$500 1st prize! Battleground Championship, Cambridge, MA 4/30 & 5/1.

[Niko White]

Oh, except the fear change - I like that one.

[RushAss]

Oh, except the fear change - I like that one.

Exactly.  I think that there where a number of small things that made the Dark Elves strong.  1 small change at a time is the way you fix these things and I think that this change may have been what they needed.  There *may* be 1 other thing (like direct controlling the Drake Riders?) but I just think they needed a tiny nudge back which the fear change does nicely.

[Niko White]

Oh, except the fear change - I like that one.

Exactly.  I think that there where a number of small things that made the Dark Elves strong.  1 small change at a time is the way you fix these things and I think that this change may have been what they needed.  There *may* be 1 other thing (like direct controlling the Drake Riders?) but I just think they needed a tiny nudge back which the fear change does nicely.

Well I think the Drake Riders are fine if other flying units are fine - the command and control and turning for flying might be too easy, but that's the flying rules in general IMO.  I'd like to look at them, but I want do do some more testing first I think.

[Kevin]

Small correction:  Ron went 2-2, then lost the tiebreaker game to Marcus.

[BubblePig]

but in my experience the pick-up alternative isn't as fun for at least some people.  It's still fun to be in the main tournament, to strive for a 4-2 record, and to have pairings rather than trying to get pickup games.  There can also be prizes (like best day-two record for someone with two day one losses) that add to the enjoyment.

My experience is, on the contrary, that people bail when they are out of contention for glory/prizes and end up playing neither pickup games nor tournament games, unless they carpooled with somebody or travelled a long distance to be there. Which is pretty much what happened at this tournament, since as far as I know the only pick-up games included either myself or the Jersey boys. (Thanks Brook!)

Mathematically, I cannot think of a more optimal way (including pairing players of equal theoretical strength) of keeping people in the running for top positions for as many games as possible than Swiss pairing followed by elimination tree. Spreading the prizes thinner could accomplish this to a certain extent, but seeing as the turnout was already lower than expected I don't see how that would be desirable.

[Niko White]

Small correction:  Ron went 2-2, then lost the tiebreaker game to Marcus.

My bad; I still believe this to be a substantially worse record than what I've seen of his skill and prior finishes would indicate.

[BubblePig]

How did the the special tournament rules work out?  In particular, the nerfing of the Dark Elves (with the caveat of a small sample size).

Ron played Dark Elves and went 1-3, and he's generally a good Dark Elf player.

I believe this supports my point that Dark Elves are fine without nerfs, but last I talked to Kevin he maintained Ron didn't play them right.

So from my perspective I'm still right, but others might disagree   I certainly don't see any reason to nerf them officially at this point.

[Small correction:  Ron went 2-2, then lost the tiebreaker game to Marcus.

My bad; I still believe this to be a substantially worse record than what I've seen of his skill and prior finishes would indicate.

I agree with Kevin in that I misplayed my deployment with Chad and threw away an easy win against Will by engaging Mumakill needlessly at the end, though I do not want to take anything away from wins they deserved. On the other hand my pick-up games against Carthage on Friday night left me with the feeling that Historicals are just plain better overall than Fantasy, though the fact that Niko was playing them might have had something to do with that. Bottom line: due to a level of play below what I would like to think of as my usual no good data was supplied. Did staying up till 3am the night before have anything to do with it? Zelc's record argues otherwise.

[BubblePig]

I am noticing that after a few "thanks, Kevin and thanks, Niko" posts that there has been a spate of griping that threatened for a little while to devolve into flame war. Let me take this opportunity to get things back onto a warm fuzzy level, I hope for good and all. The amount of effort that it took to make this tournament happen for all those behind the scenes is well appreciated, and I sympathize 1000 times more for the guy that has to make the unpopular call vs the guy that gets called against, even when that guy is me.

[Niko White]

I agree, I've done a lot of judging of lots of games and it's difficult even in ones with much more clarity than Battleground.  I think Kevin did a good job and I hope none of my post-tournament comments implied otherwise.  Even decisions I don't agree with (Dark Elf nerfs or w/e) I get that he made out of a genuine desire to have the fairest tournament possible, and I respect that.

I also think that it's natural to look at adjustments to rules and things like that after a big event where people are going to pull out all the stops, and that proposing changes to a particular rule or strategy in no way takes anything away from the players in the event - everyone had access to all of the same information about faction abilities and potential, after all.  If the historicals are indeed better (I'm not convinced - I tested with Carthage a lot and ultimately went back to HEs, and don't regret it), we all could have known that.  I didn't see all the games, but I'm pretty sure Jaime outplayed me in the games we played, and Bohan's a dangerous opponent, I know from playing him the night before.  Next time I'll just have to be more dangerous than either   But I don't think this event was over when any of us picked our faction.

