Editor in Chief Bill | 19 Dec 2008 7:23 p.m. PST |
According to streetline, one of the problems with Ancients currently is
The downside is a lack of rules people like, between DBM, DBMM, FOG, WAB. If you could force a consensus on the Ancients world, which ruleset would you select as the worldwide tournament ruleset? |
John the OFM | 19 Dec 2008 7:49 p.m. PST |
If you could force a consensus on the Ancients world, Why would I want to do that? You would have a very hard time forcing WAB players to play Warrior. Throw in DBM to the mix. All you would succeed in doing would be to force some people to give up Ancient tournament gaming. It's not the figures or the period. It's the game that you love, or alternately think sucks. |
John the OFM | 19 Dec 2008 7:54 p.m. PST |
I addition to that, I think the fragmentation is GOOD for the hobby. WRG was good for the hobby, back in the Earlies, when it was a pseudo monopoly, in that it was almost universal in tournament play. The mere fact that you could have Normans, and did not need Saxons, or that you could have Carthaginians and did not need to play Romans, is one very important factor in the huge variety of Ancient figures we now have available. Would there be any Sung Chinese on the marlet, if the only opponents you could face were other SSung, or its neighboring enemies? I doubt it. A monopoly was good back in the developmental days. It's not needed now. Perish the thought. |
nazrat | 19 Dec 2008 7:58 p.m. PST |
I would choose WAB. But I agree with John-- diversity is good and I would NEVER want to force anybody else to play something just because I like it. |
Editor in Chief Bill | 19 Dec 2008 8:08 p.m. PST |
Why would I want to do that? You would have a very hard time forcing WAB players to play Warrior
Don't be so literal
|
aecurtis | 19 Dec 2008 8:48 p.m. PST |
I would force "Shock of Impact" upon them, with hot irons and pincers. It would make them forswear tournaments forever! Allen |
Waco Joe | 19 Dec 2008 8:51 p.m. PST |
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock |
Ivan DBA | 19 Dec 2008 9:09 p.m. PST |
First choice: DBA (Bwa ha ha!!) But I'm a benevolent dictator, so I would actually force everyone to play Big Battle DBA. (DBA with 36 elements) It really is an excellent way to play ancients, I think it has all the pluses of DBM (more figures, more complex tactical problems) with none of the obnoxious, fiddly "+1 if-its-your-bound-and-an-odd-day-in-a-leap-year" which I think fail to add any fun to the mix. Actually, what I would really do is force all 15mm games to be played in DBA/Big Battle DBA, but force all 28mm games to be played in Warhammer Ancients. |
Cyrus the Great | 19 Dec 2008 9:20 p.m. PST |
While not my favorite rules set, I would choose WAB. Why? There are many gamers already playing the rules and there would be a chance to recruit fresh blood from the Warhammer Fantasy players. |
miniMo | 19 Dec 2008 11:32 p.m. PST |
I think I'd support Ivan with DBA and BBDBA for 15's. But for 25+, if I could force everyone to have fun, it would have to be Rules According To Ral. Not only is it fun and fast to play, but the point system balances out great. |
The Black Tower | 20 Dec 2008 12:40 a.m. PST |
Perhaps the first question should be "What do you look for in a good tournament game?" You will get more consensus than asking everyone to nominate their pet rules |
jameshammyhamilton | 20 Dec 2008 3:44 a.m. PST |
Just allow players to play what they want and see what ends up being played. The Ancients torunament scene is quite different from country to country at the moment which is not ideal but there are a lot of people playing and most have a choice of what they want to play. In the UK it is Armati, DBM, DBMM, FoG, WAB and WRG 6th In the US DBA, DBM, FoG, WAB and Warrior Italy seems to be playing DBMM, FoG and Impetus Ireland DBMM and FoG Australia and New Zealand DBMM and FoG etc. In general the smaller the player pool the lower the choice but that isn't surprising. |
Martin Rapier | 20 Dec 2008 3:53 a.m. PST |
Tournament rules need to be quick, clear and decisive so you can actually get a decent number of games in. I'd say DBA is still the ultimate tournament set, but maybe that is just me
|
losart | 20 Dec 2008 4:13 a.m. PST |
DBA is the only popular set that can be played in a 1 day tournament. Other sets need reducing their standard points to allow the same. Some of them works, some less. "What do you look for in a good tournament game?" This is a good starting point. So let's start with this question: should a tournament be on 1 day or on 2 days? |
jameshammyhamilton | 20 Dec 2008 4:28 a.m. PST |
