Episode #37
3-30-17
- This week we have Reece and Scott. Jason is out sick, or so he says….
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Main Topic – Adepticon
http://www.adepticon.org/wpfiles/2017/2017aoschamp.pdf
http://www.adepticon.org/?page_id=11298
ITC Championship Rankings
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- Ghal Maraz: A matched play event., The House of War, Ringwood, Australia, April 1-2nd, 2017
- Age of Sigmar ITC Tournament April, Gameology, Montclair, Ca, April 1st, 2017
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Hey I want to see the lists that gw took to the event. Any idea where to find them?
I don’t, sorry. They didn’t use the BCP app.
Damn i wanted to know the list gw took with the vanguard shooting army. Curious to know which battalions were used or army structure with the new battle tome
Yeah, I think you and a lot of folks would like to see that. Try pinging the TO, I know they collected the lists.
On sportsmanship I feel that having rules on etiquette and behaviour that are not enforced is the worst of all worlds.
The unfortunate reality is that when it comes to bulls*&t rules-lawyering, dragging things out and generally engaging in gamesmanship to upset your opponent for an advantage some players will figure that anything short of what gets them DQ is just the right amount. As TO’s are in practice not going to DQ anyone for any of those things that places no real limits on those behaviours regardless of what is printed in the tournament packet.
All those rules do is create an expectation of fair and sporting play that some participants are going to be very disappointed by when it is not met.
For all their flaws sportsmanship scores work better than rules which are not enforced. I am at the stage now where I will not risk wasting my time on tournaments which pretend to use the rules-based approach. The sportsmanship score might possibly lose me a tournament but it will never ruin my weekend in the same way that blatant gamesmanship that a TO cannot/will not do anything about would.
See, that’s the thing. A sports core actually incentivizes you to take points away from your opponent. It empowers the poor sportsman more than punishing them. They are the ones more likely to take points away form their opponent, while the nice guy is likely to forgive things and not dock points. It typically works in reverse, in my experience.
Plus, I have never seen a tournament mechanic cause more controversy and complaining than sportsmanship scores (as we can see in this thread, lol).
You’re free to hold whatever opinion you choose, of course, but for me I really don’t like them. That said, I’d still go to an event with sports (I got a near max score, haha).
Obviously we can agree to disagree. The only thing I really dislike is the pretense that having a rule in the packet makes the slightest bit of difference – unenforced rules are just plain bad. As nobody ever gets DQ for these things the rule based approach is just bad – to the point of being borderline dishonest as the TO knows full well they are not actually going to DQ anyone.
If there is no reward for sportsmanship and no penalty for unsportsmanlike behaviour then I really think the TO should just be honest about that upfront. Advertise it as an event in which sportsmanlike behaviour – or otherwise – is irrelevant.
Oh yeah, I never take offense when someone disagrees with me, no worries there.
But people do get DQ’d from events, sounds like you have not seen it often or at all. For us, if you get one Thumb’s Down we forgive it, after that, we take action as defined in the ITC guidelines. Three and you are on your way out the door. We don’t mess around with it.
I think you are seeing it in a really different way than we do. We simply expect people to act like adults and when you set the bar that way, it tends to be respected. If someone is conducting themselves poorly, we have no issue booting them but I really dislike a system which forces you to try and butter up the other guy, lol. I guess it comes down to perspective.
I think Reece identifies the fundamental point here – letting players score one another based on sportmanship creates a greater opportunity for poor sportsmen to negatively impact others than it does for good sportsmen to keep others honest. I’ve never scored anyone less than full points since I hate the mechanic and that is my little way to protest, but I have certainly had sportsmen scores count against me when I did my absolute to by as gallant and lighthearted as possible, win or lose. There is no perfect solution, sure, but sportsmanship scores are a very profoundly imperfect solution. So imperfect as to make me think they do more harm than good on the balance.
I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to have the opposite: Have a “piss poor opponent” checkbox, only checked if they were rude, controversial, tried to cheat, etc. And you are immediately ineligible from prizes/awards if you get more than one checked. (One could just be playing against a jerk who wants to screw with you, but it’s unlikely that’ll happen multiple times).
Having a scale is so objective, but I would still like there to be a way for players to say “Hey this guy was the worst, I don’t want him to represent the game”.
For sportsmanship, I like when you have checkboxes. Did they have everything? Did you resolve rules correctly? Did you play quickly (aka not slowplay)? Maybe a few more, but subjective voting on a 1-5 scale is just so hard to make work.
I think it’s to discourage people from just checking the boxes and then being dicks, but there’s clearly a better way to discourage that sort of behavior.
Fair enough. For me though, just setting the expectation that you are to act like an adult and setting penalties in place for poor behavior is the best course of action.
So turns out that I didn’t get best Chaos. They made a mistake with someone’s score and it bumped be down to 2nd (technically 3rd since the guy who got 1st was chaos) chaos. Oh well. I’ll just have to do better next time.
Ah, bummer. They should use the BCP app 😉
But well done, dude.
Hi Reece, again thanks for the in-depth analysis of the Free Peoples. I really appreciate your thoughts on how to get the most out of them and eagerly read whatever you’re posting on the subject!
Since the State Troops Detachment you used at Adepticon isn’t permitted in Matched Play per the December 2016 FAQ, how are you thinking of changing up your list so it is legal going forward? I should add I clearly don’t mean that passive-aggressively – as a Free Peoples player I genuinely want to find out what others are finding works for them!
I’ve been trying to figure out a way to use the Freeguild Regiment but can’t fit enough Rocket Batteries and the Celestial Hurricanum (some of the best units available to us) in at 2000 points to make that Battalion worthwhile. Do you think there is a way to play Free Peoples without a Battalion, and just take as many of the ‘good’ units as possible, i.e. Swordsmen and Handgunners, multiple Generals to get buffs, and then as many Rocket Batteries as possible? I dont have many smart Free Peoples players to get advice from, so I really like how I can come to FLG for my Free Peoples strategy fix! Keep up the good fight!
Happy to help! Yeah, still bummed about losing that Battalion. That said, played in a tournament today without it, just Leoncoure instead for army wide immunity to Battleshock and it worked quite well. I agree, you NEED artillery and the Hurricanum is almost an auto-take, too. My list today performed well, I didn’t feel under-powered at all. I’m just now questioning if you even need Leoncoure at all. Frankie played a similar Dwarf army and did very well with no morale control at all. Leoncoure does not hit very hard and is REALLY expensive. I’d almost just rick it without him and see how it goes.
I’ll have a write-up form this event in the next day or two. Learned a lot.
Love the show!
In regards to the conversation about terrain, although I agree with using a good amount of terrain I feel like 2 pcs for every 2×2 can be too much if the terrain you are using is fairly large. If they are small building or like a little rock pile it’s fine. The reason I feel this way is I’m seriously considering quitting playing Sylvaneth because there have been times when I can only place 1 of my starting woods and summon none even when I get first turn. Or the only place to do so is in a table corner. The size on the wood and the 3″ rule can cause real problems for sylvaneth players and now they are at a serious disadvantage because the army is designed around using them. I think 2 pcs for every table quarter is a nice balance and might mess up tree placement slightly at times without crippling what the army does.
Anyways thanks again for all that you do. Keep up the good work.
Yeah, good points on the Sylvaneth.