[Kevin]

Thanks, Niko and Ron!

And in other news, photos of all finals games are now up in the Session Reports section.  Hopefully folks who played the games will post their take on them! 

[Chad_YMG]

Small correction:  Ron went 2-2, then lost the tiebreaker game to Marcus.

My bad; I still believe this to be a substantially worse record than what I've seen of his skill and prior finishes would indicate.

 

[Niko White]

Small correction:  Ron went 2-2, then lost the tiebreaker game to Marcus.

My bad; I still believe this to be a substantially worse record than what I've seen of his skill and prior finishes would indicate.

 

You just clearly need to be in better practice

[RushAss]

I am noticing that after a few "thanks, Kevin and thanks, Niko" posts that there has been a spate of griping that threatened for a little while to devolve into flame war. Let me take this opportunity to get things back onto a warm fuzzy level, I hope for good and all. The amount of effort that it took to make this tournament happen for all those behind the scenes is well appreciated, and I sympathize 1000 times more for the guy that has to make the unpopular call vs the guy that gets called against, even when that guy is me.

suck it you moron



Seriously, the entire idea of the tournament was excellent.  While there where some issues, remember that this is the first time that anything like this has been done for Battleground.  There was no precedence to base it upon.  So there where bound to be flaws.  Personally, I could really care less about those.  What I do care about is the intention was good and that bled over into the event itself to make it an excellent experience for me.  Keep in mind that the guy who ran the tournament didn't get to play a single game.  He basically worked all weekend while footing the prize money out of his own pocket.  Not to mention letting 4 of the participants crash in his home.  While it's fine to debate about many events that occurred (or didn't occur) there, the bottom line is that Kevin really knocked himself out to make it happen.  And getting together with you guys to play games is not a bad way to spend a weekend.

[BubblePig]

Wow, you had me for a second, Marcus. That was freaking awesome! 

[Kevin]

Thanks, Marcus!

Not to mention letting 4 of the participants crash in his home.

5, actually.  Sometime after I went to sleep Ron invited Bohan to crash at my place Friday night.

-----------------

If I were to to it again (I'm going to decide in a couple of weeks.) I can think of three things off the top of my head that I'd do differently:

1)  Timing.  I deliberately erred on the side of caution, not wanting to judge too many games for lack of time, and built in more time than was actually needed--not one game needed to be judge (With the very partial exception of the Dave/Will quarterfinals, which was due to Bohan needing to catch a bus--and that one was effectively over anyway.) 

In part folks got so much time because Dave & Bohan tried the schedule a month before and were sounding the alarm bells that the 5-game schedule would not work.

Anyway, we could have done 4 full games, plus a speed game tiebreaker round, on Saturday.

On the other hand, it's hard to tell what people thought of the 1200-point games.  Chad didn't like them, and they made Niko and Bohan squirm a bit, but others liked the variety they represented.  (That's also the only way you can get a high-point-density battle done in "tournament time.")


2)  A Sunday event.

I agree with BubblePig above:  people often drift away once they're out of the running, and Swiss with a later cut keeps people in the running as long as possible.

(As an aside to Chad, I used to play in Bridge tournaments which were Swiss all the way.  However, Bridge tournaments were different from Battleground tournaments in 2 ways.  One was that they have a victory point system, so you could be in 6th place with one round to go but you could theoretically still win if you had an absolute blow-out last round.  The other is that Bridge has a whole "master point" system where points/ranks are awarded to people for status, and some amount of points would be awarded to the top half--which also meant that nearly everyone was in the running for something until the very end.  Battleground is several orders of magnitude too small a scene to even consider a master point system.)

 On the other hand, a Sunday mini-tournament for folks who didn't make the finals (and locals who can't do both days) with, say, a $50 cash prize, is probably a good idea.


3) A player in reserve,

I should probably train my wife, or maybe Rachel, to play Battleground well enough that, while they don't want to really be in the tournament, they can give someone a game if there's an odd number of players.

Keep in mind that the guy who ran the tournament didn't get to play a single game.  He basically worked all weekend while footing the prize money out of his own pocket.

This is true.  So I'll put this out there:  If someone else is itching to run this (or something like this) in the northeast next year (and foot the prize $), don't hold back.  I will be thrilled to take off my judge hat and play!