"DBA is the only popular set that can be played in a 1 day tournament. Other sets need reducing their standard points to allow the same. Some of them works, some less" It really depends how important a 1 day tournament is to you doesn't it. The vast majority of UK tournaments are 2+ days. I would not travel a significant distance for a 1 day comp so I am not really interested in them. That said DBM, DBMM and FoG can all be played perfectly adequately in formats that get 3 games in a normal tournament day (DBM & DBMM 200 and FoG 650 points on a 5 by 3 table). I have run three 1 day FoG tournaments all of which have been well recieved. For me a tournament is all about a weekend away with my mates where along the way we play some games. One day comps are OK but given the choice of 1 or 2 days I will always choose 2. |
The Black Tower | 20 Dec 2008 6:25 a.m. PST |
I think in the present economic situation, fewer players will be able to commit to 2 + days |
losart | 20 Dec 2008 7:09 a.m. PST |
I have "grown" as a DBM gamer with 2 days tournaments as the standard. So I know that such events have a more appeal (a tournament is not only playing with figures but staying with friends). But things changes (or are already changed) and I see more and more people preferring the one day tournaments. And this is not only for the ancients (FOW or even Warhammer tournaments, at least here in Italy, are on a 1 day basis). This means less expenses. As far as I see in promoting Impetus is that young blood wants 1 day events while veterans prefer 2 days events. I don't think that any system can take in no consideration the new players. I just wonder if this trend is common in other countries or it is an Italian phenomenum. |
John the OFM | 20 Dec 2008 7:52 a.m. PST |
Allen is right. "Shock of Impact"! That'll show them! |
Connard Sage | 20 Dec 2008 8:07 a.m. PST |
|
jameshammyhamilton | 20 Dec 2008 8:10 a.m. PST |
Personally I will go to a 1 day event if it is within easy travelling distance so I can get there and back in the day. Practically that means 100 miles. If all torunaments were 1 day only I would miss a huge amount of what I get from wargaming, specifically the social interraction with other players over a whole weekend. Perhaps there is scope for conventions with two or more 1 day comps and I have been involved in such events. I didn't see a mass surge of players compared to 2 day events though. |
Zagloba | 20 Dec 2008 8:17 a.m. PST |
Command and Colors Ancients. No matter how cheesy your army you can still be doomed by a bad draw of the cards. Rich |
Bobgnar | 20 Dec 2008 8:38 a.m. PST |
The original premise is wrong. The Ancients tournament scene at the big east coast USA conventions is alive and well with DBA, DBM, WAB, FOG, and Warrior. DBM lost players to FOG but still the latter four games seem to be doing well. DBA is growing in numbers. Historicon, 2008 had about 75 different players in 14 events. The DBA Cold Wars schedule is again quite extensive. Various DBA events from Thursday night through Sunday morning. Standard games with themes, and matched pairs, only a couple open type events with any army against any other, plus a large Big Battles Doubles event. All but the Big Battle event run only up to 4 hours -- 3 or 4 rounds. At the HMGS conventions, we do not run one long tournament, but many short ones. The IWF international competitions in Washington DC, in May 2009 will be the first time, I know of, in the US were there is a multi-day DBA event. A matched pairs round robin style tournament of 12 hours, played over two days. |
BigRedBat | 20 Dec 2008 8:39 a.m. PST |
Seconded for C&C. Games can be played in as short a period as an hour, which would be great for tournements. Simon |
jameshammyhamilton | 20 Dec 2008 8:58 a.m. PST |
C&C ancients might be fast but there is no way I would travel distances to play it. Each to their own I suppose. |
Jeremy Sutcliffe | 20 Dec 2008 10:25 a.m. PST |
The best rules for tournament play? Aaaarrrgh! The curse of wargaming!! |
BigRedBat | 20 Dec 2008 10:43 a.m. PST |
Personally, I'd travel quite a way to play in a C&C tournement, but I wouldn't for more traditional rules. The nice thing about C&C is that there is no fiddly measuring, which makes for fast games with no disputes about the rules. I have sometimes thought about organising a small C&C tournement; we used to run a very enjoyable annual HoTT tournement. The quick play nature of C&C would mean that it would be possible to get 6 or so games in during a day, with some sort of Swiss system to work out winners. Some of the games could be played using miniatures, and some the blocks
Simon |
vojvoda | 20 Dec 2008 10:44 a.m. PST |
Bob and his dog 20 Dec 2008 7:38 a.m. PST wrote: The original premise is wrong. The Ancients tournament scene at the big east coast USA conventions is alive and well with DBA, DBM, WAB, FOG, and Warrior. I have to agree with Bob. Tournaments are alive and well. I do think there was some lose in the Ancients gaming due to Flames of War but overall it is well supported at conventions I attend. As to "IF" I had to force everyone to just one set of rules it would be WAB. The very good painted armies in 25mm is a real eye catcher at HMGS conventions and it is very easy to scale for set battles or tournament lenghts. Yes I know guys game the rules and army lists a lot in the earlier days but most who play on a regular basis are fun to play with and not so much into the gaming of the game. VR James Mattes |
