Orktoberfest 40k Results 2009, Trying a different method... Options

[YogoZuno]

Rather than put an image here of the results, I'm trying something new out - her's a link to a Google Office spreadsheet. If you want to view the results, and this isn't working for you, please let me know here or with a PM, and I'll try and sort out an alternative.

Thanks again to all who participated - was a great weekend for all. From my point of view, apart from a few small hiccups with our organisation, everything went smoothly. Hope to see you all next year.

Oh, and since I forgot to mention yesterday, anyone who walked away with actual GW product - you can generally trade it in for something else at any GW store, so long as you don't open it, and tell the guys instore that you won it at a tourney.

[Chevynova]

Thanks for running the event Yoges. I had a great time even though I got smacked around a lot! Already looking forward to next year.

[Colostomyboy]

Yup - I'll second that - great tournament!

Only tiny nitpick was that the missions needed a little more data (game length etc), while it was implied in some that the rulebook was the source, it wasn't in all, so a little confusion there.

But that's being about as retentive as one can get, really...

[Wombats]

I really liked seeing the lucky door prizes being so generous.
Good to see rumours of the demise of GW's tournament support have been greatly exaggerated.

Big thanks to the guys who voted for me in the sports award...
I felt it appropriate to take it straight to Shay who won it last year and rub it in his face.
He was really sporting about it, the smug bugger.

Huge thanks to Bec from Blind Pig for the gorgeous scenery.
Its a pleasure to play on, most of my mates are talking about dropping some notes in the donation box when Blind Pig cranks up again after the renovation.
The effort is really appreciated.

Very nice seeing a top 10 with only two Space Marines and two Chaos Marines.
Seeing Dark Eldar come second is fantastic.
And Tau for 9th and 10th is great to see, I thought their codex was broke beyond repair but I guess I just suck at playing them Well done, Nik and Alan.

This post has been edited by Wombats: Oct 26 2009, 11:54 PM

[ArchonCryx]

COnmgrats to Josh McGowan, that's a huge efoort, Ork's always been a top notch Queensland event. well done...

ANd I am stoked to see that Matthew Daniels managed 2nd because he did it using Dark Eldar
and Josh Bates on 8th with Dark Eldar

Are these the 2 DE armies that are almost identical but for a small detail? Webway portal armies? Wow I'd love to hear about your experiences.

It's our day in the sun, I tells ya! Well done guys, sounds like fun, wish I could have been there, the armies looked pretty cool to me when I marked them, even if my scores for the DE armies did get dropped - for some reason my scores for DE were always the highest, and Mike used top-tailing to help kerb such obvious biases, sounds like the system probably worked!

[ArchonCryx]

COnmgrats to Josh McGowan, that's a huge efoort, Ork's always been a top notch Queensland event. well done...

ANd I am stoked to see that Matthew Daniels managed 2nd because he did it using Dark Eldar
and Josh Bates on 8th with Dark Eldar

Are these the 2 DE armies that are almost identical but for a small detail? Webway portal armies? Wow I'd love to hear about your experiences.

It's our day in the sun, I tells ya! Well done guys, sounds like fun, wish I could have been there, the armies looked pretty cool to me when I marked them, even if my scores for the DE armies did get dropped - for some reason my scores for DE were always the highest, and Mike used top-tailing to help kerb such obvious biases, sounds like the system probably worked!

[mattyh]

Nat Josh's army was webway. Matt ran a boat army.

[Darklord*]

Huge thanks to Yogo and all those that helped out. The terrain was awesome! Some of the best I've seen (being stuck all the way up here in Cairns). Had an awesome weekend. Was definately worth the trip down. Will be there for sure next year. Had some great games and met some great people and alot of fun was had along the way. Alot of interesting moments and highlights (Chaos Dreads rock! Just keep shooting eachother guys. Lol). Was stoked to make the top ten after gettin pounded in my first game. Congrats to all the place getters/sports/painting/players choice peoples.

I will try get a few more of our club members to make the trek down with me next year. Would be good if we could get the same numbers as fantasy if possible. Will spread the word across the Far North

[Eltnot]

Got to play some great guys over the weekend. Got smashed a bit but that was to be expected with the list.

Loved the terrain provided by Blind Pig and all the others who contributed, awesome stuff!

Main things I was disappointed with was the last mission and the presentation judging.

The last mission was fun but not really suitable for a tournament I felt. The amount of damage it caused made the game too reliant on luck and significantly less so on the ability of the players. I felt it needed to be either toned down or changed. In my game, had the game ended turn five, I would have won with one scoring model inside the zone. The game didn't end and Aaron got a solid victory which had the dice rolls not gone so poorly for him during the explosion, he should have received in turn five had the game ended then. Strength 8 and AP1 was just too harsh.

My biff about presentation was that it was too focused. This is a tournament, not Golden Deamons. If the army is fully painted than it should get full or close to full marks for painting. These models are used for playing, not sitting in cabinets. Last year's marking scheme for painting was good, this year's sucked donkey wang.

