Gottacon post-tourney

So tourny guys, now that its post tournament, what are your thoughts?
Anything you would do different in prep? what did you like/dislike about the format? how were the tables set up? anything else to discuss.

The tournament was great. Other then what was already posted on facebook, I would just reinforce a few things.

1. The games where balanced. A few matchups aside I dont think any of us where sitting there going 'there wasnt a prayer'.
2. So much cover, like take our normal amount of terrain and double it. If it wasnt a large set piece, it was a crater, if it wasnt a crater it was a tank trap or wall of some kind.
3. The level of effort some guys put into their armies was on a whole other scale. Beyond what you see in the Codex's really.

I had no dislikes in the format, the custom scenarios didnt hamper most armies (though the capture the flag and run one was tough if you where daemon vs daemon) again the terrain was just intense vs what we normally do, and the games where all well played with a minimal amount of lameness.

That much cover, hey? That's pretty surprising from what I've read of other tourneys where terrain is at a minimum. Maybe my 'stealers would have done better than I assumed.

What do you mean by the level of effort? Like, in painting or the lists they made or what?

Yeah, I dont know about Adepticon, but I would imagine its likely the same as this was some of the tables you REALLY would have had to try and not get a 4 up for any kind infantry unit. It made walking around hell, but when your a stealer, or ork, or daemon needing that cover save, its a good thing.

As for the effort, yeah mostly in the painting/display side, there was some really really beautiful stuff I thought. The top 3 especially where just killer.

For me, it was Imperial Fists (complete with Lysander on a fancy base standing over a dead Iron Warrior), who won best paint, Raven Guard (ALL with beaky heads, and much Forge World awesomeness) and a super crisp Blood Angel army.

Some of the DE's where also really really clean and well done, a sky blue force in particular, but nothing that stood out as much to me as those marines.

On a purely Win/Loss outlook, I think DE probably took the majority of higher spots, but thats just what the talk seemed to be saying, I am not sure.

Yeah the thing about the terrain ... hard to say. To me the terrain should be known as it is something everyone has to deal with it. Not saying exactly but hey 60% of the tables will be 80% terrain...... My reasoning for this is you know some guys on the 'inside' knew what was coming.... i'm sure. Just human nature. But the tourney was just great and really I want to go to another soon since I put all this work into me army might as well reap the rewards and do another

That's another reason for this discussion, as we would like to do a tournament of our own, like a version of McCon on steroids. This will give us some ideas of the pros and cons of doing our own tournament and what works and what doesn't.

peasantpower wrote:

Yeah the thing about the terrain ... hard to say. To me the terrain should be known as it is something everyone has to deal with it. Not saying exactly but hey 60% of the tables will be 80% terrain...... My reasoning for this is you know some guys on the 'inside' knew what was coming.... i'm sure. Just human nature. But the tourney was just great and really I want to go to another soon since I put all this work into me army might as well reap the rewards and do another

Yeah I wont lie, when I was on a heavy terrain table, I was at a disadvantage, and when I was on a naked table, same deal. Making it known would have been nice, but wouldnt have changed me up too much.

Which way would be better, the way they had it, very terrain heavy and sort of random between tables, or like we had it at last Dak-kon where we tried to make the tables similar in total cover?

Personally, I think it would be 'most' fair if you have near equal (obviously almost never going to be fully uniform) terrain among tables. Foot slogging ork horde with a 4++ from ranged shooting vs a 6+, obviously not even close to the same.

Yeah, I am aiming for 2-3 tables of terrain, for my own collection if nothing else, and enough to do each themed set as 25-30% of a 6x4 table. Maybe a few spare buildings and stuff to allow for a nice dense 60% or more table for cityfight.

Other than terrain, what were everyones thoughts on having themed missions/special missions?

I liked the special missions. The capture and move the flag one, maybe favours the guy who goes first a bit too much? I dont know, maybe I was just a special case, as I instantly had 2 of 3, and it was just a landslide from turn 1.

The traitor mission was also good, and very much balanced. Lose 1 troop, kill him and you get extra Kill Points. Simple.