jameshammyhamilton | 20 Dec 2008 10:47 a.m. PST |
Sounds like a reason to try to organise a C&C event to me, not that I will be doing it as I dislike C&C for most of the reasons you seem to like it (grid based movement and quick play). Fortunatley there is a big world out there so as I can get my long 2 or 3 day tournaments with 3 1/2 hour games you should be able to have C&C tournaments as well. If you are in the UK you might want to try contacting the people that run the UK Games Expo or Game 08 (will be 09) as they might be interested in hosting something like that. |
BigRedBat | 20 Dec 2008 11:25 a.m. PST |
Yes James, I burned my measuring sticks some years ago
Thanks re suggestion. Rather than join a show, though, I'd probably do what we did previously and use my and my friends extended network of gamers; cosier that way. Simon |
brass1 | 20 Dec 2008 3:17 p.m. PST |
Sorry, until tournaments are limited to the ancients variant of Column, Line, and Square played with miniatures measuring 23.67695 mm from the top of the right big toe to the bridge of the nose and painted no more than five colors, of which one must be puce, I think I'll continue playing for enjoyment. My feeling about the best rules for tournaments is that the concept is backwards – tournaments should reflect what people want to play, rather than rules reflecting what works best in tournaments. LT |
jameshammyhamilton | 20 Dec 2008 4:23 p.m. PST |
Well for BHGS organised events any rules will be considered. There is or certaily used to be a line on all the major tournaments info to the extent that if you wanted a tournament in any ruleset and felt it would get enough players to be viable(normally 6 is the absolute minimum) and could recommend or act as a player/umpire then it would offered. What tournament organiser cannot do is force anyone to play a given game. |
Playerone | 20 Dec 2008 7:44 p.m. PST |
What about other historical periods ? How about forcing a consensus on them too ? I have always found it peculiar how other historical period players have not found it necessary to have a worldwide tournament rule set. Why are ancients players so gosh darn competitive? While we are on the subject how about enforcing a standard scale as well ? 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 25mm, or 28mm, etc. etc. add nauseam. |
Daffy Doug | 20 Dec 2008 7:46 p.m. PST |
Try something new on everyone: Art of War was crunched in early Cons back in the 70's, and always worked swiftly and well
. 1066.us |
jameshammyhamilton | 21 Dec 2008 3:47 a.m. PST |
"What about other historical periods ? " If enough people want to play then it will happen. "How about forcing a consensus on them too ?" I am totally against forcing anything on anyone because I know it isn't possible "I have always found it peculiar how other historical period players have not found it necessary to have a worldwide tournament rule set." The big advantage of comonality in rules is that it makes finding an opponent easier. When DBM was at its peak I could generally find a game in any country I went to and we would both know what we were doing. The seeming lack of any standardisation in Napoleonics means that while there are probably more players of this period than any other finding opponents is actually quite hard. "Why are ancients players so gosh darn competitive?" I wouldn't say Ancients players are very competitive, just that there is much more of a tournament culture in Ancients than any other period. Personally I play Ancients tournaments to get to play players and armies I won't play at the club, have a good excuse to travel and have fun with my mates and pick up the odd trophy in that order. |
Dave Crowell | 21 Dec 2008 6:43 a.m. PST |
Sock of Impact! or Chess, at least everyone agrees on the rules of chess. I don't think there is one set of Ancients rules that covers the whole period adequately, let alone one that sould be used as a universal tournament set. Perhaps all gamers who game the period AD109 to AD2009 should use one universal tournament ruleset. That span is a mere thousand years, about a quarter of the period traditionally covered by "Ancients". Personally I think much of "Ancients" wargaming is really fantasy in historical drag. Aztecs vs Vikings, WotR English vs Sumerians? I don't really care for tournaments, but to me the idea of limiting Ancients tournaments to one rules set only is like limiting the Olympics to one event only. The FIFA World Cup, the Stanley Cup, the Superbowl, the World Series, the America's Cup, etc provide for single sport events, the olympics brings them all together. I think wargames events should be like that. WAB players will likely want to compete in WAB events, DBA players in DBA events, C&C players in C&C events, FoG players in FoG events, and Napoleonics players in whatever it is they actually do
I don't think most WAB players would be very happy if told that in order to compete they would have to play S"patha and Pilum". Such an event would be no more satisfying than deciding that the NBA basketball finals would be settled by 18 holes of golf. |
