To the Strongest! Midsummer Madness Tournament

Midsummer Madness is a pop-up online To the Strongest! tournament, designed to while away the isolated evenings of early summer 2020. The tournament will commence on Monday, 11th May, and finish on Wednesday, 24th June – Midsummer's Day – with a Grand Final between the two players who had recorded the highest scores on the previous Sunday (21st June). I'll provide various prizes.

Entering

Simply email me at "simonmiller60 at gmail dot com" and I will record you as a participant. n.b. I will need to publish names and email addresses in this form so that we can contact each other to arrange games (if this is a problem for you, let me know, there may be a work-around). I'm particularly keen to attract players from Europe and further afield, who can't usually make it to the U.K.-based tournaments. If you've not previously played TtS!, don't worry, we can teach you. Details of the software we are using can be found here.

Booking a Game

Any entrant will be able to arrange an online game of To the Strongest! 1066, with any other player who has registered for the event, at a mutually convenient time, using the "arrange a game" section on Discord or by email. Players are encouraged to book the games as multi-player and publish the server name and password so that people can drop in and observe, or have a chat.

Play

Armies and terrain should be randomly selected from the five available armies (Normans, Saxons, Vikings, Scots and Welsh), either randomly, or by agreement between the players. Games timings start with the roll for scouting. After one hour and 50 minutes have elapsed, the phasing player finishes his turn. After this, the non-phasing player gets a final turn, if he lost the scouting, so as to even out the number of turns played. Should players both prefer, though, they are welcome to battle on to a conclusion.

Victory

A decisive victory is won when one player takes all of the other player's medals. Otherwise, the player who has taken the most medals wins a tactical victory. A draw occurs when both players have taken exactly the same number of medals. Should the game have to be abandoned for technical reasons, the player who has taken the most medals wins a tactical victory.

Scoring

This is designed to encourage players to play at least one game in each week (n.b. this is subject to change at my whim – it's possible I may increase the points awarded during in the latter weeks of the competition).

• 3 points for a decisive victory/2 points for a tactical victory against a player higher on the ladder, or during the first week (before the ladder is published).
• 2 points for a decisive victory/1 point for a tactical victory against a player lower on the ladder
• 1 point each for a draw
• 1 bonus point for the first game played in a week.
• A penalty point applied to each game played, after the second, in any given week (so that people don't play endless games!).

Example: Macbeth plays three games in a week.

• Game one is a draw – 1 point plus 1 bonus point for his first game of the week, so 2 points.
• Game two he wins, against a player above him on the ladder, scoring 3 points.
• Game three he loses, scoring -1 point (since it is his third game in the week). Macbeth therefore scores a total of 4 points for the week.

Results

Results should be posted in the results section on the Discord forum and emailed to me ("simonmiller60 at gmail dot com"). Please let me know the date, players' names, who won, and whether decisively or tactically. I'll record scores and publish an updated ladder, either late on the Sunday night or early on the Monday morning, ready for the next week's play.

That's it – it's simpler than it sounds. I do hope you can join us – I've been playing online for three weeks already, and it's been really great to chuck down some (virtual) cards, and enjoy the usual banter with my opponents! I hope to cross swords with you, soon!