Also on the topic of presentation scores - Conversions. Conversions are cool. Conversions are great. Conversions are not required in a tournament marking systems. With the amount of posable multipart kits, conversions are not a requirement (and never have been). Save that stuff for the player's choice armies, but keep it out of the scores.

Thomas Dobson

[Aussie Gamer 2059]

Rather than put an image here of the results, I'm trying something new out - her's a link to a Google Office spreadsheet. If you want to view the results, and this isn't working for you, please let me know here or with a PM, and I'll try and sort out an alternative.

Thanks again to all who participated - was a great weekend for all. From my point of view, apart from a few small hiccups with our organisation, everything went smoothly. Hope to see you all next year.

Oh, and since I forgot to mention yesterday, anyone who walked away with actual GW product - you can generally trade it in for something else at any GW store, so long as you don't open it, and tell the guys instore that you won it at a tourney.

Hey man,
Thanks loads for a great tournment, I am really going to enjoy using the new Ork truck!
Although my space marines were constantly beaten back during the games, I had a great time, it only being my second tournement, and my favourite so far
Can't wait till next year!

[Blackhearts Reaver]

Thanks Yogo and Right-Hand man....

It was a good weekend of gaming, terrain and friends.

I had one unfortunate game(with a non-local), and one game of terrible dice vs amazing dice (off the bell curve).

Even the game vs the 3 Landraiders was Fun (for me ). Poor DeathWing in a mission that was unbalanced... (I think you need to review that mission....). even with 4 units of troops 10+ (16,14,13,12=taking 2d6 str8 AP1 hits) I still creamed the Termies with a ratio of 24:1 in the centre...

[Copper Head]

Once again a great weekend. Thanks to micheal for stepping up and running it. Can have tournaments without people like him.

Thanks to all the five people i played, all fun, enjoyable games, and most of them came down to the last turn.

the Thunder Hawk down games was a different and but fun game. Yet I didnt think is was a good game to have at the end of a tournament. You needed to have a bit of luck on your side to win it. Like I my game against Thomas (Eltnot), I was lucky to get a turn 6.
Maybe this game should have been at the start of the tournament, to mix things up earliers.

Anyway everything else was great, and I am still stocked that I finished 4th.

Well done Josh, so will you be back next year?

[YogoZuno]

and Right-Hand man

That would be Jason, who doesn't actually read WAU terribly often (or even have an account...) - I'll pass along the kind words...and the not-so-kind ones below...

My biff about presentation was that it was too focused. This is a tournament, not Golden Deamons. If the army is fully painted than it should get full or close to full marks for painting. These models are used for playing, not sitting in cabinets. Last year's marking scheme for painting was good, this year's sucked donkey wang.

I purposely asked Jason to score the presentation side this year, as I know he is a much more skilled painter than I will ever be. Jason has won a few 'Best Painted' and 'Player's Choice' awards in the past, so he knows what he's talking about...

While I agree that Jason's marking will have generally given lower painting scores than other systems, at least the scores were consistently done. The truly well-painted armies were rewarded more than other armies, but fully painted armies easily got to half of the available painting marks.

The last mission was fun but not really suitable for a tournament I felt.

Yet I didnt think is was a good game to have at the end of a tournament.

I think you need to review that mission

OK, so people think the mission needs changing...any suggestions? This is actually second time the mission has been used at a tourney, and I've asked for comments on it before (and received none...) - how do people think it should change to be a viable tourney mission?

I really liked seeing the lucky door prizes being so generous.
Good to see rumours of the demise of GW's tournament support have been greatly exaggerated.

Personally, I also liked giving away so much stuff. The prizes given to the place getters were still pretty damned impressive (in my eyes), and the door prizes gave everyone a chance to get something.

I do have to point out, though, that the majority of the prizes did not come directly from GW - I believe GW provided all of the event vouchers, but the rest was purchased by QGG from your entry funds.

[MarkC]

The results from Orktoberfest have been added to the 40K Tournament Rankings.

Regards

Mark C

[NAW73]

Actually had an awesome weekend as well. I kind of agree with the last mission being horrid (even tho it certainly dident really affect me, one sister catching a thunderhawk to the face is no big deal) perhaps make it do LESS damage to foot sloggers IE give them a chance to live, but still hurt tanks as much, as small, elitist armies really couldent go anywhere near the objective turn 5, and should the game end on turn 5 and said elitist army loses a large number of their scoring units (potentially ALL) which means instead of the intended slight advantage that the mission is supposed to give to horde armies (which are generally at a disadvantage in 5th VS mech armies) it actually makes the mission VERY one sided.

and in reference to the mission i am thinking nurgle fluff walking armies (units of 7, no rhino's), deathwing armies, Necrons (phase ? LAWL)

Perhaps make the infantry hit STR 6 AP 3, so that terminator or 2+ save troop armies arent taking such a massive hit, and FNP can function on Plague Marines, but not Guardsman command squads, for example?

Just suggestions really, of course, STR 6 AP 3 means troop nob squads get FNP against it, and it doesnt insta gib them, + they likely have heaps of boys lying around in the objective too, but its a mission that at the end of the day will NOT please everyone......