Aloysius the Gaul | 21 Dec 2008 3:08 p.m. PST |
I have always found it peculiar how other historical period players have not found it necessary to have a worldwide tournament rule set. huh? where has this idea that ancients "found it necessary" to have such a set? the development was that such a set arrived
after a few years people realised it could be used, and so they set about doing so. the use of any given ancients set for a "worldwide tournament" is neither by design of the author, nor (AFAIK) has any set been designed as such by request of any players. Indeed the "original" WRG ancients were not intended for tournament play either – but were found to be good enough for it, points weer added and stayed ever since – prompting many, many people to think that they weer designed for tournaments. They were not, and AFAIK tournament considerationss have always been secondary to simulation between historical opponents. Fact is Ancients have had some very good rules that allowed sufficiently interested people to organise it – and a bloody good thing too. oh that other period should have such good rules!
Why are ancients players so gosh darn competitive? What – you don't try to win your games? |
balticbattles | 21 Dec 2008 4:30 p.m. PST |
OK, Let's throw a new idea into the pot. How about an 'Ancients' Tournament. The choice of rules is up to the players paired off by whatever system. "You like FOG? I hate that, I love WAB. You don't? OK, what about DBMM as a compromise?" Perhaps each player could have 3 sets of rules in priority order, with a default set, say DBA, and in early rounds preference would be given to pairing players who like the same systems? Or 1 player chooses the rules, the other chooses the terrain? From my outside perspective this sorts the major problem of modern wargaming competitions, which is that at any given place you probably have about 20 players playing each of 4 games. You have a UK champion for each of several sets of rules. Much more sensible to have a single ancients world champion – AND keep open the choice of the many published rulesets out there. |
balticbattles | 21 Dec 2008 4:37 p.m. PST |
PS – I'd also go for Championships focussed on tight time periods. So maybe the 'Biblical' Championships at one event, the 'Late Medieval' Championships at the next
This would give each event a flavour of it's own and ensure that the overall champion each year truly was a great general. |
Aloysius the Gaul | 21 Dec 2008 6:43 p.m. PST |
I don't see anything wrong with having seperate champions for each ruleset. Lots of people only play a single ruleset & I dont' see what's to be gained trying to force everyone into a single mould. If there's a set of rules that's so good that it becomes the default then that's fine – the market has spoken. But short of that what's the point? |
jameshammyhamilton | 22 Dec 2008 4:29 a.m. PST |
"From my outside perspective this sorts the major problem of modern wargaming competitions, which is that at any given place you probably have about 20 players playing each of 4 games. You have a UK champion for each of several sets of rules. Much more sensible to have a single ancients world champion – AND keep open the choice of the many published rulesets out there." Multiple rulesets is an interesting idea but I don;t see if bing very popular. Having to bring armies for more than one game could be a major issue for travelling players too. The IWF have adopted a policy where any set with enough players will be run and the winner will be the IWF X champion but the player who wins the set with the most players will be the IWF Ancients World champion. We have a similar issue in the club I am a member of at present as when we try to run an Ancients tournament we have players that only play WAB, others that only play DBMM and others that only play FoG. Nobody plays DBA and not everyone used to play or knows how to play DBM. There is no common demominator alas. |
AlanYork | 22 Dec 2008 5:09 a.m. PST |
"Why are ancients players so gosh darn competitive?" I've played in a couple of FoG tournaments and not found anyone taking them too seriously. In the last one I played against a Thracian army that didn't have a single Thracian figure in it. The peltasts were some type of warband, the light cavalry were Sassanid Persians and the heavy cavalry were Turkish ghulams!!!!! What the hell, it doesn't happen very often, 99% of people have figures that are what they purport to be and the guy was a very pleasant chap. Why spoil his weekend by protesting about it just for the sake of getting a few extra points, it's only a game after all. Even funnier, I am now 118th in Britain (or something like that) according to the BHGS rankings
