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  #61  
Old August 24th, 2019, 02:45 PM
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Re: Reverse the Whip Army Archetypes


Well met!

It seems the conversation has shifted to what is a desirable Main Event format. It appears that interesting, balanced army/unit matchups are a top priority. That being the case, I suggest that pre-built armies be provided for each map, and figures be provided (by prearrangement). The Relics of Power scenario (in my blog) uses pre-built Clusters (and I don’t know that it’s balanced), but some draft variation with an arbitrary selection of units/Clusters/armies might suffice.

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  #62  
Old August 24th, 2019, 03:30 PM
Dragon Ruler Dragon Ruler is offline
 
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Re: Reverse the Whip Army Archetypes

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Originally Posted by kolakoski View Post

Well met!

It seems the conversation has shifted to what is a desirable Main Event format. It appears that interesting, balanced army/unit matchups are a top priority. That being the case, I suggest that pre-built armies be provided for each map, and figures be provided (by prearrangement). The Relics of Power scenario (in my blog) uses pre-built Clusters (and I don’t know that it’s balanced), but some draft variation with an arbitrary selection of units/Clusters/armies might suffice.

And I am not sure why the conversation has shifted. I heard a total of zero complaints regarding the main event format at Gencon this year. The 6 round rtw format was great. In addition, I know that many participants enjoyed trying to build the perfectly balanced army (not too weak, not too strong, not too easy to play) before Gencon.

There are other tournaments at Gencon which either do, have, or could feature reverse draft, bring two, cluster, pods, c3v, c3g, marvel, etc. In addition, there is open play on Thursday night where anyone who wishes to run one of those tournaments can do so. The Thursday night time slot for the old man's tourney worked out fine (15 participants plus CVN played in the first round.) If you build a tournament for which there is demand, they will come.
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  #63  
Old August 25th, 2019, 03:24 PM
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Re: Reverse the Whip Army Archetypes

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Originally Posted by Dragon Ruler View Post
And I am not sure why the conversation has shifted. I heard a total of zero complaints regarding the main event format at Gencon this year. The 6 round rtw format was great. In addition, I know that many participants enjoyed trying to build the perfectly balanced army (not too weak, not too strong, not too easy to play) before Gencon.
I think it's mostly been people not at Gencon that have been throwing out alternatives. If it were up to me we'd run a different format, to be sure, but I agree that the 6 round alternating RTW was the best format that's been used in the 10 years I've been playing the main event.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragon Ruler View Post
There are other tournaments at Gencon which either do, have, or could feature reverse draft, bring two, cluster, pods, c3v, c3g, marvel, etc. In addition, there is open play on Thursday night where anyone who wishes to run one of those tournaments can do so. The Thursday night time slot for the old man's tourney worked out fine (15 participants plus CVN played in the first round.) If you build a tournament for which there is demand, they will come.
Yes, to be clear, my suggestions for Chaos of Battle and Reverse Draft were for side events, not main event. I'm fine with Reverse Draft being an evening event again, I'd just rather it be an official event that people can buy tickets for instead of having to sign people up here like I did in 2016, 2017, and 2018. I got 14 players in 2018, which to me says it deserves to be a ticketed event.
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  #64  
Old August 25th, 2019, 06:42 PM
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Re: Reverse the Whip Army Archetypes

Quote:
Originally Posted by dok View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragon Ruler View Post
And I am not sure why the conversation has shifted. I heard a total of zero complaints regarding the main event format at Gencon this year. The 6 round rtw format was great. In addition, I know that many participants enjoyed trying to build the perfectly balanced army (not too weak, not too strong, not too easy to play) before Gencon.
I think it's mostly been people not at Gencon that have been throwing out alternatives. If it were up to me we'd run a different format, to be sure, but I agree that the 6 round alternating RTW was the best format that's been used in the 10 years I've been playing the main event.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragon Ruler View Post
There are other tournaments at Gencon which either do, have, or could feature reverse draft, bring two, cluster, pods, c3v, c3g, marvel, etc. In addition, there is open play on Thursday night where anyone who wishes to run one of those tournaments can do so. The Thursday night time slot for the old man's tourney worked out fine (15 participants plus CVN played in the first round.) If you build a tournament for which there is demand, they will come.
Yes, to be clear, my suggestions for Chaos of Battle and Reverse Draft were for side events, not main event. I'm fine with Reverse Draft being an evening event again, I'd just rather it be an official event that people can buy tickets for instead of having to sign people up here like I did in 2016, 2017, and 2018. I got 14 players in 2018, which to me says it deserves to be a ticketed event.
Agreed -- that's a very impressive number for a non-ticketed event.
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  #65  
Old November 3rd, 2020, 12:34 PM
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Re: Reverse the Whip Army Archetypes

I've been thinking about RtW for a bit now. I'm not sure if it's because TTO was cancelled and I missed NHSD for the first time in over a decade or it it's because I'm literally bored out of my mind with all these Zoom meetings and court hearings, maybe a bit of both.

I'm generally curious about how many of you guys put a lot of thought into what to bring to RtW? And if so, what does the process look like? Is it more of a process say then when you're just doing old school bring the best army?

Is it like, hey wolves of Badru look cool, I'm going to try that? (We all know which one of us does this...)

Or is it more like ok, I need X to beat Y, but X is too strong so I can bring A but A struggles against B, so I need C to beat B.

Then once you come up with the above do you play-test it? If so against what? because RtW had a pretty wide range of things you may see.

Then after you play-test do you have a few buddies you run the idea by and say, "hey what do you think about this?" Or do you do that earlier in the process?

Do you flip flop your armies tons of times? Or do you pretty much stay the course once you decide on something?

Do you see the point totals and start working things in your head right after they are posted, or do you say, hmm, gencon is next week I better start figuring out what I need to bring?

