Chapter Tactics is a 40k podcast which focuses on promoting better tactical play and situational awareness across all variations of the game. Today Peteypab, the Falcon, the P’s teammates on Relentless D talk about the recent team tournament Relentless D participated in, and how Space Marines are going to change the ATC and team tournament meta. This is a great episode for anyone who wants an in depth look into what a team tournament looks like, and 40k team tournaments work.
Show Notes:
- Head on over to 40kstats.com for more faction stats for all major ITC tournaments!
- Support us on Patreon this month and get a chance to receive random stuff from us!
- Click here for a link for information on downloading best coast pairings app where you can find lists for most of the events I mention.
- Check out the last episode of Chapter Tactics here. Or, click here for a link to a full archive of all of our episodes.
- Check out Skari on Skaredcast, for excellent 40k tactics videos and Monday Meta analysis.
- Commercial music by: www.bensound.com
- Intro by: Justin Mahar
Funny you say that Peter – the plan was always for the invitational to be held at the Bad Moon. In fact, a lot of the invite players booked acomodation close to the Bad Moon. In the end, we collectively decided that moving the stream equipment and players back and forth would be too much of a hassle. The downside to having a much better LGT venue this year was that it was ~1 hour outside of central London (which is totally fine).
For next year, the GT should be Friday – Saturday with a final 8 on Sunday, similar to LVO. We can have the invitational on Thursday at the Bad Moon.
I played pretty much the entire event on table 1, and there was nothing more depressing than going into the last game against Mani knowing that neither one of us is likely to win the event. Chewy had drawn a foot-slogging marine list, and won the roll to go first.
Yeah, you want a champion at a big event if at all possible but sometimes it’s tough to do logistically. I look forward to a 9 round event next year! For most players you’re done on Saturday and can play in a one day event on Sunday or go to Central London on Sunday for some sightseeing. I think it’s a great plan.
Exactly – since we already had the big venue on the Friday, it should not add to the cost.
It was great to see you and I am already counting down the days to Vegas!
Do you?
It’s funny how everyone on the podcast is gushing about how great team events are compared to singles because (among other reasons) your a) not out after a loss and b) in a losing game you’re still motivated to play for as many points as you can.
A battlepoints tournament gives you exactly that. Got a bad matchup? Play cagey for as small a loss as you can and you’re still in the running to win the event. Motivation to keep playing.
I get why for promotional purposes a “clear winner” might be advantageous. But you can get that by splitting off the pros into some invitational knock-out format.
For the general public, I think it’s telling that non-battlepoint singles tournaments don’t have the same longevity of excitement throughout as team or battlepoint tournaments (perhaps unless you build really elaborate ways around it with “pods” or whatever NOVA did).
That’s actually not true. To win a battle points tournament you have to smash all of your opponents and typically, the first game you don’t get a max or near max score, you’re out even If you win. I’ve literally never been to a BP tournament when someone got a low score and came back to win it and I’ve been to more tournaments than 99% of 40k players, easily. It’s theoretically possible but in practice almost never occurs. Just look at the last LGT, best general got 100 out of 100 BP, lol. I won all my games but they were close and I scored middle to high points in them and I got like 48th, place, with players going 3-2 above me, lol. In a BP tournament, especially big ones, it’s not enough to win, you have to win big. A low point win can be literally twice as bad as a loss in Swiss. A player that smashed their opponent can get effectively a two game lead on your low point win. It’s really not fun. It’s exacerbated at bigger events where the odds of someone running away with it increases. You’re effectively out after your first low score whether you win or lose. It’s even More discouraging. BP are honestly not a good system at all. You always go Swiss if you can, falling back to BP as a tie breaker or using it when you don’t have enough rounds to determine a true Swiss champion as at LGT this year or at the SoCal Open the past few years, etc. Swiss is the only system that doesn’t punish a close game, which is what you want. In BP good players typically want to avoid playing one another as the odds of not maxing your score goes up as skill levels are closer, which is again lame, as no one wants to see a tournament system that discourages the best players from playing one another.
It’s funny that this is even a debate still, we hammered through it in the states years ago and the arguments against Swiss were the same ones you make now. Funny though, the detractors then wouldn’t go back to BP now after playing Swiss, BP just is not a good system unless you have no other choice.
Hey guys, great episode.
Did episode 129 disappear? Can’t find it. Also this episode isn’t tagged with chapter tactics so it doesnt show up if you search.
Also is Sean not going to be on anymore?
Cheers guys.