So this weekend I acted as team Remembrancer so the rest of the guys could get on with the business of playing games while I did all the real work chronicling it all for them.....
Before I get to the bits that you all actually want to see like the best painted armies and the actual games I thought I'd warm-up with a brief overview of the event.
Venue.
Well you can't really complain much about this really. There was enough room between tables to move around which is an issue I've had at other locations and much as I admire and respect my fellow competitors I'd rather not rub my buttocks against the ones playing behind me for two fucking hours, lol. The bar was well stocked with both food and beverages and it was actually possible to order drinks from the bar without leaving your gaming table via several helpful staff who were wandering around. For those of you who are involved in this hobby in any way and have not ever been there then I can whole-heartedly recommend Warhammer World as a gaming venue.
Organisation.
Pretty damn good actually. It was possible to register the night before if you so desired in order to avoid the queueing in the morning but to be honest you had plenty of time regardless.
As the tournament started before the in venue Games Workshop store had opened there was a table set up where competitors could purchase dice, tapes, templates and codices should they have been daft enough to forget such essential gaming components, lol. There was also a Black Library stand set up which had some books available before their official release dates and there were also a couple of authors there signing their own works (I forget which ones they were for which I apologise).
Everything seemed to happen on schedule and the instructions were generally clear and precise with the only exception being that the announcer marked one mission type on the sign and said the name of another for the first game which did create a little confusion, but other than that minor oversight everything seemed to go rather well. There seemed to be enough judges in shouting and/or fetching distance and (at least the ones I saw or heard) seemed to give accurate and sensible answers to any queries.
Refreshments.
As I mentioned earlier, it was possible to get drinks brought to your table which was a nice touch as long as you didn't mind drinking from plastic rather than glass (a sensible precaution I suppose given the disruption that an exploding glass could have caused). I'm told the food was adequate if not exactly exciting but as I wasn't playing and therefore didn't get a free meal I ate in the bar which was (I'm told) of a much higher quality.
The Competitive Bit.
The scoring system was rubbish from the point of view of a competitive gamer. The scoring was three points for a win, one for a draw and nothing for a loss (fine so far) with each player having a vote for 'Favourite Army' which they could give to one of their five opponents of the day (open to abuse in my opinion) which would be added to the total at the end. Victory points were not recorded which I think was an error on their part but then again if your definition of 'fun' isn't the same as Jervis Johnsons then that's apparently just bad luck for you.
Now for the really annoying part.....the overall score of each player was compared to that of any other player using the same race (so Blood Angels with Blood Angels, Eldar with Eldar, etc.) and each race had a winner based on their comparative score.....then the 'winner' of each races 'Margin of Victory' was compared in order to find an overall winner. To make matters worse in the event of a draw (common considering there where no VP's recorded) the winner was decided in some cases by whose army list looked the best* and in other cases by who had the most 'Favourite Army' votes. This blatantly ridiculous system resulted in one out of the four Necron players doing a lot better than then other three and subsequently becoming overall winner.
* I have nothing against having a 'Best Army List' prize, in fact one of my friends won it to be honest but I don't think it should be used as a fucking tie-breaker.
So with that lot in mind I decided to work out who actually bloody won. Having no VP's to use to divide up the people who tied on points I have been forced to use the 'Favourite Army' votes to distinguish between those with equal scores. I have prioritised the win/lose/draw scores over the favourite army votes however as I think winning games is more important than the fact that five people liked you more then the four other people that they played. Even doing it this way there were a lot of ties and I've also had to presume that the numbers provided by GW were actually correct...
So without further preamble,
THRONE OF SKULLS 15-16/10/2011: ACTUAL WINNER | ||||||||||
GAME | FAV. ARMY | |||||||||
NAME | ARMY | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | VOTES | OVERALL | ||
1 | ANTHONY CHEW | ORKS | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 15 | 3 | 18 |
2 | LEONIDAS LASKARIDIS | TAU EMPIRE | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 15 | 1 | 16 |
2 | MIKE BROWN | ORKS | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 15 | 1 | 16 |
3 | MATT LEWIS | DARK ELDAR | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 13 | 3 | 16 |
4 | CHRIS WHITIKER | DARK ELDAR | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 12 | 3 | 15 |
4 | DALE TRANTOR | ELDAR | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 12 | 3 | 15 |
4 | DAN OLDFIELD | SISTERS OF BATTLE | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 3 | 15 |
4 | LEE ELLIS-HALL | DARK ELDAR | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 3 | 15 |
6 | DEMETRIUS TAMPAKOUDIS | BLOOD ANGELS | 1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 10 | 5 | 15 |
7 | ALEX FAWCETT | NECRONS | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 13 | 1 | 14 |
7 | LIAM O'SHEA | ELDAR | 1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 13 | 1 | 14 |
8 | MATTHEW MUSCETT | ORKS | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 9 | 5 | 14 |
9 | ALLEN EL-SOUR | SPACE WOLVES | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 1 | 13 |
9 | DAVID RICHARDSON | ORKS | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 12 | 1 | 13 |
9 | GRANT RENNIE | GREY KNIGHTS | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 12 | 1 | 13 |
9 | RUSSEL HODGE | DARK ELDAR | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 12 | 1 | 13 |
9 | SEAN MORRIS | CHAOS MARINES | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 12 | 1 | 13 |
10 | ALEX YOUNG | ORKS | 1 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 3 | 13 |
10 | RYAN STEVENSON | DARK ANGELS | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 3 | 13 |
10 | WILL WILSON | BLOOD ANGELS | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 10 | 3 | 13 |
...
For those of you who are interested the tournament winner would actually have been joint seventh if I was doing the results which means that guy is probably overjoyed that I'm not. However the Ork player who won all his games and got more points that anybody else might have been a bit happier.....The only two anomalies are the guys with five favourite Army votes who would have been a lot lower in the (well my) rankings without them.
I'm now off to compile the 527 pictures I took into appropriate folders ready for the next few articles on the event...wish me luck then....
Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.
