying to sell his HS stuff to a local person for his mom. The cards are mostly missing, so it would likely be as extra figs and terrain. Please go here for more info: http://www.heroscapers.com/community...20#post2115820 Contacting me here will be to no avail, as I hardly ever log on, and my inbox is full. text message me via Facebook or at 412-551-1936. Thanks.