Now that I am fully better and the full results are up - time to look back on the event! You can see the results here with Battle being out of 100 and the soft scores out of 25 each. I came 13th overall with Vince 18th (Loriness was 1st, Valkyrie was 10th, Dark Angel 3rd, Chee 8th, Lee 12th, MrPeon 21st) outof 37 participants. Quick comments on my score - 52/100 for battle (12th in terms of battle) is terrible and reflects a weekend using Tyranids and suffering from the flu. It's a bit skewed as I got a 20 point bye and 20 point wins were hard to come by (Denis who won got 84 Battle Points) as you generally had to crush your opponent for those. Considering I only got one real win...well those 52 points do seem high. We then minus 20 from my bye and 32/80 seems more reasonable from my dismal performance! We'll look at that in a bit...
Sports was 24/25. Good to know I'm a great guy even when dying =D. Comp was pretty useless at this tourney as I know a lot of people just gave everyone a 2/3. Whilst I would say an army such as mine probably deserves an 18/25 since it's Tyranids but optimised, most lists seem to be in the 17-20 range. 17/25 for painting is about what I expect for my Tyranids (around a 7/10) which is what people were suggesting they'd give me on an 10-point system (between 7 and 8) rather than the 2/3 I was generally getting. This is pretty close to what I think my army deserves unlike the Lords of Terra 4/10 fiasco where my Hive Tyrant could not be found... Anyway, happy with the paint system and my score there and since the comp didn't really handicap or benefit anyone *thumbs up.* Whilst peer comp and paint scores have the huge issue of people tanking scores, this bunch of guys didn't seem to have that issue which was good!
Mission Analysis
To the missions... some tweaks I think are needed, mainly in terms of scoring. I thought the missions themselves were decent battle point based missions without anything really dumb (again, Lords of Terra fiasco :P). Two quick comments. First, wins for each mission weren't the same. Whilst there was a max of 20 per mission, a maximum win on some missions was less than others with bonus points making up the difference. Each mission should really be the same points with bonuses making up the same points total for each mission as well otherwise winning in some games is more advantageous than others. Second, the missions weren't released before the tournament which I think is a must but they focused on 5th ed concepts which 5th edition armies weren't really boned. Let's look at them one by one.
Mission 1 - Spearhead with battle points as follows for controlling quarters:
8 - enemy DZ
4 - neutral quarters
1- enemy HQ destroyed
1 - highest point unit destroyed
4th edition Cleanse style mission where you can have a 0-0 draw - not good. A couple points which need to be clarified such as what controls objectives (scoring only?) and whether or not a single unit can control multiple quarters. This should really have just been whomever has more quarters wins (15 points), draw (10 points), lose (5 points) with bonus points applied as usual. I personally would prefer the bonus points to be a secondary based on objectives with objectives worth bonus battle points or whomever owns more objectives getting 5 battle points. This absolves the 0-0 draw issue (or even a 4-0 win) and also plays more into 5th edition with scoring units emphasised.
Mission 2 - Pitched battle with VP difference including scoring VP in opponent's DZ determining winner.
Battle points decided by difference between VP with every 175 difference granting +1/-1 battle point from a 10-10 starting point.
Scoring VP in deployment zone is a nice homage to 5th edition and a move away from the love of 4th edition gunlines but a full VP based mission is more 3rd/4th edition than 5th and can benefit rock armies with lots of points in scary Troop units as seen with Draigowing. I think I'd again rather see something more 5th edition such as Kill Points or objectives with the scoring VP in deployment zone being the secondary bonus for battle points. I think the VP difference needed more more/less battle points was probably a bit too steep and would rather see the integral at 150 points rather than 175 (less difference at close games but can be a couple battle points difference for bigger wins/losses).
Mission 3 - Pitched Battle Seize Ground with 5 objectives:
15 - win
10 - draw
5 - loss
1 - Units in enemy DZ
1 - Enemy HQ destroyed
1 - Highest point enemy unit destroyed
1 - Own HQ survives
1 - own most expensive unit survives
A lovely 5th edition mission with five objectives - nothing wrong with that. The usual assortment of bonus points with the destruction of HQs/expensive units rewarding points. This can be a boon or not as some armies can hide and do without their HQs whilst other armies need to throw them to the front lines. Some armies are also very able to do without their most expensive unit (i.e. MSU) whilst some lists are built around them. Minimal point shifting but I'd again prefer to see this as something like table quarters based on VP or scoring VP in deployment zone or marginal Kill Points, etc. Good basic mission though :).
Mission 4 - Corner deployments (measure 24" down short table edge and draw line to opposite corner) with VP difference including VP of scoring units left alive at the end of the game. Battle points decided by decided by VP difference with +1/-1 for every 175 difference.
This deployment type has some pros and cons. It's different from the standard BRB missions and keeps the 24" corridor standard but gives shooting armies another advantageous deployment (you can deploy in far corners). I'd want to modify this deployment slightly to take the edge off such deployments such as being able to deploy anywhere within 24" of your opponent or night fight for the first 1-2 turns. This would obviously require play-testing. Anywho the mission, again VP based which is more 3rd/4th edition but a 5th edition emphasis on scoring units to help widen the difference. I'd again prefer to see this sort of concept as the secondary/bonus battle points but the actual mission concept isn't that bad just like mission 2. I'd again prefer to see the VP margin just a little lower (150 per step) to get the larger BP wins but not that big an issue.
Mission 5 - Pitched Battle with three objectives (one automatically in the centre). Battle points awarded as follows:
8 - central objective
5 - secondary objectives
2 - enemy HQ destroyed
I like the concept of objectives being worth more (i.e. the central one being of greater importance) as this often is true for playing out on the tabletop. I'd rather see this based on who wins the objective mission though. I.e. central objective is worth two points with four other objectives worth one point and whoever has more objective points gets the win, same points is draw. The point balance would need to be playttested of course and objectives closer to opponent's DZ could be worth more, etc. Why? well you can once again get a 0-0 draw when a losing player can actually get 10 battle points (don't hold secondary objectives, kill enemy HQ, hold centre). Doesn't seem right. By changing this up, this will settle BP to where winners get the most battle points, drawers get the middle and losers get the least. Secondary points can shuffle this up but based on who wins/losses you have that basis for movement which is important.
Conclusion
Overall it was a great event despite being sick and a couple theoretical BP scoring issues on the missions (not sure if they came up or not). It was obviously an event with a more relaxed mindset (very common with Australian tournaments) but I'm happy to feel that the best painters got the good scores and otherwise the paint scores were generally what they were deserved. Comp scores were pretty even across the field so had minimal impact on the final outcome and in fact, battle points pretty much decided your overall result with only a couple placings moving up and down. Byes I think were handled fine though a gumby army would have been great - it was actually pretty beneficial to get a bye considering full battle point victories were hard to come by in certain missions.
Well done to Bails on a well run event and I hope I didn't get anyone sick! I look forward to it next year.
Here's also a battle point recap in order of the top 15 armies:
1. Grey Knights
2. Dark Eldar
3. Grey Knights
4. Eldar
4. Space Wolves
4. Space Marines
4. Space Marines
8. Dark Angels
8. Grey Knights
10. Tyranids
11. Blood Angels
12. Tyranids
13. Tyranids
14. Chaos Daemons
15. Imperial Guard
Pretty good mix of 5th edition armies though there were only about 12 armies not from 5th edition represented there.