Yeah the football mission was good too, but back to the terrain. What would be the big deal in letting people know about terrain, it is a constant that everyone has to deal with, it is not to any one persons benefit. Now that said, you dont have uniform tables. You might go to a tourney where 20% of the tables are 60% coverred but 100% of your games are on those tables
In no way am i being critical of the tourney it was great and well run. The fact that we were shocked by the terrain makes it even better cause we didnt see it coming. I am just saying another type of format would be letting the players know ahead of time exactly what will be out there table wise(not mission) as it kinda makes sense in the 37082 years in the future you might have a scouting report of the layout of the land and customize your forces to acheive your mission

So would you say the special missions added to it? or did they punish certain armies unfairly? I see a lot of tournaments with special missions or objectives, and think they would be a blast to have, but do you think they are hard to balance properly?

I think they can certainly add some flavour, and with a little tweaking the capture the flag one could have been a bit better for daemons.

OK, as for Gottacon, I fully agree that about 25% of the tables had literaly 75% terrain. like difficult to place a rhino. But in contrast I played a on a table whose only cover providing terrain was either in the corners, as walls and bastions, or in the middle in the form of a landing pad, which just is on four columns. I think with all the large walls, cliffs, fortresses, and bastions arround there was also many tables we would be uncomfortable, or unfamiliar playing on tactically but were not really over 25/30% coverage. I would bet on average that the Gottacon table coverage was, including 'liquid' features that were difficult terrain but did not block line of sight, about 35%. This is higer than standard, and as an average reflects that some tables had much more.

On the topic of this summers tourney, as long as we do a more round robin format, we could rotate people acording to table rather than score, and have each table be really unique. as an option.

In terms of running a tourney in general, I would first think about the philisophical game style we're trying to achieve, and try to mix that into everything onward. If we wanted a really clean competitive tourney, we could have the terrain very standard, and rank according to many gameplay objectives. Maybe a very story driven tourney would include some wild scenarios (i've heard stampeding dino's would be fun for terrain/scenario). really it comes down to what your target audience is. if they are longtime, serious hobbyists, they might want to see something new, or play escalation, or something 'else' to bring to the game. If it's open to the general public, and inexperienced people are encouraged to come (to grow the hobby), then perhaps it needs to be very standard/low points level and very basic standard missions.

Yep, good points.

I dont think a hardcore 5 games in a day (even escalation) is really something we want to look at, unless we are going to get a space, and have a bunch of people. 3 games, standard missions, one being tweaked perhaps, would give you a much more reasonable day of play, without being too hard on the players.

I liked the gottocon format, but as to doing something different on each table it could be fun once all the terrain is a 'known' factor to make unique rules for each setting. This would be great to bring and play test our scenerios that we had in mind. On the topic of space, i wonder if there is a cheap hall somewhere in between here and naniamo. (coombs?). Or is that too far

In terms of location, I'd vote for here, or further north. Merville hall?? Black Creek, or some weird hall just south of CR??

Not sure how it'd work, but there are at least a couple of halls along the highway we could look at. Might be good if trying to convince the boys from CR to head up.

Night Lord wrote:

In terms of location, I'd vote for here, or further north. Merville hall?? Black Creek, or some weird hall just south of CR??

further up island you go more people you lose.....

Then we have to have it here (Merville to Royston) because like someone else posted somewhere, we're loosing CR people even having it as far south as HERE. Nanaimo people will be welcome, but they have Dropzone to play at, people in the north don't.


My ultimate goal would be to have a Vancouver Island Warhammer Circut/GP. that way all areas can have a tourney of their own, with everyone welcome every time. Top four from each event would be invited to a final showdown tourney.

45 minutes cant be too far to drive... :p

A huge linked tournament would be pretty awesome though for sure!

I agree with the idea of a circuit.
Talking to Cow, and seeing there forum, they do have a decent group in CR, but most are younger players where getting all the way to courtenay could be a problem. Right by the old Tsolum school is a small hall you can rent I think?
I'd like to focus on our area (CR, Comox Valley, Royston) as compared to dealing with Nanaimo, for the exact reason Night Lord mentioned, they have places to play and a bigger community, we have to build that here.