.the same guys who turned me down when I applied for membership a few years ago! Hilarious!!! They must've had me confused with someone else because at the time I'd never had any dealings with them whatsoever and didn't know any of them. I never bothered to reapply, well you wouldn't would you?! No hard feelings on my part, I'm happy to be a part of their ranking system, I don't have a problem with that, I just think it's ironic and funny. Ahhh the wacky world of tournament gaming, I think as long as you have fun it doesn't matter what rules you use, besides, there's always somebody that's going to dispute what they mean anyway, most of us could start a debate in an empty room. |
Nikator | 22 Dec 2008 2:15 p.m. PST |
I personally enjoy tournaments, but I do not refer to non-tournament players as the Curse of Wargaming. Why do people hate tournaments? |
AlanYork | 22 Dec 2008 7:26 p.m. PST |
I personally enjoy tournaments, but I do not refer to non-tournament players as the Curse of Wargaming. Why do people hate tournaments? Because some gamers try to twist rules to make them say what they clearly do not, competitiveness can cross the line into obnoxiousness, terrain and standard of figure painting can be awful and see my above comments about the Thracian army, though I must reiterate that guy was a perfect gentleman and I'd be happy to play him again. Not every tournament has one, any or all of the above, most are great fun, I even won one once! Nevertheless very occasionally they are like that, which is a pity. |
jameshammyhamilton | 23 Dec 2008 3:24 a.m. PST |
I have to admit that players using the generic bloke with a stick to represent all sorts of stuff are rather annoying. That said I would rather play in a themed tournament where the odd player has an army with lots of bad morphing than an open one where every army is correct. I have over the years taken a few liberties in themed events simply because I didn't have the right figures or enough of the right figures for the army. Perhaps there is an argument for introducing "soft scores" for painting and sportsmanship etc. Actually I am not a fan of these and have seen far worse armies in tournaments with painting scores than I have ever seen in any Ancients tournament. I have for example never seen unpainted troops in an Ancients tournament but have seen them several times in FoW comps where there are points for painting? |
Nik Gaukroger | 23 Dec 2008 4:18 a.m. PST |
"Because some gamers try to twist rules to make them say what they clearly do not, competitiveness can cross the line into obnoxiousness, terrain and standard of figure painting can be awful" None of these are unique to competitions IMO :-(
|
RobBrennan | 29 Dec 2008 3:04 a.m. PST |
Hi getting back to the 1-day or 2-day argument
I agree that 2+ days with 3-4 hour games feels like the "real thing" to me, but as someone who organises a lot of events I know that 1-day events tend to have higher participation in Ireland ( most people can commute to 1-day events and so there is much less cost/commitment ) . Also, now that I have a young family myself it isn't really possible for me to disappear for a full weekend every month so 1-day events and club leagues have more appeal. Back when we started to develop the DBM tournament scene in Ireland in 2001 we gradually built up a series of events that was mainly 1-day, 200AP games because this is a way of getting people to dip their toe in the water. As time went on we gradually added more events then replaced a lot of the 1-day events with full-size 2-day events. Our players grew with us and came to love the 2-day events. Now that we have had the DBM->DBMM/FOG transition we are once again re-building and we will reduce slightly the number of events and re-size some of them back to 1-dayers. This is particularly important to ensure we have enough participants to make events viable ( 1-day events still tend to get a higher participation ) . However our premier event, the Celtic Championship ( iworg.com/celtic ) will still run over 3 days with comps offered in both DBMM and FOG next year ( 09 ) . rgds rob |
mikeah | 18 Mar 2009 8:46 a.m. PST |
You guys missed Might of Arms. It would force a change in Tournament design however. I like team Tournaments. |
brevior est vita | 18 Mar 2009 10:26 a.m. PST |
Bill is 'stirring the pot' again, I see. ;-) |
Petrov101 | 19 Mar 2009 6:04 a.m. PST |
In my opinion, tournaments are best left to board games where the rules and terrain features of the battle are generally better defined. Miniatures are better suited for clubs and campaigns. Half the fun is creating a beautiful piece of art. The games can certainly be competitive, but there's so much more to miniatures than just rolling dice and moving toy soldiers around. I feel, the tournaments strip away a lot of the things that make table top games so fun. History, campaigns, what-if scenarios all played on a club's custom game board with hundreds of beautifully painted figs. That's what miniature war games are all about for me.
now, if only I could find such a club. |
vojvoda | 19 Mar 2009 7:33 a.m. PST |
Not knowing where you are it is hard to recommend a club but there are several on the Eastern coast of the U.S. that would do the trick. VR James Mattes |