[The Witchking]

one annoyance thing i found was that Fantasy got 6 games in, we only got 5... i think finishing with a Pitched Battle Annihilation would be good to counter that 'Thunderhawk Fail' mission.

other than that, obviously comp was an issue with many, and although my army scored a little lower than expected, i was annoyed about other armies coming offer better than what they should have got.

Not to annoy people, but my army (the full biker list) only scored 13 points.. just 4 more than the 3 DP + GUO + Epi + Plague list..

other armies were horribly OP, and it would have been nice to see some more reflective scores..


Thanks to all involved in setting up and running.

great weekend as usual.
Dave.

[Wombats]

Re: painting

I was actually sitting at Alan's table just ogling his miniatures when Jason came by to score.

It seemed the tick box scoring system was limiting him.

For example, there is a tick box for an army standard, if you don't have one you don't get the points.
Tau shouldn't have a standard, and the cohesive markings across the entire army were classified as squad markings which is a separate box.

Possibly let Jason know he has leeway to override his tickboxes?
And in many cases probably should do?

Its an aesthetic judgement, not a shopping list.

There is no need for transparency of that degree, especially when it means someone's effort might not be recognised because of where the tick boxes happened to fall.

[nurgle_49]

well done mick and jason a very smoothly run event
last mission not great
mick the only other problem i had you already know about
thanks dave

[Lurking Horror]

Before anyone thinks this rant is a whinge, its not. I'm happy with the games I played and the people I played against in the tournament, and it was a load of fun and well worth travelling 600+ kms for.

Short Version of this post
If army comp is going to be a soft-score, and theme/fluff doesn't come into it, at least have some kind of criteria to build by so players can actually get a decent score. I saw troop-heavy armies with lower scores than elite-heavy armies, which didn't quite make sense.

Criteria + Guidelines for comp scores, kthankx.

Even the game vs the 3 Landraiders was Fun (for me ). Poor DeathWing in a mission that was unbalanced... (I think you need to review that mission....). even with 4 units of troops 10+ (16,14,13,12=taking 2d6 str8 AP1 hits) I still creamed the Termies with a ratio of 24:1 in the centre...

And this is the part where army composition scores totally lost me... a fully themed Deathwing army with only three squads of Terminators (albeit in three Land Raiders for transport) scored 12 for army comp. An army with 6 squads of Termies is more effective, yet people see Land Raiders and start getting unhappy. why?

- in only one game of five, did all three surive. all three died once, and the others got immobilised/weapon destroyed quite regularly. Meltaguns or equivalent are so common in tournaments its like walking around with "kick me" stuck on my shirt.

- for 250 points, there's easier ways to get more firepower (and more surivable too, since it'd be split between multiple hulls/ infantry). Land Raiders just aren't points-effective for the weapons they carry.

- I picked my army in advance without even looking at the mission scenarios. Three of which were doubly tough for only having three scoring units of five models each. Once they come out of the shells, nobody has particular trouble dealing with Terminators - everyone has power weapons or plasma guns somewhere in their lists. I got lucky with one of the missions, and got righteously pasted with the last one.

- the Dark Angels codex is out-dated and has decidedly less powerful versions of the exact thing new 5th Ed marines have... like the new Machine Spirits, Storm Shields, etc.

In summary (I apologise for the wall-o-text), I picked a deliberately themed list that was decidedly less than effective at a majority of missions and scenarios, doesn't put out that much firepower, and doesn't even survive that well against proper tournament lists... and scored less than half the available points for doing it?

If theme and "feel" of the army doesn't come into it, at least post some kind of guidelines so people can build an army that won't be so "OMG scary" and learn to play better with the list, rather than wielding the list like a blunt object to bludgeon their opponent.
[/rant]

Thanks to Yogo and all the guys that organised and ran the event, it was great fun again this year, as it was last. I fully plan to make a regular spot on my calender for Orktoberfest, presuming I remember to book tickets in time

[CLD]

Thanks to Mick and Jason for running the show, it was my first tournament and whilst it was pretty tiring I ended up having a blast. Everyone I played was really nice, and there were some pretty awesome looking armies there. I really applaud the handing out of many prizes, whilst I didn’t get one I thought it was pretty cool that many people got a large percentage of their ticket cost back in some sort of prize.

I thought that the whole thing was really well run. It was smooth, directions were for the most part very clear and there was plenty of time to get games finished.

Many thanks to Bec from the Blind Pig for donating her precious time and scenery, it is really nice to look at a nice table with nice minis on it.

The only issues I had with comp were the lack of criteria, but that is a minor, minor issue.

I agree with what others are saying about the painting scores – the criteria set out seemed to be pretty linear, but the marking was non-linear. I went in thinking I would get most of the marks for painting, so I was a little disappointed with my score.

I think most people will be pretty happy if the marking criteria for comp and painting was a bit clearer.

I did have a great time though, and again, thanks to Jason and Mick for running the event, I will definitely turn up again next year.

Gordon