"Equal-Points Tournaments" Topic

John the OFM once said:

It is fashionable to sneer at equal points tournaments.

Do you agree?

It is obviously far more fashionable to play in an equal points tournament. The players of such games seem to have a low self esteem to worry about what others think.

Peter Pig puts on and supports many tournaments. Although players can work out their army way before the date to a given points schedule the games are not line up and go! PP rules encourage players to use a points system so they can make and point the units for the day. Once the game starts, PP rules create the scenario by having a pre-game which affects the size and attributes of the forces. Further to this all PP games are defend/attack with specific objectives and multiple victory criteria (different for attacker/defender) (no blue flag scenarios). In addition PP ga,es are finite with various countdown systems being used. So yes, point system tournaments should be challenging, variable and allow players to pre-plan their initial force. Without an official or unofficial points system would tournaments just say "bring whatever you like" and "we will make up some blue flag scenarios which we have tested a bit".
*blue flag = scenarios with one victory criterion such as "take the bridge", "rescue the cart" etc. taking no account of other achievements in the game.

Well, yes, it's fashionable to sneer at such--especially among the harder core historical miniatures players. (And I am one, of course.) But I don't think it's wrong so much as different. No one sneers at Chess tournaments for having identical armies on symmetrical boards. If you had infinite time, you could have asymmetrical games played twice, reversing the sides, but a tournament doesn't have infinite time, so they try to make each game as close to even as possible, even if it has to come a bit at the expense of realism. Well, all wargaming involves trade-offs of some sort.

My qualms start when the tournament swallows the history, and the utility of a weapon or unit is discussed strictly in terms of point value, or the "tactics" are game play rather than the use of forces. Tournament play makes these things more likely, perhaps--but I saw them happening before there was any such thing as a wargame tournament. (If anyone finds a cure, let me know.)

No. I support all forms of wargaming, including equal points or forces. As mentioned, chess is equal in forces and points along with checkers…. Go, etc.

A properly designed scenario should give each side equal chance for their victory objectives, the points or forces not withstanding. That's the art of game design and all players should don the cape of scenario design to understand and experience the issues facing the game (scenario) designer, including even, unequal or balanced force situations.

How the Hell would I know what is fashionable in any domain?

Guess you could have a tourny were one battle you have all of your troops and the next battle have 3/4's of your troops.
Or have winners of the first game use 3/4's of there troops vs. losers of the first battle. A game within a game(tourny).

There's a lot of huffing at it for sure.

Hate them. But if someone wants to do it, feel free.

+1 for etotheipi