Boston Brawlcon, some very early planning

Boston Brawl 2011 mission packet complete! (.doc)

I’ve attached the mission packet here, with the Tournament Organizer’s permission, and for my own planning purposes, I thought it would helpful to figure what battle points are available where and for what objectives.  This is sort of my founding post for a few posts to follow, my “road to Boston Brawlcon”.  I figure totaling things up like this will help me decide how many troops I need, how to optimize my Kill Points, etc.

1. Objectives: 35 pts (one objective has secondary to control your objectives, tertiary to control theirs)
2. Kill pts: 34 (sometimes with special conditions, kill at least half your opponents kill pts, beat kill pts by 3 or more or draw)
3. Victory pts: 20 pts ( > 186 victory pts.  Less is a draw)
4. Table Quarters: 6 pts (always tertiary)
5. Preserve Troops: 5pts.  Just a secondary in one mission.  If you eliminate their troops, but still have some, you win.  Both have some, draw, neither have any, dual loss.

 

Here’s the painting scale, pretty standard around these parts.  I like this system, actually.  I need to ask the organizer, with two judges, is that 20 pts total for painting, or 40?  20pts would be equal to one game, which seems about right, 40 pts would make painting rather….dominant.  EDIT, 6/14/11  Spoke to Alex, over at Battle Road Games.  Apparently yes, two painting judges scores are averaged, with a total possible score of 20 (23 for the very best guy), so about equal to one game.  Good balance, I think.

Re-printed from their website:

Max 20 pts per judge (two judges) with the option of 3,2,1 bonus points for the top three picks per judge.

1pt= The army has a three coat minimum

1pt= The army is based

1pt= The units are labled appropriately with squad markings and are easily identifible too both players.

2pts= The army has extra depth to the painting such as successive highlights

2pts= The base is more then just paint and flock i.e either a resin base with depth or one custom built.

2pts= Their is a easily identifiable theme too the army.

3pts= Their is freehand painting done on the army as well as true artistic work and depth with shadows and weathering.

4pts= This army is easily one of my top five choices.

4pts= This army is easily one of my top 3 choices.

bonus points:
3pts= Top choice Army
2pts= Second Choice Army
1pt= Third choice Army

The Sportsmanship score is also a system I like a great deal, though I’ve never seen this system before.  It’s a pass/fail system that seems like it will make it so that sportsmanship will not affect your final total unless you’re widely considered a jerk, in which case it might affect you severely.  This seems like a good thing.  I would actually go so far as to say the system seems too lenient.  Pass/Fail makes it sound like people won’t fail you unless you suck, and with this system 3 out 5 people could think you suck but you could still have a shot (but not a good one).

Re-printed from their website:

Each downcheck a given person receives after the first reduces their total tournament points; by a very small amount for the first check, increasing progressively the more checks they get. The idea being that anyone can have a single bad game; it may be an innocent personality clash, or whatever. But if multiple opponents find the person so un-fun that the game as a whole is unenjoyable, there will b deductions from that person’s overall score.

The exact point deductions are as follows, since this is a five round event:

1 check (no adjustment). We are not penalizing a single downcheck, both to give people the benefit of the doubt in the event of an innocent personality clash, and to remove any incentive for anyone to try to manipulate the scores by falsely marking their opponent down. Of course we expect everyone to be honest, but this is an extra safeguard.
2 checks (-5pts). This is a handicap, but not crippling to the player’s total score. Which is appropriate as it’s more likely that the player has actually been rude or unpleasant somehow.
3 checks (-10pts). It is not impossible for the player to place well, but the penalty is more substantial, since more than half of his opponents have said they actively disliked playing against him.
4 checks (DQ). A player receiving four downchecks is disqualified from winning any prizes, no matter what his points total is. If 80% of your opponents give the downcheck, something would seem to seriously be wrong, and the player has forfeited their chance of winning anything.
5 checks ( Disinvitation). In the case that every last one of the player’s five opponents thought he was a jerk in their games, he will be invited not to return to Boston Brawlcon next year.

 

So let’s see if we can come up with a plan for this tournament that will work, eh?