I'm not sure this 100 percent plays into this thread, but I think it does at some levels.

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Last edited by Matthias Maccabeus; November 3rd, 2020 at 12:38 PM. Reason: Or do you just bring 20 chain fighters?
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  #66  
Old November 3rd, 2020, 01:18 PM
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Re: Reverse the Whip Army Archetypes

Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthias Maccabeus View Post
I've been thinking about RtW for a bit now. I'm not sure if it's because TTO was cancelled and I missed NHSD for the first time in over a decade or it it's because I'm literally bored out of my mind with all these Zoom meetings and court hearings, maybe a bit of both.

I'm generally curious about how many of you guys put a lot of thought into what to bring to RtW? And if so, what does the process look like? Is it more of a process say then when you're just doing old school bring the best army?

Is it like, hey wolves of Badru look cool, I'm going to try that? (We all know which one of us does this...)

Or is it more like ok, I need X to beat Y, but X is too strong so I can bring A but A struggles against B, so I need C to beat B.

Then once you come up with the above do you play-test it? If so against what? because RtW had a pretty wide range of things you may see.

Then after you play-test do you have a few buddies you run the idea by and say, "hey what do you think about this?" Or do you do that earlier in the process?

Do you flip flop your armies tons of times? Or do you pretty much stay the course once you decide on something?

Do you see the point totals and start working things in your head right after they are posted, or do you say, hmm, gencon is next week I better start figuring out what I need to bring?

I'm not sure this 100 percent plays into this thread, but I think it does at some levels.
I play a lot of defensive pod armies for RtW.

For building those, it's mostly deciding which figure fits each "piece" best for the given point total. Raelin, a screen, some ranged offense, a SA, and something that can hit hard (4+ attack) are generally the "roles" I'm looking to fill. I've got a general idea of what pieces fill each of those roles best, and I play around with different combinations until I find one I like for the given point maximum. Often I have to choose between a SA hero and a hero that hits harder, like Crixus.

Not a ton of playtesting in there for me, mostly theoryscape, but that's more to do with a lack of people to play test against currently.
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  #67  
Old November 3rd, 2020, 02:32 PM
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Re: Reverse the Whip Army Archetypes

Sounds like a good topic for an episode of Casters of Valhalla.

Last edited by OEAO; November 3rd, 2020 at 02:32 PM. Reason: Oh wait...
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  #68  
Old November 3rd, 2020, 03:13 PM
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My Basic Rundown

Look at point values pretty much immediately after I know what they are.

Look at my list of weird units that actually have useful abilities but are hampered by Take 1 stuff (poor Grok Riders can't even make this list). Find out which one I want to play. Make sure the maps don't hate these units.

Look at the weak points of said units. Figure out what I'm going to struggle to kill or what will kill me. Play around with points and units that cover weaknesses. Create some builds.

Run ideas past dok and kevindola since they are amazing sounding boards. They help me sanity check that the army is actually feasible and catch anything I might've missed in army construction. They are also helpful in suggesting alternatives. I can even point to specific builds and which pieces they suggested to me.

"Playtesting" is done via OHS Gencon Prep event and maybe the Flex tourney. I'm not trying to figure out what I'm going to fight because that is a fool's errand. I'm trying to get an idea of what my army wants to do, where it struggles, where on the maps are good places for Raelin, etc. My goal is to make sure I understand the weirdities of my build better than anyone who is going to play it.

I'll usually have one maybe two ideas or one idea with like three variants that I don't decide until like night of or sometimes day of. There's usually one I'm strongly leaning toward and I don't think I've ever moved away from it.

~Dysole, who could probably do some example processes on the armies she's brought to Gencon RTW
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  #69  
Old November 3rd, 2020, 03:19 PM
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When?

Quote:
Originally Posted by OrcElfArmyOne View Post
Sounds like a good topic for an episode of Casters of Valhalla.
You got an ETA?

~Dysole, who finds army construction, especially atypical army construction, one of the most fascinating topics to her
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  #70  
Old November 3rd, 2020, 03:26 PM
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Re: When?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dysole View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by OrcElfArmyOne View Post
Sounds like a good topic for an episode of Casters of Valhalla.
You got an ETA?

~Dysole, who finds army construction, especially atypical army construction, one of the most fascinating topics to her
He's still got two episodes on back log for editing... It's almost like he started law school or something...

Back on topic,
Why do you guys pick the armies you pick? What's your game plan? Make it difficult for others to play it? Just play a garbage army at a high level?

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Last edited by Matthias Maccabeus; November 3rd, 2020 at 03:27 PM. Reason: Does anyone have like 10 Dumutef guards I can borrow for next summer?
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  #71  
Old November 3rd, 2020, 06:18 PM
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Choices

I mean part of my goal is often to make people go "How in the flying fugumuffin did you win with that?" or to make my opponent look at what I handed them and be like "wha?" So I mean that's always a fun time for me, but that's admittedly a bonus.

In general, I feel that one of my biggest strengths as a Scape player is that I am comfortable playing just about anything and am really good at mapping out how the game is going to go so that my units get as favorable a matchup as possible and am good at juggling OMs to make that happen. So my armies are going to tend to play to those strengths.

~Dysole, optimizing her chances to win
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  #72  
Old November 3rd, 2020, 11:22 PM
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Re: Reverse the Whip Army Archetypes

With the defensive pod builds, my goal is to make OMs & round 1 placement difficult. Going into the tourney, I know what spot I want the pod in on each map (Raelin, Knights x1, etc). If round 1 OMs or placement goes wrong, the army is easy to pick apart. But as more people played this build against me, they've gotten better at that initial placement, so the effectiveness likely declined over time in RtW. But the core goal was to make an army that can't survive a bad OM or placement decision in round 1/2.
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